The Science Question in Feminism

Harding, Sandra G.

ISBN 10: 0801418801 / ISBN 13: 9780801418808

Published by Cornell University Press, 1986

About this Item

1st edition. Hardbound in dust jacket.

Seller Inventory # A101678

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Science Question in Feminism
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801418801
• ISBN 13: 9780801418808
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science

About this title

Synopsis

Can science, steeped in Western, masculine, bourgeois endeavors, nevertheless be used for emancipatory ends? In this major contribution to the debate over the role gender plays in the scientific enterprise, Sandra Harding pursues that question, challenging the intellectual and social foundations of scientific thought.

Harding provides the first comprehensive and critical survey of the feminist science critiques, and examines inquiries into the androcentricism that has endured since the birth of modern science. Harding critiques three epistemological approaches: feminist empiricism, which identifies only bad science as the problem; the feminist standpoint, which holds that women's social experience provides a unique starting point for discovering masculine bias in science; and feminist postmodernism, which disputes the most basic scientific assumptions. She points out the tensions among these stances and the inadequate concepts that inform their analyses, yet maintains that the critical discourse they foster is vital to the quest for a science informed by emancipatory morals and politics.

About the Author

Sandra Harding is Professor of Social Sciences and Comparative Education at the University of California at Los Angeles. She is also Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.