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Written discussion questionsFrom Monday’s class on
intersectionality and Subramanium’s “Snow Brown”
Which ending(s) do you think best
reflects the state of science
education and practice in the U.S.
today…and why?
Your answers:• “The second ending asserts a more
inquisitive eye upon the scientific
structure and I would argue is a
better reflection of the current state
of science education in the U.S. It
asks the questions that are relevant
today and challenges existing power
structures.”
Your answers:
• “I agree that the 2nd ending is more like science
today: there are challenges to the power structure,
but it has not been removed. There is room for
many types of ideas and new perspectives, but
science is still limited within a specific community
and to those with the most education, rather than
being something everybody is able to join in the
conversation about.”
Your answers:
• “I believe we live in a society that
questions the patriarchy but does not
have the movement or progress of
developing equality like we should
have by now.”
Written discussion questions:
• If an appreciation for
intersectionality was the norm in
science, what outcome(s) would you
anticipate for science as a whole?
• (Positive and/or negative)
Your (positive) answers:
• “A new focus on overlooked areas of
study…”
• “It would bring us closer to ‘truth’…”
• “It would disrupt the system…[and]
conflict is necessary for solutions…”
Your (positive) answers:
• “I think that it could make science stronger, even
by its own criteria (objectivity, generalizability).
Being allowed to ignore vast swaths of experience,
data, and identities doesn’t improve knowledge;
it’s producing big blind spots, real weaknesses. I
definitely don’t think it would hurt anything, but
maybe it would produce more accurate theories
and better, more inclusive studies.”
Your (positive) answers:
• “Lead to greater access for
marginalized groups…”
• “could greatly diversify the field &
the world’s scientific knowledge…”
Your (mixed) answers:
• “It is good to appreciate different learning styles
but overall, science should state the facts.”
• “I disagree. I think that by welcoming
social issues, science would be viewed from all
angles in every kind of light. By competing as
well as cooperating, scientific knowledge might
expand tenfold.”
Your (mixed) answers:
• “I think consensus building and decision making would
go FAR more slowly, and it wouldn’t work in a
consumerist/capitalist society. However, it would be
great to include more versions of ‘the truth.’”
• “I agree: it would complicate things and not gel
well in certain societies. It would be much harder to
educate…but I feel it might give us a better shot at the
‘truth’ of science as well as bring up new ideas and
theories in research.”
Your (mixed) answers:“…could lead science education and research to be more open to what are
considered ‘fringe ideas’ …. But, it could also lead to such a concern for
everyone’s identities, that no real research gets done. The current system
DOES get things done, so if we completely overhaul it in favor of a more
intersectional one, we risk losing some of the conditions that facilitate
learning that we currently have. We have to recognize the positives in our
current system, and not just criticize the negatives.”
• “I think that the only risk could be overdoing intersectionality, but I
don’t think that risk is very high. I do think science and objectivity are
valuable; but applying intersectionality might improve science. Within
sociology, it could lead a researcher to considering whether their study
is really including everyone, in the right way, and make for a better
study.”
Your (mixed) answers:• “…Science would become better...however, this could
make some applications of science more difficult: would
medical practitioners in every country…need to learn to
practice a culturally-specific type of medicine? How
much of science would be re-written, and how would that
influence current technological advances? Would
engineers in different cultures be able to design similar
structures and machines, or would these be all different
as well? These are just some of the issues science would
need to navigate if Subramanium’s ‘postmodern fantasy’
became a reality.”
Your (negative/cautious) answers:
• “…making the science about the person who
performed it is not what science generally does.”
• “This would create bias …”
• “Adding more variables [in addition to gender]
would only create further basis for
discrimination.”
• “political correctness can run amok …”
Your (negative/cautious) answers:
• “If [intersectionality were taken seriously], the science
community wouldn’t get anything done because
financial backers don’t really care about…identities”
• “That’s an interesting perspective: you’re saying
that scientific research would essentially collapse?
How does one incentivize financial backers to
recognize intersectionality and place high monetary
value on it?”
Your (negative/cautious) answers:
• “the people with more experience would no
longer be the directors and as a consequence,
everyone would be in charge...”
• “People like to push norms, and if
[intersectionality] becomes the norm, people
might not push the boundaries as much as
they used to.”
“Feminist intersections in science: Race, gender, and sexuality through
the microscope”Lisa Weasel
Henrietta Lacks
• Rebecca Skloot, author of The
Immortal Life of Henrietta
Lacks (2010) & the Lacks
family on CBS Sunday Morning
“Either ignoring altogether or separating out categories such as race, class, ethnicity and gender for individual analysis can lead to skewed perspectives and fails to acknowledge important ways
in which social categories not only intersect but overlay one another” (184).
• How do you interpret what Weasel has
written here?
…on “naturecultures”
• What does Weasel mean when she
employs the term “naturecultures”?
• How is this concept relevant to the
goal of her essay?
According to Weasel, HeLa cells have recently been described as “a new
species” (186), “regress[ed],” occupying “an ecological niche extremely different from that of humans,” and “the weeds of cell
culture” (187). • Why does she find these characterizations
significant?
• Do you agree with her assessment? Why or why
not?
Even though Weasel is critical of how Henrietta Lacks’ cells were
taken, proliferated, and disseminated, she concludes by
discussing the “symbiosis” between science and society, and
science and feminism (190). • Why does she describe these relationships in
this manner? How do you interpret it?