GWS 220 - Role of Science in Defining Gender

This course discusses both the scientific theory and the cultural history that underlie the relationship between science and gender. Few cultural historians would argue that gender has not played a role in determining who becomes a scientist and therefore “speaks for science”. Few scientists would disagree with the idea that an individual’s role in reproduction, one aspect of gender, is related to the behavior, form and evolutionary constraints that define an individual. However, few historians and even fewer scientists have examined this circular relationship between the practice of science and the definition of gender-that is what this course seeks to do in part using feminist theory as a series of lenses through which the relationship between gender and science can be viewed.

Cross-listed with INTD 220
4 credits