Introduction 1. Institutional Landscapes Monasteries and Universities Renaissance Courts Scientific Academies Women at the Periphery Parisian Salons Women's Academies 2. Noble Networks The Curious Matter of Math Noblewomen in Scientific Networks Margaret Cavendish, Natural Philosopher Cavendish, a Feminist? Emilie du Chatelet and Physics 3. Scientific Women in the Craft Tradition Maria Sibylla Merian and the Business of Bugs Women Astronomers in Germany Maria Winkelmann at the Berlin Academy of Sciences The Attempt to Become Academy Astronomer The Clash between Guild Traditions and Professional Science A Brief Return to the Academy Invisible Assistants 4. Women's Traditions Midwifery Cookbooks for the Health and Pleasure of Mankind Legitimizing Exclusion 5. Battles over Scholarly Style When Science Was a Woman Reading Allegories The Masculine Allegory Did the Feminine Icon Represent Real Women? The Decline of Feminine Icons Competing Scholarly Styles The Attack on the Salon: A Masculine Style? 6. Competing Cosmologies: Locating Sex and
Londa Schiebinger is John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science and Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University.
In giving this account of the role of science in the creation of
gender, backed by this mass of fascinating detail, intriguingly
interpreted, Schiebinger has truly travelled uncharted
territory.
*Nature*
What must be applauded in The Mind Has No Sex? is the linking of
scientific and medical phenomena with institutions, patronage,
social groupings, family organization, and crafts. It is still all
too rare to find historians of science willing to cast their nets
so wide, in terms of chronology and the range of countries and
issues considered… Historians of science have much to learn from
this book, not only because of the new materials it brings to
light, but also because of its attempts to understand women’s
participation in the acquisition of natural knowledge in terms of
scientific and medical theories and of a wide range of social
practices.
*Times Higher Education Supplement*
[The Mind Has No Sex?] is a beautifully detailed portrayal,
alternately amusing, astonishing, dismaying, and painful, of ‘how
real men and women participated in [early modern] science’ and what
difference it made—to them, to science, and to our general idea of
sexual difference. [This is] feminism put to work.
*New York Review of Books*
In a book remarkable for its scope and sophistication, historian
Londa Schiebinger investigates the nature, extent, and consequences
of the structures that have so long barred women from full
participation in the sciences since the Renaissance.
*Science*
Readable, carefully-constructed and elegant, [The Mind Has No Sex?]
does not force any particular view, but presents us with
incontrovertible evidence of the crucial role of science in the
creation of Western ideas of gender.
*London Review of Books*
Londa Schiebinger’s adventure in scholarly sleuthing discovers the
hidden, finds the lost, and celebrates the forgotten women in
medicine and science in western Europe and America from the 16th
through the 19th centuries. This important, intellectually powerful
book is often very funny in relating historical reasons why there
are so few women scientists… Beyond comedic virtues, this book’s
true power lies in its revelation of women’s scientific
achievements and its recasting of the question at hand: why are
there so few women scientists that we know about? The author’s
trained eye discovers spectacular women practitioners in astronomy,
botany, entomology, physics, medicine, and other sciences whose
works have disappeared from neglect, forgetfulness, prejudice,
deceit, disbelief, and man’s occasional inhumanity to women.
*JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association*
The Mind Has No Sex? is important to scientists because it
illuminates the complex dynamic between reason and belief,
observation and preconception, theory and conviction. In rich
detail, it shows us that scientists are not immune to venal motives
of error. At a time when science is once more being viewed as a
means to national salvation, and women and minorities are being
urged to become scientists and engineers, we should be mindful of
these lessons.
*Chemical and Engineering News*
Feminist scholars will greatly profit from this work, for it points
to distinct historical characters, events, and belies that have
affected women’s relationship with science and vice verse. The
awareness that there exists a continuous evolution of ideas and
social structures enhances any scholarship of women in science.
*Contemporary Sociology*
The Mind Has No Sex? provides a historical backdrop for the current
study of gender issues in psychiatry. It also warns us that the
data of science itself is affected by cultural thinking and
vulnerable to gender bias.
*News for Women in Psychiatry*
Are women by nature inferior to men in scientific and mathematical
reasoning? Such is a modern stereotype. Schiebinger hammers it to
pieces with examples of women from the Enlightenment to the
nineteenth century who did major scientific work despite relentless
male opposition and scorn.
*Harvard Magazine*
Schiebinger’s methodical tracing of the way in which negative or
fearful assumptions regarding the nature of the female mind have
fed sexual discrimination—and how that discrimination has in turn
helped justify the original negative assumptions—is both well
researched and convincing. Her profiles of women scientists who
resisted prejudice, plus her fascinating descriptions of past and
present rationalizations for sexual injustice, make this a solid
contribution to the history of science.
*Kirkus Reviews*
In giving this account of the role of science in the creation of
gender, backed by this mass of fascinating detail, intriguingly
interpreted, Schiebinger has truly travelled uncharted territory.
-- June Goodfield * Nature *
What must be applauded in The Mind Has No Sex? is the
linking of scientific and medical phenomena with institutions,
patronage, social groupings, family organization, and crafts. It is
still all too rare to find historians of science willing to cast
their nets so wide, in terms of chronology and the range of
countries and issues considered... Historians of science have much
to learn from this book, not only because of the new materials it
brings to light, but also because of its attempts to understand
women's participation in the acquisition of natural knowledge in
terms of scientific and medical theories and of a wide range of
social practices. -- L. J. Jordanova * Times Higher Education
Supplement *
[The Mind Has No Sex?] is a beautifully detailed portrayal,
alternately amusing, astonishing, dismaying, and painful, of 'how
real men and women participated in [early modern] science' and what
difference it made-to them, to science, and to our general idea of
sexual difference. [This is] feminism put to work. -- Clifford
Geertz * New York Review of Books *
In a book remarkable for its scope and sophistication, historian
Londa Schiebinger investigates the nature, extent, and consequences
of the structures that have so long barred women from full
participation in the sciences since the Renaissance. -- Lorraine
Daston * Science *
Readable, carefully-constructed and elegant, [The Mind Has No
Sex?] does not force any particular view, but presents us with
incontrovertible evidence of the crucial role of science in the
creation of Western ideas of gender. -- Caroline Humphrey * London
Review of Books *
Londa Schiebinger's adventure in scholarly sleuthing discovers the
hidden, finds the lost, and celebrates the forgotten women in
medicine and science in western Europe and America from the 16th
through the 19th centuries. This important, intellectually powerful
book is often very funny in relating historical reasons why there
are so few women scientists... Beyond comedic virtues, this book's
true power lies in its revelation of women's scientific
achievements and its recasting of the question at hand: why are
there so few women scientists that we know about? The author's
trained eye discovers spectacular women practitioners in astronomy,
botany, entomology, physics, medicine, and other sciences whose
works have disappeared from neglect, forgetfulness, prejudice,
deceit, disbelief, and man's occasional inhumanity to women. --
Madeleine Pelner Cosman * JAMA: Journal of the American Medical
Association *
The Mind Has No Sex? is important to scientists because it
illuminates the complex dynamic between reason and belief,
observation and preconception, theory and conviction. In rich
detail, it shows us that scientists are not immune to venal motives
of error. At a time when science is once more being viewed as a
means to national salvation, and women and minorities are being
urged to become scientists and engineers, we should be mindful of
these lessons. -- Lilli S. Hormig * Chemical and Engineering News
*
Feminist scholars will greatly profit from this work, for it points
to distinct historical characters, events, and belies that have
affected women's relationship with science and vice verse. The
awareness that there exists a continuous evolution of ideas and
social structures enhances any scholarship of women in science. --
E. G. Phanichkul * Contemporary Sociology *
The Mind Has No Sex? provides a historical backdrop for the
current study of gender issues in psychiatry. It also warns us that
the data of science itself is affected by cultural thinking and
vulnerable to gender bias. -- Letitia Upton * News for Women in
Psychiatry *
Are women by nature inferior to men in scientific and mathematical
reasoning? Such is a modern stereotype. Schiebinger hammers it to
pieces with examples of women from the Enlightenment to the
nineteenth century who did major scientific work despite relentless
male opposition and scorn. -- Richard Marius * Harvard Magazine
*
Schiebinger's methodical tracing of the way in which negative or
fearful assumptions regarding the nature of the female mind have
fed sexual discrimination-and how that discrimination has in turn
helped justify the original negative assumptions-is both well
researched and convincing. Her profiles of women scientists who
resisted prejudice, plus her fascinating descriptions of past and
present rationalizations for sexual injustice, make this a solid
contribution to the history of science. * Kirkus Reviews *
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