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University of Alberta Women in Science and Engineering
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Steminism 101
Taryn Stokowski, 2020
FOLK THEORY: assumed to be common sense, shaped by sociocultural forces
IMPLICIT BIAS: "attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report"
STEREOTYPE THREAT: "a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes"
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Advocacy,
allyship,
& Leadership
since 1982
INEQUALITY IN
STEM
Implicit Bias
Likability bias
INEQUALITY
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What does this look like?
Other professors, men
Full professors, women
Full professors, men
Other professors, women
IVORY CEILING:
IN THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE, THE
HIGHER THE POSITION THE FEWER WOMEN
UNDERGRAD
GRAD
FACULTY
50%
35%
20%
THE IVORY CEILING OF SERVICE WORK, 2011
THE BASICS
Key Feminist concepts
Intersectionality
The "heterosexual matrix"
Standpoint theory
Standpoint theory
posits that social location impacts how one 'knows', and what they know. "People at the bottom of social hierarchies have a unique standpoint that is a better starting point for scholarship".
The Heterosexual Matrix: prescriptive model based on the assumption that heterosexuality is the 'default' and necessitates men and women be opposites
SEX
GENDER EXPRESSION
GENDER IDENTITY
SEXUAL DESIRE
MALE
FEMALE
MASCULINITY
FEMININITY
MAN
WOMAN
FOR MEN
FOR WOMEN
OTHER
OTHER / MIX
OTHER
OTHER
Judith Butler, GENDER TROUBLE
"acceptable"
"unacceptable"
Intersectionality
"Multi-level analyses that link individual experiences to broader structures and systems are crucial for revealing how power relations are shaped and experienced."
"inequities are never the result of single, distinct factors. Rather, they are the outcome of intersections of different social locations, power relations and experiences."
Olena Hankivsky, INTERSECTIONALITY 101
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Women of colour experience racism and sexism in an INTEGRATED way (i.e. NOT just the "sum" of racism + sexism)
What other factors "intersect" to affect people's access to power?
Intersectionality
"Objectivity"
EPISTEMOLOGY
How do we know what we know?
Epistemologies of ignorance
The file drawer phenomenon
"Objectivity"
Systematic Inequality
Epistemologies of ignorance
"an examination of the complex phenomena of ignorance, which has as its aim identifying different forms of ignorance, examining how they are produced and sustained, and what role they play in knowledge practices."
Why are some stories suppressed, why are others not "worth" researching?
Shannon Sullivan , & Nancy Tuana, RACE AND EPISTEMOLOGIES OF IGNORANCE
"The File Drawer Phenomenon"
How does this impact society? Why does this phenomenon happen?
The file drawer effect: A call for meticulous methodology and tolerance for non-significant results (2017)
"the practice of tucking away negative/neutral/statistically non-significant research findings into ‘file drawers’"
PRACTICING BETTER SCIENCE
1. Acknowledge that knowledge is constantly EVOLVING
2. SELF-REFLEXIVITY: what assumptions do you hold towards X topic, what is your frame of reference?
3. What might be LEFT OUT? (marginalized groups underrepresented, contradictory data not supplied)
4. How was SAMPLING for X conducted? (could people have been exploited? how well does this sample reflect the diversity of the population?)
5. How might X results be produced and interpreted differently in DIFFERENT CONTEXTS (cultures & social locations)? (were marginalized stakeholders consulted? what values inform the interpretations?)
6. To what extent can X findings be GENERALIZED? (is there enough data to support this conclusion? is extrapolation reasonable?)
7. What MOTIVATED the production of X knowledge? (potential conflicts of interest? "justifying" oppressive practices?)
Controversy: Should Puerto Rican women have known they were involved in a birth control trial?
"an examination of the complex phenomena of ignorance, which has as its aim identifying different forms of ignorance, examining how they are produced and sustained, and what role they play in knowledge practices."
Why are some stories suppressed, why are others not "worth" researching?
Shannon Sullivan , & Nancy Tuana, RACE AND EPISTEMOLOGIES OF IGNORANCE
Pessimistic realism: How do we reconcile our current understandings with the fact that our past models were wrong?
"an examination of the complex phenomena of ignorance, which has as its aim identifying different forms of ignorance, examining how they are produced and sustained, and what role they play in knowledge practices."
Why are some stories suppressed, why are others not "worth" researching?
Shannon Sullivan , & Nancy Tuana, RACE AND EPISTEMOLOGIES OF IGNORANCE
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