82680 - Gender and Social Studies of Science

Learning outcomes

The course addresses the interactions between science and society from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates history with the social sciences. At the end of the course the students will have: - conducted an in-depth exploration of historical cases and contemporary data in order to understand the relationships between women, gender and science in different contexts; - learned to assess the sources and use th e critical tools to address independently these themes.

Course contents

Science-society interactions
Gender and science studies (STS) in dialogue with women’s history and science itself

This course is an introduction to the interactions among education, research and development in so-called Western contexts, today and in the past. The viewpoints privileged for examining these complex phenomena will be women’s history and gender studies in an intersectional lens that, as we will see, can be traced back to the first decades of the nineteenth century.

More generally, we will work at the intersection of social, cultural and scientific issues (science studies or Science and Technology Studies, STS). The goal is to navigate our way through a reality (digital and otherwise) based mainly on the culture of science and technologies as its main supporting social structures. At the same time, this reality is also conditioned by the lingering traces of a patriarchal culture that has tended to exclude women from many professions (such as technical-scientific ones) while channeling them into others (namely care work, perhaps the most important form of labor but one that is undervalued and underpaid).

Our guiding questions will be: How can we have a relationship with science and technology that is as skeptical as it is well-informed, never fideistic or even dismissive? How can we self-educate and educate others in the pursuit of equality and inclusion?

After introducing the interdisciplinary interpretive tools mentioned above (first weeks of class), the course will delve into the history of women’s relations with men in certain educational, professional and research contexts in the last three centuries. We will thus discover the trajectory of women’s representation in science, a trend that has never been non-linear much less progressive. This investigation begins with the factors behind the extraordinary yet brief success of women in institutionalized science in Bologna in the eighteenth century: a unique (and temporary) case at the European level.

Our point of departure for this journey through history will be the present, specifically asymmetrical relations between women and men in every professional field and the repercussions such asymmetry continues to generate, in Bologna, Italy and other countries. We will focus on the Italian case in view of the fact that the latest available data (for 2022) indicate that the situation is even worse now than in 2021 (Global Gender Gap Report 2023; for the data on women in philosophy, see here and here) (from approximately week three onwards).

In this context poised between the present and the past, we will also see the many male scientists who, since the nineteenth century (but also in previous centuries), have recognized that discrimination against women is caused by social and cultural (not biological) factors. A different point of view has clearly won out in public sphere, however. By appealing to the alleged ‘natural’ inferiority of women as asserted from Aristotle to Nobel laureate James Watson (1928-; see the Wikipedia entry, especially § ‘Avoiding boring people’), this prevailing stance has steered educational and research institutions throughout the world in a discriminatory direction. How is it that this discriminatory tradition proved victorious rather than the other tradition of thought which, starting with ‘feminist Darwinism‘, has instead always posited women’s absence from or difficulty succeeding in science as the result of what we would now term a lack of equal opportunities?
Although a great deal has changed for the better during the twentieth century, why do the data (as we will see in class) show that female scientists, statistically speaking, still face discrimination in every area, even when producing the same quality and quantity of research as their male colleagues?

A socio-historical investigation into the relations between gender and science and between women and men in institutions over the last three centuries will help us explore the processes of knowledge construction that go to the very core of interactions between science and society. The goal is to understand what it means to claim that science is a culture and social practice. This understanding will enable us to address questions such as ‘What is science?’ and ‘How does it work?’

We will do so invoking the thought of female sociological writers such as Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) or scientists engaged in communicating with the public such as Richard Feynman (1918-1988), Nobel laureate in physics in 1965 and former controversial contributor to the Manhattan Project. Addressing schoolteachers, Feynman stated, “Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” (Feynman,1969).

Interweaving theoretical considerations with historical sociological inquiry will help us to better understand the processes through which ‘temporarily true’ scientific facts are constructed, such as the ‘fact’ long referred to as “women’s inferiority.”
The last weeks of classes will be devoted to discussing group work.

Classes begin September 20 and will be held on Wednesdays (9-11 a.m.); Thursdays (11 a.m.-1 p.m.); and Fridays (11 a.m.-1 p.m.).

IMPORTANT NOTE
Classes are held in a classroom without proper windows, only dormer windows that allow limited ventilation. In case of coughs, colds, sore throats or other symptoms (even mild ones), those attending class are asked to wear a mask rated FFP2 or higher. Thank you.

Readings/Bibliography

Bachelor in Phylosophy (12 credits; 60H).

 

The following program is the same for attending and non attending students, including students of the Erasmus program.

1. David F. Noble, Un mondo senza donne. La cultura maschile della Chiesa e la scienza occidentale, Bollati Boringhieri, 1994: only pp. 9-60 and pp. 205-352.

2. Richard Feynman, Sta scherzando, Mr. Feynman! Vita e avventure di uno scienziato curioso, Zanichelli, Bologna, 2007.

3. On your choice: Massimo Mazzotti, Maria Gaetana Agnesi e il suo mondo. Una vita tra scienza e carità, Roma, Carocci, 2019 (1° ed. Baltimore, 2007), or Rebecca Messabarger, La signora anatomista. Vita e opere di Anna Morandi Manzolini, Bologna, il Mulino, 2020 (1° ed. Chicago 2010).

4. P. Govoni, Che cos’è la storia della scienza, Roma, Carocci, 2019 [new and enlarged ed.].

5. Texts and PowerPoints posted (during the course) on the e-learning platform.

 

Bachelor in Expert in Social and Cultural Education (8 credits; 48 H).

The following program is the same for attending and non attending students, including students of the Erasmus program.

1. Richard Feynman, Sta scherzando, Mr. Feynman! Vita e avventure di uno scienziato curioso, Zanichelli, Bologna, 2007.

2. Introduction (pp. 9-36), and essays by  Findlen  (pp. 63-95); Cavalli, Leonelli and  Tomasetto (pp. 142-174), in Eredi di Laura Bassi. Docenti e ricercatrici in Italia tra età moderna e presente, a cura di M. Cavazza, P. Govoni e T. Pironi, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2014 [available at link].

3. P. Govoni, Che cos’è la storia della scienza, Roma, Carocci, 2019 [new and enlarged ed.].

4. L’avventura del progetto IRRESISTIBLE. Insegnanti, studenti ed esperti a confronto su temi di ricerca d’avanguardia e aspetti della Ricerca e Innovazione Responsabile, a cura di M. Venturi, Bononia University Press, Bologna, 2018 [available on the teaching platform].

5. Texts and PowerPoints posted (during the course) on the e-learning platform.

Teaching methods

This course is part of the Digital Innovative Teaching (DDI) program. Various materials and documents will be uploaded to the Virtual platform (Bibliography item 5). Lectures will be recorded and made available remotely via a Virtuale link. Those listening to the lectures at a later moment will be able to post questions and comments via the forum (Virtuale) or by email (p.govoni@unibo.it).

We will use several of the tools Virtuale offers: in addition to the forum, there is also an assignments section (called “compiti”) where students will be able to upload short texts (optional) on the extra activities organized as part of the course (these activities will be discussed during the first few classes).

Planned extra activities:
– (date to be determined) we will discuss the history of women in Jewish culture together with Professor Monica Miniati, author of an important book on this subject.
– (date to be determined), together with Miriam Masini from the Museum of Industrial Heritage, we will discuss education and development in Bologna, women’s roles in local entrepreneurial activities, and the museum’s programming addressed to schools and teachers. The dialogue with Dr. Masini provides an introduction to the planned visit to the Museum.
– (date to be determined), visit to the Museum of Industrial Heritage, where we will participate in a workshop organized for us by Dr. Annalisa Bugini, a physicist with expertise in communication, history, and science education
– (date to be determined), visit to the Palazzo Poggi Museum to investigate figures who will be discussed in class: Laura Bassi, Anna Morandi Manzolini, Clotilde Tambroni and Maria Dalle Donne.
– (date to be determined), Passing the baton: speeches by recent graduates (in the Philosophy and Social and Cultural Educator programs) to discuss how they approach their final thesis or project on current issues pertaining to gender-specific medicine and the history of the body between philosophy, anthropology, and gender studies.
– (date to be determined), Passing the baton: talks by recent Philosophy graduates who have done theses on Laura Bassi and Anna Morandi Manzolini. This will be an opportunity to talk about databases, archives and libraries.

Classes will be organized through dialogue with attending students. To foster processes of self-assessment and collaboration, attending students invited to present in class – alone or, ideally, in groups of two or three, preferably made up of students enrolled in different degree programs – on a topic related to teaching.

With the help of the lecturer, this activity aims to: improve students’ enjoyment of study based on collaboration (not competition) with others; train participants in navigating sources by knowing how to choose among sources in order to construct a suitable basic bibliography; teach how to correctly write an abstract of up to one page with bibliography/synography (mandatory for those doing the in-class report); show how to prepare a PowerPoint presentation; and help students manage their emotions when giving oral presentations. These activities are worth up to 5 points; detailed information about them will be provided in class and guidelines will be uploaded to Virtuale.
Students will be able to write short reports (to be uploaded to Virtuale by the end of the course) on the results and presentations provided by visiting expert(s). These reports will contribute additional points to the final grade.

At least 7 days before the end of class, attending students may (if they wish) upload a paper to the platform regarding NOT the exam syllabus but the topics discussed in class and presented by the small groups in their in-depth classroom discussions. This assignment is also worth up to 5 points.

Those unable to attend classes will focus on studying the texts specified in the bibliography and on the platform. There are no programmatic differences between attending and non-attending students, nor for Erasmus students. As outlined above, recordings of the lectures will be made available to all non-attending students.

Assessment methods

Oral exam: this consists of three questions, stemming from a freely chosen topic.

Students will be tested on their knowledge of the course’s bibliography, as well as on their ability to reason in a logical, concise and personal way. The accuracy and precision of the student’s way of expression will also be taken in consideration.

For further information, please consult at Regolamento didattico.

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

 Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders have the right to special accommodations according to their condition, following an assessment by the Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact the teacher but get in touch with the Service directly to schedule an appointment. It will be the responsibility of the Service to determine the appropriate adaptations. For more information, see here.

Teaching tools

PowerPoint; e-learning tools; science museums.

Office hours

See the website of Paola Govoni