Feminine Science: Just A Woman's Day Thought

On the International woman’s day let us reflect on the somewhat controversial idea that there may be a feminine dimension to science.

– Rachel Carson, with her ‘Silent Spring’, brought to the awareness of global community the danger of bio-magnification of pesticides.

– Nobel Laureate and maize geneticist Barbara McClintock put an end to genetic determinism. She made us realize that gene was more a process with a web of dynamic relations than a atom-like particle.

– Lynn Margulis fought a bitter battle with the orthodoxy in the institutional science before her symbio-genesis was accepted as an important evolutionary process. Ultimately she went on to become one of the architects of Gaia hypothesis. Today Gaia hypothesis makes the pale blue dot in which live more a meta-living system in itself than just an inorganic space ship lost in the immensity of cosmic space and time.

– Jane Goodall who studied Chimpanzees in Africa recognized their personality traits, defied the conventional methodology and gave them names in scientific literature, documented their tool use and played the Galileo of primatology – bridging the gulf that man had invented around him from his evolutionary cousins.

Each one of these discoveries, that have changed the way we look at ourselves and the Universe in a more holistic way, has come from women scientists. This speaks of how harmonized development of male and female components of humanity can make the third planet from the sun a better place.

What about women and science in India?

“India’s position (and that of other developing countries viz. Brazil, Turkey etc.) with respect to women’s participation in science careers is better than those of more developed countries like Japan, Germany, United States and United Kingdom…It is also found that the nuclear family which is the common characteristics of developed countries put strain on the woman scientist who lack support structure in the domestic sphere. In comparison the traditional extended family, still a common practice in developing countries provides significant support for women scientists.”

This is by a JNU scholar Ms.Arpita Subhash.

– Contributed by Aravindan Neelakandan