Londa Schiebinger

Londa Schiebinger (born May 13, 1952) is the John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science, Stanford University and a leading international authority on gender and science. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1984. She is currently Director of EU/US Director of the EU/US Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Environment Project.

Career

From 2004-2010, Schiebinger served as the Director of Stanford's Clayman Institute for Gender Research.^[1] In 2010 and 2014, Schiebinger presented the keynote address and wrote the conceptual background paper^[2] for the United Nations' Expert Group Meeting on Gender, Science, and Technology.^[3] In 2013 she presented the Gendered Innovations^[4] project at the European Parliament. She is known for her writings on the impacts of feminism in the fields of science.

Has Feminism Changed Science?
Schiebinger's book, Has Feminism Changed Science?, has been split into three sections: 'Women in Science', 'Gender in the Cultures of Science', and 'Gender in the Substance of Science'. Throughout the book, she describes the factors that led to the inequality between male and female in the science field. In addition, she gave examples of different types of women in the society. An important idea brought up in the book was the private versus the public, where the private sphere is seen as the domain of women and public sphere as an area refers for men. Another important point she brought up was that the idea of including women in the fields of science does not mean that the sciences will adopt a more feminist view point. A simple increase in the number of women in a given field does not change the culture of that field. The construction of gender and science is a cycle in that ideas of gender are brought to the table already when practicing science and can inform what evidence people look for or areas they choose to study, and that whatever is found then influences theories of gender. The various contradictions shown through the achievements and silencing of women in science throughout history shows how nature and the society can influence gender and science. Schiebinger not only addresses the gender in the context of science, she also describes the feminism is changed through the history and culture. It is important to note that the book is written from a Western perspective and that the culture she discusses is that of the Western World, and in many cases, more specifically, the United States.

The first of the books three sections takes a look at the impacts of some of the first women to be known to have participated in science, such as Christine de Pizan and Marie Curie.^[5] The section also examines the numerical count of women in the various fields of science in academics in the late 20th century United States, as well as looking at the breakdown of other factors, such as pay rates and the level of degree held, in relation to gender.^[6] The section goes on to theorize that the cultural reinforcement of gender roles may play a factor as to why there are fewer women in science.^[7]

The second section, 'Gender in the Cultures of Science', argues that science has been gendered as being a masculine field and that women report a distaste for the excessive competition fostered by academic science.^[8] The argument is also made in this section, that the splitting of gender roles in personal life, where women still take on a majority of domestic responsibilities, may be a reason that is hindering women in scientific fields from accomplishing more.^[9]

The third section of the book, 'Gender in the substance of Science' details the perspectives that women have brought to fields such as medicine, primatology, archeology, biology, and physics. In fact, Schiebinger states that as of the writing of the book, that women earned nearly 80 percent of all Ph.D.'s in primatology, and yet, despite this, having a large number of women scientists in a field does not necessarily lead to a change in the assumptions of science, or the culture of science.^[10]

Personal life

Her husband is Robert Proctor, and her children are Geoffrey Schiebinger and Jonathan Proctor.

Selected bibliography

• Women and Gender in Science and Technology, 4 vols. (London: Routledge, 2014).
• Gendered Innovations: How Gender Analysis Contributes to Research, ed. with Ineke Klinge (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013).
• Dual-Career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know, Londa L. Schiebinger, Andrea Davies Henderson, Shannon K. Gilmartin, Stanford University, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9817746-0-2
• Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering, Edited by Londa Schiebinger. Stanford University Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-8047-5814-7
• Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, Edited by Robert N. Proctor, Londa Schiebinger. Stanford University Press 2008, ISBN 978-0-8047-5652-5
• Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World, Harvard University Press. 2004, ISBN 978-0-674-01487-9
  • Foreign Translation: Japanese (Kosakusha Publishing Co., in progress). Winner of the Prize in Atlantic History, American Historical Association, 2005, and the Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize, French Colonial Historical Society, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01487-1
• Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics, edited by Londa Schiebinger, Claudia Swan (University of Pennsylvania Press) 2004.
• Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science Beacon Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-8070-8900-2; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004 ISBN 978-0-8135-3531-9
  • Foreign Translations: Japanese (Tokyo: Kosakusha Publishing Co., 1996); German (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1995); and Hungarian (in preparation). Winner of the Ludwik Fleck Book Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science, 1995.
• Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine, edited by Angela Creager, Elizabeth Lunbeck, and Londa Schiebinger, University of Chicago Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-226-12024-9
• Oxford Companion to the Body, edited by Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett; Section editors Alan Cuthbert, Roy Porter, Tom Sears, Londa Schiebinger, and Tilli Tansey (Oxford University Press) 2001.
• Feminism and the Body, edited by Londa Schiebinger, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-19-873191-7
• Has Feminism Changed Science?, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2001, ISBN 978-0-674-00544-0
  • Foreign Translations: Japanese (Kosakusha Publishing Co., 2002); German (München: Beck Verlag, 2000); Portuguese (Editora da Universidade do Sagrado Coração, 2001); Korean (Dulnyouk Publishing Co., 2002). ISBN 0-674-00544-9
• The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-674-57623-0; Harvard University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-674-57625-4
  • Foreign Translations: Japanese (Tokyo: Kosakusha Publishing Co., 1992); German (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1993); Chinese (Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing); Portuguese (Lisbon: Pandora Ediçioes, 2001); and Greek (Athens: Katoptro, 2003).

Criticism

• "Changing Assumptions", American Scientist, September–October 2008

Peer-reviewed website

• Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment.

Awards

Schiebinger's awards have included^[11]

• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2014
• Honorary Doctorate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2013
• Distinguished Affiliated Professor, Technische Universität, Münichen, 2011-
• Advisory Board, Institute for Advanced Studies, Technische Universität, Munich, 2011-
• Interdisciplinary Leadership Award, 2010, Women’s Health, Stanford School of Medicine
• 2005 Prize in Atlantic History, American Historical Association, for Plants and Empire
• 2005 Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize, French Colonial Historical Society, for Plants and Empire
• 2005 J. Worth Estes Prize for the History of Pharmacology, American Association for the History of Medicine, for Feminist History of Colonial Science
• 1999 Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize, Berlin,
• 2001-2004 National Science Foundation Grant
• 2002-2004 National Science Foundation Scholars Award
• 1999-2000 Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin Senior Research Fellow
• 1998 National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine Fellowship
• 1994 Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize
• 1991-1993, 1996 National Science Foundation Scholars Award
• 1995 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• 1991-1992 Guggenheim Fellow
• 1988-89 Rockefeller Foundation Humanist-in-Residence^[12]
• 1986-87 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
• 1985-1986 Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship
• Summer 1985 Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Grant
• 1983-84 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Foundation
• Summer 1982 Marion and Jasper Whiting Fellowship, Paris
• 1980-81 Fulbright-Hayes Graduate Scholar in Germany

References

External links

• Interview for KanaalZ, Belgian television
• TEDx CERN
• "Housework is an Academic Issue," profiled on ABC News.
• Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research
• "Londa Schiebinger", The Economist
• "Sex, Knowledge and Society", Australian Broadcasting Corporation
• "Londa Schiebinger talks Gender and Science", Stanford University Press
• Gendered Innovations: Designing Better Research"
• "Tuve hijos tarde para poder pagar una asistenta" El Pais
• Gender News Clayman Institute, Stanford University
• Inside Higher Education
• Sex in Science Yields Gendered Innovations on MyScienceWork
• Stanford Daily, Stanford University