Feminist Historiography and Science Studies New methodological frameworks

Abstract

The massive incorporation of women into the university and the advancement of the feminist movement were decisive in the introduction of women's studies and feminist criticism in the Academy in the second half of the XX. Its influence on the function of unveiling androcentrism as an underlying ideology in the production of knowledge was felt in all academic disciplines, although with different times and rhythms. In the case of the natural sciences, the delay was greater due fundamentally to the untouchable nature of the attributes of science: its objectivity and neutrality. Among the innovative projects that arise in that framework, contemporary examples are pointed out that challenge the history of traditional science and make women's biographies significant. That is, feminist historiography at its intersection with science studies has allowed the incorporation of new methodological frameworks which facilitate the recovery of women's agency and its history, hidden in traditional history, as well as investigating its causes and its consequences in the conceptualization of knowledge and in the creation and organization of its institutions. These are projects that show that knowledge of the natural world is a human activity, the result of the work of women and men, while expanding the horizon of scientific production. They also help to understand that it is not true that women currently have the same opportunities or enjoy the same freedom nor that they recognize the same scientific authority as men, as the case of scientist Barbara McClintock, here briefly reviewed, shows.