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Men, Science, Religion

6/23/2007 16:29:38

I have already argued for the priority of men's studies in religious studies, grounded in the success of feminism's critique of patriarchy in religion and throughout human societies. Here I would like to focus the discussion on the issue of "science and religion."

The urgency of the question of patriarchy in science has been aptly enough demonstrated in the recent controversy over Lawrence Summers's incendiary suggestion in early 2005 that there might be biological reasons why men still dominate scientific work. Who practices and benefits from science is a question with deep economic consequences. In addition, whoever makes science also makes our public metaphysics. High-level scientific work is still dominated by men, and many have argued that science itself is in some sense an intrinsically male enterprise. This is the baggage of science, as such.

In this sense there is some truth to what some say about scientists being the new priesthood. Working behind barriers of language, training, traditional science and religion can maintain an old boys' club dominated by what appears to be a distinctly male culture.

Conversations about "science and religion," by and large, have depended on these ideologies and professional alignments. This may be phrased psychoanalytically like so: the male-dominated projects are driven by a fear of penetration. They see their own discipline as self-contained and self-sufficient, making any foreign influence a hostile intrusion. By the same psychoanalytic logic, a female scientific or religious project would operate rather differently, emphasizing permeability over autonomy.

The point of the suggestion I want to make, ever briefly, is this: to talk about "science and religion" it is necessary to engage the gendered ideologies that inform both professions and constructs.

re: Men, Science, Religion - 6/28/2007 16:13:50
Posted by Eli

I agree, with regard to my own field. A multidisciplinary field like bioethics - which has philosophers, lawyers, social psychologists, doctors, literature professors, and others all interacting in one professional society - has little pretension of being self-contained and self-sufficient. We're happy to be penetrated.

Does that mean that we've been feminized in a way? Should it matter than men outnumber women, or is that just a side-effect of our close association with the medical community?

re:feminizing - 6/28/2007 18:27:31
Posted by nathan

I don't know, and when I hear you say it, I get even less comfortable with the terms I proposed: this thing masculine, this thing feminine. If I can take anything from the social-construction kind of feminism, it is that there are no Platonic types as regards genders. There may be bodily types and psychological tendencies and the rest, but not beyond that.

There is, however (I think), a kind of sociality that differs in groups of men, groups of women, and mixed groups. (See the comparison between chimpanzees and bonobos in the book Demonic Males, for instance.) When I say something is particularly male or patriarchal, I do not want to say it refers to a male Platonic type, as I seem to above. What I might say, rather, is that a lot of what people in the group does is explainable by reference to embodied maleness. That is - we deal one way or another with the boundaries of our group because of particular male needs for dominance, competition, and the rest. And that same maleness can find expression in different outward strategies - autonomy for some, perhaps, permeability for others.

Does this make sense?

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