Science has been regarded traditionally as sexless, and therefore removed from individual and institutional biases tha may influence less rigorous, more interpretive scholarly fields. How ever, as the papers in this volume demonstrate clearly, the assumption of gender neutrality in science is highly controversial. Indeed, as women have become increasingly active in the sciences, they have be. come concerned more with identifying and understanding gender biases in their discipline. The history of women in science, the ways in which science has been applied to social and political policies that af fect women, and the potential transformation of science to incorporate feminist perspectives are the subjects of this book.
The selected essays are reprinted from articles published between 1975 and 1986 in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. As the editors point out in their introduction, there is no clear consensus among the papers; rather, “the differing approaches reflect ...
