The Gender of Science

When we think of a scientist, we picture men like Newton, Darwin, Einstein, who revolutionised the way we see and interact with the world. Using cold hard numbers, experiments, and empirical methods, these “great thinkers” promised to uncover the truth about life, the universe and everything. Since the Enlightenment, scientists stood for rationality and objectivity, for being able to float above things, detached and thus able to deliver neutral analyses.

Until recently, European societies considered it absurd that anyone who was not male, white, and Christian had the capacity to fit into this role. They delegated women and people of colour to auxiliary tasks, like preparing pharmaceutical ingredients, doing the legwork at archaeological sites, or conducting “routine” calculations for the moon landing, in short, clearing the path for the great thinkers to look at the bigger picture.

In a guided tour, PhD students Johannes Heß and Tobias Klee invite visitors to contemplate the ways in which gender and race were constructed and made usable. Who was allowed to produce knowledge and how were other forms of knowledge production excluded? How could (and can) white male scientists of the West create the categories that make them the final arbiters of knowledge? Together with the visitors, the two will interrogate the way something becomes science when it is done by the “correct” person—and a menial task when done by others.