Science is
masculine. The history of scientific achievement was written by men. Galileo
almost single-handedly developed the scientific method. In astronomy and
physics, his tool was mathematical analysis. His inventions had military
applications. Other pioneers of modern science were in
characteristically male occupations. Mendeleev, who formulated the periodic
table, was a chemist. Benjamin Franklin was a politician. Newton, Ohm, and
Einstein were university professors and educated fellow males. Michael Faraday
and Blaise Pascal’s inventions vastly influenced engineering and
physics. Charles Darwin, father of evolution, was a geologist. Nicolaus Copernicus, Roger Bacon, and
Gregor Mendel were Catholic clerics.
Even in the Philippines, the gender gap in science is wide. In the roster of National Scientists, the highest state honor for science that is equivalent to the Order of National Artists, males outnumber females, 28 to 11. In that list, the females were truly trailblazers who had to exceed the achievements of their male colleagues. Fe del Mundo (said to be the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School) and Encarnacion Alzona (the first Filipina to obtain a Ph.D.) broke the class ceiling, so to speak. Other Filipina pioneers in science worked in feminine disciplines. The first Filipina physician, Honoria Acosta-Sison, worked as an obstetrics assistant (despite her American medical degree). Mercedes Concepcion, a sociologist and demographer, was tapped by the Vatican in the 1960s to lend her expertise to the birth control commission.
Why are there so few women achievers in science? Is it because of biology? Lack of aptitude? Institutional and professional bias? The answer is a combination of these and other factors, as argued by one scholar. And yet when women made their mark in science, their achievements were transformative and their professional practice was refreshingly emotive. Marie Curie, in her time dismissed as simply her husband’s assistant and whose Nobel Prize was even called to question, donated her prize money and chose to forego of her patents to support scientific research.
Institutional bias cannot be ignored. In the Philippines, particularly, females did not get the same educational opportunities as men. The oldest university, UST, did not admit women for collegiate courses until 1924, when its pharmacy program was first opened to females (although a school of midwifery granted certificates beginning 1879). The UP and UST medical schools did not admit women until the 1930s. Thus, the first Pinay doctors, Acosta-Sison and Olivia Salamanca, had to go to the women’s medical college in Pennsylvania to get their degrees. The headstart for men spanned centuries.
This of course was the result of a male-dominated political system that deprived women of suffrage until 1937. Women were thus at the sidelines, or even absent, in the crafting of state policy. In other words, men decided over women’s destinies. This historical handicap accorded to women lends validity to the feminist critique.
What is problematic is the radical feminism preoccupied with pitting the sexes against each other, and whose solution ironically is for women to suppress their femininity to be on equal footing with men. Women are thus discouraged from being dependent on men, from marrying men, from giving birth and being mothers to children of men. To succeed in the world of men, women must become like men. This kind of feminism also looks at abortion as the ultimate expression of women's control over their bodies, probably without considering that it may harm women in surgery. It kills female offspring.
Perhaps feminism could progress in a way that female-male relations are not analyzed on the basis of power, but on the basis of complementarity. Women and men, while inherently different, are equals and are natural partners, and could build on each other’s strengths. Using this framework of complementarity, women and men could work together to correct historical imbalances and go on performing and sharing their societal roles without so much guilt.
Even in the Philippines, the gender gap in science is wide. In the roster of National Scientists, the highest state honor for science that is equivalent to the Order of National Artists, males outnumber females, 28 to 11. In that list, the females were truly trailblazers who had to exceed the achievements of their male colleagues. Fe del Mundo (said to be the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School) and Encarnacion Alzona (the first Filipina to obtain a Ph.D.) broke the class ceiling, so to speak. Other Filipina pioneers in science worked in feminine disciplines. The first Filipina physician, Honoria Acosta-Sison, worked as an obstetrics assistant (despite her American medical degree). Mercedes Concepcion, a sociologist and demographer, was tapped by the Vatican in the 1960s to lend her expertise to the birth control commission.
Why are there so few women achievers in science? Is it because of biology? Lack of aptitude? Institutional and professional bias? The answer is a combination of these and other factors, as argued by one scholar. And yet when women made their mark in science, their achievements were transformative and their professional practice was refreshingly emotive. Marie Curie, in her time dismissed as simply her husband’s assistant and whose Nobel Prize was even called to question, donated her prize money and chose to forego of her patents to support scientific research.
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| Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize (from nobelprize.org) |
Institutional bias cannot be ignored. In the Philippines, particularly, females did not get the same educational opportunities as men. The oldest university, UST, did not admit women for collegiate courses until 1924, when its pharmacy program was first opened to females (although a school of midwifery granted certificates beginning 1879). The UP and UST medical schools did not admit women until the 1930s. Thus, the first Pinay doctors, Acosta-Sison and Olivia Salamanca, had to go to the women’s medical college in Pennsylvania to get their degrees. The headstart for men spanned centuries.
This of course was the result of a male-dominated political system that deprived women of suffrage until 1937. Women were thus at the sidelines, or even absent, in the crafting of state policy. In other words, men decided over women’s destinies. This historical handicap accorded to women lends validity to the feminist critique.
What is problematic is the radical feminism preoccupied with pitting the sexes against each other, and whose solution ironically is for women to suppress their femininity to be on equal footing with men. Women are thus discouraged from being dependent on men, from marrying men, from giving birth and being mothers to children of men. To succeed in the world of men, women must become like men. This kind of feminism also looks at abortion as the ultimate expression of women's control over their bodies, probably without considering that it may harm women in surgery. It kills female offspring.
Perhaps feminism could progress in a way that female-male relations are not analyzed on the basis of power, but on the basis of complementarity. Women and men, while inherently different, are equals and are natural partners, and could build on each other’s strengths. Using this framework of complementarity, women and men could work together to correct historical imbalances and go on performing and sharing their societal roles without so much guilt.
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