I do not see the proper, basic underpinnings of science as sexist.
However, the scientific community/culture/etc (at least the "popular"
notion of it) is an entirely different matter. I would posit that much of
that culture is not only sexist but racist, classist, and hetero-sexist.
Rather than going into all the gory details of the faults of this
culture/society thing I will explain my views on the feminism of basic
science.
The way I understand science is that it is based on the principle that
our concepts of the universe are always probably flawed/incomplete.
However, we should always be testing them and trying to make them better.
One way that I understand feminism is that our current conceptions of
sex/gender and society are flawed/incomplete. And, we should test them
and make them better. Going one step further (sort of, as I understand
it) into Queer theory, we will always have inaccurate, incomplete
conceptions about ourselves as a group and we should always be testing and
refining them.
So, I see some of the basic ideas of both science and queer theory
(hence certain brands of feminism) as being exceedingly similar. (always
question). The difference seems to be one of what to focus the
questioning on.
Here is an idea, "hard sci-fi" focuses on physical science/engineering
whereas feminist sci-fi focuses on society (esp. gender roles). So we
seem to be lacking feminist "hard sci-fi" because it would have to focus
on both things at once. While there are certainly works that attempt to
do just that, it is generally a very tough thing to pull off. Also, it
very easy for the readers to disregard one focus or another. However, it
is possible that "hard sci-fi" and feminist (well, at least Queer by my
definition) sci-fi share many of the same underlying ideas.
I can't help but think of Joan Slonckzewski's _A_Door_Into_Ocean_ as an
example of a book that deal with both. I find it interesting that she is
Quaker (and that that is found to be generally interesting in this forum)
because one of the lesser-known but perhaps stranger tenets of Quakerism
is that of "continuing revelation." The basic idea is that we are always
learning (being shown maybe (for some)) more and different (more
advanced/refined maybe) things about our world, ourselves, our spiritual
aspects, and everyhting. Well, at least that's how I understand it.
-- Joel VanLaven
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