Physics is often seen, by Physicists not the least, as an objective Science and we believe we aresurrounded by a “culture without culture”. At the same time our history, class- and board rooms aredominated by men. This is a clear paradox that should awaken the curiosity of anyone. In this talk Iwill give some examples on how you can approach the question on “what does gender have to dowith Physics”. There have been several studies of Physicists and I will combine a discussion of thesewith some general theory and personal experiences, to paint a picture on how gender transgressPhysics, like all other fields. By using the three levels of change introduced by Schiebinger, I refer tostudies of e.g. Anthropologists and Psychologists. The bias against women, due to the fact thatPhysics is stereotypically male, combined with the “myth of meritocracy” could be one key tounderstand the lack of women in the field. The talk is intended as a translation of results from recentprogress in Gender Science to an audience of non-experts in the field, especially people within STEMfields.The aim is to give some answers to the question in the title, but also to show that this is anextremely interesting and active research field.
Tomas Brage (Sweden): What does Gender have to do with Physics?
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