Women, Science, and Myth

This encyclopedia surveys the scientific research on gender throughout the ages - the people, experiments, and impact - of both legitimate and illegitimate findings on the scientific community and society at large. Over the course of history, scientific research has been used to support a number of [...]
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This encyclopedia surveys the scientific research on gender throughout the ages - the people, experiments, and impact - of both legitimate and illegitimate findings on the scientific community and society at large. Over the course of history, scientific research has been used to support a number of dubious assumptions, nowhere more so than in the area of gender (for example, a 19th-century study claimed to prove that men's brains were superior to women's). Yet the scientific community has not often welcomed the work of women scientists. Is there a connection?"Women, Science, and Myth: Gender Beliefs from Antiquity to the Present" examines the ways scientists have researched gender throughout history, the ways those results have affected society, and the impact they have had on the scientific community and on women and women's rights movements.In 100 chronologically organized entries, "Women, Science, and Myth" explores the people and experiments that exemplify the problematic relationship between science and gender throughout the centuries, with particular emphasis on the 20th century.The encyclopedia offers a section on larger cross-period themes such as myths of gender in different scientific disciplines and the influence of cultural norms on specific eras of gender research. It is a timely and revealing resource that celebrates science's legitimate accomplishments in understanding gender while unmasking the sources of a number of debilitating biases concerning women's intelligence and physical attributes.This title features: 100 chronologically organized entries describing people and events influential in the development of scientific research on gender; 20 thematic entries looking at larger issues across regions, disciplines, and historical eras; 30 sidebars highlighting topics of particular importance including key issues and individuals, pivotal events, and excerpts from primary documents; and, a section of supportive demographic/statistical information.Highlights of this book are that it: analyzes the ways that scientists have researched gender, the ways those results have affected society, and the impact they have had on the scientific community and on women; takes both a chronological and historical approach and explores cross-cutting themes in gender and science; and, dispels a number of myths about women that have long been considered.