Engineering was an established craft for centuries before the dawning of modern science. Even the most biased historian cannot claim that technology began as part of science, as woman is sometimes conceived to have come from Adam’s rib. But if carried too far, the analogy begins to confuse instead of clarify. The feminist analogy is helpful: Just as women should be considered equal partners with men in the human enterprise, engineering deserves respect and attention equal to that accorded science. Engineers are not merely being ignored, insulted, or subjected to unfair prejudice. An accompanying photo of Jack Kilby, one of the most prominent engineers of our era, identifies him merely as “the first to carve multiple transistors onto a single wafer of semiconductive material.” The first what?Īmong engineers, such slights give rise to frustration verging on paranoia but at least, having read Ruth Cowan’s essay, I can now assess our problem more accurately than before. They call it “Science Times.” This section recently carried an article on the “Shrinking Transistor” in which the word “scientist” appeared repeatedly, “engineer” not once. The New York Times publishes a special section every Tuesday covering many of the latest developments in science and technology. National Public Radio airs an excellent weekly program devoted to science and engineering they call it “Science Friday.” I am a trustee of a wonderful museum of science and technology that bears what I consider an improperly abbreviated name: the New York Hall of Science.
Hardly a day goes by in which I am not reminded of the biases and misconceptions that prevail.
For example, some upholders of academic tradition scorn “women’s studies” on the grounds that women are merely a subset of “mankind.” A similar belittlement of engineering is implied each time the profession is called “applied science.” The consequences in public image and, yes, in dollars-grants, salaries, and the like-are only too real. One might say that this is merely a matter of semantics but the fact is that words have tremendous force and implication. It follows that if science includes technology (as “man” is sometimes said to include “woman”), it is, by implication, a larger and more important topic. This is the “subsumption thesis,” the idea that the most significant aspects of technology have been subsumed under the discipline of science. But what I understood to be the main point of the essay struck me with great force. I stress the word cautious, because when it comes to the subtleties of feminist theory, I am not totally at ease. Parts of the speech I read with cautious interest.
0 kommentar(er)
