Event Series

This lecture series offers an introduction to the relationship between gender and science, with a focus on the specific intersections with the sciences taught at ETH. It is designed to acquaint participants from all scientific backgrounds with the various ways in which gender perspectives matter for specific scientific disciplines, as well as for science in general.

There is agreement across academic disciplines today that gender influences and structures the production of knowledge and that scientific knowledge production in turn shapes gender notions. Even within “hard” sciences such as biology, physics, engineering, etc., gender is a significant factor in determining what counts as “objective” knowledge, who can know it, what kind of knowledge is produced, or how this knowledge is acquired and justified. Feminist research aims to reveal how dominant conceptions of science and knowledge practices disadvantage women*, and other subordinate groups, with the goal of reforming these practices. An important part of feminist critique is to show that such efforts substantially improve the overall quality of research.

In a series of guest lectures, scholars from different scientific disciplines provide accessible insights into the intersection between gender studies and the guest lecturers’ respective fields of research. The lecture series thus encourages learning from concrete examples rather than abstract theory. The goal is for participants to be able to compare different approaches used to speak about gender and other types of bias in scientific research and to eventually apply relevant concepts and methods to critically evaluate practices their own disciplines of study and research.