Why do women shun the sciences, as traditionally taught? Read below, and
you will gain insights. This selection concerns the second stage of
intellectual development that the four authors of WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING
discovered in their 5-year study of 135 women of age 16 to 60. 90 of the
women were college students at 6 colleges (including a community college).
Enjoy! And save it for future reference; I'm sure it'll come in handy, if
not for your students, then for your family and friends.
Cheers,
Jane
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3) STAGE 2: SUBJECTIVISM.
" For many of the women,the move away from silence and an
externally oriented perspective on knowledge and truth eventuates in a new
conception of truth as personal, private, and subjectively known or
intuited.... subjectivism is dualistic in the sense that there is still the
conviction that there are right answers; the fountain of truth simply has
shifted locale. Truth now resides within the person and can negate answers
that the outside world supplies." They live by their gut, their instincts;
they are their own authority. Firsthand experience is a valuable source of
knowledge.
Almost half of the 135 women that the authors interviewed were
predominantly subjectivist in their thinking. They were of all ages and
backgrounds. "We encountered women from 16 to 60 for whom the discovery of
subjective truth was the most recent and personally liberating event of
their lives... thus women themselves attached the notion of growth or
developmental progression to the shift from silence or conformity to
external definitions of truth into subjectivism."
The authors find two types of subjectivism. One is similar to
Perry's multiplists; and they call this group of young advantaged women
"hidden multiplists".
The authors discuss Perry's second stage, the multiplists: "Unlike
dualists, Perry's multiplists no longer mimic the teachers' opinion or
memorize verbatim the words of the textbook; now they often insist that
their opinion is as good as the teacher's. By the time he reaches college
age, the average advantaged child, like Perry's Harvard men, has learned
that everybody is different, everybody has opinions, and the business of
the classroom is to express loudly what you believe and feel."
The women 'hidden multiplists' have backgrounds and values similar
to privileged Harvard men. But "unlike the advantaged adolescent male, who
has had years of practice in exploring and testing social limits,the
adolescent female from a similar background has frequently been rewarded
for her quiet predictability, her competent though perhaps unimaginative
work, and her obedience and conformity. This kind of 'good girl', when
confronted with diversity and what seems to be the arbitrariness of truth
and values, sudenly begins to feel that her world in unanchored."
The result is HIDDEN multiplicity: "Unlike the male student, who
takes up the banner of multiplicity with vigor, the young woman usually
approaches multiplicity much more cautiously. Although she may be
exhilarated inside that she, too, can be freed from the stricture of
external authority, she also feels at times overwhelmed with options and
fearful of ultimately being alone in her choices."
One solution is "to retreat into anonymity and surface conformity
by adopting a wait-and-see attitude. They become the polite listeners, the
spectators who watch and listen but do not act. In the classroom, they
keep quiet while performing adequately...The ethic of the hidden
multiplists seems to be that they should hear people out, since everyone
has their own opinion of things and should be allowed to speak, but that
they are under no obligation to accept or even consider others' ideas
seriously."
The form that multiplicity (subjectivism) takes in these women,
then, "is not at all the masculine assertion that 'I have a RIGHT to my
opinion'; rather, it is the modest, inoffensive statement, 'It's JUST MY
OPINION'. Their intent is to communicate to others the limits, not the
power, of their own opinions, perhaps because they want to preserve their
attachments to others, not dislodge them."
The authors found the second type of subjectivism in women who were
attending experimental or community colleges or were clients of social
service agencies. They were of all ages. This large range in ages is
contrary to statements by Piaget, Kohlberg, Erikson, and Blos, who noted
that this shift in orientation toward authority from external to internal
is a central task of adolescence. Similarly, Perry at Harvard "locates the
shift from dualism into multiplicity/subjectivism as occurring in early
adolescence."
The delay in development long past adolescence is probably
explained by the fact that "the majority of the women we classified as
subjective knowers did not come from supportive, stable, and
achievement-oriented families but grew up in families that were either less
advantaged, more permissive, or frankly more chaotic than average." Failed
male authority was a prime theme: "...for many subjectivist women we
interviewed, there was an absence of stable male authority in their
personal lives. Their sense of disappointment and outrage was pervasive...
" Sexual abuse was shockingly common: of their 75 subjectivists, 38% of
the women in schools and 65% of the women being helped in social agencies
told them "that they had been subject to either incest, rape, or sexual
seduction by a male in authority over them - fathers, uncles, teachers,
doctors, clerics, bosses." "They tended to locate the trauma in time at an
earlier period during which they had no sense of voice and an unquestioned
trust in the authorities of their life."
Both groups of subjectivists "ultimately come to disregard the
knowledge and advice of remote experts. They insist on the value of
personal, firsthand experience; and ... if they listen at all to others, it
is to those who are most like themselves in terms of life experiences."
"Truth, for subjective knowers, is an intuitive reaction -
something experienced, not thought out, something felt rather than actively
pursued or constructed. These women do not see themselves as part of the
process, as constructors of truth, but as conduits through which truth
emerges. The criterion for truth they most often refer to is
'satisfaction' or 'what feels comfortable to me' They do not mention that
rational procedures play a part in the search for truth."
"When faced with controversy, subjectivist women becme strictly
pragmatic - 'what works best for me'. They refer back to the centrality of
their personal experience, whether they are talking about right choices for
themselves or others. They insist that, since everyone's experience is
unique, no one has the right to speak for others or to judge what others
have to say."
"In situations in which the inner voice is silent and personal
experience is lacking, subjective knowers adopt a cafeteria approach to
knowledge, an attitude of 'let's try a little bit of everything until
something comes up that works for me'.There are no thought out procedures
in the search for lurking truths. The process is magical and mysterious:
'It's like the truth hits you dead in the face, and it knocks you out. When
you come to, that is it.'"
"The passionate rejection of science and scientists, while not true
of all subjective knowers, was very common. Whereas silent and
authority-oriented women often perceived scientists as ultimate authority
and looked to science for final answers, after the onset of subjective
knowing women often became alienated from things scientific. In many of
our interviews with women currently in school, the shift into subjectivism
was accompanied by a shift in academic major from science to the arts or
humanities."
"The point at which individual women begin to express negative
attitudes toward abstraction, theory, and science differs from person to
person, although in many cases it is anchored in a concrete interaction
with a specific teacher or doctor or male acquaintance from the past. Some
of the young students we interviewed recalled their frustration with a
particular instructor; mothers often looked back on their struggle with a
doctor over the proper treatment for a child."
Many women subjectivists "expressed a distrust of books and the
written word in favor of learning throgh direct sensory experience or
personal involvement with the objects of study. In contrast to the women
at the position of received knowledge, who allowed the words of others to
guide them, subjectivists described themselves as avoiding the words of
others: 'I make up my mind based on my own feelings most of the time. When
you read someone else's words, they may influence you.'"...Subjectivists
often prefer to express themselves nonverbally or artistically so as to
bypass the categorizing and labeling that the use of language implies.
Needless to say, these attitudes profoundly affect the behavior and
reception of subjectivists in academic circles. Faculty often perceive
subjectivist students as arbitrary, emotional, overly personal, concrete,
and unmanageable. A teacher may occasionally be intrigued and challenged
by their intensity and elusiveness, but faculty interest is apt to turn to
frustration when the student seems unwilling to acknowledge that classic
texts or winning arguments are relevant to her learning."
Jane Jackson, Prof. of Physics, Scottsdale Comm.College (on leave)
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics, ASU, Tempe, AZ 85287.
602-965-8438/fax:965-7331. http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling.html
Genius must transform the world, that the world may produce more genius.