Thursday, March 21, 2024, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Tomas Brage, Lund University
Abstract:
Physics is often seen, by Physicists not the least, as objective and we
believe we are surrounded by a "culture with no culture". At the same
time our history, class and board rooms are dominated by men. This is a
paradox that should awaken the curiosity of anyone. In this talk I will
give some examples on how you can approach the question in the title.
There have been several studies of Physicists and I will combine a
discussion of these with some general theory and personal experiences,
to paint a picture on how gender transgresses Physics, like all other
fields. By using the levels of change introduced by Schiebinger, I refer
to studies of e.g. Anthropologists, Sociologists and Psychologists. The
bias against women, since Science is stereotypically male, combined with
the "myth of meritocracy" could be key to understand the lack of women
in the field. The talk is intended as a translation of results from
recent (and historical) progress in Gender Science to an audience of
non-experts in the field, especially people Physicists. The aim is to
give some answers to the question in the title, but also to show that
this is an extremely interesting and active field of research.