Gender, Germs, and Dirt: A Case Study of Properly Politicised Science

This presentation is part of the Feminist Perspectives in the Sciences: Epidemiology track. The relatively recent increase in cases of allergies and asthma, especially in industrialised nations of the north and west, has been explained by the “hygiene hypothesis”—viz., that increased cleanliness and sanitation have unintended negative consequences for immune health—an hypothesis that has received robust epidemiological support (e.g., Platts-Mills 2002). Over the last few years, support for the hypothesis has increased with the discovery that populations regularly exposed to certain parasitic worms (helminths) have very low incidence of chronic inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s (Elliot, Summers, and Weinstock 2007). Certain kinds of depression are also now being explained using the hygiene hypothesis. Recent studies show that some depressed people lack a type of bacteria found in the gut of healthy individuals (Rook and Lowry 2008). One common denominator that has received no critical attention by hygiene hypothesis researchers is that women are over-represented in all the relevant clinical populations – women have higher rates than men of asthma, allergies, the majority of auto-immune disorders (Bird and Rieker 1999, 749), and depression (Altemus 2006). While explanations based on the social and cognitive effects of sexism have been used with some success to account for the latter difference (Kuehner 2003), some of the unexplained variation in depression rates between men and women might be accounted for using the hygiene hypothesis. This would be an even more promising route if hygiene standards could be linked reliably to gender socialization. What feminists philosophers know is that such a link has in fact been made available through the work of feminist sociologists and other researchers who study the play behaviors and play environments of boys and girls (e.g., Pomerleau, et al 1990). These studies document the higher societal standards of cleanliness for girls, generally, compared to boys. Variables such as ethnicity, and class (especially in terms of urban vs. rural settings) inform the pattern. In (forthcoming) I reviewed the case for the hygiene hypothesis, and documented the over-representation of women in the relevant clinical populations. I then used feminist and other sociological research to argue that, as a general rule, girls are faced with higher standards of cleanliness than are boys, and that the difference in standards might play an important explanatory role in the gender differences reported in asthma, allergies, auto-immune disorders, generally, and depression. I concluded that social preferences for cleanliness in girls, generally, have likely left them, on average, less exposed than are boys, to an array of healthful germs, bacteria and helminths, with the result that girls and women are more likely to suffer from allergies, asthma, auto-immune diseases, and depression, than are boys and men. In this essay, I briefly discuss the hygiene hypothesis, and then show how feminist political commitments make the link between gender and the hygiene hypothesis visible. I argue that, by making the link visible, these political commitments have the effect of increasing the empirical adequacy of the immunological research; reconceiving of relevant sources of evidence; and opening up further avenues for immunological study. Traditional analytic philosophy of science has little to say about politically-fuelled interventions like these, beyond discouraging them. Luckily, there are a variety of feminist analyses of the role of political values in science that can provide helpful commentary, and I survey a number of these analyses here (e.g., Longino 1993, 2001; Anderson 2004). I conclude by reviewing the case for radical (feminist) interpretation—a feminist approach to analytic philosophy of language that, I have argued, provides a particularly effective rationalization for feminist political interventions in science

A Hasty Retreat From Evidence: The Recalcitrance of Relativism in Feminist Epistemology

While feminist epistemologists have made important contributions to the deconstruction of the traditional representationalist model, some elements of the Cartesian legacy remain. For example, relativism continues to play a role in the underdetermination thesis used by Longino and Keller. Both argue that because scientific theories are underdetermined by evidence, theory choice must be relative to interpretive frameworks. Utilizing Davidson's philosophy of language, I offer a nonrepresentationalist alternative to suggest how relativism can be more fully avoided

Pragmatism and Embodiment as Resources for Feminist Interventions in Science

Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in science. Intemann properly endorses feminist standpoint theory over Longino's empiricism, insofar as the former better addresses embodiment. I argue that a pragmatist analysis further improves standpoint theory. Pragmatism avoids the radical subjectivity that otherwise leaves us unable to account for our ability to share scientific knowledge across bodies of different kinds. It allows us to argue for the inclusion, not just of the knowledge produced from marginalized bodies, but of marginalized people themselves

Fact/Value Holism, Feminist Philosophy, and Nazi Cancer Research

Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literature. However, that facts are bearers of empirical content, while values are not, remains a firmly-held distinction. I support a more thorough-going holism: both facts and values can function as empirical claims, related in a seamless, semantic web. I address a counterexample from Kourany (2010) where facts and values seem importantly discontinuous, namely, the simultaneous support by the Nazis of scientifically sound cancer research and morally unsound political policies. I conclude that even by the criteria available at the time, Nazi cancer research was empirically weak, and the weaknesses in their research are continuous with their moral failures in just the ways predicted by the holism I support

Pragmatism and Embodiment as Resources for Feminist Interventions in Science

Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in science. Intemann properly endorses feminist standpoint theory over Longino’s empiricism, insofar as the former better addresses embodiment. I argue that a pragmatist analysis further improves standpoint theory: Pragmatism avoids the radical subjectivity that otherwise leaves us unable to account for our ability to share scientific knowledge across bodies of different kinds; and it allows us to argue for the inclusion, not just of the knowledge produced from marginalised bodies, but of the marginalised themselves

Fact/Value Holism, Feminist Philosophy, and Nazi Cancer Research

Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literature. However, that facts are bearers of empirical content, while values are not, remains a firmly-held distinction. I support a more thorough-going holism: both facts and values can function as empirical claims, related in a seamless, semantic web. I address a counterexample from Kourany (2010) where facts and values seem importantly discontinuous, namely, the simultaneous support by the Nazis of scientifically sound cancer research and morally unsound political policies. I conclude that even by the criteria available at the time, Nazi cancer research was empirically weak, and the weaknesses in their research are continuous with their moral failures in just the ways predicted by the holism I support