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| author | Silvia V Ramirez |
| title | "Dura Mater" as the "Tough Mother": Gendered Language in Neuroscience Textbooks |
| abstract | Throughout the years, several feminist scholars have analyzed different aspects of science. Although their critiques have
different perspectives, most feminist scholars agree that science, as human constructed knowledge, is influenced by social values around race and gender.
Following similar feminist analysis of gynecology and molecular biology writing, this intersectional feminist analysis focuses on how the language used in
neuroscience textbooks perpetuates ideas about race and gender. Textbooks are authoritative sources that are not often questioned but that are greatly
influenced by the authors who write them. Specific images and text were selected from two undergraduate neuroscience textbooks, Brain and Behavior and
Neuroscience. The analysis of the images showed comparisons of people of color to animals, which positions people of color as inferior and erotic. The
images also portrayed white men more often than people of color establishing white men as the universal human being of science. The analysis of the texts
revealed explicit references to ideas about motherhood, womanhood and femininity, which reestablishes these ideas without challenging their construction and
(re)production. This analysis also explored the influence that the authors' identities have on the scientific writing itself. Their identities create a narrow
perspective of science, which influence the language we use and the knowledge that is (re)produced. It is essential that feminist scholars and new neuroscience
students continue to question science textbooks and become skeptical about the scientific knowledge that is taken for granted. |
| school | The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University |
| degree | B.A. (2017) |
| advisor | Jill Cermele |
| committee | Wendy Kolmar
Raul Rosales |
| full text | SVRamirez.pdf |
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