Gendering Development

Feminist scholars of science and technology studies (STS) have revealed the manifold ways in which differences of sex, race, and gender structure the production of knowledge. They show how binaries – including feminine and masculine, male and female, active and passive, emotional and rational – imbue scientific practice with local meanings. And they show how gendered commitments shape global concepts like nature, body, and mind. Our panel adds development to this list. Relying upon various insights from feminist STS, each panelist will think through case studies in the history of medicine and the human sciences. Collectively, we explore the cross-cultural ways that gender organizes the scientific study of developmental processes. We foreground a transnational network of scientists who studied how cultures, bodies, and identities changed over time. Barbara Pohl begins in early twentieth century, examining how feminist anthropologists used “gender-critical” methods to understand cultural development in the American southwest. Lan A. Li moves to the mid-twentieth century, recounting how acupuncture analgesia disrupted developmental assumptions about the human body in greater China, Germany, and the United States. Susanne Schmidt lands in the late twentieth century, exploring the anti-feminist commitments of Euro-American developmental psychologists and psychoanalysts. Soha Bayoumi ends in contemporary Egypt, considering how "popular" sexologists have approached questions of modern femininity. Eli Nelson will provide a synthetic commentary, bringing insights from postcolonial and queer feminist STS to our discussion. Together, we will use gender to reinterpret developments in the history of science and medicine.