STAT lists “The Exceptions: Sixteen Women, MIT, and the Fight for Equality in Science,” by Kate Zernicke as a “best book on health and science to check out this summer.” The book focuses on Prof. Nancy Hopkins’ “career, which culminates in not only numerous scientific successes but also a collaborative effort with 15 other women faculty demonstrating evidence of gender discrimination at MIT,” explains STAT. “This work led to studies to address gender equity at nine other universities.”
Ms. Magazine reporter Kalindi Vora spotlights Prof. Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller and the legacy of her work in the field of science. “Through her work, [Keller] showed that objectivity, the key value of the sciences, is in fact always partially subjective,” writes Vora. “Her legacy demonstrates that diversifying the sciences will improve research and discovery.”
Boston Globe reporter Adri Pray spotlights the Women Take the Reel Film Festival, an annual celebration of female filmmakers that “features themes of gender, sexuality, race, feminism, and class.”
Prof. Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller, whose “studies on gender and science, the role of language in shaping how we see and study the world,” and analysis of key concepts in modern biology contributed to the history and philosophy of modern biology, has died at age 87, reports Marga Vicedo for Nature. Keller “proposed abandoning the idea that genes are master molecules that provide the blueprints for and direct the development of an organism,” writes Vicedo. Keller also showed how language, including people’s choice of metaphors, influences the directions of scientific research.”
Prof. Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller, “scientist, feminist scholar, and author of influential publications on genetics, developmental biology and scientific language,” has died at 87, reports Angela N. H. Creager for Science. “After training in physics and working in mathematical biology, Evelyn turned her attention to understanding how societal constructs, especially gender, guide science,” writes Creager. “She brought feminist insights into the history and philosophy of biology and sparked broader interdisciplinary conversations about the role of metaphor and rhetoric in science.”
Professor Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller, a MacArthur genius grant recipient, “theoretical physicist, philosopher and writer who viewed science through a feminist lens,” has died at 87, reports Georgina Ferry for The Guardian. Keller’s work explored “how the practice of science had come to be perceived as intrinsically masculine, and to think about what a gender-neutral science might look like,” writes Ferry.
In an article that appeared in The Washington Post, Prof. Kenda Mutongi explores how “what has emerged on the streets of Nairobi is a kind of civic pragmatism, a host of improvisatory and creative practices that amount to a supplementary accommodation which grants the poor a meager means of survival.” Mutongi adds: “through an inventive kind of civic pragmatism, the citizens of Nairobi find ways of ‘instrumentalizing disorder’ that allow them to survive. Somehow, in a roundabout way, people keep trying to get by.”
Prof. Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller, a MacArthur genius grant winner who brought attention to gender bias in science has died at 87, writes Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. “She was an icon,” says Prof. Sherry Turkle. Turkle notes that Keller’s “analysis was profound because you realized that the very words that you used to talk about doing an experiment — or learning, or what it meant to understand — was deeply gendered.”
Prof. Emerita Evelyn Fox Keller, who was known for her work as a “theoretical physicist, a mathematical biologist and, beginning in the late 1970s, a feminist theorist who explored the way gender pervades and distorts scientific inquiry,” has died, reports Clay Risen for The New York Times. “Keller trained as a physicist and focused much of her early work on applying mathematical concepts to biology,” writes Risen. “But as the feminist movement took hold, she began to think critically about how ideas of masculinity and femininity had affected her profession.”
Boston Globe reporters Maddie Browning and Abigail Lee highlight the “Women Take the Reel Film Festival,” an annual event that spotlights “women-directed films that grapple with social issues like gender or sexuality.” The festival is hosted by the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality at MIT, and each screening features a discussion and Q&A session.
The Women’s and Gender Studies program is hosting the annual “Women Take the Reel Film Festival” throughout March, reports Natalie Gale for Boston.com. “Each film or documentary is free and open to the public and focuses on women’s issues,” writes Gale.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Linda Griffith underscores the pressing need to invest in studying women’s health and menstruation science. “These were the attitudes society had about breast cancer decades ago; we didn’t talk about it. But then we finally focused on the science, and overcame the squeamishness about mentioning ‘breasts’ by creating a technical language that could be spoken without hesitation by anyone,” writes Griffith. “We need a similar scientific push for menstruation science, and a comfort level with the language that goes with it. It’s time.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with WGBH’s Arjun Singh about the negative economic consequences of restricting access to abortion. “What is clear from the economic evidence is that if abortion access is restricted, it’s going to hurt women’s prospects in the labor market,” says Gruber.
Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi spoke at MIT’s Open Endoscopy Forum, where she discussed her past experience with sexual assault and her personal fight with endometriosis. Lakshmi “has been a longtime advocate of raising awareness for endometriosis since being diagnosed as a teen,” write Megan Johnson and Joelle Goldstein for People.