Alpha Bias from American Psychologist, 1988: The Meaning of Difference: Gender Theory, Postmodernism, and Psychology, by Rachel T. Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek Alpha bias is the exaggeration of differences. The view of male and female as different and opposite and thus as having mutually exclusive qualities transcends Western culture and has deep historical roots. Ideas of male-female opposition are present in Eastern philosophy and in the works of Western philosophers from Aristotle, Aquinas, Bacon, and Descartes to the liberal theory of Locke and the romanticism of Rousseau (Grimshaw, 1986). Women have been regarded as the repository of nonmasculine traits, an otherness men assign to women. Alpha bias has been the prevailing view in our culture and one that has also attracted many feminist theorists. The scientific model developed by Bacon was based on the distinction between male reason and its female opposites -- passion, lust, and emotion (Keller, 1985). Because women were restricted to the private sphere, they did not have knowledge available in the public realm. When women had knowledge, as in witchcraft, their knowledge was disparaged or repudiated. As Keller points out, womens knowledge was associated with insatiable lust; mens knowledge was assumed to be chaste. In Bacons model of science, nature was cast in the image of the female, to be subdued, subjected to the penetrating male gaze, and forced to yield up her secrets. Our purpose here is not to provide a critique of gender and science, which has been done elsewhere (cf. Keller, 1985; Merchant, 1980), but to draw attention to the long-standing association of women with nature and emotion, and men with their opposites, reason, technology, and civilization (Ortner, 1974). Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... you just dont know how much Im LOVING THIS CLASS!!!! :-)
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:14:22 +0000