Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Exhaustion and Scepticism Within The Scientific Community: The Case of Women Scientists and their Peers in India


Affiliations
1 School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISc Campus, Bengaluru 560 012, India
 

The article examines the discourse of ‘women in science’ in India, its tendencies to focus on the linear relation between women, science and development and its emphasis on ‘increasing the number of women in science’. By doing so, the paper argues that this emphasis produces two predominant experiences – exhaustion and skepticism – among the scientific work-force in India. It offers an ethnographic account of these two affects and argues that closer attention to such experiences can contribute to the discourse of ‘women in science’, which is caught between failures and achievements of women scientists in India.

Keywords

Development, Exhaustion, Gender, Scepticism, Women in Science.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Man and Woman. Curr. Sci., 1935, 4, 263–264.
  • Ellis, H., Man and Woman: A Study of Human Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characters, London, W. Heinemann Ltd., 1934.
  • Sharma, Shobhana, Career of women scientists. Curr. Sci., 1995, 68, 24–26.
  • Rao, Sumathi, Women scientists: a contradiction in terms? Curr. Sci., 1999, 76, 24–26.
  • Gupta, Archana, Opportunities for women in science – the CSIR (extra mural re-search) experience. Curr. Sci., 1997, 72, 549–551.
  • Balaram, P., Women in science. Curr. Sci., 1999, 77, 1565–1566.
  • Godbole, R. M., Women in science. Curr. Sci., 1999, 77, 1567.
  • Gupta, N., Kemelgor, C., Fuchs, S. and Etzkowitz, H., Triple burden on women in science: a cross-cultural analysis. Curr. Sci., 2005, 89, 1382–1386.
  • Bal, V., Nowhere near the glass ceiling. Econ. Polit. Wkly, 2004, 39, 3647–3653.
  • Gupta, N. and Sharma, A. K., Patrifocal concerns in the lives of women in academic science: continuity of tradition and emerging challenges. Indian J. Gend. Stud., 2003, 10, 279–305.
  • Kurup, Anitha, Mathew, Leya and Singh, Taniya, Taking the next steps (Meeting report on NIAS’ collaboration with women in STEM in India). Curr. Sci., 2017, 112, 1986–1987.
  • Gregg, M. and Seigworth, G. J., An inventory of shimmers. In The Affect Theory Reader, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, USA, 2010, pp. 14–15.
  • Briggs, C. L., Introduction. In Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research, Cambridge University Press, New York, USA, 1986, pp. 1–30.
  • Kumar, N. and Burton, A. M. (eds.), Women and Science in India: A Reader, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2009.
  • Gupta, N., Perceptions of the work environment: the issue of gender in Indian scientific research institutes. Indian J. Gender Stud., 2016, 23, 437–466.
  • Subramaniam, B., Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Illinois, USA, 2014.
  • Association of Academies of Sciences in Asia, Women in Science and Technology in Asia, Panmun Education, Gyeonggi-Do, 2015.
  • Godbole, R. M. and Ramaswamy, R., Women scientists in India. In Women in Science and Technology in Asia, Panmun Education, Gyeonggi-Do, 2015, pp. 7–84.
  • Mazumdar, V. and Sorkar, L., Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, Government of India Press, New Delhi, 1974.
  • Bhatt, Ela R. and Armaity S. Desai, Shram Shakti: Report of the National Commission on Self-Employed Women and Women in the Informal Sector, Government of India Press, New Delhi, 1988.
  • Krishnaraj, M., Women and Science: Selected Essays, Himalaya Publishing House, Bombay, 1991, 1st edn.
  • Poonacha, V. and Gopal, M., Women and science: an examination of women’s access to and retention in scientific careers, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai, 2004.
  • Godbole, R. M. and Ramaswamy, R., Lilavati’s Daughters: The Women Scientists of India, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, 2008.
  • Swarup, A. and Dey, T., Women in science and technology: an Indian scenario. Curr. Sci., 2020, 119(5), 744–748.
  • Sur, A., Dispersed Radiance: Caste, Gender, and Modern Science in India, Navayana, New Delhi, 2011.
  • Krishna, S. and Chadha, G., Feminists and Science: Critiques and Changing Perspectives in India Vols 1&2, Sage, 2017.
  • Subramanian, J., Perceiving and producing merit: gender and doing science in India. Indian J. Gender Stud., 2007, 14, 259–284.
  • Sundararaman, I., ‘World would move ahead!’: exploring the learning of science and aspirations in the urban context through a case study. Cult. Stud. Of. Sci. Educ., 2020, 15, 775–792.

Abstract Views: 265

PDF Views: 124




  • Exhaustion and Scepticism Within The Scientific Community: The Case of Women Scientists and their Peers in India

Abstract Views: 265  |  PDF Views: 124

Authors

Cheshta Arora
School of Social Sciences, National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISc Campus, Bengaluru 560 012, India

Abstract


The article examines the discourse of ‘women in science’ in India, its tendencies to focus on the linear relation between women, science and development and its emphasis on ‘increasing the number of women in science’. By doing so, the paper argues that this emphasis produces two predominant experiences – exhaustion and skepticism – among the scientific work-force in India. It offers an ethnographic account of these two affects and argues that closer attention to such experiences can contribute to the discourse of ‘women in science’, which is caught between failures and achievements of women scientists in India.

Keywords


Development, Exhaustion, Gender, Scepticism, Women in Science.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv120%2Fi11%2F1679-1685