In the late 1950s Evelyn Fox Keller, then a PhD student, was the object of a rather successful demoralization campaign in the Department of Physics at Harvard University (Working It Out, 77-91). Why she was admitted to the program if her abilities were not in fact trusted is a fair question whose answer, I wager, is more complex than “so they could put her to the test and ‘prove’ she was not worthy” (although there may have been an element of this involved).
I am interested in her story because it is validating – someone else has had an experience related to mine and succumbed to it, at least for a time. Keller had sensibilities the field had dedicated itself to weeding out, in the interest of creating a certain image and consolidating power (84-85).
She was also quite male identified or perhaps patriarchally educated, seeking male intellectual approval and complicit in some ways with the idea that men were more capable. This contributed to her vulnerability to, and confusion in the face of the campaign that was mounted to demonstrate to her that she could not do.
I find it interesting as well that Keller, at several points in the essay, is at pains to make sure the reader knows that she acknowledges that she could have handled things differently at that time, and perhaps better. It is as though she had been told so many times that it must have been a problem of her own that she has to let us know she has considered this very seriously.
The point is that it was a political problem, external to her and initiated by others, and not a weakness of character on her part. Writing in 1970s, she explains that twenty years before conflicts and obstacles were considered internal and individual, not societal (90-91). It appears to me that from the 1980s forward, we returned to this ideological prism.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 