Feminists are a very diverse lot, but one thing they all share is a commitment to gender equality and a determination to bring it about. Feminist philosophers of science, along with feminist historians and sociologists of science and feminist scientists themselves, have focused especially on science, investigating both the ways science has helped to perpetuate gender inequality (their critical investigations) and the ways science can now help to eliminate it (their constructive investigations).

Critical Investigations

Feminists' critical investigations have dealt with fields as diverse as primatology and molecular biology, economics and medical research, and their claims have been jarring. For example, feminists have documented a history of misogyny in both psychology and biology. In psychology, a dominant theme has been the inferiority—the intellectual, social, sexual, and even moral inferiority—of women to men (Marecek 1995, Wilkinson 1997). In biology...