Women, Gender and Sexuality in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine

Feminist inquiries into the history of science, medicine and technology have contributed novel understandings of how gender structures knowledge production, and how human experiences influence the perception of scientists for the past five decades. Research that centers women and gender in science continues to shape new fields and inquiries, and the field of feminist science studies continues to expand. Yet in the history of knowledge broadly construed, scholarship on gender, sexuality or women is often a secondary characteristic of the research and regarded as a niche topic within the larger frameworks of history of medicine, history of technology or scientific discipline. Moreover, most scholarship in history of science, medicine, and technology has yet to integrate knowledge and methods from queer and trans studies. As such, historians of these fields frequently miss opportunities to convene with other scholars whose work intersects with both the history of science, medicine and technology and studies of women, gender, and sexuality. This working group provides the infrastructure for such a community, where scholars can offer feedback and discussion towards a collective reflection of scholarship touching these areas.