Doing Feminist Science/Feminists Doing Science: An interview with Dr. Sari van Anders, Founder of Gap Junction Science Part II

Continued from Part I. In Part II, Dr. van Anders discusses her website, www.gapjunctionscience.org.



How did Gap Junction Science come about? Prior to Gap Junction, how did you find and network with feminist scientists?



I became really interested in the doing of feminist science – it felt very hard for me to figure things out, and there wasn’t that much community of actual feminist scientists. I wanted to develop a place where feminist science could be discussed – both practice and theory. I sometimes hear people talk about the theory as if it is practice. Of course it’s relevant, but you know what they say about theory and practice: in theory, they’re the same, in practice, they’re not. I was lucky that while I was thinking about these things, there was a call for grants at UM from our ADVANCE program for online networks in science that promote diversity. Feminism isn’t necessarily diverse, but the feminist science I envision at its heart attends to diversity. So, I wanted a space where scientists didn’t have to defend their very identity, and where feminist beliefs were a starting point, not a debate. I hoped that Gap Junction Science could be a space where feminist scientists could challenge ourselves, learn more, develop methods, and engage in a shared project. Prior to Gap Junction Science, and still, I do a lot of grassroots networking – emailing, meeting, etc. I like that ‘bottom-up’ approach and I like that now I also have a ‘top-down’ source too.

Via OffWorld Designs

How do you see visitors to the site using Gap Junction?



At first, I thought of it more as a social networking site, and this was influenced by colleagues who led other sites where the social networking features were predominant. But, visitors to Gap Junction Science seem to be doing a lot more reading than engaging, from our statistics. I think people are using it to learn more about feminism and how feminism and science could come together. After all, almost all scientific training explicitly or implicitly teaches that the two cannot come together, so I think it has more of an educational component than I first anticipated. People are reading it to try to flesh out their own understanding of feminist science and how to talk about it, explain and ‘defend’ their own passions to others, and incorporate new ways of seeing and doing into their own science.



Do you think it’s important to have female mentors? Do you see Gap Junction fostering mentorship?



I usually say that what matters is having feminist mentors. I find the point in Donna Haraway’s Cyborg manifesto as really useful here: she calls for alliances based on affinities rather than identities. So, choosing a mentor based on gender is choosing based on identity, but what does that identity represent? I don’t think all women are one unified essential group. Neither are feminists! But at least with feminism you have an inkling of the politics and sympathies and beliefs. That said, sometimes you really need identity-specific advice, and that can be hard to get from someone who doesn’t share your social location. But a good feminist mentor should be able to guide you to someone who can give you what they can’t. I will also say that I have repeatedly seen a very special bitterness reserved for mentors who share a social location but not an affinity; there’s an expectation that the mentor will ‘get’ the mentee and, when they don’t, it feels like way more of a violation. There’s nothing worse than not finding a home where you thought one would be. So, I recommend a feminist mentor and, for identity-related issues, going to someone with ‘epistemic privilege.’ That is someone who has critically engaged with their social location and positionality. In other words, find someone who has insights about the lived experiences you share, not just someone who shares the social location itself. So find someone who understands the issues you’re facing, when you can. That person is going be able to help you navigate difference in some remarkable ways. I think that Gap Junction Science kind of acts as impersonal indirect mentorship, especially about topics where local knowledge and expertise might be missing. For example, I’ve had a few colleagues now tell me that they’ve frantically read the site before teaching or giving a talk on issues around gender, sex, feminism, and science. That did my heart good! Knowing that it could be useful in that way makes me realize how much more useful I could make it to that end.

Courtesy of Indiana University

What is your vision for the future of Gap Junction Science?



Well, definitely world domination, first. After that, milkshake machines for everyone! Then, who knows?! Just kidding (never about milkshakes). We’re in the process of thinking more about this, now that we see how the site is being used in the world. We’d like to make it much more of a resource, now that I know that it’s being used that way. I’d like to see more involvement of trainees – grad students especially. I’d love to have more people involved in posting, and invested in the site. Finally, I think a major goal is to be a ‘third space’ for exploring and how-to’s of creating feminist science knowledge. My vision for Gap Junction Science is to be a place where scientists can ‘catch up’ on feminist science and where feminist scholars can engage with the day-to-day issues of feminist science as well.







Want to cite this post?



Bowers, M. (2014). Doing Feminist Science/Feminists Doing Science: An interview with Dr. Sari van Anders, Founder of Gap Junction Science Part II. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2014/03/doing-feminist-sciencefeminists-doing_4175.html

Doing Feminist Science/Feminists Doing Science: An interview with Dr. Sari van Anders, Founder of Gap Junction Science Part I

Dr. van Anders

*Editor's note. The title of this post is the title of Sari van Anders' talk sponsored by Emory Women in Neuroscience on March 20th. This post is the first of a two-part series.



Mallory Bowers, a 5th year graduate student at Emory University and President of Emory Women in Neuroscience, interviewed Dr. Sari van Anders an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, for the Neuroethics Women Leaders group. Dr. van Anders received her Ph.D. in Biological and Cognitive Psychology from Simon Fraser University. Her current research program focuses on “social neuroendocrinology, intimacy (sexuality/pair bonding, nurturance), evolution, health, gender/sex and sexual diversity, and research and feminist science practice." The interview will be published in a two part presentation. In Part I, she discusses her path to becoming a critical feminist scientist, the pitfalls of research on sex/gender differences, and how her work fits into bioethics.



Can you talk a little bit about your evolution as a feminist scientist - who or what influenced your feminism?



A very brief selected slice: I was reading feminist science studies in undergrad, but there were no courses on it. I was also so feminist-identified that I didn’t understand the value of taking feminist courses (I thought they were to teach feminism in general, and didn’t understand what feminist scholarship was). I knew I was interested in evolution, sex, gender, and socialization, but it seemed to me that you either studied one (sex/evolution) or the other (gender/socialization). This was actually a pretty fair assumption as there were almost no places to get mentoring about how to incorporate the two into one research program. In graduate school I was doing more work on biological determinism of sex, and then moved to social modulation of hormones. It was really hard for me to see how I could bring the reading I was doing on feminist science studies into my actual science practice, and most of the scientists who were interested in feminist scholarship had left science practice, so there were no guidelines about the day-to-day of feminist science (i.e., there was lots on epistemological approaches but almost nothing on epistemic approaches to feminist science). I kept reading and thinking, noticing little things I could do and claiming them for feminist science. In graduate school, I started an interdisciplinary group at my PhD institution to bring together people interested in gender and sex. And, I started teaching courses that brought the topics together (intersexualities; biopsychological approaches to gender/sex). Slowly it came together, with many missteps and much influence from seeing important ideas in feminist science studies, realizing how I could play them out in my work, and so on. I was already doing feminist science when I took my joint position in Psychology and Women’s Studies here at the University of Michigan, but being more immersed in feminist scholarship has been a major boon to my feminist science practice.



Karen Rommelfanger and I have discussed a bit about breaking molds as it pertains to creating roles and/or careers that don’t necessarily exist. How were you able to break the mold in terms of creating your research program? What advice do you have for individuals looking to “break the mold”?



I think one key is boldness, which I also think is an important contributor to success in science in general. I think an openness to being wrong, to looking dumb, to sharing new ideas, and for learning new languages and perspectives (not just new facts) is also critical. I think being very productive is useful, because publications are the major currency of science, so that will help people overlook your ‘eccentricities’ to some extent (and being feminist and doing feminist science isn’t not seen that way). Having minor authority issues never hurts either, when it comes to breaking molds. Finally, I remember a sort of endless search for mentors and models of how to do feminist science, and I know students are still doing this same thing. There are so few, though, that a lot of it has to be experiential and learning. When you’re breaking the mold, you may want to find another mold that fits you, but that’s the whole point of mold-breaking! There is no premade mold. You have to create your space. I think I started moving forward a lot more quickly once I realized there was no one to ask permission from, no one who was going to tell me I was on the right or wrong track, and that, yes, I would sometimes make mistakes (and hopefully learn from them). So, independence is really useful. But so is collegiality, and an interest in sharing ideas and concepts and learning from others.

van Anders 2013

Your work combines methodologies from biology and the humanities, although your background is in psychology. Was it difficult becoming proficient in reading and writing from a humanities perspective? What advice do you have for someone with wet lab training that would like to become more proficient in humanities work?



It was difficult. It took a lot of time, a lot of talking, a lot of reading, and a lot of trying. Some of my initial attempts never came to fruition because I just wasn’t ready – the ideas were ready, but I wasn’t ready to articulate them yet. My colleagues at the University of Michigan in feminist scholarship have been crucial, as have others at conferences and over email. It’s kind of like learning languages – the more immersion, the better it goes (I assume). If I let my lack of language and imposter syndrome get in the way of interacting with people, I would never have been able to eventually become fluent. So, my advice would be to read, read, read, read and talk, talk, talk, without being worried about saying the wrong things. Hold onto observations and insights until you’re ready to articulate them. And interact with humanists! Unfortunately, our training as scientists generally implicitly or explicitly teaches us that science is the only valuable epistemology in town. It’s certainly the dominant one right now, but there is so much to gain from other disciplines.



What is the biggest misconception about your research?



One misconception about my research is that the biology is biologically deterministic; I work hard to separate the two and help people understand that, though the two often overlap, they don’t need to. Another misconception is that it’s about women only. That’s an interesting one because any research with women becomes known as being only about women, even when it involves men and gender-diverse people too. So I work hard to help people understand that the presence of women among my participants doesn’t somehow erase the presence of men in my studies. Another misconception is that human research is only relevant to humans – to address this, I work hard to explain how I am studying human particularities alongside comparative insights. I see humans as both specific and as another species. In other words, I have my cake (humans are unique) and eat it too (humans are animals).



What is the most common mistake researchers make in interpreting sex differences?



The most common mistake is calling these differences ‘sex’ differences in the first place! Most human behavioral science literally has nothing to say about causal routes and whether a difference reflects innate evolved factors (like sex) or social forces (like gender). Somehow, the presence of biological measures seems to muddy this, as if the mere measurement of biology somehow precludes socialization. But biological measures and biological causation have very little to say to each other. For example, if women show one behavior-hormone association and men show another, is that because these hormone-behavior associations evolved differently? Or do they reflect very different socialization histories? It could be both or either, but a biological measure does not at all point to causation even as it’s interpreted that way. This is why I use ‘gender/sex’ to help highlight that anything we study in humans is a result of a trajectory that includes biological and social influences.

Courtesy of The New York Times

How can we overcome mistakes when it comes to interpreting sex differences – should scientists be required to take a gender studies course?



Well, what’s interesting is that this mistake – mistaking biological difference for biological causation is, arguably, a scientific mistake. Scientists should be able to recognize that correlation does not imply causation without a gender studies course. But of course feminist science studies elegantly (and depressingly) demonstrate, time and time again, that when it comes to gender, sex, and biological determinism, there seems to a ‘scientific override’ button that gets pushed. I think a critical component of addressing these issues is having more feminist construction of science alongside the important pillars of feminist critiques and deconstructions of science. We need more feminists up in there (there = science). To my mind, scientists are most easily swayed by science and biolegible arguments, so changing science is something that feminist scientists can contribute to.



How do you see your research as it relates to the field of neuroethics?



I do a lot of work on testosterone and sexual desire in social context, and this is relevant to ongoing medicalization of low sexual desire and using testosterone to treat it. My work has a lot to say about this in a way that is relevant to neuroethics, because biomedical research tends to be focused on heterosexual women’s intercourse rates with male partners. No one is prescribing testosterone to increase masturbation, increase desire for hook-ups, heighten gay men’s desire, etc. So the discussion of ‘hypoactive sexual desire disorder’ is very rooted in a view of increasing married women’s desire for penile penetration. You don’t have be a critical feminist to see those problematics at all and as ripe for neuroethics investigations.



I also think that my work calls into question the assumptions of what makes for scientific methods, measures, or questions. For example, I have demonstrated that attending to social construction – typically the sine qua non of an oxymoron if paired with science! – is critical to scientific research with hormones and social behavior. I have argued that our cultural discomfort with vaginal fluid has precluded its use in science, which has limited our ability to address important theoretical and applied questions relevant to sexual health and HIV/AIDS (van Anders 2013). And, I have used qualitative work as a model of understanding phenomena relevant to bioscience. Finally, I’ve written about thinking social for bioscientific work on bisexuality (van Anders 2012). The narrowing of our methods, measures, and questions means that neuroscience has a correspondingly limited ability to answer and ask rich questions. I think that has implications for neuroethics: how do our science-culture blinders, discomforts, and pre-theoretical assumptions lead to research that may skirt the limits of ethical practice precisely because bioscientists are taught to ignore social factors?





References

van Anders SM. Nomenclature and knowledge-culture, or, we don’t call semen ‘penile mucous’. Psychology & Sexuality (2013)



van Anders SM. From one bioscientist to another: guidelines for researching and writing about bisexuality for the lab and biosciences. Journal of Bisexuality (2012), pp. 393-403.





Mallory Bowers is a 5th year Neuroscience doctoral candidate working with Dr. Kerry Ressler at Emory University. Mallory is using a mouse model of exposure-based psychotherapy to better understand the neurobiology of learned fear. Specifically, her research focuses on a putative interaction between the cholecystokinin and endogenous cannabinoid systems that may underlie the extinction of cued fear. Outside of the laboratory, Mallory is very interested in issues at the intersection of gender and neuroscience. Mallory is the current president of Emory Women in Neuroscience (E-WIN).







Want to cite this post?



Bowers, M. (2014). Doing Feminist Science/Feminists Doing Science: An interview with Dr. Sari van Anders, Founder of Gap Junction Science Part I. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2014/03/doing-feminist-sciencefeminists-doing_4603.html

Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari van Anders

Dr. Sari van Anders

After attending the Neurogenderings Conference in Vienna, where participants debated whether it would be
possible to conduct feminist neuroscience research, I decided it would be
useful to interview an actual practicing feminist neuroscientist – and I knew
just who to talk to. Dr. Sari van Anders is an Assistant Professor in Psychology and Women’s Studies
at the University of Michigan. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological &
Cognitive Psychology from Simon Fraser University. In her social neuroendocrinology lab at the University of Michigan, she conducts feminist neuroscience
research on a variety of topics, with a principle focus on the social
modulation of testosterone via sexuality, partnering/pair bonding, and
nurturance. She has received grants from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and the American Institute of Bisexuality and has published articles in Hormones and Behavior, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and Psychoneuroendocrinology, among others.

I
asked her to talk about what she sees as feminist about her own behavioral
neuroscience research, how she has secured support for her work from other behavioral
neuroendocrinologists, and what advice she would give to early career
scientists who want to incorporate feminist concerns into their research. Read
on for Dr. Van Anders’ thoughtful and thought-provoking answers.

I have heard you
describe your research as a behavioral neuroscientist as ‘feminist.’ Can you
explain what you see as feminist about your behavioral neuroscience research?

Feminist science practice, like other aspects of feminism
(e.g., activism, praxis, theory, etc.), is not one thing. So the ways in which
I position my work as feminist may not be the same as the ways in which other
scientists might position their science, or the ways nonscientists might
position my work. With that caveat in mind, onwards! One important feminist
facet of my work is that I see science as one way to approach knowledge
creation/production, as opposed to the only way or the most valuable way.
Science can help us understand certain aspects of certain phenomena and is
valuable as such, but is more valuable when we recognize its limitations and
acknowledge the value of insights gained from other approaches.

Another important feminist facet of my work is that I see
vast gulfs of difference between bioscience and biologically determinist
thinking; so, I separate out natural from material, innate from trait, must
from is, etc. Our bodies and the biological systems inside of them are
recipients of socialization in the same ways our behaviors and cultural
practices are. Social modulation of hormones is a major thrust of my research
program… how could I (or we) think of our bodily systems as only preprogrammed
when we increasingly know how each biobody exists in a social context? A major part
of feminist thought critiques the split between gender and sex because it has
in large part left sex (i.e., biology; nature) as a fixed, natural, acultural
entity. Part of the work my research does is to expand notions of
sex/nature/biology such that we see biological properties as malleable and
socially located.

Another way my work is feminist is that I think about
inequities while I do my work, including how social location might affect the
questions I ask and my own understandings of phenomenon, but also how a gender
or intersectional lens might help me understand my findings better (which it almost
always does). Critically engaging with one’s positionality has been called
‘strong objectivity.’ Theory compelled me and my own research has convinced me
that objectivity works closer to how we want it to when we constantly engage
with and interrogate our own biases and positions.

My work is also feminist because it’s informed by feminist
thought, especially feminist science studies, even when the work is not focused
on gender/sex. It’s feminist because I don’t think that science leads to
simpler answers; I’m not, and I don’t think science intrinsically is (except in
practice), reductionist. I study hormones and this research often leads me to
explode phenomenological categories. For example, we found that cuddling
increased testosterone – and followed up by theorizing and studying both
cuddling and testosterone with fascinating and – to my mind – transformative
findings about both. Similarly, we found that sexual desire is linked to
testosterone in sometimes counterintuitive ways, which has led us to ask: what are people desiring when they desire? These
are far from reductionist implications, because they leave us with more
questions about hormones but also the social phenomenon we’re studying (rather
than simplifying them). The world is complex, and science helps us appreciate
how complex.

van Anders has found that cuddling can increase testosterone levels in women

Image from Flickr by malloreigh

I also see my work as
feminist because I think about it as community- and alliance-building. If
knowledge production were collaborative rather than competitive, what would it
look like? We try to build those sorts of relationships with colleagues, junior
and senior, to make science what we wish it could be (i.e., where we constantly
push at the clarity and meaningfulness of our understandings of phenomena
together, critically, constructively, enthusiastically, and connected to lived
experiences). Finally, I think of my work as feminist because the knowledge we
create is situated, as I and my lab
happily acknowledge that our findings make sense in this time and place because
they were produced in this time and place.

Can you say a little
bit about what you mean by “inclusive research and lab practices”?

I’ve been thinking about inclusive research and lab
practices since early graduate school, and I’ve come to define it for myself as
an ongoing process that involves thinking about how my lab operates, research
methods, and science communication approaches. I could go on and on about this,
and love to, but will limit this to some concrete examples. In the lab, e.g., I
think about how I recruit people, how I make clear the implicit and explicit
‘rules’ of labs and my lab for the people who work in my lab and come from
diverse backgrounds, how diverse perspectives will help us get closer to more
truthful and rounded knowledge. I think about how we treat each other in ways
that are respectful of difference, sameness, and culture, and are realistic
about power.

In my methods, I think a lot about how we recruit
participants and who feels welcome into science and why. I work hard to make
our studies places where people from rightly science-skeptical groups have a
place, for reasons beyond or unrelated to difference (while still making room
to honor those differences). So, posters, questionnaires, recruitment ads, etc.
How do we ask questions - and most of my research is quantitative – that honor
people’s lived experiences? That map onto people’s realities? That reflect
people’s autonomy and respect their self-identities? These are grand goals, and
we are obviously therefore continually striving to do better at the principles that
underlie them.

Inclusive questionnaires as a part of inclusive
research methods

In science communication, I think a lot about the ways I
write papers and the ways that I am allowed
to write papers (I get some pretty hostile reviews that limit my ability to
communicate certain ideas or in certain ways), how I involve my students (e.g.,
I have a lot of undergraduate co-authors, including first-authors on my
papers), whom I speak to at conferences, how I get involved in mentoring, etc.

So... I see inclusive research practices as trying to
provide a model of science that explicitly acknowledges that science is a human
endeavor and therefore political – and a
model that therefore works within a consciously-articulated and progressive
frame. So, inclusive research practices is kind of like saying that ‘the
personal is political and it’s not just Politics that are political’ but in a
science-y way, like: 'the day-to-day of science is political, and it’s not just
Science that is political.'

The fact that you
have received a number of major grants and have published your work in the
leading journals in your field indicates that you have managed to secure the
support of other behavioral neuroscientists. How were you able to get other
scientists to support your research?

“Coming out as
Feminist”:
Feminists come in all sizes

Image from Flickr by Daniel Morrison

Well, one strategy of many feminists in non-feminist-allied
disciplines (of which behavioral neuroscience is certainly one!) is to go into
stealth mode. I had a major strategy which was to build up a large body of
research and then one day be like: surprise! This was feminist all along! I
think I’ve adhered to this strategy somewhat, but there are cues that
scientists pick up on (‘radical’ things like using self-identification terms
for sexuality, using non-binaristic gender/sex language, incorporating social
location) and I think now I’ve been made. Also, it became increasingly
difficult to do the work while straddling a fence – like, have you ever tried
to do anything while
fence-straddling? – because that meant partitioning myself in uncomfortable and
inauthentic ways…I found that the more people could level Feminist! as an 'insult,' the more they would. As soon as I became more explicitly
feminist, it became hard for others to level ‘feminist’
as an insult. Sort of like coming out, as in sometimes people have more power
when they can insinuate something you’re not yet sharing. I also think that my
subfields – behavioral neuroendocrinology (BNE) and sex research – are
feminist-friendly in their own ways. BNE already pays a lot of attention to
sexual diversity and gender/sex, as well as social location in certain limited
ways (e.g., how poverty might affect stress hormones). So it’s less of a leap
to think about how other aspects of social location might matter. Sex research
also has some progressive traditions and elements, and I’ve been lucky in that
I see myself continually able to mine that vein of progressiveness in all my
colleagues. I think I’ve had a lot of privilege that I’ve been able to use too;
I am trained in neuroscience, I’m white, I’ve had financial safety nets, I’m
Canadian and now in the U.S., so I think my position has let me do a lot with
fewer roadblocks than others might experience.

I am not so naïve to think that merit is enough for
anything. But I do want to stake a claim to doing good work; I think I do great
work! People know that I love my work, and I think my enthusiasm is catching. I
think that my feminist approaches are intrinsically part of why my work is
great – feminist science is not just ‘good science’. Feminist science is more
than just good science, even while it also is
good science. So, the more critically engaged my science is, the better science I
produce.

I also think that I have worked extremely hard to be
bio-legible and speak to my colleagues in ways they will understand. I used to
think of my work as challenging/pushing/etc., but I now see my research program
as building/reframing/expanding. I think this noncombative approach is more in
line with how I’d like to see change happen when possible (‘be the change you
want to see’ sort of thing). And I think because I work within my fields but on
the margins, this insider/outsider status has given me a lot of space to do
what I do, but also others to be generous and supportive. I’m really careful,
too. I read book and article after book and article about the doing of science
in terms of the politics and management, etc. I’ve never believed that whatever
merit I do have will shine on its own as some sort of Sari-beacon, so I work
hard to connect with people who have shared interests in some way. I’m also
beyond extroverted (I’d way rather talk to a stranger than eat alone!) so that
makes it a pleasure to connect with people. And since science is done by and
with people, I think that this has helped too.

But you know, this question is hard to answer, especially as
I’m pretenure and still junior. I think I’ll have more perspective as time –
and I – march on.

How has your work
been received by feminist scholars and activists who are not scientists?

I often worry about how my work will be received by critical
scholarship audiences when I'm not there to situate it... and even when I am.
So it has been a really pleasant and welcome experience to find that folks from
across women's studies and critical scholarship seem to be really interested in
my work and, moreover, really extraordinarily generous. I think part of the
reason is that I really do listen to and am interested in what people have to say, and make changes in
my science. I think another reason is that I also try really hard to speak the
language. I think scientists are often worried about how their work will be
received and whether it will be attacked, like: why open up another front?! But I think critical thought and careful, conscious positioning go a
long way (in scholarship, and elsewhere!). Like I said about neuroscience, I
try to be biolegible. But I also often joke that I'm 'bilingual' because I can
speak to both groups and even joint groups, so I also try to be WS-legible. In part, I think this is because I
really truly understand that these epistemological approaches are so deeply
different that I can see where there's room for them to come together.

Do you have any
advice for students and early-career researchers who want to incorporate
feminist insights into their basic science research?

I can’t not recommend stealth mode. People are still so
misinformed about what feminist science would be that it could be such a major
and immediate stumbling block, especially to a junior person. I also can’t not
recommend authenticity. We all are most passionate about doing work that has
meaning, and I know those times when I’ve gone into deep stealth have been some
of the most professionally (and personally) deathly stultifying and unfulfilling times.

Sometimes stealth
mode is required

Image from Flickr by jeriaska

There are few guides to doing feminist science practice, but
I’m trying to build some – get in touch with me and others who seem like
allies. I’m also building a feminist science practice website just to
facilitate these sorts of alliances, so look for that! I have other more
prosaic suggestions: remember that you are the person on the ground, so you
have to make decisions that will
sometimes turn out to be wrong in ways you can only realize through
experience. Remember that no matter how grand your audience might be in your
imagination, you have to get through reviewers, editors, program officers, etc.
to get your work published and funded and that doing so involves negotiations
with your principles that not need to be positioned as ‘selling out’ to guilt
trip yourself. Finally, remember that what you’re doing is hard, because you’re
creating new knowledge (which is hard enough) but you’re also creating the ways
to create new knowledge, so be patient with yourself, excited at your successes,
and generous with your colleagues (and maybe also generous with yourself and patient with your colleagues).

Want to Cite this Post?

Gupta, K. (2012). Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari Van Anders. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/11/doing-neuroscience-doing-feminism.html.