whitemage: (Default)

[personal profile] whitemage 2010-12-14 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I always love your links, but the science and oppression one was superb, of course. It's such an intersecting issue, as while I think it's a disservice to dismiss folk wisdom entirely, it's just as detrimental to dismiss the scientific method--and precisely for the reasons stated. Folk knowledge is simply oral/written tradition, possibly empirical in nature at one point, but reduced to the anecdotal.

What's more, you really have to watch your sources not just because of false or missing information, but because other just as patronizing or worse institutions have taken up with such traditions in an effort to avoid intellectualism (i.e. arch-conservative Christianity, a downright abusive conglomerate at points). I don't see anything feminist in eschewing the work of note-worthy scientists of both genders who at its best is for the good of all to follow in the footsteps of an institution designed to be specifically oppressive to anything not white, heterosexual, and male.