Faz todo sentido biológico? Mulheres, (homens) e ciências nas textualidades do canal Nerdologia

Abstract

This study reflects on how science communication may perpetuate sexist assumptions about the role of sciences in society when associated with positivist qualities such as objectivity, neutrality and rationality, traditionally regarded as male values. The critical analysis of the textualities within Nerdologia, a Brazilian YouTube phenomenon that intends to make "a scientific analysis of nerd culture", seeks to demonstrate how the connection between women, men and sciences emerge in a science communication project based on nerd culture. From the sociohistorical perspective of Science as an eminently masculine endeavor, we try to evidence processes of invisibilities, under-representation and silencing of women in their relations with scientific knowledge. The concept of text as textuality is understood as a necessarily heterogeneous compound of signs, so that the text of science communication is also a way of apprehending events and social phenomena of daily life, such as sexism in science. The theoretical-methodological approach of feminist studies of science contributes to the analysis of the textual networks proposed by Nerdologia, which promotes a cultural crossroad of the world of nerds and the worlds of Science. The critical analysis of textualities indicates that science images Nerdologia creates and disseminates on YouTube are entangled in economic, political and social strata intertwined with the platform's own modes of operation, and it also points out to three preponderant aspects: the gender issues intermediated by the elements of the nerd culture; the institutionalization of sciences as a process of recognition and differentiation of what is considered scientific, as opposed to common sense; and Biology as a privileged point of view to explain the world. The three aspects collaborate to reinforce gender stereotypes and unequal relations between men and women as subjects and objects of sciences. Both the soundscapes of the audio and the visualities composed from a sexist gaze on the elements of the nerd culture generate visual texts that reverberate in aggressive representations of sciences to women, and comfortable collective images for men, as they reinforce stereotypes of sexist domination and hierarchy. Those textualities do not expand the creative possibilities in the vast cluster of science images. The analysis reinforces the importance of making science communication a politically engaged sphere in overcoming misogyny, sexism and racism, among other manifestations of prejudices and limitations imposed as a consequence of the association with principles of a singular and limiting positivist Science. The research also suggests the need for re-elaboration of science communication projects towards overcoming a simplistic ideal of objectivity, subverting it in provisionally situated knowledges.