Ruth Bleier

Ruth Harriet Bleier (November 17, 1923 – January 4, 1988) was an American neurophysiologist who is also one of the first feminist scholars to explore how gender biases have shaped biology. Her career consisted of combining her academic interests with her commitment to social justice for women and the lower class.

Early life and education Bleier was born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, on November 17, 1923. She was also the daughter of Russian or East European 1905 immigrants w and was raised in New Kensington, Pennsylvania with her four brothers. She received her B.A. from Goucher College in 1945, and subsequently received her M.D. from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1949.

Career

Medicine and scholarship Following medical school, Bleier interned at the Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and then practiced general medicine in the inner city of Baltimore for ten years. Bleier gave up her medical practice in order to teach psychiatry and physiology at the Adolph Meyer Laboratory of Neuroanatomy. Since she lost her legal ability to practice medicine, Bleier went to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1957 to study neuroanatomy with Professor Jerzy Rose, completing her post-doctoral fellowship in 1961. She then joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison department of Neurophysiology in 1967; at the same time Bleier was also working with Weisman Center of Mental Retardation and the Wisconsin Regional Primate Center.

In the 1970s, Bleier began to see how the biological sciences were affected by sexism and other cultural biases, and thus devoted herself to the application of feminist analyses and viewpoint to the practices and theories of science. Bleier helped establish the Woman's Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin in 1975, and served as chair from 1982 to 1986. She also began to focus on improving women's access and station in higher education. Bleier argued against the idea of sociobiology as an explanation of conventional gender roles. In her work she demonstrated how gender, sexuality, and science, are constantly changing in response to social values and ideas rather than being static and judgment-free. She published work that brought together feminist theories and natural sciences: Science and Gender: A Critique of Biology and Its Theories on Women and Feminist Approaches to Science. thumb

Publications Bleier has published works detailing the anatomy of the cat, guinea pig, and rhesus monkey hypothalamuses. and began her work to create lesbian rights within the women's movement. She created a lesbian-friendly restaurant, called “Lysistrata.” She also organized lesbian social events, a feminist bookstore. The University of Wisconsin annually awards the Ruth Bleier scholarships in order to encourage young women to go into careers studying the natural sciences, medicine, or engineering, and the University of Wisconsin's Department of History of Medicine has an endowed chair in her honor.