Slide 16
Slide 16 text
Let’s look at Sanger and Gamble again, just for a moment. Sharp-dressed, aren’t they? That looks like silk on Sanger. And Gamble’s wearing a nice suit and
tie and glasses, classic symbols of high-class smartitude.
I’m saying, these people had a LOT more social power—visible social power and authority—than the women Gamble was testing on. And yeah, this
mattered. Here’s another story: one of Sanger’s first attempts to arrange a test of the pill in Puerto Rico failed. Why? Because the women she tried to recruit
were educated, figured out what was going on, and refused participation. So yeah, we know what Sanger and Gamble and their cronies did then—targeted
poorer and less educated women. Pieces of WORK.
We have records of consent, as memories about the research being done. Those records are in no way contextualized as to power relationships. Who’s
twisting whose arm to sign that piece of paper? The piece of paper can’t tell you that. Only human memory and social awareness can.
And look, has anything changed? You, all of you in this room, have a lot more social power than I do. You walk into a room and say you’re a doctor, you’re a
biomedical researcher, you’re an entrepreneur, folks are like, wow, you must be really smart, you must know all the things and have all the degrees and do all
the amazing stuff. Which is a fair bit of social power, am I right? Me, I walk into a room and say I’m a librarian and people are all like “wait, you people still
exist?! *pause* Oh, cool, I’ve always wanted to shush a librarian! Shhhhhhhhhh!”
Y’all, that one actually happened; I remember it well. It was the president of Macalester College in his welcome message to a library-technology conference I
was at. It was SUCH a jerk move! He NEVER would have pulled something like that in this room, and that is all about social power and how y’all have it and I
do not.