Feminist scientists yield more objective results than traditional researchers, a feminist scholar told a crowded room of about 200 people last night in the HUB Gallery.

Sandra Harding said the hypothesis and research results by feminists in the natural sciences are more accurate than those formulated from the dominant male standpoint.

Harding's speech, "Feminist Epistemology: Why Does Gender Difference Make a Difference?," was part of the Six Feminist Lecture Series. The audience filled all 140 seats, sat on the floor and stood in the back throughout the two-hour presentation.

Feminists are more likely to question the accepted theories of society because they are outsiders of the dominant social structure, making their research differ from traditional methods, Harding said.

"The struggle for knowledge is to see behind the ideological structure," she said. "Social movements remove blinders from our eyes."

Feminists provide a view of nature which has been ignored throughout history and bring a different perspective to nature and experience, Harding said.

Because of the traditionally male viewpoint on human experience, women have sometimes felt uncomfortable and unwelcome in the fields of science, she said.

The sex and gender structure of society contributes to the hypothesis, funding, and observations of traditional researchers, Harding said.

For instance, she described how engineering has not really begun to address the ways technology can work for women.

Women are more likely to notice biases and slurs against women in the fields of science, Harding said. Partly because of the increase in women working in science, some false theories of women are no longer accepted, she added.

Throughout history, women have been the subject of study but have not conducted this research, Harding said. After the advent of feminist science, women can give input into these theories about them.

Harding's research is important because it points out the regressive and coercive claims and practices of science, said Mary Frank Fox, associate professor of sociology.

"Her work fundamentally questions not just the status of women in science but the gender schemes of science," Fox said.

Lynn Goodstein, director of women's studies, said she was pleased with the larger than expected crowd.

"This is a good sign for the women's studies program and feminism at Penn State," she said.