My journey through the cell in search of possible paths to becoming a feminist scientist: the “Feminista In Vitro” podcast
Author: Fernanda Mariath
03/11/2025 |
Reflections
Mariana Pitta Lima edited this post.
As a pharmacist and biotechnology technician in Brazil, cells were part of my routine. Specially, during the years I spent doing undergraduate research involving experiments
in vitro, which basically means studies on cells in Petri dishes. As a living organism, my body is built up of cells. In the day-to-day life of a biomedical laboratory, this association is not always trivial. It may seem that I was dealing with cells from a generic body. However, the Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS) critique answers which bodies have their specificities and interests served: those of the white, cisgender and heterosexual man (
Butler, 2011;
Muniz, 2023;
Castro and Fleischer, 2020;
Manica, 2018;
Schiebinger, 1999).
With the intention of contributing to this critique and finding my place as a feminist scientist, I explored new ways of thinking about cells and put together a podcast series called “Feminista
In Vitro”. In this post, I discuss some of my reflections and processes as an early career researcher in feminist STS. I organized my master's thesis around a journey from the inside to the outside of the cell, passing through the organelles and cells parts and discussing how issues of sex and gender appear in biomedical stem cell research.
Logo for the “Feminista In Vitro” podcast series [Image credit: Created by Bianca Bursi]
Menstrual blood mesenchymal stem cells
The anthropologist Daniela Manica followed the day-to-day practices of scientists investigating menstrual blood mesenchymal cells in Brazil. Through a review of the biomedical literature, Manica and her collaborators (2022) found that only 0.25% of the experiments with mesenchymal cells in the scientific literature have taken these cells from menstrual blood. There is no technical-scientific explanation for this choice. Although there are diverse menstruating bodies and women who do not menstruate, the biomedical field tends to ignore this diversity and link menstrual blood to women. Manica, Goldenberg and Asensi argue that by gender-marking the source of these mesenchymal cells, scientists assume that their future applications could “only” benefit women, which is one of the reasons for their low utilization.
It seemed contradictory to me, to say the least. Historically, biomedical research has often included only male cells. Why a female cell cannot be chosen as a model, but a male cell can? What does a female cell even mean? Does a cell have a sex? Does the sex of a cell make a difference? Does it make a difference in the construction of models, in the results of experiments, in the production of knowledge, or in addressing women's interests in biomedical research? I had so many questions and only two years to complete my master's degree.
The cell: feminist figuration and methodology
My inquiry led me to the exercise of cloning as a feminist practice proposed by Deboleena Roy (2018), which includes linking the dilemma to vectors of figuration. Creating figurations is a way of inhabiting research itself and a methodological research strategy of the laboratory I am affiliated with - the Labirinto (Manica, Costa and Camargo, 2025). I was also strongly inspired by the work of Donna Haraway (2023).
At first, this figuration exercise was just a means of conducting my analysis. However, I was surprised by how much my data invited me to dive even deeper into this journey through the cell. One of my interviewees, a Brazilian PhD student, highlighted how the institutional initiatives led her to venture into the social science dimensions of her biomedical research. In her doctoral research, she is investigating the role of mitochondria in cerebral malaria. She points out that mitochondria are organelles responsible for cellular respiration, which provides energy for the basic day-to-day functions of cells. This organelle has its own specific and independent instructions and machinery.
Her doctoral research uses an experimental model with mice and mesenchymal cells obtained from their bone marrow. During this research, the pro-equity committee for race and gender at her institution made her question the surroundings, which led her to problematize her data and research questions. She felt instigated to look into the social dimension of her research, revealing to her how the advancement of social sciences is fundamental to the advancement of biomedical sciences.
“Feminista In Vitro”: a podcast series
Like mitochondria and their independent machinery, feminist studies also have their own theoretical productions and experimental methods (Haraway, 2023; Roy, 2018; Nucci, 2015). In order to address issues of interest to women in health, I argue one possible way forward seems to encompass the contributions and knowledge of this field through interdisciplinary dialogue, boosting the transformative potential of biomedical research. For my PhD, I am looking for a place that allows me to engage in this discussion while conducting bench experiments with cells.
My entire journey through the cell was directed by the creation of a podcast series, "Feminista In Vitro". I am a member of Mundaréu, an anthropology science podcast produced at Unicamp. The publication will be in Portuguese. However, since I conducted three interviews in English, I will produce a single episode entirely in English. This episode will consist of an audio collage of interviews with Professor Sarah Richardson (Harvard), Professor Malin Ah-King (Stockholm University), and doctoral student Hannah Cowdell (University of Exeter), as well as a summary of the series. I believe that by sharing and reflecting on my research processes in this post and in the podcast series, I can contribute and dialogue with other early career researchers in feminist STS. Will you join me on a feminist journey through the cell? “Feminsta In Vitro” will be launched on February 18th 2026 on the Mundaréu website!
Bio
Fernanda Mariath
She is a Pharmacist with a Master's degree in Scientific and Cultural Dissemination and a Podcaster at
Mundaréu. She is currently producing the podcast series “Feminista
In Vitro”, which explores cells, sex, and gender for Podcast Mundaréu through a FAPESP Scientific Journalism grant, linked to the Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism (
Labjor) at Unicamp. She is a member of Podcast Mundaréu, as a screenwriter, producer, and researcher, as well as of
Labirinto (Laboratory for Socio-Anthropological Studies on Life Technology). Both are coordinated by researcher Daniela Manica (Unicamp), who was her master's thesis advisor.
Published: 11/03/2025
