The Future of Differences: Truth and Method in Feminist Theory

Finally, on the basis of her case studies, Nelson also argues that knowledge is produced and maintained by communities. While individual scientists put forward candidates for knowledge, they do not know their hypotheses autonomously, before the relevant community has deemed the hypotheses confirmed. Among the challenges to empirical holistic accounts is that in such accounts of science confirmation of hypotheses appears to be circular, i. Archaeology provides us with a particularly salient example, for archaeologists must use analytical theories drawn from familiar sources to make hypotheses about past cultures and lifeways and to interpret archaeological data as evidence to test these hypotheses.

Alison Wylie has developed the Consilience Model of Confirmation through analysis of many cases showing how archaeologists in fact judge the relative credibility of evidential and explanatory claims. The model is compatible with other forms of holism, such as Nelson's in that it shows how hypotheses from different domains bear on: Questions about the adequacy of an interpretive hypothesis are usually settled, Wylie notes, when independently constituted lines of evidence converge.

Evidence must be secure in two senses: The evidence must also exhibit epistemic independence in two senses: Background assumptions also must be horizontally independent of one another, i. Once the evidence is secure and independent, then archaeologists can triangulate, set up a system of mutual constraint among different lines of evidence bearing on a hypothesis and ultimately on a theory. Wylie's model shows that archaeologists use an enormous diversity of evidence and the diversity ensures that the evidence can sometimes function as a semi-autonomous constraint on claims about the cultural past, particularly when some of it depends on background knowledge from one or more different sources and when it enters interpretation at different points.

Thus different lines of evidence can be mutually constraining when they converge or fail to converge on a coherent account of a particular past context. Wylie's model provides a good analysis of how gender considerations enter archaeological reasoning and it allows us to see when evidential considerations do meet standards of good practice in the field and when they do not.

For example, when current assumptions about women and gender roles are uncritically taken up and used to support hypotheses about the cultural past in a particular context, such middle-range, linking hypotheses about past women and gender roles fail to be independent of present assumptions and often fail to be fully secure. A number of feminist case studies in archaeology reveal instances in which conventional work fails the requirement that collateral theories be independent.

Kennedy , reveal pervasive androcentrism in explanations of the emergence of agriculture in the Eastern Woodlands of what is now the U. S; Christine Hastorf , through her study of pre-Hispanic sites in the central Andes, shows that gender roles and household structures are not the same everywhere at all times, but change as societal structures or dominant ideas change; and Elizabeth Brumfiel whose work in the Valley of Mexico shows that the Aztec state depended on tribute to maintain its political and economic hegemony, and this depended on changes in the organization and deployment of predominantly female domestic labor.

Arguably the greatest challenge for feminist science scholars is in showing how feminist values can result in epistemically better science. Critics argue that feminists hold their values dogmatically. Indeed, these critics argue that everyone holds their values dogmatically because values cannot be influenced by facts. Thus, when social values or interests influence scientific work they make it bad science. Since many feminists argue that feminist values are able to improve science, this is a challenge to which they must respond.

One way to do this would be to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate uses of values. This is the approach that Elizabeth Anderson takes a, As an illustration of the use of values in a legitimate way non-dogmatically Anderson offers an analysis of Abigail Stewart et al. According to Anderson, the values that Stewart and her team of researchers brought to their investigation are of the sort that are answerable to empirical evidence—the evidence of emotional states.

Anderson argues that values are subject to critical scrutiny and revision in light of arguments and evidence; briefly, experiences such as disillusionment allow most people those who are not dogmatic to learn from experience that some of their values are mistaken. Like most experiences, emotional experiences have cognitive, usually representative, content and we can find out that the representative content is erroneous, confused, etc. Thus, if we find out that the cognitive content of an emotional experience is defective in some way, we might discount the importance of the feeling, too.

Such emotional experiences can function as evidence for values because these experiences are independent of our desires and ends. We can be persuaded by reasons and by facts that despite our emotional experience of something or someone, that thing or person is valuable or not. This sort of persuasive argument is quite common and makes sense only because our emotions are responsive to facts. And usually our emotions are reliable, though certainly not infallible, evidence for our value judgments. The exceptions include emotions affected by drugs, depression, etc.

Anderson examines how background values function at various stages of Stewart et al. To illustrate, we focus on just one of these stages—the way that values enter into understanding the objects of inquiry. Anderson notes that, for example, the values incorporated in the concept of divorce used by Stewart's team differ from those incorporated into Judith Wallerstein and Joan Kelly's research on divorce Wallerstein and Kelly For Wallerstein and Kelly divorce is conceived of as a loss or trauma. Stewart's team, in contrast, took divorce to be a process of adjustment to a new state.

There are two important differences in this alternative conception of divorce. The first is that divorce is not treated as a one-time event with an aftermath but rather as an ongoing life adjustment. Second, the process of adjustment is open-ended allowing for both positive and negative effects. Wallerstein and Kelly's framing of divorce as a trauma or loss calls for researchers to focus on the negative effects and so shapes the data collection. Anderson's analysis makes it clear that both studies incorporate values—it is not that one is value-free and the other value-laden.

However, Stewart et al's values are explicitly and self-consciously present and thus, open to empirical scrutiny. Anderson's argument is that Stewart et al. However, what differs is her analysis of the values invoked in the study and their responsiveness to empirical evidence. Stewart's conception of the objects of inquiry allows for both negative and positive experiences to count as evidence of the effects of divorce and so the way her team conceptualizes the objects of inquiry allows for a consideration of all of the evidence unlike Wallerstein and Kelly's research which focuses only on the negative effects.

Thus Anderson's analysis of the research indicates how the feminist values held by the researchers and incorporated into the research produce more empirically adequate, and hence better, science. Sharyn Clough's approach to the question of values in science develops a view based on Donald Davidson's account of belief formation—an extension of Quinean holism. She has made use of her account to examine how sexist and racist values are not well-supported by evidence and hence science that is sexist and racist is clearly not good science Clough a; Clough and Loges She has also examined how feminist values improve research.

One recent example is her analysis of research on the hygiene hypothesis—the hypothesis that increased levels of concern about sanitation and the consequent decrease in exposure to micro-organisms and pathogens is related to increasingly high rates of auto-immune disease and allergies, particularly in the industrialized nations of the North and West Clough , The primary evidence for the hypothesis is the correlation between the rates of disease and the hygiene habits in the areas where the rates have increased.

Further support for the hypothesis is garnered from recent research that shows that increased exposure to microbes in childhood is correlated with increased immunity in adulthood. Clough explores this case from a feminist perspective after noting additional data—the affected populations those suffering from the illnesses have disproportionate representation of women and girls.

Clough argues that when viewed through an awareness of the gender structure of human societies, which generally require higher standards of cleanliness for female children than for males, this greater incidence of morbidity among females becomes evidence for the hygiene hypothesis and thus provides an opportunity for increased empirical adequacy. In other words, not paying attention to gender—not using the minimum feminist value that gender matters—narrows the range of data that researchers treat as evidence.

Thus values have the potential to increase the empirical adequacy of an account. In effect, feminist values give rise to an augmented hygiene hypothesis that takes into account the differential enforcement of standards of cleanliness and so predicts a decreased immunity in adult females. Together, all of our beliefs form a holistic web of meaning, to use the Quinean metaphor. These two examples provide an illustration of how case study analysis may be used to work through the role that values can serve in good science and so how the general sorts of insights that holist accounts provide can be made specific.

Each of the accounts discussed requires that political, social, moral, and cultural values of the sort that are traditionally understood to be non-epistemic must answer to empirical evidence. While they differ on the philosophical details of exactly how evidence bears on theory, the accounts have strong similarities and suggest avenues for reconciliation or even convergence.

But holist accounts do present challenges in this regard. Solomon has expressed concerns about the ability of feminist holist empiricism to provide a general analysis of how values function in knowledge production. She questions whether any single approach to values will be able to provide an account of the various ways that values may function in science. She argues that values are not all of one type and consequently, when relevant and they may not always be relevant, according to Solomon they may be relevant in different ways, playing different roles in knowledge production.

Different approaches—such as those that have been discussed and other ways of thinking about contextual or non-epistemic values and science—may be better for understanding the various roles that such values play in knowledge production Solomon , Miriam Solomon's critique and the ongoing discussion highlight another aspect of the diversity of feminist perspectives on science. One reason that many philosophers of science have found it difficult to accept the conclusion that non-epistemic, feminist values can make a positive contribution to science is their commitment to an ideal of scientific objectivity.

These assumptions are each problematic and here and in the next section, Feminist Standpoint Theory , we will consider how they affect feminist philosophy of science. Lloyd elaborates that when researchers investigate a phenomenon their goal is not only to represent reality, but to give a significant representation i. Scientific accounts theories and hypotheses must focus on the parts of reality that are relevant to the interests and values that give rise to the research questions that motivate the research , — While reality may be independent of us, our accounts of reality are accounts of the aspects of reality that matter to us and are shaped by our the interests that give rise to our research programs.

Additionally, the questions addressed through research arise, in part, from what is thought to be known at the time that the research commences, this means that part of the evidence for the account rests in that background knowledge. The ineliminability of values in both the background knowledge and the current projects challenges the traditional idea of objectivity. In addressing the question of objectivity, Lloyd and Anderson both make use of Hugh Lacey's distinction between two aspects of the value-free ideal: Neutrality is the requirement that scientific theories neither presuppose nor support any non-epistemic moral, political, social, or cultural values.

Impartiality is the requirement that theories must be evaluated on the basis of evidence and the extent to which they fulfill other epistemic values. Anderson cites Kuhn's list: However, as discussed in section 6. This realization forces a reassessment of the ideal of impartiality—background theories may affect our assessment of the evidence and so we must be prepared to determine when such influence is pernicious and when beneficial.

As we have seen in section 6. In order to meet the ideal of impartiality researchers must consider all of the evidence—since some of the evidence is either value-laden or supports the values that direct the research questions, impartial science need not be neutral. Using Kuhnian arguments for underdetermination of theory by evidence, Longino argues that since empirical evidence can never fully determine that we should accept any particular theory, contextual values social, moral, political, and cultural must play a role in that determination.

Therefore, evidence is relative to the contextual values against which the evaluation of the theory occurs, a view that is shared among most of the philosophers discussed above. As a result, scientific theory is not neutral; it presupposes certain social and political values that are among the background assumptions against which the theory is evaluated and hence it is not objective in the traditional sense that requires neutrality , For Longino, scientific theory is not impartial either since social and political values play a role in theory acceptance.

When science is conducted according to these norms it balances partialities and Longino considers it objective to the degree that it fulfills these norms. But it is neither neutral nor impartial since scientific theory is informed by values that shape the context in which the relevance of evidence is determined. Feminist standpoint theory is often contrasted to feminist empiricism as an alternative epistemology for addressing concerns about the role of values and questions of objectivity.

We will briefly discuss several different analyses of feminist standpoint theory in the next section. While it has been standard to distinguish feminist empiricism from feminist standpoint theory since Harding's categorization of feminist alternatives to traditional epistemology into three types—feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism—as we shall see, recent analyses of feminist standpoint theory and refinement to feminist empiricism suggest that the views are not only compatible but may converge Intemann Philosophical accounts of feminist standpoint theory begin with Sandra Harding's account of a methodology that sociologist Dorothy Smith used and advocated Smith ; Harding While there are various versions, the commonalities include endorsement of the following three theses: The differential distribution of power and differences in interests are closely related—and thus the questions asked and the features of the world that are relevant to answering those questions vary depending on location as well.

Among the differences that are most salient are those that are in conflict with the interests of the dominant groups. She argues that the researcher who is marginalized may recognize that many of the concepts and procedures adopted by the discipline are problematic when her colleagues do not, precisely because she is able to see the objects of inquiry both with the eyes of a researcher trained in the discipline and through her own experience from a marginalized social location.

Epistemic privilege has been one of the more contentious components of feminist standpoint theory. Much criticism of the view stems from a mistaken understanding in which epistemic privilege is thought to be automatic. As Kristen Intemann points out, if this was the claim that feminist standpoint theory made the view would be either trivial or false Intemann But feminist standpoint theory is not committed to the clearly false claim that any woman can automatically know about the experience of all other women.

Nor does it make the trivial claim that only those who have had a particular experience know what that experience is like. This seemingly trivial claim suffers from another problem in any case since the idea that only women can know the experience of other women depends on a presupposition of some sameness of women's experience—a presupposition that is blatantly false. A finer-grained understanding of social location reveals the flaws of this presupposition since there are many differences among women having to do with social cultural, political locations.

Misunderstandings of the situated knowledge and epistemic advantage theses result from thinking of them in isolation from each other and mistakenly taking them to be claims about individualistic knowledge. Feminist standpoint theory is not an account of how an individual acquires knowledge, but rather an account that treats knowledge as social. This point can be made more clearly by considering the achievement thesis. Understanding the achievement thesis requires distinguishing standpoint from perspective. Harding does so in the following ways. Feminist standpoint theory intends to map the practices of power—the ways the dominant institutions and their conceptual frameworks create and maintain oppressive social relations and structures.

It does this by uncovering a distinctive insight about how the hierarchical social structure works. This comes about through the creation of a group consciousness rather than through the shift in perspective of an individual Harding, b, 31— While the change in location of an individual automatically brings a different perspective, achievement of a standpoint is not automatic. Perspective also is not the right metaphor for understanding the way in which a groups' consciousness is created and differs from that of an individual.

Harding emphasizes the deeply political aspect of feminist standpoint theory. This characterization also makes clear the challenge that feminist standpoint theory raises for objectivity. Both neutrality and impartiality seem violated by feminist standpoint theory. Using the analysis of the previous section, we can see that the thesis that knowledge is situated means that it is partial. Treating epistemic privilege as a virtue rather than a vice depends on the partiality of the knowledge.

And finally, the view that this privilege is not automatic—not merely a result of social location but achieved— prescribes striving for partiality rather than impartiality. It is not surprising that resistance to feminist standpoint theory has revolved around the way it has been perceived as a threat to the objectivity of science Pinnick The contextual elements that function as part of the evidence, the selection of problems, the formation of hypotheses, the design of research including the organization of research communities , the collection, interpretation, and sorting of data, decisions about when to stop research, the way results of research are reported and so on need to be open to critical evaluation.

But such evaluation requires that these contextual elements be visible to researchers. Alison Wylie offers an alternative approach to the question of objectivity in her account of feminist standpoint theory that suggests a blurring of the lines between feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theory. She proposes that we think about objectivity as the degree to which these claims conform to some standard set of epistemic virtues such as: These theoretical virtues can rarely, if ever, all be maximized and so which virtues are deemed most important at any given time will depend on the interests, purposes, intentions, and goals of the knowers—all of which might be elements of a standpoint.

Consequently, feminist standpoint can improve objectivity through determining what sort of empirical adequacy, explanatory power, or other virtues are relevant for a particular knowledge project and the degree to which each is relevant. Empirical adequacy is typically thought to be the most crucial of these virtues—a theory must fit the phenomena—and consequently it might be thought that empirical adequacy should always be preferred over other virtues.

Feminist Perspectives on Science

On Wylie's account, science is not neutral values inform hypotheses and are implied by them , nor is it impartial, given that values determine which among the characteristics that determine objectivity are to be considered the most relevant for this knowledge project. But impartiality has not entirely vanished in that what counts as empirical is not determined by values, although its relevance is.

The epistemic privilege thesis of feminist standpoint theory shows in that those in positions of subordination have epistemic privilege regarding some kinds of evidence and its relevance, special inferential heuristics, and interpretative or explanatory hypotheses. Wylie thus affirms the thesis of epistemic privilege although she notes that such epistemic privilege is contingent.

It is always relative to a specific knowledge project. Intemman has argued that contemporary feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theory have converged in many ways. For example, Wylie's account of feminist standpoint theory is compatible with her holism discussed in 6. However, Intemann identifies two remaining areas of difference: She contends that feminist empiricism would benefit from adopting feminist standpoint theory's understanding of diversity—i.

Intemann argues that feminist standpoint theory offers a better explanation of the positive role of feminist values in science rather than simply advocating for the diversity of values as feminist empiricism does. Whereas feminist empiricism argues for a balancing of values through diversity and so embraces impartiality, Intemann claims that feminist standpoint theory extols feminist values because they are good values rather than for their role in improving impartiality.

She criticizes Harding's explication of feminist standpoint theory as being too individualist, identifying the spatial metaphor of social location as the source of this problem. The location metaphor has the effect of individualizing the knower—only one individual can occupy a place at a time. Pohlhaus argues that feminist standpoint theory requires a social conception of the knower s —the knower should be conceived of as a knowledge community not an individual.

Such a social conception of the knower also provides a path to a political conception of the knower structured by the distribution of power and provides a fuller account of the achievement thesis. What is missing is an account of struggling with. Political communities are built on shared interests. Building such a community requires acknowledging diversity—including diversity of interests that arise from diversity of location—and uncovering shared interests through which to forge community. The political nature of early standpoint, with its roots in Marxist theory, captured this political feature of achievement, but later versions minimize it, moving away from the Marxist use of class struggle as a primary organizing principle of analysis.

These negotiated and forged shared interests, arrived at through struggling-with, could serve to provisionally stabilize evidential relevance relations around a particular knowledge project. Such an extension of feminist standpoint theory may also point to its relationship to current research in social epistemology see the entry on feminist social epistemology. This is another path through which a convergence of feminist empiricism and standpoint theory could be developed.

Feminist perspectives on science reflect a broad spectrum of appraisals and epistemic attitudes toward science. Feminists are skeptical of both the presumption that the sciences are an inherently masculine domain—that women are unfit for science, or science unfit for women—and the conviction that the institutions of science are a model of gender-neutral meritocracy. This skepticism has led to feminist equity critiques discussed in the section on Feminist Equity Critiques.

Feminist historians of science document entrenched historical patterns of exclusion of women but, at the same time, they recover evidence of women's active participation in the sciences. Conventional explanations of these persistent inequalities typically invoke the talents, drive, and preferences of women. But other explanations note that while intentional discrimination still exists, gender discrimination also takes the form of diffuse but persistent differences in the recognition and reward of women's achievements.

Although feminists have different perspectives on science in which they work, feminists share a concern to understand and to change conditions of oppression that operate along lines of gender difference. These goals require an accurate understanding of the nature and sources of oppression, and the sciences offer powerful tools for providing this understanding. As we saw in Section 3, some feminist scientists call for attention to neglected questions with the aim of improving the sciences in their own terms; those who are more methodologically and epistemically conservative do not challenge the background assumptions, methodological commitments, standards and practices of existing programs of scientific research.

We can think of this approach as the selective appropriation of the tools of scientific inquiry for application in feminist-directed research. But even epistemically conservative feminist interventions—those focused on correcting errors of omission and on investigating neglected problems—often generate more deeply challenging questions. Thus, many feminist scientists are more critical of the standards and practices of existing research programs and pursue constructive programs aimed at transforming the methodologies, ontological commitments, framework assumptions, and epistemic ideals that animate their fields.

As we see from the many examples presented in Section 3, interventions that intend to be remedial or corrective often expose patterns of omission or gender-normative distortion that compromise not just the details but the framework assumptions of the sciences examined and the epistemic ideals that inform scientific practice. The recognition that established scientific methodologies frequently reproduce or generate androcentric and sexist biases has led feminists to ask how to improve their methods.

Feminists have articulated guidelines for research that sought to avoid the pitfalls of sexist and androcentric practice exposed by feminist critique Section 4. These guidelines include addressing questions relevant to women and others oppressed by gendered systems; grounding research in the situated experience of women, i.

Strong reflexivity means taking into account the ways in which their own socially defined angle of vision, interests, and values influence the research process. Across these disciplines, feminist science scholars contribute gender analyses that address such issues as power and inequality, differences among knowers, subjectivity and objectivity, embodiment, work, and the distinction between scientific experts and lay-people.

And most feminist analyses pay attention to the relationships among science, gender, race, class, sexuality, disability and colonialism and how science constructs and applies these differences. Section 5 briefly summarizes past work in feminist science studies, but we note that recent work increasingly turns to the role of gender and science in developing nations and in the processes of development; the intersection of gender, science and culture outside of western cultures holds promise.

Although race is more likely to be addressed within feminist than mainstream science studies, much work remains to be done; and finally, feminist disabilities studies now appear with increasing prominence. Feminist science studies often expose instances in which gendered social values compromise scientific results. Thus, feminist philosophies of science, exemplified in Section 6, undertake to determine whether and how social values and interests play a positive role in the scientific knowledge production.

Feminist philosophers of science have offered alternative accounts of objectivity in order to explain how science that incorporates feminist values can be better, more objective, science. They do so with the aim of giving accounts that are empirically adequate to the case studies as they stand, without excessive rational reconstruction.

This focus on case studies also calls for alternative analyses of how objectivity is understood. We have reviewed a variety of alternative approaches that use feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theory. In summary, feminist perspectives on science arise from concerns to improve the lives of all who are affected by gender inequity by encouraging and using better understandings of the natural and social worlds. Dimensions of Difference among Feminist Perspectives on Science 2. Feminist Equity Critiques 3. From Selective Appropriation to Content Critique 3.

The Feminist Methods Debate 5. Feminist Science Studies 6. Dimensions of Difference among Feminist Perspectives on Science Feminist scientists, critics, and analysts of science articulate positions that range from profound ambivalence to respect and enthusiasm for the sciences. The diversity evident in the various feminist perspectives on science arises, then, on several dimensions: The result is, not surprisingly, a highly diverse array of feminist perspectives on science.

Feminist Equity Critiques Feminists have challenged both the presumption that the sciences are an inherently masculine domain—that women are unfit for science, or science unfit for women—and the conviction that the institutions of science are a model of gender-neutral meritocracy. From Selective Appropriation to Content Critique What feminists share, despite enormous internal diversity of perspective, is a concern to understand and to change conditions of oppression that operate along lines of gender difference. The Feminist Methods Debate While at times feminists have been skeptical about the capacity of conventional research methods to expose systematic bias, it is now generally agreed that a plurality of methods have been productive for achieving feminist goals.

Feminist Science Studies Science Studies is an interdisciplinary field that draws upon anthropology, cultural studies, economics, feminism, history, philosophy, political science, and sociology in order to study science. Philosophical Implications Feminist science studies, feminist activist research, and feminist appropriations of science often pose a challenge to conventional views about what makes science scientific.

Conclusion Feminist perspectives on science reflect a broad spectrum of appraisals and epistemic attitudes toward science. Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. A Journal of Feminist Philosophy , 19 1: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy , 10 3: Barad, Karen, , Meeting the Universe Halfway: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , Routledge Blizzard, Deborah, , Looking Within: Gero and Margaret W.

Women and Prehistory , Oxford: Chilly Collective, , Breaking Anonymity: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Crasnow and Anita M. Women in the Scientific Community , New York: Cole, and John T. DeVault, Marjorie, , Liberating Method: Eichler, Margrit, , Nonsexist Research Methods: A Practical Guide , Boston: Fausto-Sterling, Anne, , Myths of Gender: Fonow, Mary Margaret and Judith A. Doing Science Together , London: Gilligan, Carol, , In a Different Voice: Anthropology and Science beyond the Two-Culture Divide. University of California Press.

University of Illinois Press. Griffin, Susan, , Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her , London: The Woman's Press, Ltd. Feminist Disability Studies , A Chilly Campus Climate for Women? Association of American Colleges. A Chilly One for Women? Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 28 3: Haraway, Donna, , Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: Harding, Sandra, , Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues , Urbana and Chicago: Toward a Democratic Future , Bloomington: An advanced Introduction , New York: New York University Press.

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene and Michelle L. Hickey, Samuel, and Giles Mohan, eds. From Tyranny to Transformation? Research from the Perspective of Women. Petersen and Trevor Pinch eds. Feminism and Disability , 16 4. Layne, Linda, , Motherhood Lost: Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter eds. A Journal of Feminist Philosophy , 2: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 9: Maddox, Brenda, , Rosalind Franklin: Maguire, Patricia, , Doing Participatory Research: The Center for International education, University of Massachusetts. Martin, Emily, , Flexible Bodies: A New Generation , New York: Minkler, Meredith and Nina B.

The National Academies Press. Nelson and Jack Nelson eds. From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism , Philadelphia: Novick, Peter, , That Noble Dream: Cutcliffe and Carl Mitcham eds. A Journal of Feminist Philosophy , 3: Review of The Outer Circle: Reardon, Jenny, , Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics , Princeton: Richardson, Sarah, , Sex Itself: University of Chicago Press. A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 24 4: Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development. Rose, Hilary, , Love, Power and Knowledge: Rossiter, Margaret, , Women Scientists in America: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Struggles and Strategies to , Baltimore, MD: Women in the Origins of Modern Science , Cambridge: While there is no consensus on how to organize or label these, there are a few generalities that can be drawn between these epistemologies, particularly in the international relations IR context. Classifying these epistemologies generally under the umbrella or in the constellation of postpositivism makes clear the contrasts between positivist social science and more critical approaches.

Moreover, within the many critical approaches in feminist IR are many points of convergence and divergence. Feminist IR theory also focuses on the complexities of gender as a social and relational construction, in contrast to how nonfeminist ontologies focus on the rights of women, but including those of children and men as well.

Hence, the postpositivist ontology takes on a more complex meaning. The problem of trying to define feminism is as old as feminism itself. This essay therefore starts with a disclaimer: This point that there are multiple understandings of feminism is made by Peterson , Sylvester , Marchand , Caprioli , Krook and Squires , and Steans , among many others. Instead, the following will attempt to organize some of the existing literature. The majority of this essay will focus on the various feminist epistemologies, methodologies, and methods. As will be demonstrated along the way, there are many possibilities for each.

Feminist work in International Relations IR does not adhere to any one epistemology, methodology, or method. However, any analysis grounded in feminist ontology is well served to set a goal of consistency in epistemology, methodology, and method. This essay will return to this theme of consistency at numerous points. The goal of the essay is to make explicit the variations between many different types of feminist work are they varying epistemologies? The following vocabulary for the spectra will be employed:.

Separating these concepts into binaries would go against the spirit of many versions of feminist theory; instead, these may be understood as a continuum or spectrum, and not a definitive or all-inclusive one at that. It is already clear that there is no consensus on how to organize or label various feminist epistemologies, methodologies, and methods. For example, what is the difference between constructivism, critical constructivism, postpositivism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and antifoundationalism?

While the lines between these categories may be blurred or even nonexistent , it is possible to speak in generalities. While some constructivists adhere to a positivist epistemology, and focus on causal analysis, others are more postpositivist in orientation. Constructivism broadly understood adheres to a philosophy that reality is socially constructed see Berger and Luckmann ; Wendt Others intentionally blur the lines between these distinctions. This discussion, while valid, lies largely outside the scope of the topic at hand, which is to provide a broad and introductory overview to feminist IR epistemologies, methodologies, and methods.

Rather than answer these complex questions, this essay seeks to include all of these epistemologies generally under the umbrella or in the constellation of postpositivism. This is done in order to make clear the contrasts between positivist social science and more critical approaches. Within the many critical approaches are many points of convergence and divergence. So for now, it will suffice to return to the visual aid of the spectra or constellations in epistemology, methodology, and method. To be sure, feminist IR projects and theorists have located themselves along various points of these spectra or constellations over the years, although much of feminist IR is admittedly postpositivist, interpretivist, and qualitative Peterson What all feminist projects seem to share, however, is a critical ontology.

These norms, feminist IR theorists point out, are deeply gendered. These political, economic, and social structures, contingent on space and evolving over time, produce a shared notion of what the international system looks like anarchic or interconnected , how the state should behave given that system, what roles the state should play, and so on. These understandings are political imaginaries see, for example, Gibson-Graham , a feminist critique of the neoliberal capitalist political imaginary. Feminist theorists argue that, like the norms propping them up, political imaginaries are inherently gendered.

For many but not all feminist theorists, this critical, intersubjective ontology leads to a belief that the world we have created can in fact be remade. Thus the goals of lessening the shackles of power relations, of emancipation, and for transformation are at the forefront for many scholars of feminist IR see for example Harding ; Peterson This essay will proceed as follows: Second, these ideas will be expanded into a brief discussion of epistemology, methodology, and method.

The place of feminist IR within the broader field will be discussed on all these counts. Third, the majority of this essay will be a wide-ranging but incomplete survey of some of the most common epistemologies, methodologies, and methods in contemporary feminist IR. One of the divides between nonfeminist and feminist IR theory could possibly be summarized as a difference between two ontologies: In other words, while nonfeminist IR scholarship may take seriously the rights of women and children and men , it generally does not focus attention on the complexities of gender as a social and relational construction.

Feminist Ontologies, Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Methods in International Relations

What does it mean to say that gender matters, and what does it mean when feminist IR theorists say that international politics is gendered? Gender-as-difference tends to keep intact the binary between sex and gender, men and women, and femininity and masculinity. Gender understood as difference is a static characteristic, socially constructed but not relational. However, it would not uncover the deep-seated power relations that make rape into a viable if brutal battlefield strategy: Gender-as-power, however, reveals the power relations within and between societies, and is able to describe the historical roots and eventual outcomes of the public—private divide.

Gender-as-power seeks to break down traditional binaries, and understand gender as an ongoing series of hierarchical relations. Here, when examining wartime rape, we would look into the meaning of motherhood, of community, of human relations to see how the act of rape in wartime is a power play that transcends the individuals involved, and affects the victimized society more broadly. Rather than looking just at the product of social construction gender-as-difference, masculinity and femininity , gender-as-power approaches look at the process.

Some feminist IR theorists argue that both gender-as-difference and gender-as-power are imperative to understanding the full thrust of gender as an analytical category. Thus a feminist ontology holds that women and men matter in international politics, and that social structures are imbued with gendered power relations.

The term ontology is often included in a discussion of epistemology, methodologies, and the like. The line between ontology and epistemology is quite blurry. Therefore it may be unproblematic for a positivist political scientist to argue that her results tell us something about the world as it actually is. This theorist would adhere to an epistemology a deeply positivist one that maintains the knowability of the world around her — so she would believe she is describing an ontological reality.

For her — at least for the research project at hand — epistemology is straightforward: The story is somewhat more complex for the researcher who believes that absolute Truth is unknowable or nonexistent and not the goal of analysis. Most feminist theorists fall into this category. Starting from the insight that politics is about power — often gender-as-power — feminist theorists would say that the way one sees politics is inherently related to how one is situated in different relations of power.

Bush, or if you are a single working mother in East Los Angeles. This postpositivist epistemology complicates the idea of ontology somewhat. Reality is not static; it is not based on universal principles. So, for the postpositivist including most feminist IR theorists , ontology takes on a more complex meaning.

This is actually quite similar to much of the work done under the label of constructivism. To quote Locher and Prugl In terms of international relations, the social reality of the sovereign state system is not static or fixed to the feminist IR theorist, but rather, there are changing ideas about those nation-states and the actors who bring them into existence. In a review essay that set off a flurry of responses, R. Charli Carpenter argued that feminist theorists have wrongly held a monopoly over the study of gender in IR.

Criticisms by self-described feminist IR theorists abound. For the vast majority of feminist theorists, however and recall that Carpenter does not claim to be one , this is not the case. It is true, Sjoberg concedes, that civilian men may be harmed; they may be excluded from the immunity principle. But it is much more important to investigate the deeply gendered underpinnings of the immunity principle itself. Little boys will grow up to be capable fighters; the elderly and disabled may themselves once have fought. But women, under no circumstances, should take up arms.

This normative principle is the foundation for the immunity principle. While the practice of civilian immunity may be harmful to civilian men, the infrastructure of the belief system is based on a gendered power hierarchy that legitimizes able-bodied males as soldiers and therefore targets, while able-bodied females, along with the very old and very young, are excluded from battle. Whereas nonfeminist IR focuses on men and women as subjects, feminist IR problematizes these categories to show how they have been imbued with power relations.

In other words, the majority of scholarship in IR is written, produced, and understood from an androcentric perspective. Feminism seeks to provide another set of voices; to rewrite the field from another perspective. Actually, feminists seek to rewrite the field from many perspectives; as stated at the beginning of this essay, there are multiple understandings of feminism.

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Helen Kinsella also contributed to the discussion by pointing out the diversity of feminist IR. Kinsella reminds us that there is vociferous debate within the field of feminist IR. The four concepts central to this essay ontology, epistemology, methodology, and method are closely linked and build upon one another. Perhaps the relationship between these four concepts is best shown visually:.

Epistemology, methodology, and method all presuppose an ontology. As the previous section demonstrates, feminism shares broadly an intersubjective ontology, suggesting that the gendered attributes of states and their leaders, and their citizens are not given or fixed, but are constructed and reconstructed based on gendered power relations. Tickner ; on the agent—structure relationship between the two, see Maruska While the linear representation of ontology influencing epistemology, epistemology influencing methodology, and so on, may be the easiest to visualize and understand, a more nuanced description of the relationship between these concepts may be visualized as a maypole, where ribbons fall from a central pole, held by dancers who weave in and out of each other.

In this alternative, ontology is not necessarily the basis for everything else. Instead, for example, it is our experience in using various methods that informs our understanding of appropriate epistemologies, and so on. These concepts are interconnected and ever-changing. Epistemology tends to organize into two major constellations, or points on a spectrum, within social science.

First, positivists tend to believe that there is a universal and objective Truth. The goal is to uncover that Truth in the form of facts. In the Introduction to The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader, Harding suggests that positivism is founded on the idea that research can be politically and culturally neutral via an unbiased application of scientific methods On the other hand, postpositivists tend to believe that human bias is inescapable.

Postpositivism including feminist postpositivism therefore argues that interpretation rather than Truth-uncovering should be our goal. While most feminist theorists tend to adopt a postpositivist epistemology Peterson As will be demonstrated, a postpositivist epistemology does not preclude the researcher from utilizing empiricist methodologies, and quantitative methods. The postpositivist may use statistical analysis to study for example the effects of gender mainstreaming in Europe — but she or he will be conscious of the implicit goals of the study: While an intersubjective ontology is perhaps more conducive to postpositivist epistemologies and indeed, most feminist IR theorists would consider that they espouse a postpositivist epistemology , it does not necessarily have to be this way.

But how do the following three concepts epistemology, methodology, method fit together? The simple answer is that epistemology influences methodology, and methodology influences method. The more complex answer is that these concepts are intertwined like the ribbons on a maypole. While sound research takes many different forms, it is advisable for a researcher to give thought to the project as a whole, to help choose methods that will be consistent with their general epistemological views.

Each major research program within IR shares some broad ideas about the appropriate epistemologies, methodologies, and methods of analysis. Methodologies can be empiricist or interpretivist or somewhere in between; they include rational choice at one end of the spectrum, and more anthropological and self-reflective methodologies at the other.

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Examples include quantitative analysis, comparative case study, process tracing, discourse analysis, and art-gazing each of which, as will be seen, are methods used by contemporary feminist IR theorists. So, how to decide which method is most appropriate? Krook and Squires point out that research is best approached by determining the problem at hand. For some projects, discourse analysis might be enlightening; for others, quantitative analysis will yield the desired information. Traditional political science has an on-again, off-again relationship with the critical analysis of epistemologies, methodologies, and methods.

In the US, political science is dominated by positivist epistemologies, traditional social science methodologies such as Rational Choice , and empirical methods such as quantitative analysis and process tracing that produce falsifiable hypotheses involving causality. The stated goal of the book is to make qualitative work live up to scientific standards — standards which, according to King, Keohane, and Verba, are set by quantitative work. Of course, IR feminists are not alone in their belief in an intersubjective social reality. These views are shared by constructivists, postcolonial theorists, critical theorists, and postmodernists more broadly.

Whereas traditional IR realist and neoliberal research paradigms often rely on positivist epistemologies and their attendant methodologies and methods, constructivist IR theorists are increasingly open to more interpretive especially qualitative methodologies, and methods such as interviewing, ethnography, and discourse analysis.

Because constructivism is a self-conscious departure from realist and neoliberal approaches, constructivist research is often more interested in epistemological questions. The immense literature surrounding the agent—structure debate in IR, started and perpetuated largely by constructivists such as Alexander Wendt, stands out as one ongoing discussion about epistemology. In the aforementioned survey of IR scholars, Wendt was named after Robert Keohane as the second most influential IR scholar in the past 20 years.

Although one feminist theorist, Cynthia Enloe, made the list, her numbers were in the low single digits.

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This would suggest to some that the visibility of feminist IR can be raised via a partnership with constructivism. However, the links between feminist IR and constructivism are not often made. Kinsella in Carver There is definitely space for the two subfields to coexist; there may even be a way for them to build off one another. But remembering our feminist commitment to consistent ontology, epistemology, methodology, and method — are such conversations possible, and desirable?

Secondly, feminism can help constructivism to take seriously its own postpositivist epistemological claims. To that end, combining feminist IR with constructivism brings with it the potential for both to make a greater impact on the field of IR more broadly. By joining forces in the emancipatory project with theorists whose epistemological, methodological, and methods choices are in line with our own, feminist theorists only serve to broaden their appeal, and strengthen the call for a less gendered world.

Since there is an affinity between constructivism, critical theory, and feminist epistemologies and ontologies, and since many theorists in these constellations share transformational and emancipatory goals, it should not be surprising that they share many of the same methodologies. Like other critically oriented theorists, feminist methodologies tend to be interpretivist. Within feminist IR, discussions of epistemology, methodology, and methods abound. One of the early edited volumes on the subject, Feminism and Methodology Harding , provides the groundwork for this entire discussion.

This comes a year after The Science Question in Feminism , in which Harding analytically separates the three feminist epistemological stances. The most recent and most comprehensive site of reflections on these concepts is found in Ackerly et al. This book, along with other recent texts, will be the primary resource for my discussion on epistemologies, methodologies, and methods. In , Sandra Harding conceptualized three basic but not mutually exclusive variants of feminist epistemology.

These include feminist empiricism, standpoint feminism, and feminist postmodernism. This framework has been widely adopted by contemporary feminist IR theorists. Although the three epistemologies overlap often, one writer — even one paragraph! Under this view, traditional epistemologies can be congruent with a feminist perspective. Feminist empiricism and positivism in general has inspired heated debate within feminist IR circles; as J.

Ann Tickner and many others have acknowledged, most feminist theorists do not fall within this category. However, Marchand reminds us that this does not necessarily preclude positivist work from being feminist.

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But this research may be undertaken with the goal of examining the effect of a particular policy on the lives of women — an explicitly feminist goal. Like other feminist standpointers, Harding believes that women, having been historically excluded from positions of public power for millennia, are uniquely able to see, and to critique, the workings of that power.

Standpoint feminism is thus a vibrant political and epistemological project, adding previously excluded voices that serve to unravel traditional understandings of power. The example of the single mother anticipates the obvious critique: Kathy Ferguson points out that far from being essentialist, feminist standpoints are shifting and myriad.

An understanding of this concept brings us to the epistemology of feminist postmodernism , which represents and embraces the stance that multiple feminist standpoints exist simultaneously. A growing number of Third World and postcolonial feminist theorists adopt this approach. As mentioned near the beginning of this essay, postcolonial theorists generally attempt to reorient our understanding of political relations from a nonhegemonic perspective. Ling starts her book by recalling her confusion during her first year of graduate school: Under a feminist postmodernist epistemology, there is no one Truth to be attained.

Truth is fractured, multiple, and elusive, much like the perspectives of contemporary standpoint feminists. In fact, the boundaries between these two epistemological approaches standpoint and postmodern feminism are often unclear, if they exist at all. Christine Sylvester , for one, consciously blurs the boundary between the two approaches in her work.

While it seems possible that feminist empiricism is often needlessly excluded from such epistemological line-blurring, for now, it seems, only the second two versions of feminist epistemology regularly are combined. These types are not all-inclusive, nor are they binary either-or. The choice of methodology will be informed by many factors, including the subject of investigation and the goals of the project at hand.

Interpretivist methodologies generally reveal that the researcher takes a more postpositivist epistemological stand. As the label implies, the goal is interpretation of texts, historical incidents, or interviews, giving them contexts and discerning the workings of gendered power. Interpretivist methods also tend to be self-reflective, because the author is conscious of her role in the knowledge gathering and interpretation process, and is continually aware of and attempting to be explicit about bias. Empiricist methodologies, in contrast, tend to beget traditional methods, such as sampling, game theory, inductively reasoned structured case studies, and statistical analysis.

These methods and methodologies together usually belie a positivist epistemology: However, empiricist methodologies do not necessarily imply positivist epistemologies. Many feminist theorists seek to broaden this claim a bit further, arguing that quantitative techniques — and empiricist methodologies more broadly — can fit within a feminist ontology and epistemology see Marchand From any feminist epistemology empiricist, standpoint, or postmodern , the ways in which traditional IR has represented the world are not to be taken for granted.

By and large, ontologies that do not question power relations in the world are themselves questioned by feminist theorists especially those adhering to an emancipatory style of feminism. Therefore most feminist theorists tend to look at socially constructed gender gender-as-power rather than biologically determined sex gender-as-difference. For those researchers including feminists and nonfeminists whose focus is the concept of gender , gender operates at an intersubjective level: According to the feminist philosopher Sally Haslanger As may be expected, Sandra Harding has had a lot to say about feminist empiricism.

Because most feminist IR theorists fall into the latter postpositivist group, it is conceivable that feminist empiricism could rouse some suspicions at first glance. While she has been mostly critical of empiricism throughout her career Harding