Feminist Research with Non-Feminist and Anti-Feminist Women: Meeting the Challenge (original) (raw)
Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research
Women's Studies International Forum, 1983
Synopsis-This paper examines principles of feminist research and discusses the authors' attempts to use these principles in a systematic way in their own research. Three principles of feminist research are identified: research should contribute to women's liberation through producing knowledge that can be used by women themselves; should use methods of gaining knowledge that are not oppressive; should continually develop a feminist critical perspective that questions dominant intellectual traditions and can reflect on its own development. Consciously applying these principles in a research study of the relation between changes in consciousness and the changes in the structural situation of individuals raised several methodological issues and dilemmas. These include the impossibility of creating a research process that completely erases the contradictions in the relationship between the researcher and the researched; the difficulties in analysing change as a process; the tension between the necessity of organizing the data and producing an analysis which reveals the totality of women's lives; and problems of validity, particularly those raised when the research process becomes part of the process of change.
‘Claims and Disclaimers: Knowledge, Reflexivity and Representation in Feminist Research’
Sociological Research Online, 2002
In this article I consider issues of knowledge, reflexivity and representation in feminist research. Using my feminist sociological doctoral research as an example I add to debate by feminist researchers and others concerned with epistemological authority. After setting the research scene and outlining what I feel I did and did not achieve both substantively and epistemologically I consider some of the contradictions and tensions in feminist research through a consideration of reflexivity and representation. Throughout I consider issues of auto/biography.
Feminist Research Methodology: challenges to the main (male) stream research
Feminism and feminist movement in the 70's aimed at ending the subordination and suffering of women. Its endeavor was to emancipate women and bring gender equality in various fields including that of theory and research. The feminist critique of research in general and of social science research in particular has emerged as a legitimate, relevant and popular research model against the male bias prevalent in the existing theory and research. With the rise of the feminist movement many feminist scholars argued that traditional social sciences reflected a deep rooted male centric, sexist and patriarchal representation of society in theory and knowledge. This approach was condemned for neglecting or ignoring the standpoint of women, her values and experiences in the society. Hence with the advent of critical theoretical approach* and strong feminist movements, a model was introduced which aimed to "serve the interests of
SAGE Publications, Inc. eBooks, 2012
Sharlene nagy heSSe-BiBer Feminist Voices and Visions across the centuries This Handbook begins with voices, visions, and experiences of feminist activists, scholars, and researchers, speaking to us across the decades of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. They provide a legacy of feminist research, praxis, and activism. There lies within these voices a feminist consciousness that opens up intellectual and emotional spaces for all women to articulate their relations to one another and the wider society-spaces where the personal transforms into the political. I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is. Only by experience can anyone realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations. May the blessing of God rest on this imperfect effort in behalf of my persecuted people! (Harriet Jacobs, 1861/1987, pp. 1-2) Author's Note: Much appreciation and gratitude to Alicia Johnson, Hilary Flowers, Abigail Brooks, and Deborah Piatelli, who contributed their academic insights and skillful editing and editorial advice.
SAGE Research Methods Foundations, 2020
The debate about feminist methods emerged within Western academia in the 1970s in the context of feminist critiques of science. The discovery of androcentric biases at the heart of scientific and social scientific research undermined its claim to objectivity and led feminists to explore "feminist methods" of producing knowledge as alternatives to traditional positivist science and social science. A key question that has dominated these debates is whether there is a distinctive feminist method of inquiry. Sandra Harding (1987) noted the difficulty in answering this question because of confusion over the term feminist method, and its use to refer to epistemology-"a theory of knowledge" (Harding, 1987, p. 3), methodology-"a theory of how research is done or should proceed" (Harding, 1987, p. 3), and method-"a technique for (or way of proceeding in) gathering evidence" (Harding, 1987, p. 2). argues that while there are no distinctive feminist methods or techniques, there are feminist epistemologies and methodologies. She identified three feminist epistemologies: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint, and feminist postmodernism. She also suggested that feminist methodologies were characterised by three key features: using women's experiences as empirical and theoretical resources, producing knowledge with emancipatory purposes, and locating the researcher in the same critical plane as the overt subject matter.
FEMINIST METHODOLOGIES AND EPISTEMOLOGY (2006)
O ver the past 10 years of teaching courses on research methods and feminist approaches to methodologies and epistemologies, a recurring question from our students concerns the distinctiveness of feminist approaches to methods, methodologies, and epistemologies. This key question is posed in different ways: Is there a specifically feminist method? Are there feminist methodologies and epistemologies, or simply feminist approaches to these? Given diversity and debates in feminist theory, how can there be a consensus on what constitutes "feminist" methodologies and epistemologies?
Doucet Mauthner Feminist Methods 2006
O ver the past 10 years of teaching courses on research methods and feminist approaches to methodologies and epistemologies, a recurring question from our students concerns the distinctiveness of feminist approaches to methods, methodologies, and epistemologies. This key question is posed in different ways: Is there a specifically feminist method? Are there feminist methodologies and epistemologies, or simply feminist approaches to these? Given diversity and debates in feminist theory, how can there be a consensus on what constitutes "feminist" methodologies and epistemologies?