Gender and Society

WAY S O F K N OW I N G
• Comprehending a woman’s way of knowing
• Analyzing the world is affected by socialization
• Culture plays a large part in determining what are considered
masculine or feminine traits.
• Women’s way of understanding the world is affected by
socialization.
• Women associate silence with knowledge as they themselves
are often left unheard and silent.
• Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind, a
fundamental work by Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy
Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule, is referred to when discussing
women's development theory (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule
1986).
• Five knowledge positions (or viewpoints)
• through which women understand themselves and their connection to
knowledge
• used to characterize the process of cognitive development in women
 The term “epistemology” comes from the Greek words “episteme”
and “logos”
◦ “Episteme” can be translated as “knowledge” “understanding” or
“acquaintance”
◦ “Logos” can be translated as “account” “argument” or “reason”

sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge

 Summary of William G. Perry's research
Summary of Position
The authorities know
The true authorities are right, the others are
frauds
There are some uncertainties and the authorities
are working on them to find the truth
(a) Everyone has right to their own opinion
(b) The authorities don't want the right answers.
They want us to think in a certain way
Everything is relative but not equally valid
You have to make your own decisions
First commitment
Several Commitments
Believe own values, respect others, be ready to
learn
Example
"the tutor knows what is right and wrong"
"my tutor doesn't know what is right and wrong but others do"
"my tutors don't know, but somebody out there is trying to find
out"
"different tutors think different things"
"there is an answer that the tutors want and we have to find it"
"there are no right and wrong answers, it depends on the
situation, but some answers might be better than others"
"what is important is not what the tutor thinks but what I think"
"for this particular topic I think that...."
"for these topics I think that...."
"I know what I believe in and what I think is valid, others may
think differently and I'm prepared to reconsider my views"
Carol Gilligan
known for her work with Lawrence Kohlberg on his stages of
moral development as well as her criticism of his approach to the
stages
argued that Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral
development were male-oriented, which limited their ability to be
generalized to females
Differences in Ways of Knowing
• different ways of knowing, judgments, forms of human
development, values, and visions of humanity and existence
• differences comes from upbringing and gender socialization
• role of universal caregiving in all societies was given by copying
their mothers
• young girls had their mothers as role models, they learned
through association and connectedness
• women gained knowledge via empathy
• man gained knowledge by being apart
Stages of Knowing
Silence

Received Knowledge

Subjective Knowledge

Procedural Knowledge

Constructed Knowledge
Stages of Knowing absence of thought or reflection

Silence
• Deprived socially, economically, and educationally
• “Deaf and Dumb”
• Deaf – had to be shown how to do something and not told
• Dumb – voiceless
• Need a supportive environment to learn
• Women are passive and seem incompetent (seen but not heard)
• Conceiving the self
• Can only describe themselves from an inside point and not an outside
point
• Cannot describe future changes because they do not anticipate the future
 absence of thought or reflection
to
Stages of Knowing listening to the voices of others

Transition to Received Knowing

Experiences that led to development…
• formal education
• childbearing
• family trauma
• difficult or challenging relationships
• exposure to other cultures
• a new kind of work
• psychotherapy
Stages of Knowing Listening to the voices of others

Received Knowledge
• Learn by listening
• Listening to friends
• Enjoy have a lot in common with others and may change their own thoughts
to match
• Listening to authorities
• Authorities knew everything and did not disagree with each other
• Learning = Memorizing
• Cannot read between the lines and take everything literally
• Conceiving the Selfless Self
• Can only see themselves from how others see them
 listening to the voices of others
to
Stages of Knowing inner voice and the quest for self

Transition to Subjective Knowing

Experiences that led to development…
• Relationships exhibiting mutuality, equality, and reciprocity
• Praise and reinforcement
• Exposure to a diversity of opinions
• Education alienated these women and did not help them to
develop, instead their personal life did.
• Women who did not advance cognitively usually dropped out of
college.
Stages of Knowing Inner voice and the quest for self

Subjective Knowledge

• Inner voice
• Their own authority (external to internal)
• Relied on their experience and feelings for knowledge
• Quest for self
• Left current situation to live for self rather than others
• Concepts of self
• Began viewing themselves differently because their life was changing
 inner voice and the quest for self
to
Stages of Knowing voice of reason and separate and
connected knowing
Transition to Procedural Knowing
Experiences that led to development…
• An inner sense of self, voice, and mind begin to develop and
create an inner contradiction.
• Their personal experience leads to their own sense of authority.
• Realized they could know things that they never came in
contact with.
• Could hear themselves think while they were listening which
would soon develop into reflecting and critical thinking.
 Voice of reason
Stages of Knowing and separate and connected
knowing
Procedural knowledge
• Voice of reason
• More active and powerful voice
• Old ways of knowing challenged
• Spoke with the voices of separate and connected knowing
• Separate knowing
• Sought knowledge and evaluate knowledge claims
• Mastery over the knowledge but separated from knowing
• Connected knowing
• Sought to go beyond knowledge, to understanding
• Understanding the knowledge gave a relationship to it
Separate and Connected Ways of Knowing
Separate knowers
• critical or detached
• begin by objectively analyzing a
situation
• then trying to understand another
person's perspective
• Goal: seeks to convince and be
convinced
Connected knowers
• more empathetic and receptive
• first seek to understand
• then step back and evaluate
• Goal: to understand and be
understood
 voice of reason and separate and
connected knowing
Stages of Knowing to
integrating the voice
Transition to Constructed Knowing
Experiences that led to development…
• Self-Reflection/Self-Analysis
• Removing themselves from their current life either
psychologically or geographically
• Needed to integrate thinking with feeling and rationality
with emotionality.
• After a self-examination, they realize how knowledge,
truth, and self guide their life.
Stages of Knowing
Constructed Knowledge knowledge is constantly being
constructed, deconstructed, and
Integrating the voice reconstructed
Reclaiming self
Integrating the voices
Integration of self, mind, and voice
Articulate and reflective
Rise to a new way of thinking
Other Studies about Ways of Knowing
• An individual’s epistemological approach affects their attitude
towards the learning process rather than the amount of learning that
occurs (Gallotti et al., 1999).
• Baxter Magolda (1992) describes ways of knowing as being “related
to, but not dictated by gender”.
• In the study of Schommer-Aikins and Easter (2006) both separate and
connected knowing correlated with speed of learning and knowledge
construction. They found that ways of knowing had a possible effect
on academic performance, although this effect might not be
immediately obvious.
 Summary of some responses from the respondents of
researches about Ways of Knowing
• want to comprehend people’s thoughts because a person can relate to
someone better when they understand how others think - the manner
in which they think
• when a person interacts with others, one learns about life
• a person can learn more about them (other people), other characters,
and themselves by reading more about them