Perspectives on Social Science

Feminist
SOSC 1000 6.0
Lecture 12
Jan Krouzil PhD
June 17, 2021
 Agenda
PART I What is ‘feminism’?
PART II Feminist approaches to ‘science’
PART III Feminist epistemology
PART IV Feminist research
Key words
 PART I
What is ‘feminism’? (1)

Feminist Beliefs and Feminist Movements

•the term “feminism”
o many different uses and its meanings are contested
o a historically specific political movement in the United States and Europe
o the belief that there are injustices against women (no consensus on the exact list of
these injustices)
Account of ‘feminism’
‘Feminism is grounded on the belief that women are oppressed or disadvantaged
by comparison with men, and that their oppression is in some way illegitimate or
unjustified. Under the umbrella of this general characterization there are, however,
many interpretations of women and their oppression, so that it is a mistake to think
of feminism as a single philosophical doctrine, or as implying an agreed political
program’ (James 1998)
 What is ‘feminism’? (2)
Primary task of feminist scholarship
•to clarify the meaning of ‘feminism’ and how it can influence
research in the humanities and social sciences
•not one ‘feminism’, but multiple ‘feminisms’
osimilar in focusing on the experiences of women’s lives and the oppression of women
odifferent in how they conceptualize that ‘marginalization’
•in the mid-1800s the term ‘feminism’ was used to refer to ‘the qualities of
females’
•a belief in and advocacy of ‘equal rights for women’
•rooted in the mobilization for woman suffrage in Europe and the US during the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century
 What is ‘feminism’? (3)
Key forms of ‘feminism’
Liberal feminism
•building connections among all women to advocate for equal
access to resources
o the liberal feminist is ‘one who advocates such reforms as legal equality between
the sexes, equal pay for equal work, and equal employment opportunities, but who
denies that complete equality requires radical alterations in basic social institutions
(e.g., the capitalist economic system, the biological family, monogamous marriage,
biological motherhood)’ (Warren, 1980)
 What is ‘feminism’? (4)
Socialist feminism
•based on the belief that the economic and class structure leads to
multiple forms of ‘oppression’
o rooted within Marxist ideology, traditionally focused on classism and paid less attention to
racism and sexism
•focused on the inequalities created by capitalism more generally
•seeks to build coalitions with other humanist groups who share their
critique of the capitalist system
 What is ‘feminism’? (5)
Radical feminism
•attention to gender oppression and calling for restructured social
institutions
•acknowledges that classism and racism intersect with sexism, but
stipulates that the systematic marginalization of women is the
fundamental form of inequality
o in contrast to socialist feminists, who identify capitalism as the primary source of oppression, radical
feminists recognize sexism as the fundamental problem
o unlike liberal feminists, who accept the general social structure of society but not its rules for resource
allocation, radical feminists argue that the entire social order must be re-examined and redefined
 What is ‘feminism’? (6)
Womanism
•emerged as an explicit race critique of feminism (liberal, radical,
and socialist)
•marginalized within the women’s movement, black feminists
created womanism to examine the intersections of race, gender,
and class oppression (Walker 1984)
o shares the structural analysis of radical and socialist feminism, but
calls more attention to the differing experiences among women of
various classes and racial/ethnic groups
 What is ‘feminism’? (7)
Distinct approaches to ‘social change’
•liberal feminism advocates for change within the system
o from this perspective, the social and economic structure of society is
fundamentally sound, but requires modifications to eliminate sexist
discrimination
•radical, socialist, and womanist feminists advocate for changing the
system entirely
o believe that society is sexist, racist, and classist and requires substantial
transformation
 What is ‘feminism’? (8)
What are some of the central uses of the term most relevant contemporary
feminist thought?
• the women’s movement in the US as occurring in ‘waves’
The ‘wave’ model of feminism
• ‘First Wave’ (mid-19th century 1920)
o the struggle to achieve basic political rights
• ‘Second Wave’ (late 1960s to early 1970s)
o greater equality across the board (e.g., in education, the workplace, and at home)
• ‘Third Wave’ (1970s to present)
o critique of Second Wave feminism for its lack of attention to the differences among women due to race,
ethnicity, class, nationality, religion
o emphasis on ‘identity’ as a site of gender struggle
 What is ‘feminism’? (9)
Criticisms of the ‘wave’ model
• resistance to male domination to be considered “feminist”
throughout history and across cultures
o feminism is not confined to a white women in the West over the
past century
o the emphasis on ‘First’ and ‘Second’ Wave feminism ignores the
ongoing resistance to male domination between the 1920s and
1960s and the resistance outside mainstream politics, particularly
by women of color and working class women (Cott 1987)
 What is ‘feminism’? (10)
How to identify core feminist beliefs?
• focus on the political ideas - the commitment to women’s equal
rights
oacknowledging that commitment to and advocacy for women’s rights is not to be
confined to the Women’s Liberation Movement in the West
oraises controversy, for it frames feminism within a broadly liberal approach to political
and economic life
osense of rights on which achieving equal rights for women is a necessary condition for
feminism to succeed, but not sufficient
owomen’s oppression under male domination extends into the structure of society and
the content of culture, the workings of languages and how they shape perceptions and
permeate our consciousness (e.g., Bartky 1988, Postl 2017)
 What is ‘feminism’? (11)
Is there any point to asking what ‘feminism’ is?
o given the controversies over the term and the politics of circumscribing the boundaries of a social
movement
Basic elements of feminism as a political position or set of
beliefs
o two groups of claims - normative and descriptive
•the normative claims concern how women ought (or ought not) to be viewed and treated
o draw on a background conception of justice or broad moral position
•the descriptive claims concern how women are, as a matter of fact, viewed and treated
o alleging that they are not being treated in accordance with the standards of justice or morality
invoked in the normative claims
•together the normative and descriptive claims provide reasons for working to change the way
things are
o feminism is not just an intellectual but also a political movement
 What is ‘feminism’? (12)
Key disagreements within feminism - with respect to either
the descriptive or normative claims
o what counts as “equality”, “oppression”, “disadvantage”, what
rights should everyone be accorded?
o what sorts of injustice women in fact suffer (what aspects of
women’s current situation are harmful or unjust?)
o the explanations of the injustice - two feminists may agree that
women are unjustly being denied proper rights and respect and yet
substantively differ in their accounts of how or why the injustice
occurs and what is required to end it (Jaggar 1994)
 What is ‘feminism’? (13)
Disagreements between feminists and non-feminists
•some non-feminists agree with feminists on the ways women ought to be
viewed and treated, but don’t see any problem with the way things currently
are
•others disagree about the background moral or political views
o is the primary source of women’s subordination her role in the family?
(Engels 1845; Okin 1989)
o role in the labor market? (Bergmann 2002)
o males’ tendencies to sexual violence and the source of these tendencies?
(Brownmiller 1975; MacKinnon 1987)
o women’s biological role in reproduction? (Firestone 1970)
 What is ‘feminism’? (14)
•debate within feminism concerning the normative question
•what would count as (full) justice for women?
o what is the nature of the ‘wrong’ that feminism seeks to address?
o is the ‘wrong’ that women have been deprived equal rights?
o is it that women have been denied equal respect for their differences?
o is it that women’s experiences have been ignored and devalued?
o is it all of the above and more?
What framework should be employed to identify and
address the issues?
 What is ‘feminism’? (15)
Term ‘womanism’
•proposed to provide a contemporary alternative to ‘feminism’ that better
•addresses the needs of Black women and women of color more generally
Walker 1990)
o more recent work on trans issues such a gender-specific term would today raise
many more problems than it would solve
What does it mean ‘to be oppressed because you are a woman?
•is there a particular form of oppression that is specific to women?
•is to be oppressed ‘as a woman’ to be oppressed in a particular way?
 What is ‘feminism’? (16)
Strategies for explicating ‘sexist oppression’ - problematic
•a form of ‘oppression’ common to all women
o to be oppressed as a woman is to be viewed and treated as sexually subordinate where this claim is grounded
in the (alleged) universal fact of the eroticization of male dominance and female submission (MacKinnon
1987, 1989)
o in some contexts (especially in developing countries) sexist oppression seems to concern more the local
division of labor and economic exploitation
• consider as paradigms those who are ‘oppressed’ only as women
o focus in the US on white, wealthy, young, beautiful, able-bodied, heterosexual women to determine what
oppression, if any, they suffer, with the hope of finding sexism in its “purest” form, unmixed with racism or
homophobia, etc
o flawed in its exclusion of all but the most elite women in its paradigm
 What is ‘feminism’? (17)
Monistic and pluralist accounts of ‘sexist oppression’
•no over-arching explanation of ‘sexist oppression’ that applies to all its forms
omay be due to the eroticization of male dominance
omay be better explained by women’s reproductive value in establishing kinship structures (Rubin
1975)
omay be due to the shifting demands of globalization within an ethnically stratified workplace
•pluralists resist the temptation to ‘grand social theory’, ‘overarching metanarratives’, ‘monocausal
explanations’
othe explanation of sexism in a particular historical context will rely on economic, political, legal,
and cultural factors that are specific to that context which would prevent the account from being
generalized to all instances of sexism (Fraser & Nicholson 1990)
oseeking patterns in women’s social positions and structural explanations within and across social
contexts must be sensitive to historical and cultural variation (applying the ‘hermeneutic
phenomenology’ approach (Krouzil 2019)
 What is ‘feminism’? (18)
Feminist explanations of sexism and accounts of
sexist practices
oin thinking about care, feminists ask questions about the
nature of the self
oin thinking about gender, feminists ask what the
relationship is between the natural and the social
oin thinking about sexism in science, feminists ask what
should count as ‘knowledge’
 What is ‘feminism’? (19)
Key tenets of feminist thought
• gender as a complex of psychological traits and dispositions that
characterize a person (as, for instance, ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’)—as
well as the relations between genders - are socially constructed
o the product of socialization according to culturally variable norms, not
biologically or genetically determined.
•  independence and self-determination for women can be achieved only
by ‘speaking in one’s own voice’
o only by thinking and acting in ways that genuinely reflect one’s perspectives,
experiences, feelings, and concerns as an individual
 What is ‘feminism’? (20)
• the domination or subordination of women in any social setting or in
any walk of life is a political issue, not a private one
• because ’knowledge’ is produced by societies—i.e., ‘knowledge’ is
the result of collaboration among and validation by a community of
inquirers—the standards used to evaluate ‘knowledge claims’ and to
identify legitimate topics of inquiry are socially determined, not
absolute
• one’s upbringing and social situation affect how one frames questions
and what one is likely to understand as being ‘private’
 PART II
Feminist approaches to ‘science’ (1)

Key arguments in feminist thought

•‘science’ reflects the social values and concerns of dominant societal groups
•research projects in the social sciences often ignore women and
issues of concern to women, or create differences between men and
women, girls and boys that are not ‘‘natural, essential, or biological (West &
Zimmerman, 1991)
•as a result of this androcentric bias, women’s lives and experiences have
not been adequately captured through the traditional scientific lens
(Campbell & Vasco 2000)
 Feminist approaches to ‘science’ (2)

What would feminist approaches to research look like?

o how would such research be conducted?
o what would characterize feminist research?
• ‘women’s issues’ - violence against women (rape, domestic violence, gender/sexual
harassment), reproductive rights, and work–family conflict
• the nature of knowledge (epistemology) and the process by which research is created
(methodology)
• feminist research seeks to respect, understand, and empower women
• feminist epistemologies accept women’s stories of their lives as legitimate sources of
knowledge
• feminist methodologies embody an ethic of caring through the process of sharing those
stories
 PART III
Feminist epistemology (1)

Re-defining ‘knowledge’
• requires re-examining the foundation of science
o what is ‘knowledge’ and how is ‘knowledge’ obtained?
• social science research begins with often unstated
assumptions about objectivity and subjectivity
Ontology
• what is the form and nature of reality?
• what can be known about reality? (Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
 Feminist epistemology (2)
•the primary ontological decision point for researchers is to clarify whether
they accept or reject the notion that there is a single, objective, real world
o if one accepts the premise of objective reality, then the goal of science is to discover the structure
and function of that singular world
o if one does not accept this premise, then the goal of science is to understand how we construct and
interpret our realities

Epistemology
•what is ‘knowledge’, how can ‘knowledge’ be obtained?
•what is the relationship between the ‘knower’ and what can be known?
(Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
 Feminist epistemology (3)
Epistemology as intertwined with ontology
o if one accepts the ontological notion of an objective reality then the
‘knower’ (i.e., the scientist) must assume a position of objective
detachment, free from bias so as to be able to capture that reality
accurately
o if a researcher rejects that notion of objectivity, then it is not
necessary, or even desirable, to conduct research in a detached,
dispassionate manner
o in order to understand how reality is constructed and interpreted,
the social scientist and his/her inherent subjectivities (e.g., values,
beliefs, emotions) are centrally involved in the research process
 Feminist epistemology (4)
Basic epistemological principles (Cook and Fonow 1986)
• taking of women and gender as the focus of analysis (‘gynocentric’)
• importance of consciousness raising
• rejection of subject and object
ovaluing the knowledge held by the participant as being expert knowledge
and acknowledging how research valued as "objective" always reflects a
specific social and historical standpoint
• concern with ethics throughout the research process and in the use of research
results
• intention to empower women and change power relations and inequality
 Feminist epistemology (5)
Primary epistemological theories
o positivism, realism, critical theory, constructivism
• these theoretical traditions differ in how they resolve the ontological debate of what
constitutes reality and what can be known about reality
Positivism
• rooted in the ontological assumption of an objective reality (Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
o the goal of science is to explain, predict, and ultimately control that reality
o hypotheses about objective reality are generated, tested, and verified, primarily though experimental methods
o throughout the process of research, the scientist must engage in a distant, objective stance to remain free from
biases that could interfere with obtaining knowledge
• to the positivist, the identity of the ‘knower’ (i.e., who the scientist is) is not especially relevant,
as proper use of the scientific method—by anyone—should capture objective reality
 Feminist epistemology (6)
• the researcher’s personal beliefs and values could interfere with assessment of
that objective reality
o these human factors must not enter into the scientific process

Post-positivism/Realism
• stipulates that there is an objective reality, but deviates from positivism by
noting that it is probably impossible to capture reality in a pure, unadulterated,
unbiased form (Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
o as inherently flawed humans, scientists are not capable of capturing this pure, real social
and physical world with absolute accuracy
o throughout the process of research (hypothesis generation and testing through
experimental methods), a scientist must therefore try to identify and remove sources of
bias
 Feminist epistemology (7)
Post-positivism/Critical Theory
•argues that ‘reality’ is interpreted through social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and
gender values - there is no one ‘objective reality’ (see Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
o what we consider to be ‘knowledge’ is not ‘pure fact’ because it is filtered through these
various lenses
•the goal of research is to understand how the values of both the researcher and the
participants determine perceptions of the social world
o as a result, science cannot possibly be an objective enterprise because values enter into all
phases of the research process
•the identity of the ‘knower’ is of critical importance because values, beliefs, and life experiences
influence how research questions are formed, data are collected, and findings are interpreted
o because it is not possible to remove or partial out these factors, researchers must articulate
how their individual experiences shape their research findings
 Feminist epistemology (8)
Post-positivism/Constructivism
•takes critical theory a step further by explicitly arguing that ‘reality’ and therefore
‘knowledge’ as socially constructed (see Guba & Lincoln, 1994)
o social factors, such as gender, race, class, culture, and economics are not merely lenses through which we
see ‘reality’, they are agents shaping how we construct our visions of what constitutes our individual
realities
o there is no ‘real’ reality, no single truth, but multiple truths that are individually constructed
•to assess how we understand our social worlds, researchers must engage
•participants in interactive dialogue to break down and make visible these socially
constructed realities
o similar to critical theory, the identity of the ‘knower’ is paramount because the scientist is actively
involved in the social construction of the research reality
 PART IV
Feminist research (1)
What makes research ‘feminist’?
• all research begins with a problem or a question
• deciding on what method to use to find the solution or answer and then gathering,
organizing, and analysing data followed by writing and publishing the research
report
• no single definition of ‘feminist research’
oinvolves ‘the deconstruction of women’s lived experiences’ and ‘the
transformation of patriarchy and corresponding empowerment of women’
(see Fonow & Cook 1991)
• what makes feminist research uniquely ‘feminist’ are the kinds of questions,
methodologies, knowledge, and purpose brought to the research process
 Feminist research (2)
Defining principles of feminist research (Ollivier and Tremblay
(2000)
• objectives include both the construction of ‘new knowledge’ and the production
of ‘social change’
o informed by women's struggles against the multiple forms of ‘oppression’
• grounded in feminist values and beliefs
o focus on the meanings women give to their world while recognizing that
research must often be conducted within institutions that are still
‘patriarchal’
• characterized by its diversity
o interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary
o uses different methodologies
o redefined by the concerns of women coming from different perspectives
 Key words
liberal feminism
socialist feminism
radical feminism
womanism
approaches to ‘social change’
‘wave’ model of feminism
androcentric bias
post-positivism/realism
post-positivism/critical theory
post-positivism/constructivism