Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology from a feminist standpoint.
Overview Feminist epistemology claims that ethical and political values are important in shaping epistemic practices, and interpretations of evidence. Feminist epistemology has been in existence for over 40 years. Feminist epistemology studies how gender influences our understanding of knowledge, justification and theory of knowledge; it describes how knowledge and justification disadvantage women. Feminist epistemology is derived from the terms feminism and epistemology. Feminism is concerned with the abolition of gender and sex inequalities rooted in discrimination, while epistemology is the inquiry into knowledge's meaning. Scholars of feminist epistemology claim that some theories of knowledge discriminate against women by disbarring them from inquiry, unfairly criticizing their cognitive styles, and producing theories of women and social phenomena that reinforce gender hierarchies and represent women as inferior. The easy and uncontroversial point is that much of what has been recognised as knowledge and passed on in academic and industrial circles has been produced by men. Consequently their experiences and concerns have served to determine its direction. According to feminist epistemologists, these failures in dominant knowledge result from faulty scientific methodologies and knowledge conceptions. Therefore, feminist epistemologists attempt to propagate theories that aid liberation and egalitarian causes and protect these endeavors as advances in knowledge.
The central idea of feminist epistemology is that knowledge reflects the particular perspectives of the theory. The main interest of feminist philosophers is how gender stereotypes situate knowing subjects. They approach this interest from three different perspectives: feminist standpoint theory, feminist postmodernism, and feminist empiricism. Standpoint theory defines a specific social perspective as epistemically privileged. Feminist postmodernism emphasizes the instability of the social identity explorers and therefore their representations. Empiricism focuses on combining the main ideas of feminism and their observations to prove feministic theories through evidence.
Elizabeth Anderson argues that the concept of situated knowledge is central to feminist epistemology. Donna Haraway asserts that most knowledge (in particular academic knowledge) is always situated and "produced by positioned actors working in/between all kinds of locations, working up/on/through all kinds of research relation(ships)",Ian Cook, 'Positionality/Situated Knowledge' for David Sibley et al. (eds)Critical Concepts in Cultural Geography. London, IB: Taurus http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/downloads/gesdraftpapers/iancook-situatedknowledge.pdf and thus what is known and the ways in which this knowledge can be known is subject to the position—the situation and perspective—of the knower.
The English feminist philosopher Miranda Fricker has argued that in addition to social or political injustices, there can be epistemic injustices in two forms: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice consists in prejudices that cause one to "give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker's word": Fricker gives the example of a woman who due to her gender is not believed in a business meeting. She may make a good case, but prejudice causes the listeners to believe her arguments to be less competent or sincere and thus less believable. In this kind of case, Fricker argues that as well as there being an injustice caused by possible outcomes (such as the speaker missing a promotion at work), there is a testimonial injustice: "a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower". Such an awareness allows a hearer to account for the likely impact of the identity power relation that mediates between himself and the speaker on his spontaneous perception, essentially correcting for the problems that can result in transactions of testimonial injustice.
In the case of hermeneutical injustice, "speakers' knowledge claims fall into lacunae in the available conceptual resources, thus blocking their capacity to interpret, and thence to understand or claim a hearing for their experiences."Lorraine Code, 2008. Review of Epistemic Injustice. For example, when the language of 'sexual harassment' or 'homophobia' were not generally available, those who experienced these wrongs lacked the resources to make a claim to being wronged in morally relevant ways.
The philosopher Susan Haack is a notable critic of feminist epistemology.
Sandra Harding organized feminist epistemology into three categories: feminist empiricism, standpoint epistemology, and post-modern epistemology.Doucet, A., & Mauthner, N. (2006). Feminist methodologies and epistemology. Handbook of 21st Century Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 36-45. While potentially a limited set of categories, post-modern feminism was a transitional ideology that denounced absolute objectivity and asserted the death of the meta-narrative. While these three categories of feminist epistemology have their place in history (see feminist empiricism, standpoint feminism, postmodern feminism), as ideological frameworks they hold epistemic insights in contemporary feminist method. Feminist theorist Nina Lykke, has expanded upon these three categories to include "postmodern feminist (anti-)epistemology...[and]...postconstructionist feminist epistemology"
Feminist empiricism Feminist empiricism emerged from a feminist critique that gave attention to male bias in positivistic practices of science. 2nd Wave feminist researchers identified how quantification and objectivity, as facets of positivism, have been held as the "gold standard" for social and political science research. Quantification, and its political relationships to notions of objectivity, maintains methodological dominance and preference primarily in the United States. This is perpetuated by how funding authorities tend to prioritize quantitative research with positivist frameworks.
Feminist empiricists believe in the concept of positivism; that all knowledge can be understood objectively and can be accessed through empirical research.Hesse-Biber, S. N. & Leavy, P. L. (2007). Feminist empiricism: challenging gender bias and "setting the record straight". In Hesse-Biber, S. N. & Leavy, P. L. Feminist research practice (pp. 26-52). : SAGE Publications Ltd They assert that pre-feminist positivism was actually not objective at all, since traditional positivism's 'androcentric bias' led to only partial or 'subjective' knowledge of the world. In essence, all empirical inquiry is inherently skewed by value judgments and biased interpretation of evidence by male-biased authorities. For instance, it was not until retrieving statistical data on the prevalence of women in the workplace experiencing (what is now known to be) 'sexual harassment' through surveys in the 1970s that sexual harassment became identified by political authorities as a commonality. Without this intervention of feminists in an empirical field, this commonality would never have been identified as an issue, since males had no reason to pursue this phenomenon. Londa Schiebinger further asserts that empirical research "embodies many core feminist values", in that feminist empiricists are actively seeking out and eliminating exploitative research whilst resisting strategic, oppressive explanations of data.
Feminist empiricism is critiqued for its belief that "objectivity" is best achieved through quantification, whether or not viewed through a feminist lens or utilized for feminist ideals. The division between quantitative and qualitative data has historically reinforced gendered dichotomies of "hard/soft, emotional/rational, worthy/worthless". Many assert that 'objective truth' is a false concept, and thus feminist empiricists may overestimate the extent to which they can increase objectivity.Bart, J. (1998, January 19). Feminist Theories of Knowledge: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Retrieved October, from http://www.dean.sbc.edu/bart.html Furthermore, positivism and quantitative research has been critiqued as a "detached" philosophical framework that inherently objectifies its research subjects.
Feminist empiricists respond to the problem of value-neutrality by lengthening Quine's argument: theory is not determined by evidence. Any observation counts as proof for particular thesis only if connected with certain background presumptions, because similar observation might support different hypotheses. In daily life, scientists face some restrictions in selecting the background assumptions, that are based on cognitive values like simplicity and conservatism, which a political and social philosophy that is based on retaining traditional social establishments. Feminist empiricists state that no logical or methodological principle categorically prohibits scientists from choosing their background assumptions as their political and social values or other interests. Therefore, feminist scientists may select their background presumptions on account of their opinions on some feminist values.
Two paradoxes
There are two central paradoxes with feminist empiricism—the paradox of bias and the paradox of social construction.
Paradox of bias
Many feminist empiricists advocate for exposing the androcentric and sexist biases in scientific research, namely that people have a bias towards gender difference and sexuality. However, while feminist empiricists would claim that the feminist inquiry helps the development of science, their own perspective adopts certain biases about gender and science.
The paradox of bias emerges from arguments that revise or reject conceptions of impartiality and objectivity in research. This bias lies between feminist empiricism's two main commitments. First, feminist empiricism is committed to the feminist project. In other words, feminists are determined to expose, subvert and overcome all forms of oppression. In the context of feminist epistemology, the consequence of this outcome is that feminists constantly attack impartiality as a disguise of the subjective interests of the powerful in society. The second commitment is to empiricism, where feminists pledge allegiance to the methods and tools of analytical philosophy. While analytic philosophy(?) (feminism?) requires a commitment to subjectivity, empiricism requires partakers to endorse impartiality. Therefore, there is a paradox of bias that confronts both empiricism and epistemological views that attempt to balance subjectivism and objectivism in knowledge acquisition.
Simply stated, the paradox of bias is the existing tension between feminists who criticize male bias for lacking impartiality and feminists who reject the impartiality ideal. The latter claim that objectivity and neutrality are unattainable, which becomes problematic when claiming the objectivity of their viewpoints. According to Andrew, all epistemological views are biased. Besides, it is difficult to distinguish between various subjective principles without biased or partial evaluation standards. Therefore, it becomes difficult to conceptualize and evaluate bias while rejecting impartiality. Anthony makes several claims in formulating the paradox of bias. First, he asserts that impartiality is not a tenable epistemic practice ideal. Secondly, he states that the untenable state of impartiality means that all epistemic practices have an inherent bias. Thirdly, it is impossible to develop impartial criteria for assessing the epistemic value of biases if all practices are biased. Lastly, all biases are equal since there are no unbiased criteria for evaluating practices. These claims suggest that people should either endorse objectivity or stop distinguishing between good and biases.
Paradox of social construction