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Is there a feminist method?1

Sandra Harding2

Translation of Gloria Elena Bernal

Over the last two decades, feminist researchers have posed radical challenges to social science's analyzes of
women, men, and social life as a whole. However, from the beginning of the process the discussions aimed at
discovering how to eliminate the bias and distortions of traditional social studies have mixed and confused
problems of method, methodology and epistemology.
Is there a distinctive feminist research method? How does feminist methodology challenge – or complement
– traditional methodologies? On what bases are the assumptions and procedures of feminist researchers
supported? These types of questions have given rise to important controversies in the field of feminist theory
and politics, and have provoked curiosity and expectation in traditional discourses.
The question most often asked is: is there a distinctive method of feminist research? However, it has been
difficult to identify precisely the type of response that should be given. In this text I propose to argue against the
idea that there is a distinctive method of feminist research. I start from the proposition that questions about
method often confuse the most interesting aspects of feminist research. I even believe that the concern
underlying most formulations of the problem of method, and which is expressed through them, is of a different
order. What is interesting to know is, rather, what makes some of the most recent and influential feminist-
inspired research in the fields of biology and social sciences so profound and incisive.
First of all, I will try to unravel some problems of method, methodology and epistemology implicit in the
formulation of the problem. Afterwards, I will give a brief review (or introduction, depending on who reads the
text) of the problems related to the belief that it is enough to "add women" to social studies to address the full
range of feminist critiques. Finally, I will point out three specific characteristics of those feminist studies that have
managed to transcend "summative" approaches. I will try to show why we should not consider these
characteristics to be research methods in themselves, although they undoubtedly have important implications for
our evaluation of research methods.

Method, methodology, epistemology

One of the reasons why it is difficult to satisfactorily answer questions about the specificity of feminist method is
the following: discussions about methods (that is, about data collection techniques) and about methodologies
(that is, about theory and analysis of research procedures) have been mixed and have also incorporated
epistemological problems (that is, issues related to the theory of adequate knowledge or strategies for justifying
knowledge). Confusion occurs in both traditional and feminist discourses.
The issue is very complex. That is why we will have to distinguish its components. Without case, the
problem simply lies in the fact that the term "method" is usually used to refer simultaneously to the three aspects
of the research. Consequently, it is not clear what one wants to discover when asking whether or not there is a
specific "feminist method of research." This lack of clarity allows critics to avoid the truly distinctive aspects of
the best feminist social research. It also makes it difficult to identify the tasks necessary to advance feminist
research.

A research method is a technique for collecting information (or a way of proceeding to collect it). It is valid to
state that all information gathering techniques can be classified into any of the following categories: listening to
informants (or interrogated), observing behavior, and examining historical remains and records. In that sense,
there are only three methods of social research. As evident in many of their studies, feminist researchers use
any or all three methods - in this precise sense of the term -, just as occurs in any traditional androcentric
research.

1Is There a Feminist Method?" in Sandra Harding (Ed.). Feminism and Methodology, Bloomington/Indianapolis. Indiana University
Press. 1987.
2 Philosopher professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. AND. OR.

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 There are, of course, notable differences in the way information collection methods are applied. For
example, feminist researchers listen very carefully to what female informants think about their own lives and
those of men, and hold critical positions toward traditional social scientists' conceptions of the lives of men and
women. They also observe some behaviors of women and men that, from the perspective of traditional social
scientists, are not relevant. In the case of history, they look for previously unrecognized patterns of organization
of historical data.
In all these cases there is something that can be considered, simultaneously, as much less and much more
than new research methods. On the one hand, the particular tasks that feminist researchers carry out using
conventional research methods do not present such a coherence among themselves that they can be classified
as "new feminist research methods." But, on the other hand, there is no doubt that new methodologies and
epistemologies demand renewed uses of conventional research techniques. When we speak of "research
method" with exclusive reference to the most specific sense of the term, the depth of the transformations that
feminist analyzes require is underestimated and they are reduced to the simple discovery of distinctive research
methods.
The fact that social scientists tend to reduce methodological problems to simple questions of method (when
designing, for example, "methods courses" in psychology, sociology, and related disciplines), is a problem.
When they talk about specific information gathering techniques, they actually raise methodological problems.
Without a doubt, it is the habit of confusing levels that inclines social scientists to attribute the novelty of feminist
studies to the application of a single research method.
On the other hand, the fact that philosophers use terms such as "scientific method" or "the method of
science", when in reality they refer to problems of methodology and epistemology, is also a source of confusion.
They too fall into the temptation of equating the novel features of feminist research with a new "research
method."
A methodology is a theory about the procedures that research follows or should follow and a way of
analyzing them. The methodology makes propositions regarding the application of "the general structure of the
theory to particular scientific disciplines." 3 Thus, to give an example, discussions about how functionalism (or
Marxist political economy or phenomenology) should be or are applied in particular areas of research are of a
methodological order.4
Feminist researchers have been arguing that traditional theories have been applied in such a way that they
make it difficult to understand women's participation in social life, as well as to understand that male activities
are determined by gender (and that they are not, as they are usually considered , representations of "the
human"). That is why they have developed feminist versions of traditional theories. Today we have examples of
feminist methodologies in discussions about the capacity of phenomenological approaches to clarify women's
worlds, or the way in which Marxist political economy can explain the causes of the permanent exploitation of
women in the domestic unit. or through salaried work. 5 These often heroic efforts, however, raise problems with
feminism's ability to apply these theories and make complete and undistorted analyzes of gender and women's
activities. And, of course, they also raise epistemological problems.
An epistemology is a theory of knowledge. It answers the question of who can be a "subject of knowledge"
(can it be women?). It also deals with the tests that beliefs must undergo in order to be legitimized as knowledge
(but does it refer only to the tests that must be applied to male experiences and observations?). It addresses the
issue of the kinds of things that can be known (can "subjective truths" be considered knowledge?), and many
other similar problems.
Sociologists of knowledge consider epistemologies to be strategies designed to justify beliefs. Very
common examples of justification strategies would be the appeal to divine authority, custom and tradition,
"common sense", observation, reason and male authority. Feminists argue that traditional epistemologies
systematically exclude, intentionally or unintentionally, the possibility of women being subjects or agents of
knowledge; They maintain that the voice of science is masculine and that history has been written from the point
of view of men (those who belong to the dominant class or race); They argue that the subject of a traditional
sociological sentence is always assumed to be male. That is why they have proposed alternative
epistemological theories that legitimize women as subjects of knowledge. 6
However, these difficulties are also usually considered problems of method. Undoubtedly, epistemological
3 Peter Caws. "Scientific Method" in Paul Edwards (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy New York, Macmillan, 1967, p. 339.
4
Some feminist methodologists have gone to the heroic extreme of demonstrating that our understanding of women and gender
phenomena can be increased if we creatively apply theories that have been considered hopelessly sexist—such as sociobiology, for
example. See Donna Haraway's discussion of this topic in "Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic" in Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol 4, no. 1, section 2, 1978.
5 Dorothy Smith, Heidi Hartmann and Nancy Hartsock offer us these types of methodological discussions in the book Feminism and
Methodology, edited by me.
6 For a broader discussion of feminist critiques of science and epistemology see my work 111(: Science Question in Feminism, New
York/Ithaca, Comell University Press, 1986, as well as Jean O'Barr and Sandra Harding (eds.) . Sex and Scientific Inquiry, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1987.

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problems have decisive implications for the application of general theoretical structures to particular disciplines
and for the choice of research methods. But I think that referring to these issues as problems of method is also a
source of confusion.7
In summary, there are important links between epistemologies, methodologies and research methods. But
reflection on research methods is not precisely what allows us to identify the characteristic features of the best
feminist research. And, as we will see shortly, this specificity cannot be found in the efforts to "add or add
women" to traditional studies.

The problem of the "sum or aggregation of women"

If we wish to fully understand the depth and extent of the transformation that the social sciences require to
understand gender and feminine activities, we need to recognize the limitations of the strategies that are often
used to rectify the androcentrism of traditional studies. Feminist researchers first attempted to add women to
these analyses. Three classes of women seemed obvious candidates to be incorporated into the analysis:
scientists, women who participated in public life - whom social scientists were already studying - and women
who had been victims of the most brutal forms of male domination. .
In the first case, the academy has begun to rescue and value the work of female researchers and thinkers.
Generally, women's academic and research work has been ignored, minimized or appropriated, without giving it
the credit that would have been given to men's work. A notable example of this form of sexist devaluation in the
natural sciences is the treatment that Rosalind Franklin's Nobel Prize-winning colleagues gave to her work on
DNA.8 How many other scientists, social or natural, have gone unnoticed because, unlike Franklin, they did not
have a friend capable of correcting the record of events?
However, the idea that this is the only way to eliminate sexism and androcentrism from social science
raises serious problems. It is evident that gender and the role of women in social life cannot be understood by
simply knowing their work in the field of social sciences. Despite its acuity, the work of these "lost women" fell
short of incorporating the theoretical advances made by feminism over the last two decades. Furthermore, they
could consider themselves lucky for the simple fact of having entered a world that prevented most women from
accessing the education and credits necessary to become social scientists. His work was subjected to enormous
pressures, aimed at forcing him to adjust his research to what the men of his time thought about social life.
These pressures are still very strong today. Often, fortunately, many of them resisted successfully. However,
their research projects could not have produced the kind of in-depth analysis that is possible when the thinking
of men and women is part of a broad social revolution of the magnitude that the women's movement has
provoked. What remains astonishing today is the intellectual courage and frequent flashes of genius of these
intellectuals, despite the social, professional and political constraints they had to face. 9
A distinct concern of feminist research has been the examination of women's contributions to the public
sphere, which were already being studied by social science before. Today we can see that women have also
been creators of distinctive culture, strays, voters, revolutionaries, social reformers, successful individuals,
salaried workers and many other things. Important studies have contributed to developing our understanding of
female roles in public life, both in history and in different contemporary cultures.
However, this approach leaves some undoubtedly androcentric criteria untouched and, consequently, offers
us partial and distorted analyzes of gender and women's social activities. It suggests, falsely, that the only
activities that constitute and shape social life are those that men have considered important and worthy of study.
This hides issues of such crucial importance as, for example, the way in which changes in social, reproductive
and sexual practices and in the exercise of motherhood have shaped the State, the economy and other public
institutions.
Furthermore, this emphasis of the research does not encourage us to ask what the meanings that
contributions to public life have had for women . For example, the birth control movement, led by Margaret
Sanger, played an important and unfortunate role in eugenics policy. But, from the perspective of women, it also
meant the possibility of planning their reproductive lives and, in that sense, of systematically and effectively
controlling the consequences of their sexual activities. This latter meaning can hardly be perceived if the
emphasis is placed solely on female contributions to "men's world."
To give another example, let us remember that many black and white women worked bravely in the
American anti-slavery movements, in favor of black suffrage and against lynching. But what did their
participation in those movements mean for the lives of these women, as women ? (Among other things, they
learned to speak in public and organize politically, and they experienced the virulence of white men's hostility
7 I suggest that readers try to distinguish these three different aspects of research in feminist studies.
8 See the works of James Watson on this matter. The Double Helix, New York, New American Library, 1969, and by Anne Sayre.
Rosalind Franklin and DNA, New York: Norton, 1975. Carolyn Wood Sherif discusses this type of practices in the field of psychology
in the essay included in the book of which this text constitutes the introduction.
9 In the work of Margaret Rossiter. Women Scientist. In America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 ( Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), information
can be found on the efforts of natural and social scientists during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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toward women who learned to speak and organize!).10 11
A third orientation of research on women corresponds to their study as victims of male domination. Male
domination takes various forms. Many researchers have provided us with groundbreaking studies on crimes
committed "against women" - particularly rape, incest, pornography and physical violence in the home. They
have examined the most widespread and institutionalized patterns of economic exploitation and political
discrimination of women. And they have also analyzed the forms of domination of white men, which have had
women of color as special victims – through slavery, state policies on reproduction and social security,
"protectionist" legislation, union practices and 9
other mechanisms.
The emergence into public light of this ugly hidden side of the condition of women has prevented honest
thinkers from continuing to believe in a supposed generalized social progress, both in our culture and in most
others. Taking into account the statistics on violence against women, it is reasonable to place most
contemporary cultures among the most savage of all time.
But studies on violence and its victims also have limitations. They tend to create the false impression that
women have been limited to being victims, that they have never successfully protested, that they cannot be
effective social agents on behalf of themselves or others. And yet, the work of other feminist scholars and
researchers tells us otherwise. Women have permanently resisted male domination.
So far I have pointed out the problems inherent in three basic approaches to the study of women and
gender that seemed very promising. And although they are valuable in themselves, the new feminist research
includes studies of these "types of women", but manages to transcend the pretensions of the aforementioned
approaches. 12 Let us now examine what characterizes the best examples of this new type of research, since
these characteristics may offer more appropriate criteria than that of research methods for identifying what gives
specificity to feminist studies.

What's new in feminist research?

Let us pose to the history of feminist research the kind of question that Thomas Kuhn posed to the history of
science.13 This author wondered what meaning a philosophy of science could have that was not supported by
evidence from the history of science itself. We can ask in turn what sense would there be in a theory of the
specificity of feminist research that did not take into account the criteria provided by the best examples of that
research. Some proposals for the development of a feminist method have had this unfortunate limitation. But if
we ask the question instead, we can identify the features that distinguish the best feminist studies.
I maintain that there are three fundamental distinguishing characteristics, but I by no means claim that this
list is exhaustive. We can recognize these features only after studies containing them have been produced and
their relevance has been demonstrated. As research continues, we will surely identify other characteristics that
will allow us to increase our understanding of what makes feminist studies so influential. Without a doubt, we
can also examine our perception of the importance of the three characteristics I point out here. I do not intend to
offer a definitive answer to the question that heads this section, but rather to demonstrate that the historical
approach is the best strategy to account for the specificity and weight of feminist research. And, although these
characteristics have consequences for the selection of research methods, there is no reason to call them
"methods."

New empirical and theoretical resources: women's experiences

Criticisms of traditional social science point out that it, for its analysis, starts from the experiences of men. That
is, it only asks questions about social life that pose problems from the perspective of the social experiences of
men (of course, white, Western, and bourgeois). Unconsciously, traditional social science has followed a "logic
of discovery" that we could summarize as follows: ask only those questions about nature and social life that men
(white, Western, bourgeois) want answered. From this perspective, questions such as the following are valid:
How can "we humans" achieve greater autonomy? What legal policy should be followed toward rapists and
raped women, while leaving intact the established norms of male sexual behavior?14
On the one hand, many of the phenomena that are problematic from a male perspective are not

10 Bettina Aptheker. Women Legancy: Essays on Race, Sex and Class in Amecan History, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1982; and Angela Davis.
Women, Race and Class, New York, Random House, 1983.
11 It must be said that white women, too, have participated in multiple ways in the oppression of women of color.
12 Peggy McIntosh makes a very interesting and much harsher judgment than mine about "summative" approaches to feminist research in her essay "Interactive
Phases of Curricular Revision: A Feminist Perspecuve," working paper number 124, Wellesley, Mass., Wellesley. College Center for Research on Women, 1983.
13 Thomas S. Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2a. edition. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970. There is a
translation into Spanish: The structure of scientific revolutions, Mexico, Breviarios del Fondo de Cultura Económica, no. 213, s/f.
14 The problems implicit in the formulation of these "masculine problems" are analyzed in some essays included in Feminism and
Methodology.

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problematic at all from the perspective of women's experiences (so, for example, the two issues raised above do
not necessarily arise from female experiences). ). On the other hand, women experience many phenomena that
from their perspective undoubtedly require explanation. Why do men dislike childcare and housework so much?
Why does the expansion of life opportunities for women tend to be restricted precisely to the moments that
traditional history indicates as those of greatest progress? Why is it so difficult to identify black women's ideals of
femininity in studies of black families? Why is male sexuality so "impulsive" and why is it defined in terms of the
exercise of power? Why is risking death considered a specifically human act and, on the contrary, giving birth is
simply a natural event?15 If we think about the way in which social phenomena become problems that require
explanation, we will immediately see that there is no problem if there is no person (or group of people) who
defines it as such and suffers from it: a problem is always a problem. for someone. The recognition of this fact,
as well as its implications for the structuring of the scientific enterprise, in many ways confronts feminist research
approaches with traditional approaches.
Traditional philosophy of science holds that the origin of scientific problems and hypotheses is irrelevant to
the "quality" of research results. It doesn't matter where the problems or hypotheses come from - crystal ball
gazing, sun worship, perception of the world around us, or critical discussion with the brightest thinkers. There is
no logic to define the "contexts of discovery", although many have tried to find it. It is in the "context of
justification," where hypotheses are tested, that we must seek the "logic of scientific inquiry." We must discover
the distinctive virtues of science (its "method") in this testing process and not in other.
However, the challenges of feminism reveal that the questions that are asked - and, above all, those that
are never asked - determine the relevance and accuracy of our global picture of the facts as much as any of the
answers we can find. Defining problems that require scientific explanation exclusively from the perspective of
bourgeois and white men leads to partial and even perverse visions of social life. A distinctive feature of feminist
research is that it defines its problems from the perspective of women's experiences and that it also uses these
experiences as a significant indicator of the "reality" against which the hypotheses must be tested.
Recognizing the importance of female experiences as a resource for social analysis has obvious
implications for the structuring of social institutions, education, laboratories, publications, cultural dissemination
and the establishment of service agencies; in short, for the structuring of social life in its entirety. Therefore, it
must be emphasized that it is women who must reveal for the first time what female experiences are and have
been.
For reasons of social justice, women should have the same participation as men in the design and
administration of the institutions that produce and distribute knowledge: it is not fair to deny women access to
the benefits of participation in these companies . But they should also participate in these projects because the
partial and distorted understanding of ourselves and the world around us occurs precisely in the culture that
systematically silences and devalues women's voices.
It must be emphasized that "women's experiences", in the plural, offer the new resources available to
research. This formulation indicates that the best feminist studies differ from traditional ones in many different
ways. It is no coincidence that once it is admitted that there is no universal man but only culturally different men
and women, the eternal companion of "man" - "woman" - has also disappeared. That is to say, women are
presented to us only in different classes, races and cultures: there is no universal "woman", nor is there "the
experience of women". Masculine and feminine are always categories that are produced and applied within a
particular class, race and culture, in the sense that the experiences, desires and interests of women and men
differ in each class, race and culture. But, by the same token, class, race, and culture are always categories
within gender, since the experiences, desires, and interests of women and men differ precisely according to their
class, race, and culture. 16 This fact has led various theorists to propose that we should talk about our
"feminisms" only in the plural, since there is no single body of feminist principles or ideas beyond the very
general ones to which feminists of all races adhere. class and culture. Why should we expect it not to be so?
There are very few principles and ideas that sexists of any race, class and culture embrace!
But our generic experiences not only vary according to cultural categories, they are also often in conflict
within each person's individual experience. My experiences as a mother and as an academic are often
contradictory. Women scientists often talk about the contradictions in their identity between what they
experience as women and as scientists. Dorothy Smith has written about the "fault line" between the experience
of sociologists as sociologists and as women. 17 The state of separation of many of the consciously assumed
identity characteristics - black-feminist, socialist-feminist, Asian-American feminist, lesbian-feminist - reflects the
challenge to "identity politics" that has always been present in Western thought and public life. These
fragmented identities constitute a rich source of resources for feminist thought.
Finally, it must be said that the questions that an oppressed group wants answered rarely constitute

15 These "feminine problems" give rise to many of the essays in the Feminism and Methodology volume.
16 The essays of Joyce A. Ladner and Bonnie Thornton Dill, which are included in Feminism and Methodology. They argue this claim
with great clarity.
17 See Smith's essay in the volume Feminism and Methodology.

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demands for what is known as the pure truth. Rather, they are questions about the possibilities to modify their
conditions; They are also questions about how their situation is shaped by forces that surpass them, about how
to overcome, overcome or neutralize those forces that conspire against their emancipation, growth or
development, and about the issues related to all of this. Consequently, feminist research projects do not
originate in any kind of obsolete "feminine experiences" but, primarily, in the experiences of women in political
struggle. (Kate Millett and other authors remind us that the bedroom and the kitchen are sites of political struggle
to the same extent as the courthouse or the voting booth.) 18 It is possible that only through such struggles can
one come to understand oneself and the social world.

New purposes for social science: being in favor of women

If the research is based on what appears to be problematic from the perspective of women's experiences, the
consequence is that the research tends to be designed in favor of women, as numerous researchers have
pointed out. In other words, the objectives of research of this nature consist of offering women the explanations
of the social phenomena that they want and need, and not of providing answers to the problems posed by social
welfare departments, producers, advertisers, psychiatrists, health care facilities or the judicial system.
The questions about women that men have wanted answered have most often arisen from desires to be
appeased, controlled, exploited, or manipulated. Traditional social research has been in favor of men. In the best
feminist studies, the purposes of research and analysis are inseparable from the origins of the research
problems.

New object of research: placing the researcher on the same critical plane as the explicit object of study
There are many ways to characterize the distinctive object of study of feminist social analysis. If the study of
women is not new, it is studying them from the perspective of their own experiences, so that they can
understand themselves and the world. This approach has no history yet. The study of gender is also very recent.
The idea that the systematic social construction of masculinity and femininity is constrained to little or no extent
by biology is still very recent. Furthermore, feminist research joins other approaches considered "inferior" by
insisting on the importance of studying ourselves and "studying from the bottom up," and not "from the top
down." While employers often hire research to figure out how to make workers happy with less power and pay,
workers have almost never been in a position to take on or hire research on anything, much less how to make
employers happy with less power. and profit. Similarly, psychiatrists have conducted endless studies on what
they consider to be the peculiar mental and behavioral characteristics of women, but women had not until very
recently begun to study the strange mental and behavioral characteristics of psychiatrists. If we wish to
understand the various ways in which our everyday experience occurs, it makes sense to critically examine the
sources of social power.
The best feminist studies transcend these innovations in the definition of the object of study in a definitive
way: they insist that the researcher place himself on the same critical plane as the explicit object of study, thus
recovering the entire research process. for analyzed together with the results thereof. In other words, the class,
race, culture, gender assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors of the researcher, or the researcher himself, must be
placed within the framework of the painting he or she wishes to paint. This does not mean that the first part of
any form of investigation should be dedicated to the examination of conscience (although it is not entirely wrong
for researchers to examine their conscience from time to time). Rather, it means, as we will see, making explicit
the gender, race, class, and cultural traits of the researcher and, if possible, the way in which he or she suspects
that all of this has influenced the research project - although, since Then, readers are free to come to contrary
hypotheses regarding the researcher's influence on their analysis. Thus, the researcher is presented to us not as
the invisible and anonymous voice of authority, but as that of a real, historical individual, with particular and
specific desires and interests.
This requirement is not a naive effort to "behave" according to the assumed standards of imaginary critics of
different classes, races, cultures (or gender) than the researcher. It is, rather, a response to the recognition that
the cultural beliefs and behaviors of feminist researchers shape the results of their analyzes as much as those of
sexist and androcentric researchers. We must avoid the "objectivist" position that seeks to hide the cultural
beliefs and practices of the researcher, while manipulating the beliefs and practices of the object of research in
order to expose it. Only in this way can we contribute with studies and explanations free (or, at least, freer) of
distortions originating in the unanalyzed beliefs and behaviors of social scientists themselves. Another way of
expressing this assertion is to emphasize that the researcher's beliefs and behaviors are part of the empirical
evidence for (or against) the arguments that support the research conclusions. And this evidence has to be
exposed to critical analysis as much as the data set that is usually defined as relevant evidence must be
18 Kate Millett. Sexual Politics, New York, Doubleday & Co., 1969. There is a Spanish translation from Editorial Aguilar, México,
under the title Sexual Politics.

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seriously analyzed. The introduction of this "subjective" element to the analysis actually increases the objectivity
of the research, while decreasing the "objectivism" that tends to hide this type of evidence from the public. This
form of relationship between the researcher and the object of research is often called the "reflexivity of social
science." I refer to it in this text as a new object of research in order to underline the unprecedented (unusual)
force of this recommendation regarding reflexivity (reflexivity recommendation). The reader will want to ask
whether and how this powerful recommendation regarding reflexivity can be found in feminist analyses. Or, how
does it implicitly guide the investigation? How might it have influenced those research projects more?
To summarize my argument I will indicate that it is features of the three types I have mentioned - and not a
supposed "feminist method" - that are responsible for the production of the best feminist academic and research
works. They can be defined as methodological features, since they show us how to apply the general structure
of scientific theory to research on women and gender. They can also be conceived as epistemological
characteristics because they imply theories of knowledge different from traditional ones.
What is evident is that the extraordinary explanatory power of the results of feminist research in the social
sciences is due to the feminist-inspired challenges that have been raised against the grand theories and
fundamental assumptions of traditional social research.

Two last questions

Before concluding I want to caution readers against two inferences one might be tempted to make from my
analysis. It is sometimes assumed, erroneously, that by using female rather than male experiences as an
empirical and theoretical resource, feminism adheres to a certain type of relativism. It is also often mistakenly
imagined that men cannot make important contributions to feminist research and studies. Both assumptions are
related to each other.
First, we should note that in the present text the experiences of women and men are not considered equally
reliable guides for the production of complete and undistorted social research. Feminist researchers never claim
that sexist and antisexist claims are equally plausible - for example, they would never claim that it is equally
acceptable to regard women as incapable of making the highest moral judgments (as men have claimed) and to
regard women as incapable of making the highest moral judgments (as men have claimed) they can exercise a
different but as "high" moral judgment as that of men (as Carol Gilligan maintains). The reader can identify many
other directly contradictory statements in the texts about the challenges that feminism poses to traditional social
analyses. Feminist researchers maintain that the characteristic social experiences of women and men offer
different but not equal bases for the elaboration of reliable knowledge (reconstruct). In another text I examine the
contrasting bases proposed by various feminist epistemologies to affirm why all of us - men as well as women -
should prefer feminine experiences, more than masculine ones, as more reliable bases for the elaboration of
knowledge. In this text I can only limit myself to relativizing relativism; That is, I can only point out the limitation of
the social contexts in which it appears as a reasonable position.
Historically, relativism appears as an intellectual possibility and as a "problem" only from the perspective of
dominant groups and when the hegemony (universality) of their views is being challenged. As a modern
intellectual position, relativism emerged in the context of the belated recognition, by nineteenth-century
Europeans, that the apparently strange beliefs and behaviors of non-Europeans had a rationality or logic of their
own. There was a possibility that the most expensive Western beliefs were not the only reasonable ones. 19 The
point is, in this case, that relativism is not a problem that originates in female experiences or feminist agendas,
nor what is and is not justifiable in those terms. It is, fundamentally, a sexist response that attempts to preserve
the legitimacy of androcentric claims in the face of evidence to the contrary. “It is possible,” relativists argue,
“that male views are not the only legitimate ones. Women have their opinions on the matter and men have
theirs. "Who can objectively say that one is better than the other?" Feminist epistemologies uncompromisingly
repudiate this way of conceptualizing feminist perspectives. I hope that the reader can now glimpse the reasons
why we should view with skepticism the demands that feminist social research be founded on relativist
foundations.
The second erroneous inference we might be tempted to make is that men cannot make important
contributions to feminist research and scholarship. Whether the problems facing feminist research should arise
from women's experiences, whether feminist social science should be pro-women, and whether the researcher
should be on the same critical plane as the object of research (which usually deals with the women and gender),
how could men do feminist social science? This vexing question has gained increasing attention as the number
of men teaching in women's studies programs and producing studies on women and gender increases.

19
There are situations in which relativism might be a reasonable epistemological position: when two equally incisive non-competing
perspectives produce different views. For example, an artist and a geologist might have different and equally valid bases for their
claims about a particular group of mountains. But, precisely because they are not opposite or competing positions, the problem never
arises: no one can imagine that a geologist has any reason to contradict an artist, nor vice versa.

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 On the one hand, there are contributions of fundamental importance to the history of feminist thought that
have been made by men. John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels are just some of the most
outstanding of these thinkers. Without a doubt, his texts are controversial and, at best, imperfect. But so are the
texts of the most penetrating thinkers of those periods or, for that matter, of our days. Furthermore, there have
always been women willing and able to produce sexist and misogynistic thought – two of the most recent among
them are Marabel Morgan and Phyllis Schtafly. It is evident that neither the ability nor the willingness to
contribute to feminist thought are traits associated with sex.
Furthermore, many significant contributions to the emancipation movements of others have been made by
thinkers who were not members of the group seeking emancipation. Neither Marx nor Engels were members of
the proletariat. There are white people in the United States, as well as in South Africa and other racist regimes,
who have been willing and able to think in anti-racist terms - and who, by the way, have been lynched, deported
and banned for their texts anti-racists. Many Gentiles in Europe and the United States have defended the
freedoms to which Jews are entitled and have suffered for it. So it would be a historical eccentricity to de facto
exclude all members of the "oppressor group" from the list of those who contribute to the emancipation of
women.
On the other hand, it is true that women, as well as members of these other exploited groups, have the
wisdom to critically analyze the production of members of the oppressor group. Are women's experiences used
as evidence of the relevance of problems, concepts, hypotheses, research design, data collection and
interpretation? (Should the experience of the researcher be identical to that of the "female experience" from
which the feminist problem arises?) Is the research project in favor of women, or is it in favor of men? And of the
institutions controlled by them? Does the researcher, or the theorist, place herself on the same critical plane of
class, race, culture or gender sensitivity as her subjects of study?
Once we ask these questions we can see that there are many research projects suitable to be carried out
by men who are sympathetic to feminism. These questions allow us to critically examine the generic dimensions
of the thought and behavior of men determined historically and culturally - what literary criticism refers to when it
speaks of "phallic criticism." The reader can examine for himself/herself to what extent the project satisfies the
requirements of the most successful feminist studies already noted above. (Note that the requirement to “study
from the bottom up” will orient these projects toward the beliefs and behaviors of men of the same or higher
social class as the researcher; neither men nor women should “blame” people. of a class, who are not
responsible for designing and sustaining our social institutions, because of the sins of those institutions).
Furthermore, there are some areas of male behavior and thought that are more accessible and easier to capture
for male researchers than for female researchers: in particular, sites reserved for men, from which women are
systematically excluded, such as the courts. , the military barracks and offices and the locker rooms (Jocker
rooms). There are also cases in which researchers can apply a feminist perspective on certain aspects of some
relationships, which would be valuable to contrast with the perspective that women would apply. I am thinking,
for example, of the "phallic criticism" that men can make of friendships between men, or of relationships between
parents and children, or between male lovers. To what extent are they satisfactory or not for their protagonists?
How do they differ from the characteristics of friendships and similar relationships that occur between women? 20

In addition to the academic or scientific benefits that could be derived from this type of study, this self-critical
research by men makes a kind of political contribution to the emancipation of women that research carried out
by women could not make. Just as brave white men can set an example for other white people and can harness
for anti-racist purposes the great institutional power that racism confers on even the most anti-racist of white
people, men can make an important, if different, contribution. to the emancipation of women. If men are trained
by sexist institutions to value male authority as superior, then some brave men can take advantage of that evil
and use their male authority to resocialize (reeducate) men.
There are two more arguments to be made in favor of the possibility of there being male, feminist social
scientists. It seems to me that feminists should reject both the criticism of male academics and researchers for
ignoring women and gender, and the insistence that they are incapable of conducting research that satisfies
feminist requirements. Furthermore, since feminists tend to insist (correctly, in my opinion) that every topic is a
topic of feminism, it would seem strange and at the very least a strategic error to adopt a policy that
recommends that only women do social science. 21
It is clear, however, that, whether women or men, those who do not actively fight against the exploitation of
20 A study of this type is in the chapter on male friendships. titled "Man to Man", which appeared in the book by Michael E. McGill.
The McGill Report on Male Intimacy, New York, Harper & Row, 1986. Gerald Turkel drew my attention to that text.
21 "And then, after this passionate argument, why is there no article written by a man in the volume of which the present text
constitutes the introduction?" we might ask. There were two essays written by men on the original list. Both were discarded along with
articles by an anthropologist, a linguist, a feminist sociobiologist, several women of color - not black -, a demographer, a
phenomenological sociologist, a colonial historian, a psychology statistician and others. Trials were selected against a set list of
criteria.
***The translation of this epilogue is from the compiler.

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women in everyday life will hardly produce social research on any topic that is not distorted by sexism and
androcentrism. As Nancy Hartsock says "the accessible perspective for the oppressed group must be the flag of
struggle. It represents, furthermore, an achievement that requires science to see beneath the surface of the
social relations in which everyone is forced to participate, and requires the education that can only arise from the
struggle to transform such relations."
Despite these counterarguments, it is easy to understand why many feminists assume a skeptical attitude
towards the arguments of men who want to convince that they are doing feminist research or providing adequate
information about gender or feminine activities. Of course, it is important to discourage men from thinking that
they can take charge of feminist research in the same way as they take on everything that is considered
important in the public world - and citing only other male researchers -, as well as doing little for alleviate the
exploitation of their female colleagues or the women who share their lives, whose work makes their eminence
shine.
What I am arguing is that the designation "feminist" can be applied to men who meet any of the standards
that women must conform to in order to earn that label. To maximize our understanding of the phenomena,
research must satisfy the three criteria discussed in this text. The problem here is not the right to claim a label,
but rather satisfying the prerequisites necessary to produce descriptions, explanations, and views of phenomena
that are less partial and distorted.
It is time to examine the causes of the production of some of the most valued feminist social studies today.

Epilogue***
When I wrote this essay, more than a decade ago, I was thinking about the feminist standpoint theory that I had
helped articulate only as an epistemology—a theory of knowledge—not as a method of doing research.
However, this theory has been valuably interpreted as a research method in the sense that it answers the
question of how feminists should conduct research. This theory says: start with women's lives to identify under
what conditions, within natural and/or social relationships, research is needed and what can be useful (for
women) to interrogate about those situations.

This procedure (method?) contrasts with the usual way that gives rise to research projects in the social or
natural sciences, with the problems posed by disciplines, corporations, governments, international aid agencies
and other research institutions. whose designs women have been, for the most part, excluded. These new
feminist "methods" have raised questions about, for example, women's double working day, the contribution of
domestic work to the economy, sexual violence or the forms of political organization that women prefer. The
answers to these questions usually cannot be found by inspecting women's lives, since their lives are organized
far from the ways in which disciplines collect and organize information, and from government policies and
corporations. or from other institutions.
However, "starting with women's lives" to identify and formulate research questions has created, within
feminist research in the social and natural sciences, different patterns of knowledge. Thus, although this way of
producing knowledge is not normally what people who think about research “methods” have in mind, it would
nevertheless be reasonable to maintain that there is a distinct feminist research method; that is, there is a
specific "method" produced by feminisms.
(For texts on classical feminist standpoint theory see Patricia Hitl Collins. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge Consciousness
and the Politics of Empowerment, New York, Routledge, 1991. Nancy Hartsock. "The Feminist Standpoint Developing for Ground for
Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism" in S. Hardingy M. Hintikka (eds.).

Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Dordrecht,
Reídle/Kluwer, 1983. Dorothy Smith. The Everday World as Problematic: A Sociology for Women, Boston, Northeastern University
Press, 1987 and The Conceptual Practice of Power. A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge, Boston, Northeastern University Press,
1990. See also discussions of the feminist point of view in my The Science Question in Feminism, Ithaca, Cornell University Press,
1986 and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking From Women's Lives, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1991).

February 1998.

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