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Feminist Philososphy in Epistemology and Science
Feminist Philososphy in Epistemology and Science
Situated Knower
Gender:
Roles: Men and women are assigned different roles by the society. In
Indian context, generally, women were assigned more domestic roles.
Norms: Men and women are expected to show different behaviors.
Women are expected to show more modest and inward behavior than
men generally. Men and women are expected to show norms according
to their roles.
Traits as Virtues and Vices: There are some traits that are considered
masculine or feminine traits. Accordingly, they are considered virtues
or vices in men or women. For example, trait of crying is considered
feminine in most cultures so it is considered a vice in men.
Identity: What a person believes to be their gender identity may not be
same as how society addresses them.
Gendered Knowledge:
It is nothing but how peoples gender affects the ways in which they acquire
knowledge. Different factors of epistemology and gender apply here.
There are some kinds of knowledge that is not gender specific. For example,
2+2=4, plants need sunlight etc. These are examples of simple
propositional knowledge about matters. But these types of knowledge do not
help in analyzing how gender affects epistemology. Rather, above discussed
gendered knowledge is the type of knowledge that does.
So what are the theories proposed to understand the problem and find the
solution? There are three approaches to the problem of gendered knowledge
in epistemology.
2. Feminist Postmodernism
Postmodernism claims that things have meaning only with
respect to other things. There is no external reality, from which
they can bring a definitive meaning. It also means that if we
were to add a new thing in existing understood system, the
meaning of existing things would also change since their
meaning is dependent on other things.
Within feminism, postmodernist ideas are against any theory that
has a sexist conclusion or result. So it is against any kind of
sexism, be it against women or men
Rejection of the concept of women:
o Unlike Feminist standpoint theory, it refuses to use the
concept of women In general. It claims that women cannot
be generalized as done in former theory.
o It rejects any kind of universal claim in gender identity.
Because within gender groups, there is a lot of issues like
race, country, religious beliefs, social and economical
backgrounds, sexuality that sets them apart.
o It also opposes feminist standpoint theory by claiming that
we should not try to find a universal epistemic privilege
according to gender difference.
No Stable Perspective:
o It also claims that it is not possible to have a stable
perspective in epistemology. It shifts from time to time.
o Whatever perspective a person has, it is because of their
culture, race and other properties. So as these things
evolve, perspectives of knowledge evolve, too.
Criticism: Both of the above concepts face criticism.
o Feminists object to rejection of the concept of women in
general. Their argument is that just because women are
from different backgrounds and situations, it does not
mean that the gender issues that they face are not similar
and unifying.
o Plurality of perspective would endanger the possibility of
analytical focus and women coming together to make a
political and social impact.
Even after criticism, it is a powerful theory because it is well
accepted that plurality of perspectives is necessary in this kind of
analysis of society.
3. Feminist Empiricism
Empiricism is the viewpoint that experience is the primary source
of knowledge, unlike rationalism.
Feminist empiricists focus on how practices in science can be
improved by feminist values and exposing sexist bias in science.
Paradox of Bias:
o Feminist empiricists try to uncover and stop sexist and
biased practices in science.
o This is because of the commitment that bias is
epistemically bad and it leads to false and useless theories.
o But they also believe that feminist values improve science,
which is biased. So they contradict themselves. This is
known as paradox of bias.
Paradox of Social Construction:
o They claim that sexist scientists are that way because of
social influence.
o So according to that, to eliminate such thing, social
influence should be minimized and individual knowledge
construction should be encouraged.
o But they stress on social construction of knowledge,
contradicting their selves. This is known as paradox of
social construction.
Feminist empiricists argue that above paradoxes can be resolved
by claiming that not all biases are bad because biases
sometimes provide different perspectives, which is good.
Criticism: This theory has been criticized for relying too much on
science and empiricism and ignoring feminist activities
(especially political).
Conclusion:
References
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - http://www.iep.utm.edu/fem-epis
the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) -
http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/teaching/2010_015/L
ecture8_FeministEpist.pdf
Free Dictionary - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Knower