FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY

Submitted To: Rev. Sebimon P. K. Submitted By: Christopher T. & Benison B. M.

Subject: Feminist Theology Course: BD-IV

1. Introduction
‘Feminist epistemology’ refers to a set of feminist theories within epistemology. Equally, it refers to a set
of epistemologies within feminist theory. Both sets of theories are marked by complex and overlapping
areas of agreement and disagreement. So, there is no single ‘feminist epistemology’; there are a number
of them, Feminist epistemology has both critical and constructive dimensions. Critical dimensions include
the demonstration of forms of masculine bias at the heart of philosophical analyses of such topics as
objectivity, reason, knowledge, and rationality. Constructive dimensions include carving out a space for
specifically feminist programs of inquiry, identifying or defending epistemic guidelines of feminist
inquiry. Among constructive programs feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism have been the
most visible, but feminist forms of pragmatism are also finding favor. 1 The introduction here begins by
explaining what is included in the set of feminist epistemologies. It goes on to trace the emergence and
development of different approaches. Then it outlines the main themes in current thinking in the area.
Finally, it relates them to educational research, policy and practice, let look on to it: -
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Feminist epistemology is at the intersection of these two fields
of endeavor. Feminists want to demonstrate and dismantle the invisibility, oppression and subordination
of women. The orthodox Anglo-American position is that epistemology is the theory of knowledge,
where knowledge is taken to be justified true belief. More generally epistemology explores the relation
between knowledge, belief and truth. In the last fifty years there have been sustained criticisms of this
orientation by feminists and others. They broaden the scope of epistemology to include the study of what
is known, what can be known, how it can be known, the knowing subject in an epistemic community, and
how he/she/it contributes to the discovery, construction or maintenance of knowledge. Significantly, these
broader issues pertain to physics as much as to the social sciences and humanities. The suggestion that
epistemology can – or should be – feminist has not been universally welcomed by philosophers and
theorists. There are those who remain outraged at the idea that feminism and gender have anything to do
with epistemology, or indeed with philosophy, taking the view that these subjects address such abstract
and general questions that politically partial forms of inquiry are irrelevant to them. With reference to
education theory, Siegel argues that epistemology is left unchanged by the criticism that it ignores
feminist and gender issues, because either diversity applies to research method (which is not
epistemology) or it implies relativism (which he rejects). From a very different philosophical tradition,
those working within a tradition critical of humanism would argue that any move to constructing an
epistemology, including a feminist one, is misguided, although knowing and knowledge are discussed
extensively in those critical traditions. 2
The relationship of feminist epistemology to standard epistemology is one of both critique and construct.
It includes critiques of those epistemologies which obscure the salience of gender and in doing so
contribute to gender injustice; but it also constructs epistemologies which can reveal the operations of
gender. Critiques of traditional gender-neutral epistemologies point up the biases and inaccuracies in
knowledge that have arisen from implicit assumptions that the gender of the knowing subject and/or the
subject of knowledge is irrelevant in the discovery or construction of knowledge. Moving on from
critique, feminist philosophers construct epistemologies which take gender into account. They argue that
feminist epistemology is productive of better knowledge which will not disadvantage women and girls.
For an epistemology to be feminist it is both necessary and sufficient that it is capable of revealing gender
1
Lorraine Code, Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 54-
56.
2
Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986), 91-92.
and that it is normative with respect to gender injustice. Feminist epistemology aims to overcome
injustice, so aims for better knowledge. Thus, it is not relativist, even though much feminist theory and
philosophy shares in the current widespread flight from transcendence. Moreover, some argues, feminist
epistemologies are not necessarily (or even often) exclusively, but feminist epistemology is that which
reveals the operations of gender may equally reveal the operations of other material, social or cultural
formations such as social class, race, religion, culture, disability and sexuality. 3
2. The emergence and development of feminist epistemology
Feminist epistemologies emerged during the early 1980s during a period of intense development and
contestation in feminist theorizing. The different approaches developed in conversation with each other.
Therefore, although they are analytically separable as they have areas of agreement as well as
disagreement. A significant influence was the simultaneous emergence of political movements related to
‘race’, ethnicity, social class, and sexuality.
2.1. Empiricism, standpoints and situated knowledge: One strand emerged from a critique of
neutral, realist empiricism demonstrating that apparently neutral empirical studies were biased e.g. by not
including females, or by assuming the universality of male experience. As a result, educational theory and
practice advantaged boys and men rather than girls and women. The critique of neutrality evolved into the
construction of standpoint epistemology in which it was argued that since men as a more powerful social
group understand less of the world than the less powerful social group of women, the latter perspective
gives a richer, more adequate account of the world. However, this argument applies to other social groups
too, marked by class, race, ethnicity, etc. So, a number of different standpoint epistemologies were
developed, drawing on Marxism, psychoanalysis and postmodernism. Other developments moved away
from the notion of standpoint altogether. Rejecting the dualistic and hierarchical basis of standpoints,
Haraway proposed the notion of situated knowledge, which requires engaging with ‘many kinds of
heterogeneous accounts of the world’. Drawing on Foucault to theorize black feminism, Collins used the
term ‘subjugated knowledge’. Stanley has used the same term in her critiques of standpoint epistemology,
in which she proposed an epistemology of the material: she highlighted circumstances, especially those
productive of silencing and of subjugated knowledges. Narrative and auto/biography have been
significant in all of these theories; they blur the subject and object distinctions, closely connecting the
knower and the known. Code argued that the role of the social illuminates the inescapability of
responsibility in epistemology. Some theorists continued to emphasize the primacy of gender as a
category. Belenky argued that there are ways of knowing that are specifically female, which have been
neglected and disparaged. The argument has been widely criticized, for essentialism and because, it is
argued, the phrase “ways of knowing” is misleading and refers to ontology and metaphysics rather than to
epistemology. Code argued that gender is always ‘a determining ingredient’ in how far women’s
knowledge is accepted as trustworthy and authoritative. 4
2.2. Reason and rationality. A second strand of critique focused on reason and discussed ways in
which its apparent neutrality hid its gendering. Lloyd traced how notions of reason have changed over the
centuries but how it has always been defined by excluding the feminine: from the Pythagorean table of
opposites to Kant, Hegel and Sartre. Irigaray noted the same binaries at work but argued against
exclusionary models, drawing on psychoanalytic and phenomenological concepts of the imaginary to
argue that rationality in western thought is conceptualized as male. Le Doeuff examined the discourse of
philosophy analyzing the ‘domain of the image’ in the philosophical writing of Plato, Descartes, Kant,
Rousseau, and Schopenhauer, among others, to demonstrate the gendering of reason in their work.
Braidotti argued against the project of constructing a feminist epistemology. She argued that Western
philosophy is so imbued with a particular conception of reason, exclusive of women, that feminist
attempts to re-construct it was attempting to do no more than reform orthodox epistemology. Appreciative
of Irigaray’s project of ‘jamming the theoretical machinery’ through mimesis and deconstruction,

3
Genevieve Lloyd, The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in Western Philosophy (London: Methuen, 1984), 210-
213.
4
Rosie Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 75-76.
Braidotti proposed approaching questions of knowledge through a radical, nomadic, Deleuzian approach
to philosophy as creative and formative rather than analytic and reactive. 5
3. Trends in Feminist Epistemology
Trends in feminist epistemology in the last twenty-five years have blurred the distinctions among feminist
empiricism, standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism—trends. When Harding (1986) proposed her
classification of feminist epistemologies into empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism, she cast
them as offering three fundamentally contrasting frameworks.
3.1. Feminist standpoint theory: The postmodernist critique of standpoint theory, in conjunction
with the proliferation of subaltern women's standpoints (black, Latina, lesbian, postcolonial, etc.) has led
most standpoint theorists to abandon the search for a single feminist standpoint that can claim overarching
epistemic superiority. They have rather moved in a pluralistic direction, acknowledging a multiplicity of
epistemically informative situated standpoints of different, intersecting marginalized groups One way of
understanding this claim is methodological: thinking from subaltern standpoints is more fruitful than
confining one's thinking to dominant perspectives. This shifts the privilege claimed on behalf of subaltern
standpoints from the context of justification to the context of discovery. Another way to understand the
claim is in terms of pragmatic advantages: thinking from these standpoints enables us to envision and
realize more just social relations. Shifting from claims of general epistemic privilege in access to truth to
claims of practical advantage in discovering morally or politically significant truths has been a key
strategy defenders of standpoint theory used against postmodernist critics. Feminist standpoint theory
claims an epistemic privilege over the character of gender relations, and of social and psychological
phenomena in which gender is implicated, on behalf of the standpoint of women. Feminist standpoint
theory is a type of critical theory, as this term was understood by the Frankfurt school of critical social
theorists. Critical theories aim to empower the oppressed to improve their situation. They therefore
incorporate pragmatic constraints on theories of the social world. To serve their critical aim, social
theories must (a) represent the world in relation to the interests of the oppressed; (b) enable the oppressed
to understand their problems; and (c) be usable by the oppressed to improve their condition. Critical
theory is theory of, by, and for the subjects of study. These features of critical theory raise the possibility
that claims of superiority for particular theories might be based more on pragmatic than epistemic virtues.
Even if a particular feminist theory cannot make good on the claim that it has privileged access to reality,
it may offer true representations that are more useful to women than other true representations. Criticism:
Longino argues that standpoint theory cannot provide a noncircular basis for deciding which standpoints
have epistemic privilege. Bar On argues against grounding women's epistemic privilege in their
oppression, via feminine cognitive styles. If the feminine ethics of care provides the epistemically
privileged perspective on morality, then our access to moral knowledge is predicated on the continuation
of existing gender relations, which produce this ethic. Grounding epistemic privilege in feminine
cognitive styles therefore forces a choice between having ethical knowledge and living in a nonsexist
society. Bar On also claims that the center-periphery model that underwrites the epistemic privilege of
workers does not apply to women. Marx held that class conflict is the central phenomenon that drives all
other forms of group conflict, including sexism, racism, imperialism, and national and religious conflict.
So, understanding class could yield an understanding of other dimensions of inequality. It is implausible
to hold that any group inequality is central to all the others; they intersect in complex ways. Hence,
women cannot even have privileged access to understanding their own oppression, since this takes
different forms for different women, depending on their race, sexual orientation, and so forth. This
critique has been forcefully developed by feminist postmodernists, who question the possibility of a
unified standpoint of women, and see, behind the assertion of a universal woman's viewpoint, the
perspective of relatively privileged white women. 6

5
Nancy C. Hartsock, The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 111-
114.
6
Gayle Letherby, Feminist Research in Theory and Practice. (Buckingham, England: Open University Press, 2002),
156-158.
 3.2. Feminist Postmodernism. Within feminism, postmodernist ideas have been deployed against
theories that purport to justify sexist practices—notably, ideologies that claim that observed differences
between men and women are natural and necessary, or that women have an essence that explains and
justifies their subordination. However, postmodernism has figured more prominently in internal critiques
of feminist theories. One of the most important trends in feminist thinking in the past twenty years has
been exposing and responding to exclusionary tendencies within feminism itself. Women of color and
lesbian women have argued that mainstream feminist theories have ignored their distinct problems and
perspectives. Feminist postmodernism represents both a vehicle for and response to these critiques. It
underwrites a critique of the concept “woman”—the central analytical category of feminist theory. And it
proposes perspective-shifting as a strategy for negotiating the proliferation of theories produced by
differently situated women. Wariness of the fractionating and centrifugal forces in postmodernism has led
some feminists sympathetic to postmodernism to seek middle, more stable grounds that feminist
empiricists, standpoint theorists, and postmodernists can share. Haraway stands out among feminist
postmodernists for the tributes she pays to the achievements of feminist scientists working within
empiricist standards of evaluation. She also seeks to reconstruct ideas of objectivity and epistemic
responsibility consistent with situated knowledge. Fraser & Nicholson also urge a reformulation of the
lessons of postmodernism, toward pragmatism, fallibilism, and contextualization of knowledge claims—
all features fully compatible with naturalized feminist empiricism—as against categorical rejections of
large-scale social theory, history, normative philosophy, and even humanist value. Criticism: Both key
features of feminist postmodernism—the rejection of “woman” as a category of analysis, and the infinite
fragmentation of perspectives—are controversial within feminist theory. A wholesale opposition to large-
scale generalizations about women seems to arbitrarily preclude a critical analysis of large-scale social
forces that critically affect women. That women in different social positions may experience sexism
differently does not entail that they have nothing in common—they still suffer from sexism.
Intersectionality, rather than being a basis for dissolving the category “woman,” may be accommodated
through a structural analysis of gender that allows for racialized and otherwise particularized modes of
sexist oppression. The postmodernist alternative of fragmentation and multiplicity threatens both the
possibility of analytical focus (it is impossible to keep all axes of difference in play at once) and of
politically effective coalition building among women with different identities. Carried to its logical
conclusion, feminist postmodernism dissolves all groups, thereby reproducing the individualism of the
Enlightenment epistemology it claims to repudiate. And the idea of mobile positioning may simply
reproduce the objectivism and ideas of autonomy that postmodernists claim to reject, only now in the
guise of “the view from everywhere” rather than “the view from nowhere”. Critics argue that feminists
would do better if they forthrightly appropriated ideals of human rights and autonomy, rather than
embracing “the death of the subject” in the fragmentation of the self. Despite these difficulties,
postmodernism remains a powerful current in feminist epistemology, due to the acknowledgment by all
feminists that a plurality of situated knowledges appears to be an inescapable consequence of social
differentiation and embodiment.7
3.3. Feminist empiricists argue that the key to dissolving both paradoxes is to undermine the
assumptions that underlie them: that biases, political values, and social factors can influence inquiry only
by displacing the influence of evidence, logic, and whatever other cognitive factors tend to lead to true
theories. Not all bias is epistemically bad. There are three general strategies for showing this, which may
be called pragmatic, procedural, and moral realist. The pragmatic approach stresses the plurality of aims
that inquiry serves. Inquiry seeks truths, or at least empirically adequate representations, but which truths
any particular inquiry seeks depends on the uses to which those representations will be put, many of
which are practical and derived from social interests. Feminist postmodernists criticize feminist
empiricists for presuming the existence of an individual, transhistorical subject of knowledge outside of
social determination. Feminist empiricists are also criticized for accepting an uncritical concept of

7
Jackie Alexander and Chandra Talpede Mohanty, Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures.
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 79-80.
experience, and for naively holding that science will correct the errors and biases in its theories about
women and other subordinated groups by itself, without the aid of feminist values or insights. These
criticisms apply to what Harding called “spontaneous feminist empiricism”—the view that elimination of
sexist bias, without further modification of scientific methods as understood by traditional logical
empiricists, is sufficient for feminist critique. Hundleby, a standpoint theorist, criticizes feminist
empiricism for overlooking the vital role of feminist political activity, in particular, the development of
oppositional consciousness, as a superior source of hypotheses and evidence for challenging sexist and
androcentric theories.8
4. Influential themes in current thinking in feminist epistemology
Current thinking in feminist epistemology is as energetic and various as it was in the seventies and
eighties. Clear links to standpoint, situated and subjugated knowledge can be seen in more recent
developments. In some formulations it can be seen as a specific form of social epistemology. Longino
argues for an epistemology based in feminist theoretical virtues: novelty, ontological heterogeneity,
mutuality of interaction and diffusion of power, which she contrasts with traditional cognitive virtues. In
the same article, Lennon accepts this but with the added requirement to pay particular attention to
marginalized knowledge in a process of ‘world travelling’. Cavarero draws on Arendt in her proposal that
an epistemology of the unique and particular, constructed through listening to multiple histories and
perspectives, is appropriate for the study of human plural interaction and contingency: the bios politikos
rather than the bios theoretikos. In a related move, Code discusses the politics of epistemic location. Some
problems of epistemic location are highlighted in the epistemologies of ignorance, theoretically explored
by feminists and theorists from other social groups. 9
Feminist epistemologies include not only the political but also the ethical. There are clear links here to
virtue epistemology. The role of ethics is particularly clear in the discussions of ignorance and ‘world
travelling’, which argue for epistemic responsibility on the part of an epistemic community and individual
knowers. Ethics are also relevant in relation to testimonial injustice which can occur when the knowledge
claims by members of marginalized social groups are given little authority. Feminists also argue that
hermeneutical injustice arises when power relations constrain women’s ability to understand their own
experience. In general, feminist epistemologies abandon what they argue is the presence of objective
observation. Rather, the affective is fully acknowledged in the relation between the knowing subject or
epistemic community and the known. Feminist epistemology is still seen as a mistaken project by some
feminist philosophers who would say that a feminist epistemology is a contradiction in terms, at best a
strategic move towards dismantling the whole notion - or even just irrelevant. From a post-structuralist
and postmodern perspective, the imbrication of knowledge and power means that the humanist project of
epistemology needs to be abandoned altogether, not merely reformed. Braidotti, argues for the continuing
significance of keeping gender visible while continuing to be skeptical about epistemology and what they
argue are its foundational dichotomies such as nature/culture. Drawing on Spinoza and Deleuze they take
a post humanist turn in order to discuss knowledge rather than a theory of knowledge. Posthumanism is
also significant in the work of Code and Barad.10
5. The relevance to educational research, policy and practice
Feminist epistemology is relevant to educational research, policy and practice. Suggestions about how it
is relevant depend on the particular epistemology (or epistemologies) that are espoused. Many of these
are not uniquely feminist: necessary and sufficient conditions for an epistemology to be feminist were
stated in the Introduction. Moreover, since the field is fast-moving, scholars will, no doubt, find specific
areas where it is particularly significant. Or, since there is plenty of controversy about whether any
version (or none) should be espoused, some scholars may find they need to mount a defense or attack
from new angles. Educational research is one area which has long recognized claims for the significance
8
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. (New
York and London: Routledge, 1991), 123-125.
9
Charlotte Bunch, Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 347-345.
10
Lorraine Code, What can she know? Feminist theory and construction of knowledge. (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1991), 274-275.
of feminist epistemology (whether or not those claims have been upheld). Particularly relevant in recent
work are questions of the relation of the knowing subject or epistemic community to the known;
narrative, plurality and particularity; testimonial and hermeneutical injustice; and posthuman issues of
agency. Epistemologies of ignorance point the way to new research areas and possibly to new methods.
Educational policy and practice are concerned with knowledge and ethics, so close attention ought to be
paid to the epistemologies of ignorance, and the importance of epistemological responsibility.
Implications are clear, for instance in areas of curriculum design and pedagogy. The concepts of world
travelling, testimonial injustice, hermeneutic injustice and cognitive authority are all significant in
decisions about what to teach and how to do it. However, although there is still little published theory and
philosophy in relation to these areas, there is increasing interest. 11
6. Conclusion:
Therefore, as we see, Feminist epistemology examines the political and ethical dimensions of knowing,
particularly as these dimensions pertain to power relations along axes of oppression such as sex, gender,
race, class, (dis)ability, and sexuality. Feminist epistemologists are said to hold that there are no objective
standards of truth and that beliefs are governed by the struggle for political power. On this account,
feminists are seen as holding that, since everyone else is engaged in a cynical power-play, they may as
well join the battle and try to impose their beliefs on everyone else. Feminist epistemologists observe that
the democratic and egalitarian norms for cognitive authority they accept, along with their requirement that
the scientific community be open and responsive to criticism from all quarters, are incompatible with
censorship of evidence, argument, or conclusions on political grounds, and with ignoring or suppressing
evidence that undermines any theory, including theories inspired by feminist values. Although facts and
values are intertwined, attention to values does not displace or compete with regard for the evidence.
Overall, utilizing a feminist epistemology and methodology allows us to question knowledge and
knowledge production processes which are traditionally androcentric. It involves challenging academic
writing as the dominant form of knowledge production to demonstrate how other forms can be given
value while also exploring the politics of inclusion and exclusion, accounting for differences and adopting
a just citation policy and practice.

7. Bibliography:

1. Alexander, Jackie and Chandra Talpede Mohanty. Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures.
New York: Routledge, 1997.
2. Allen, Anita. Why privacy isn’t everything: Feminist reflections on personal accountability. Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2003.
3. Braidotti, Rosie. Patterns of Dissonance. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.
4. Bunch, Charlotte. Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.
5. Code, Lorraine. Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
6. Code, Lorraine. What can she know? Feminist theory and construction of knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1991.
7. Harding. The Science Question in Feminism. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986.
8. Hartsock, Nancy C. The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998.
9. Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New
York and London: Routledge, 1991.
10. Letherby, Gayle. Feminist Research in Theory and Practice. Buckingham, England: Open University Press, 2002.
11. Lloyd, Genevieve. The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in Western Philosophy. London: Methuen, 1984.

11
Anita Allen, Why privacy isn’t everything: Feminist reflections on personal accountability. (Lanham: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2003), 94-96.