Epistemology is concerned with the nature, scope and limits of knowledge (Klein 1998). As Baber (1994) writes, this is not to suggest that epistemology has knowledge per se as its principal focus. Rather, it is concerned with how we know (Williams 2003) and the grounds for believing something. For example, traditional empiricism’s epistemological stance states that perception and the testing of prediction can justify claims to knowledge of the world. Thus, for Hume when one billiard ball hits another, what is observed is simply two balls moving (Hollis 1994:48). Causation becomes nothing more than being able to say that in similar situations the same event can be observed. Alternatively, rationalism suggests that reflective reason enables a move beyond what the senses can discover. Descartes, for example, believed that from intuition alone he could ascertain that he was a ‘thing which thinks’, allowing him to be certain of his statement cogito ergo sum (‘I think therefore I am’: Hollis 1994).
However, the traditional discussion of epistemic justification (Baber 1994) and what should or should not be believed, found within schools of thought such as empiricism and rationalism, have been criticised as a result of their prioritising of the objective, detached observer and embodiment of male norms (ibid.). Feminist epistemologies argue that these dominant modes of social inquiry disembody knowledge (Flood 1997) and ignore the intrinsic relationship between how we know and gender. In this respect, feminist epistemologies appear to be closely aligned to epistemological Pragmatism, which suggests that theory governs experience and experience governs theory (Hollis 1994).
As well as fundamental debate existing between epistemological schools of thought, differences also exist within them. Sandra Harding (1986) suggests that, within feminist epistemological discussion, debates have given rise to three basic schools of thought: feminist empiricism, standpoint feminism and Postmodern Feminism. As with any typology, there is an element of simplification within Harding’s discussion and it is tacitly accepted that cases will exist which do not fit easily into one of the mutually exclusive ‘types’. Despite this, the typology remains widely referred to (Smart 1995) and will be discussed briefly here.
Feminist empiricism rests upon the assumption that what passes for science is not objective, as it claims, but in fact relates to the world as perceived by men (Smart 1995:40). Ontologically, this does not negate the possibility that objective facts do exist, but rather suggests that the questions science has traditionally asked, and its biases, superstitions and ignorance, have excluded women and the interests of women (Smart 1995:40; Harding 1997:166).
For Feminist empiricism, tighter adherence to the methodological norms of scientific research can eliminate prejudices (Harding 1997:166) and eradicate the socially constructed connection between gender and knowing. As Harding (1997) states, this is not to suggest that feminist empiricism is completely consistent with traditional Empiricist answers to how we know. Feminist empiricism argues that women or feminists (both male and female) are more likely to produce unbiased claims, thus negating the traditional Empiricist claim that the social identity of the observer is irrelevant to the ‘goodness’ of results.
With standpoint feminism (Harding 1998), how we know becomes less involved with empirical methods and more to do with position. Standpoint feminism suggests that women’s experiences are epistemologically privileged and provide less distorted knowledge claims (Harding 1997). This approach owes much to the writings of Hegel, Marx, Engels and Lukacs and stresses that, through their status as ‘oppressed’, women can offer a ‘less false’ view of reality. To achieve a feminist standpoint, then, one must engage in the struggles necessary to see social life from the point of view of disdained activity and not the partial and perverse view of the ‘ruling gender’ (Harding 1997:169).
Although Haraway develops an account of epistemology in opposition to the Feminist Standpoint positions it does incorporate key elements of a standpoint strategy (Haraway 1991:194). Haraway (ibid.) calls for ‘situated and embodied knowledges’ and ‘knowledge claims’ which can be called into account. What is meant here is that there is a need to acknowledge the choices involved with where we are situated and an acceptance of the way in which a situation affects representations. Further to this, there is a need to see things from other (numerous) perspectives. This is not to suggest that relativism, which states that all points of view are equally valid, should be embraced. For Haraway (ibid.), relativism equates to being nowhere while stating that you are everywhere. Relativism, like totalisation, denies the influence of location and ‘partial perspectives’. It is a ‘god-trick’, in that it promises vision from everywhere and nowhere.
In this respect, Haraway’s work can also be seen as a criticism of some Postmodern Feminism. Postmodernism is often underpinned by the core assumption that we have now discovered that nothing can be known with any certainty (Giddens 1990). There is a rejection of the notion of a single, true reality (Smart 1995) which can be gleaned through empirical methods or awareness of position. How we know, then, almost becomes a redundant question, and instead the focus is pushed on to relativism and pluralism.
Although Postmodern Feminism is a problematic label because of diversity within those who are said to fall within it (Smart 1995), it can be seen to share elements of these core assumptions. Postmodern Feminism began with the demise of ‘sisterhood’ and a refusal of the Marxist theories which underpinned standpoint feminism. The recognition of differences in class, race, sexuality and so on among women forced feminism to look for other ways of thinking which did not subjugate other subjectivities (Smart 1995:45). The focus turned to knowledges, the deconstruction of Truth claims and the analysis of the relations between power and Truth claims (Smart 1995). Issues of importance became why some epistemologies are prioritised above others and the power effects that these claims may have.
Feminist epistemological writings raise important methodological questions relating to men as researchers and research subjects. For example, if how we know is related to gender, what does each feminist epistemology mean for men’s knowledge and knowledge of men? With reference to men as objects of research, Campbell (2003) suggests that feminist epistemologies do not necessarily wish to ghettoise into an ‘all-woman camp’. Men’s experiences should not be ignored wholesale but should be subjected to rigorous and critical analysis. There is a need to be aware that men’s accounts may become confessions or alibis, obscuring the real sources of gender inequality and power (Morgan 1992; Jackson 1990) and that an exclusive concern with subjective accounts offered by men may deflect attention away from power and reproduce sexist regimes of truth (Flood 1997:4).
Feminist empiricism believes that men and women can gain feminist subjectivities (Hard-ing 1998) as both can conduct ‘good science’. As Harding writes (ibid.), just as Thomas Kuhn points to the importance of scientific communities in producing the best environment for the growth of ‘good science’, Feminist Empiricists have suggested that membership of a feminist community may be beneficial to men (and women). Indeed, despite the starting premise that women are less likely to produce biased claims, for some Feminist Empiricists women and men have nothing distinctive to contribute as feminist thinkers. The goal is, simply, to become the ‘rational man’ advocated and championed by the Enlightenment (Harding 1998:177–8).
Standpoint Feminists also offer men a way to gain feminist subjectivities. Marx and Engels, whose work underpins a large proportion of Standpoint discussion, were not proletarians and yet purported to think from proletarian positions (Harding 1986). Similarly, men can begin their thought in women’s lives, although how, exactly, is problematic (Hard-ing 1998). For Flood, men’s anti-patriarchal standpoint is possible because the ontology of privileged groups is not completely determining. Men can ‘reinvent’ themselves as ‘Other’ and adopt ‘traitorous’ (Kimmel 1994) social locations and identities (Flood 1997:3). However, this involves more than simply will or moral conviction. A change in ‘lived reality’ is required, which for Flood (ibid.) involves adopting the status of ‘outside r within
The ontologies of dominant groups provide resources for this change in ‘lived reality’. Men, themselves, can be subject to ‘misnamings’ and ‘silences’ because of their status as gay, bisexual, working-class, disabled or ‘nonwhite’. As Calasanti argues, although hegemonic masculinities (Connell 1995) may be the ideal, many men are powerless because of their relationships with other men (Calasanti 2003:16). Critical reflection on their own subjection to domination and their own temporary experience of ‘otherness’, can enable men to find points of contact with (Flood 1997:3–4).
This difference is also said to point towards locations where men can develop and access distinctive forms of feminist knowledges (Harding 1998:185). As Harding (1998) suggests, men who have learned to think through feminist theories can examine the gap between how their lives are shaped by their feminist concerns and how dominant ideologies shape men’s lives. Likewise, masculinity discourses are heavily linked to public domains and, as such, a men’s feminist standpoint could, it is suggested, contribute to understandings of the models of gender linked to these discourses (Harding 1998:187).
In relation to the final feminist epistemology discussed here, Postmodern Feminism suggests that feminist claims are more plausible only insofar as they are grounded in solidarity between fractured identities and the politics they create (Harding 1986:28). For Pease (1996:2000) men can also destabilise their identities as heterosexual men: creating solidarity with women (and others) on the basis of a respect for difference. The usage of difference here is not meant to reflect the mythopoetic concern with the ‘naturalness’ of male/ female distinctions but rather recognises differences as being related to the body as discursively constituted (Mills and Lingard 1997).
Similarly, Whitehead (2002) suggests that more men are now prepared to critically reflect on themselves as masculine subjects in a postmodern world and engage in ways of being more closely aligned to feminism. Yet the modernist feminist understanding of men as oppressors does not necessarily sit alongside the postmodern/poststructuralist view that there is no founding subject, merely a fragmented, differentiated, discursive self (White-head 2002:224). In essence, conflict can arise between postmodern refusal of essentialist ‘categories’, such as men and women, and structural views of power relations and the influences these may have on how we know.
However, Whitehead (2002) believes that the self-reflexivity, required by feminist empiricism, standpoint feminism and postmodern Feminism, is still absent for a large proportion of men. Kahane (1998) is also less optimistic about the possibility of male feminist knowledge. He agrees with the notions that men can draw upon feminist insights to reinterpret their lives, but is more pessimistic about the likelihood of this happening. Male feminism is an identity rife with contradictions and only in a transformed world, Kahane argues, will male feminism be anything more than an oxymoron. Thus epilogue becomes prologue and this entry returns to questions of how we (can) know. questions which necessarily need contemplating when investigating men or when being a male investigator.
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