Spring 2005Essay Preview: Spring 2005Report this essayIn the first section of essays the authors discuss how and why feminist scholars do research is grappled with in each selection. The authors/feminist scholars discuss the importance of research and methodology.
Sandra Harding asserts in her essay, “Is There a Feminist Method?” Harding argues that it is “difficult to define a distinct feminist method because method and methodology have been intertwined with each other and with epistemological issues.”(2) Moreover, it is, she argues difficult and potentially dangerous to identify anything as a distinctive methodЖher argument is that ” it is not by looking at research methods that one will be able to identify distinctive features of the best feminist research methods.” In other words it is dangerous to mystify feminist research because it locks researchers, students, scholars and critics into rules and ideas that dont necessarily encompass all facets of feminist scholarship and the efforts that are made to understand it.
Sandra’s article notes that she has always been a woman, and that she is not a feminist yet, but has always disagreed with the notion that men don’t deserve the “rights” of women being granted. She uses the term feminist to describe any individual who has a critical and creative interest in feminist topics, including women’s rights, equality, etc. She continues:
[…] I’ve argued and advocated feminist research, even if at times, I’ve come to find that I am sometimes frustrated with, or resentful of the way people in my field view women’s rights and the power that feminism may or may not be given to us (or the very people I claim to care about).‗#83; I’ve used my gender as a criterion in my research, because I can look at the question of women’s rights as a source of anxiety and anxiety that women’s political power may be threatened. Or, as I say, I can look at the question of power through my own personal political struggles, which for a large number of women and men are the latter parts;and in doing so, I find myself wondering how I can better understand and relate to our political system, and how I can continue to be part of it in constructive, non-violent ways against misogyny.‘SIn other words, feminist research and activism is largely the responsibility of women and men, and many researchers, activists and academics remain silent so they do not gain the broad participation, often financial, support that feminists get from their supporters and supporters in various fields and constituencies.’SIn other words, while I am not a gender agnostic, I am a feminist in my own personal political struggles.‛SThe main obstacles to discussing these issues with potential feminists in my own field are: 1; not understanding the problem, 2; not caring, 3; and not really understanding what is important about the topic.“ and the following is true: women & men are both able and willing to engage in political activism, but there is a massive gap between the number of individuals, groups and movements who are interested in or are willing or able to engage with them, the number of voices or movements with whom groups and movements are interested both directly and through social media, and the diversity of people in and through each community and community.”S4;the lack of the focus among academic and academic feminist groups when debating or responding to feminist issues requires that we focus on the real issues and try to find ways to work together to make them more important to our societies/societies and the world around us.„SAnd this gap leads to a number of questions in and of themselves:1;Why do we get involved in the feminist community in the first place when we are still largely alone in this space and it is very difficult to connect with other groups that have other agendas as well? ‟As a result, many feminists are less interested in making sure that feminist researchers have an ”
Sandra’s article notes that she has always been a woman, and that she is not a feminist yet, but has always disagreed with the notion that men don’t deserve the “rights” of women being granted. She uses the term feminist to describe any individual who has a critical and creative interest in feminist topics, including women’s rights, equality, etc. She continues:
[…] I’ve argued and advocated feminist research, even if at times, I’ve come to find that I am sometimes frustrated with, or resentful of the way people in my field view women’s rights and the power that feminism may or may not be given to us (or the very people I claim to care about).‗#83; I’ve used my gender as a criterion in my research, because I can look at the question of women’s rights as a source of anxiety and anxiety that women’s political power may be threatened. Or, as I say, I can look at the question of power through my own personal political struggles, which for a large number of women and men are the latter parts;and in doing so, I find myself wondering how I can better understand and relate to our political system, and how I can continue to be part of it in constructive, non-violent ways against misogyny.‘SIn other words, feminist research and activism is largely the responsibility of women and men, and many researchers, activists and academics remain silent so they do not gain the broad participation, often financial, support that feminists get from their supporters and supporters in various fields and constituencies.’SIn other words, while I am not a gender agnostic, I am a feminist in my own personal political struggles.‛SThe main obstacles to discussing these issues with potential feminists in my own field are: 1; not understanding the problem, 2; not caring, 3; and not really understanding what is important about the topic.“ and the following is true: women & men are both able and willing to engage in political activism, but there is a massive gap between the number of individuals, groups and movements who are interested in or are willing or able to engage with them, the number of voices or movements with whom groups and movements are interested both directly and through social media, and the diversity of people in and through each community and community.”S4;the lack of the focus among academic and academic feminist groups when debating or responding to feminist issues requires that we focus on the real issues and try to find ways to work together to make them more important to our societies/societies and the world around us.„SAnd this gap leads to a number of questions in and of themselves:1;Why do we get involved in the feminist community in the first place when we are still largely alone in this space and it is very difficult to connect with other groups that have other agendas as well? ‟As a result, many feminists are less interested in making sure that feminist researchers have an ”
Sandra’s article notes that she has always been a woman, and that she is not a feminist yet, but has always disagreed with the notion that men don’t deserve the “rights” of women being granted. She uses the term feminist to describe any individual who has a critical and creative interest in feminist topics, including women’s rights, equality, etc. She continues:
[…] I’ve argued and advocated feminist research, even if at times, I’ve come to find that I am sometimes frustrated with, or resentful of the way people in my field view women’s rights and the power that feminism may or may not be given to us (or the very people I claim to care about).‗#83; I’ve used my gender as a criterion in my research, because I can look at the question of women’s rights as a source of anxiety and anxiety that women’s political power may be threatened. Or, as I say, I can look at the question of power through my own personal political struggles, which for a large number of women and men are the latter parts;and in doing so, I find myself wondering how I can better understand and relate to our political system, and how I can continue to be part of it in constructive, non-violent ways against misogyny.‘SIn other words, feminist research and activism is largely the responsibility of women and men, and many researchers, activists and academics remain silent so they do not gain the broad participation, often financial, support that feminists get from their supporters and supporters in various fields and constituencies.’SIn other words, while I am not a gender agnostic, I am a feminist in my own personal political struggles.‛SThe main obstacles to discussing these issues with potential feminists in my own field are: 1; not understanding the problem, 2; not caring, 3; and not really understanding what is important about the topic.“ and the following is true: women & men are both able and willing to engage in political activism, but there is a massive gap between the number of individuals, groups and movements who are interested in or are willing or able to engage with them, the number of voices or movements with whom groups and movements are interested both directly and through social media, and the diversity of people in and through each community and community.”S4;the lack of the focus among academic and academic feminist groups when debating or responding to feminist issues requires that we focus on the real issues and try to find ways to work together to make them more important to our societies/societies and the world around us.„SAnd this gap leads to a number of questions in and of themselves:1;Why do we get involved in the feminist community in the first place when we are still largely alone in this space and it is very difficult to connect with other groups that have other agendas as well? ‟As a result, many feminists are less interested in making sure that feminist researchers have an ”
The idea of there being a single “feminist method” assumes that there is a single thing, or several concrete things/ideas feminist scholars must be searching for. Hardings argument is supported by authors Greene, Khan in “Feminist scholarship and the social construction of women”. Greene/Khan assertЖthat “feminist scholarship undertakes the dual task of deconstructing predominately male cultural paradigms and reconstructing a female perspective and experience in an effort to change the tradition that has silenced and marginalized usÐfeminist scholars work to expose and the collusion between ideology and cultural practices.” (1) She asserts that there are two premises about gender, the first is, “the inequality of the sexes is neither a biological given nor a divine mandate, but a cultural construct,” and the second is, “the male perspective has dominated fields of knowledge shaping their paradigms and methods.” Here the authors are illustrating the constraints ideology and methodology place on feminist research and substantiating the claim that ideology and methodology are emblems of constraint in the feminist discipline because of their universal assumptions and dependence on the paradigm for the purposes of legitimizing their claims. The authors, Greene, Khan, Harding, and Cannon all deal with the issue of being tied down to methodology and method that would define feminist work, and solidify its direction while at the same time not allowing it to be fluid enough to evolve as a legitimate academic discipline.
As it the issue is raised in “Race and Class Bias in Qualitative Research on Women” that it is far more difficult to do a comprehensive study of all women because poor women and women of color are almost always over-looked in research projects because of the