Feminist Standpoint(s) & Epistemology(ies)

I would like to note that for the next few weeks my blogs will be centered on feminist theory.

Today I would like to start by reflecting on feminist epistemology(ies)[i] and feminist standpoint theory[ii][iii][iv]. Harding claims that “the starting point of standpoint theory…is that in societies stretefied by race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, or some other such politics shaping the very structure of a society, the activities of those at the top both organize and set limits on what persons who perform such activites can understand about themselves and the world around them” (p. 54). Thus, standpoint can offer “thought …from which humans’ relations with each other and the natural world can become visible. This is because the experience and lives of marginalized peoples, as they understand them, provide particularly significant problems to be explained or research agendas” (p. 54). 

Collins, Hartsock, and Narayan all talk about standpoint theory and its legitimacy as well as its importance in understanding social order, gender relationships, marginalized populations and voices, as well as power. Additionally, these readings together offer support for what Harding suggests as being important considerations for feminisms, and feminist epistemology. When considering the voices of women in epistemology it is imperative not to essentialize or suggest that there is one feminism, one way for women, or one way of understanding women, their experiences and places within social order. Harding posits that “the logic of the directive to “start thought from women’s lives” requires that one start one’s thought from multiple lives that are in many ways in conflict with one another, each of which itself has multiple and contradictory commitments” (p. 66). Collins, Hartsock, and Narayan all engender this sentiment as each of these pieces engages in standpoint from different standpoints, each with their own contributions to problematizing women, social order, power and women’s situatedness and positionalities.

An important contribution that Harding makes is her ability to justify standpoint as a feminist epistemology, as well as problematize some of its larger claims: one being standpoints challenge to scientific inquiry and standpoints claim that it offers methods “more objective” than scientific inquiry. Although, there is legitimacy to this claim in that scientific inquiry typically privileges the dominant and makes invisible and silences  the marginalized, to suggest that standpoint is more “objective” is also problematic, because objectivity implies “value-neutral” and although there are advantages to standpoint, especially in research, to claim that it is more objective is questionable. Harding ends her chapter by stating that “Standpoint approaches want to eliminate dominant group interests and values from the results of research as well as the interests and values of successfully colonized minorities- loyalty to femininity as well as to masculinity is to be eliminated through feminist research. But that does not make the results of such research value-neutral” (p. 74).

In general, standpoint theorists I have noticed can receive some backlash for “privileging” certain voices above others, which some claim results in essentialism as well as reinscribing dominant modes of thought which is exactly what it is trying to work through. I do believe that the Harding piece does a good job of explaining how these are traditionally misunderstandings of standpoint epistemology, and I concur. I would like to add that feminist standpoint work should be read and embraced to think critically about our own positions, our work (including our productions and consuming practices within and outside labor), and as researchers- how we are researching, who we are including and leaving absent, and how we may interpret others, and their voices.

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[i] Sandra Harding. “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: “What is Strong Objectivity” from Feminist Epistemologies, pp. 49-82.

[ii] Patricia Hill Collins, “Defining Black Feminist Thought” pp. 341-356 from the Feminist Theory Reader

[iii] Nancy Hartsock, “The Feminist Standpoint: Toward a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism”, pp. 316-331 from the Feminist Theory Reader

[iv] Uma Narayan, “The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Nonwestern Feminist”, pp. 332-340 from the Feminist Theory Reader