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Sandra Harding: Is There a Feminist Method?

In her essay “Is There a Feminist Method?” Sandra Harding raises the
question whether there is a distinctive method of enquiry that can be
defined as feminist and would provide an alternative to traditional social
science research. Enquiry refers to a process of reasoning that aims to
solve problems, resolve doubts and increase knowledge. The question
whether there is a feminist method of enquiry has generated important
discussions and debate both within as well as outside the domain of
traditional social science discourse. In attempting to answer the question
Sandra Harding’s aim is to highlight the problems feminist scholarship
faces in its mission to generate knowledge pertinent to women.
A major difficulty stems from confusing three distinct terms, with
different senses, method (mode of gathering evidence), methodology
(theory and analysis of the methods of research) and epistemology
(theory of knowledge) one with another and using the single term
method to refer to all three aspects of research.
Methods or techniques for gathering evidence in research are mainly of
three kinds:
a) Interrogating sources of information which involves asking the
right questions and listening carefully
b) Observing human behavior
c) Examination of historical evidence
Feminists use all three methods but the way they use them is very
different from how these same methods have been used in traditional
androcentric research. Feminists listen carefully to how women, their
subjects of interrogation, think about their own lives and the lives of
men. They observe the behavior of men and women and notice things
that traditional social scientists have overlooked and finally they look for
new patterns in historical data.
A methodology is the analysis of how research proceeds and/or should
proceed and how social science disciplines conduct research. Questions
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of methodology can be normative. Feminists argue that traditional

theories of knowledge, for instance phenomenalism, functionalism,
rationalism, Marxism, foundationalism etc., to name a few, have not
been correctly applied and so have failed to facilitate a better
understanding of women’s participation in social life. Feminist
applications of these theories, it is argued, can give us a more complete
picture of how things are, to recognize how men’s activities are
gendered and how exploitation of women is legitimized in and through
theory.
Epistemology is concerned with theories of knowledge as well as
strategies of justification of beliefs. When we claim knowledge we can
justify these claims by appealing to common sense, observation and
experience, custom and tradition or the authority of god or even some
form of masculine authority. Feminists argue that traditional
epistemologists have not entertained the possibility of women becoming
knowers or producers of knowledge. Traditional epistemology has
claimed that the voice of science is a male voice; history is written from
the point of view of men who are the dominant class; and the subject of
social sciences is man. It has also held fast to the idea of so called
objective inquiry; maintaining that the context of discovery in which a
scientific hypothesis is located is not important; rather we must look at
the contexts of justification and the experiences against which it is to be
tested. But according to feminists women’s experiences not only form
the context of a social science hypothesis or knowledge claim but also
determine the adequacy of the hypothesis as well as its explanatory
power.
Thus women’s experiences provide the new resources for scientific
research. Feminists therefore argue for alternative epistemologies that
legitimate women as knowers.
Harding also takes pains to point out that there is no universal “women’s
experiences” to refer to as such; nor is there any one set of feminist
principles to which all feminists will assent. Rather there are varied
experiences, concerns, desires and interests, differentiated on the basis
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of class, race and culture that affect women. Feminist theorists thus
propose that one should debate “feminisms” only in the plural using a
diverse set of approaches and tools to understand women’s experiences
in multiple cultures.
Moreover, not only do our experiences vary across cultures, but the wide
variety of gender experiences within the span of a single individual’s
lifetime are also often seen to be in conflict with one another. Conflicts
and contradictions crop up due to the various roles women play in their
lives. For instance my experiences as a professor are contradictory to my
experiences in the role of a mother. Women are fragmented entities and
recognizing this fact gives rise to significant insights for feminist
researchers.
But feminist research has an agenda over and above the study of these
fragmented entities. This agenda characterizes women’s struggle as an
oppressed group against forces that lie beyond them but significantly
shape their lives; forces that act as stumbling blocks preventing their
emancipation growth and development. The agenda is to address these
forces and look for ways to win over, defeat or neutralize them.
Sandra Harding now proceeds to define the subject matter of feminist
research and points out that it is not just “what” is being studied that
should be the focus of enquiry but also the way in which the study has
been influenced by race, gender, class and culture. Feminist scholarship
therefore wishes to place the entire research process including the
researcher along with his/her race, culture, gender and class beliefs and
assumptions “up for scrutiny”. “Thus the researcher appears to us not as
an invisible, anonymous voice of authority, but as a real, historical
individual with concrete, specific desires and interests”. Only in this way
can we hope to produce understanding and explanations which are free
of distortion from the unexamined biases and behaviors of social
scientists themselves.
Harding defines feminism as “a political movement for social change”, a
definition that challenges the long held image of scientific inquiry. The
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objective of bringing about social change would require scientific

inquiry to be politically motivated for only thus can it yield better results
and, more accurate, more inclusive conclusions. Yet scientific enquiry
has always prided itself to be normatively neutral. It tells us what is, not
what ought to be. Thus a dilemma arises. The norms of regular science
seek to protect knowledge from being contaminated by political bias,
agendas and interests. Yet how is it that feminist research which is
guided by feminist concerns and is driven by a political agenda for
change, yields more plausible, more objective, better supported and less
false claims of knowledge?
Harding discusses two common approaches taken by feminists in
response to this dilemma:
1) Feminist Empiricism:
Feminist analysis questions purported value-free science by revealing
the tacit social biases and prejudices of masculinist research. Traditional
epistemology is riddled with sexist and androcentric claims caused by
misguided education, superstition, hidebound customs and traditions,
plain ignorance and hostile attitudes of the dominant male class towards
the opposite genders. The biases enter into traditional research at three
levels; a) during the formation of scientific hypothesis or the framing of
the problematic; b) during the designing of the research; c) during
collection and interpretation of data.
Feminist empiricism suggests stringent application of the existing
methodological norms to prevent social biases from contaminating the
results of social science research. The strategy suggested is to encourage
women researchers to engage with the issues through social liberation
movements such as the feminist movement that help people see the
world in an enlarged perspective by removing “the covers and blinders
that obscure knowledge and observation”.(this was suggested by Marcia
Millman and Rosabeth Moss Kanter)
This strategy though controversial may appear more or less acceptable to
conventional researchers for it causes only a mild threat to traditional
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epistemological enquiry and requires no change in the research

apparatus itself. The norms of, logic and explanations and the rigour of
scientific enquiry are not altered. But on closer examination its more
serious implications can be noticed. It undermines the assumptions of
traditional empirical enquiry in three ways:
a) It argues that for any hypothesis, the context of discovery is just as
important as the context of justification.
b) It argues that if scientific method follows conventional standards
of so called “good research” it fails to identify and eliminate
androcentric biases.
c) It also argues that the norms of scientific research should
themselves come under scrutiny because they are constructed in an
andro-centric manner and aim at producing answers to questions
men ask about nature and social life.
Feminists therefore ask for a reconsideration of the customary
approach to knowledge production designed by men which tends to
obstruct the development of more democratic social relations.
Feminist Empiricism suggests that the social situation of an
epistemic agent—her gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexuality and
physical capacities—plays a role in forming what we know and
limiting what we are able to know. 
2) The Feminist Standpoint
The other response to the dilemma mentioned earlier constitutes the
formulation of a feminist standpoint. Standpoint theory challenges the
commonly held belief that politics only obstructs and damages the
production of scientific knowledge. Instead it holds that certain kinds of
politics, feminist politics for instance, stimulates the growth of
knowledge and even guides it. This approach rests loosely on the
principle, “what we do shapes what we know”.
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Standpoint theory both explains and normatively analyses conceptions

of human nature and society by tracing the relations between knowledge
production and the practice of power. The feminist standpoint is not
simply assumed; it is hard fought for. “To achieve a feminist standpoint
one must engage in political and intellectual struggle”. Again, “Only
through such struggles can we begin to see beneath the appearances
created by an unjust social order to the reality of how this social
order is in fact constructed and maintained. This need for struggle
emphasizes the fact that a feminist standpoint is not something that
anyone can have simply by claiming it. It is an achievement. A
standpoint differs in this respect from a perspective, which anyone
can have simply by ‘opening one’s eyes’”.
Standpoint theories, then, move beyond a descriptive situated-
knowledge thesis to a normative thesis, among the transformative
objectives of which is a more socially just world. In that sense it is
claimed that a Feminist Standpoint is superior to a Marxist
standpoint which emphasizes only class.
The argument is not that men and women can equally create
knowledge. A standpoint theorist emphasizes that the inequality
between men and women with regard to knowledge production
arises from the fact that the activities and experiences of men not
only shape the contours of their knowledge but also keep that
knowledge sanitized from unjust miseries faced by women due to
patriarchal dominance and the ignorance of women’s experiences.
thus Feminist Empiricism and standpoint are useful as they yield
knowledge for women and bind us to a more complete
understanding of social realities as well as an appreciation of the
history and sociology of science.