Introduction：Is There a Feminist Method?
Sandra Harding
Over the last two decades feminist inquirers have raised fundamental challenges to the ways social science has analyzed women,men,and social life.From the beginning,issues about method,methodology,and epistemology have been intertwined with discussions of how best to correct the partial and distorted accounts in the traditional analyses.Is there a distinctive feminist method of inquiry?How does feminist methodology challenge—or complement—traditional methodologies?On what grounds would one defend the assumptions and procedures of feminist researchers?Questions such as these have generated important controversies within feminist theory and politics,as well as curiosity and anticipation in the traditional discourses.
The most frequently asked question has been the first one：is there a distinctive feminist method of inquiry?However,it has been hard to get a clear focus on the kind of answer to this question that we should seek.My point here is to argue against the idea of a distinctive feminist method of research.I do so on the grounds that preoccupation with method mystifies what have been the most interesting aspects of feminist research processes.Moreover,I think that it is really a different concern that motivates and is expressed through most formulations of the method question：what is it that makes some of the most influential feminist-inspired biological and social science research of recent years so powerful?I shall first try to disentangle some of the issues about method,methodology,and epistemology.Then I turn to review briefly（or to introduce,depending on the reader）the problems with thinking that attempting to"add women"to existing social science analyses does all that should be done in response to feminist criticisms.Finally,I shall draw attention to three distinctive characteristics of those feminist analyses that go beyond the additive approaches.I shall try to show why we should not choose to think of these as methods of research,though they clearly have significant implications for our evaluations of research methods.
Method,Methodology,Epistemology
One reason it is difficult to find a satisfactory answer to questions about a distinctive feminist method is that discussions of method（techniques for gathering evidence）and methodology（a theory and analysis of how research should proceed）have been intertwined with each other and with epistemological issues（issues about an adequate theory of knowledge or justificatory strategy）in both the traditional and feminist discourses.This claim is a complex one and we shall sort out its components.But the point here is simply that"method"is often used to refer to all three aspects of research.Consequently,it is not at all clear what one is supposed to be looking for when trying to identify a distinctive"feminist method of research."This lack of clarity permits critics to avoid facing up to what is distinctive about the best feminist social inquiry.It also makes it difficult to recognize what one must do to advance feminist inquiry.
A research method is a technique for（or way of proceeding in）gathering evidence.One could reasonably argue that all evidence-gathering techniques fall into one of the following three categories：listening to（or interrogating）informants,observing behavior,or examining historical traces and records.In this sense,there are only three methods of social inquiry.As the essays in this collection show,feminist researchers use just about any and all of the methods,in this concrete sense of the term,that traditional androcentric researchers have used.Of course,precisely how they carry out these methods of evidence gathering is often strikingly different.For example,they listen carefully to how women informants think about their lives and men's lives,and critically to how traditional social scientists conceptualize women's and men's lives.They observe behaviors of women and men that traditional social scientists have not thought significant.They seek examples of newly recognized patterns in historical data.
There is both less and more going on in these cases than new methods of research.The"less"is that is seems to introduce a false sense of unity to all the different"little things"feminist researchers do with familiar methods to conceptualize these as"new feminist research methods."However,the"more"is that it is new methodologies and new epistemologies that are requiring these new uses of familiar research techniques.If what is meant by a"method of research"is just this most concrete sense of the term,it would undervalue the transformations feminist analyses require to characterize these in terms only of the discovery of distinctive methods of research.
That social scientists tend to think about methodological issues primarily in terms of methods of inquiry（for example,in"methods courses"in psychology,sociology,etc.）is a problem.That is,it is primarily when they are talking about concrete techniques of evidence gathering that they raise methodological issues.No doubt it is this habit that tempts social scientists to seek a unique method of inquiry as the explanation for what is unusual about feminist analyses.On the other hand,it is also a problem that philosophers use such terms as"scientific method"and"the method of science"when they are really referring to issues of methodology and epistemology.They,too,are tempted to seek whatever is unique about feminist research in a new"method of inquiry."
A methodology is a theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed；it includes accounts of how"the general structure of theory finds its application in particular scientific disciplines."1 For example,discussions of how functionalism（or Marxist political economy,or phenomenology）should be or is applied in particular research areas are methodological analyses.2 Feminist researchers have argued that traditional theories have been applied in ways that make it difficult to understand women's participation in social life,or to understand men's activities as gendered（vs.as representing"the human"）.They have produced feminist versions of traditional theories.Thus we can find examples of feminist methodologies in discussions of how phenomenological approaches can be used to begin to understand women's worlds,or of how Marxist political economy can be used to explain the causes of women's continuing exploitation in the household or in wage labor.3 But these sometimes heroic efforts raise questions about whether even feminist applications of these theories can succeed in producing complete and undistorted accounts of gender and of women's activities.And they also raise epistemological issues.
An epistemology is a theory of knowledge.It answers questions about who can be a"knower"（can women?）；what tests beliefs must pass in order to be legitimated as knowledge（only tests against men's experiences and observations?）；what kinds of things can be known（can"subjective truths"count as knowledge?）,and so forth.Sociologists of knowledge characterize epistemologies as strategies for justifying beliefs：appeals to the authority of God,of custom and tradition,of"common sense,"of observation,of reason,and of masculine authority are examples of familiar justificatory strategies.Feminists have argued that traditional epistemologies,whether intentionally or unintentionally,systematically exclude the possibility that women could be"knowers"or agents of knowledge；they claim that the voice of science is a masculine one；that history is written from only the point of view of men（of the dominant class and race）；that the subject of a traditional sociological sentence is always assumed to be a man.They have proposed alternative theories of knowledge that legitimate women as knowers.4 Examples of these feminist epistemological claims and discussions can be found in the essays that follow.These issues,too,are often referred to as issues about method.Epistemological issues certainly have crucial implications for how general theoretical structures can and should be applied in particular disciplines and for the choice of methods of research.But I think that it is misleading and confusing to refer to these,too,as issues about method.5
In summary,there are important connections between epistemologies,methodologies,and research methods.But I am arguing that it is not by looking at research methods that one will be able to identify the distinctive features of the best of feminist research.We shall next see that this distinctiveness is also not to be found in attempts to"add women"to traditional analyses.
Problems with"Adding Women"
In order to grasp the depth and extent of the transformation of the social sciences required in order to understand gender and women's activities,one needs to recognize the limitations of the most obvious ways one could try to rectify the androcentrism of traditional analyses.Feminist researchers first tried to"add women"to these analyses.There were three kinds of women who appeared as obvious candidates for this process：women social scientists,women who contributed to the public life social scientists already were studying,and women who had been victims of the most egregious forms of male dominance.
In the first of these projects,scholars have begun to recover and to reappreciate the work of women researchers and theorists.Women's research and scholarship often has been ignored,trivialized,or appropriated without the credit which would have been given to a man's work.One of the notorious examples of this kind of sexist devaluation in the natural sciences is the treatment of Rosalind Franklin's work on DNA by her Nobel prizewinning colleagues.6 How many other outstanding women social and natural scientists will we never have the chance to appreciate because they,unlike Franklin,had no close friend capable of setting the record straight?
However,there are severe problems with imagining that this is the only or most important way to eliminate sexism and androcentrism from social science.Obviously,one should not expect to understand gender and women's roles in social life merely through learning about the work of women social scientists in the past.Insightful as these"lost women"were,their work could not benefit from the many feminist theoretical breakthroughs of the last two decades.Moreover,these women-succeeded in entering a world which largely excluded women from the education and credentialling necessary to become social scientists.Thus their work was constrained by the immense pressures on them to make their research conform to what the men of their times thought about social life.Such pressures are still very great,as we will see all of the essayists in this volume argue.Fortunately they often succeeded in resisting these pressures.Nevertheless,we should not expect their research projects to produce the kinds of powerful analyses that can emerge when women's and men's thinking is part of a broad social revolution such as the women's movement has created.What remains amazing is the intellectual courage and frequent flashes of brilliance exhibited in the thinking of these social scientists in spite of the social,professional,and political constraints they faced.7
A different concern of feminist social research has been to examine women's contributions to activities in the public world which were already the focus of social science analysis.We now can see that women,too,have been the originators of distinctively human culture,deviants,voters,revolutionaries,social reformers,high achievers,wage workers,and so forth.Important studies have expanded our understanding of women's roles in public life both historically and in other cultures today.
This focus still leaves some powerfully androcentric standards firmly in place,thereby insuring only partial and distorted analyses of gender and women's social activities.It falsely suggests that only those activities that men have found it important to study are the ones which constitute and shape social life.This leads us to ignore such crucial issues as how changes in the social practices of reproduction,sexuality,and mothering have shaped the state,the economy,and the other public institutions.Futhermore,this research focus does not encourage us to ask what have been the meanings of women's contributions to public life for women.For instance,Margaret Sanger's birth control movement played an important and unfortunate role in eugenics policy.But it also signified to women that they could plan their reproductive lives and in that sense systematically and effectively control the consequences of their sexual activities.This second meaning is not likely to be noticed when the focus is on only women's contributions to"men's world."To take another example,both white and black women worked courageously in the antislavery,black suffrage,and antilynching movements.But what did it mean for their lives as women to work in these movements?（They learned public speaking,political organizing,and the virulence of white men's hostility to women learning how to speak and organize,among other things！）8
A third kind of new focus of research on women can be found in the study of women as victims of male dominance.Male dominance takes many forms.Researchers have provided path-breaking studies of the"crimes against women"—especially rape,incest,pornography,and wife beating.They have examined the broader patterns of institutionalized economic exploitation and political discrimination against women.And they have looked at the forms of white male domination which have particularly victimized women of color—in slavery,in state reproductive and welfare policies,in"protective"legislation,in union practices,and in other circumstances.9 The emergence to public consciousness of this ugly underside of women's condition has made it impossible for serious thinkers to continue to believe in the reality of unmitigated social progress in this culture or most others.One might reasonably find contemporary cultures to be among the most barbaric from the perspective of the statistics on the victimization of women.
Victimologies have their limitations too.They tend to create the false impression that have agency women have only been victims,that they have never successfully fought back,that women cannot be effective social agents on behalf of themselves or others.But the work of other feminist scholars and researchers tells us otherwise.Women have always resisted male domination.