2 Feminist Methodology

Rimple Mehta

Introduction

Epistemology, methodology and methods are important components of the research process. The terms ‘method’, in both traditional and feminist discourses is often used to refer to method (techniques for gathering evidence), methodology (a theory and analysis of how research should proceed) and epistemology (issues about an adequate theory of knowledge or justificatory strategy). Each term has a distinct meaning (Harding 1987:2). Epistemology determines what is to be ‘known’ and who will be the ‘knower’. It delves into the questions of how reality can be known, the relationship between the knower and what is to be known, and the assumptions that guide the process of knowing (Gialdino 2009). Methodology is the logos or the logic of the methods used to produce knowledge. Methodology, the logos, of research has been borrowed from science and the way research is carried out in science, which is primarily quantitative. Social sciences, especially sociology, propounded the use of qualitative methodology in order to bring in the subjective elements into methodology. Their argument being that ‘Reality’ and the search for it is not and cannot be merely objective and to understand it in its entirety one needs to understand and explore its subjective elements as well. Therefore, methodology as followed in the social sciences may be broadly divided into qualitative and quantitative. The methodology determines the methods and tools used for collecting data. In addition, the nature of data required guides the choice of methods and tools used. And the understanding of the nature of data depends on the positioning of the researcher, for instance, a researcher who understands the world as a given and the researcher’s role as one of uncovering or discovering that world will design the research differently from a researcher who sees the world as an ever changing and complex set of social and political issues impacted by human intervention. Therefore,the researcher’s position guides epistemology, epistemology guides methodology and methodology guides the use of certain methods for the investigation of ‘data’ of a certain kind. But the relationship may not always be unidirectional.

A researcher chooses a certain methodology based on his/her choice to look at a particular issue in the light of a specific epistemological position. A researcher’s theoretical and philosophical interests, assumptions and biases influence the selection of methodology. Broadly, quantitative research primarily focuses on numbers and qualitative research focuses on words and their meanings. According to Bryman (2009:366) three important features of qualitative research are: first, it is inductive, implying that theory is generated from the research; second, its epistemological position may be defined as interpretivist, i.e. emerging from an understanding of the social world through an analysis of the interpretation of the world by its participants; third, its ontological position may be described as constructionist, implying that the world is constructed through interactions between individuals rather than a phenomena ‘out there’. Feminist scholars as well as social scientists have a propensity to adopt a qualitative methodology on the grounds that it is more conducive to understanding people’s everyday lived-experiences. Despite this distinction created between qualitative and quantitative research by some, there are several feminist scholars who instead of creating a dichotomy between the two and preferring qualitative methodology over quantitative methodology propose to focus on eliminating the bad practises of both quantitative and qualitative methods. According to Oakley, (1998:166) “It is time to move beyond the confines of the dialectical language about the advantages and disadvantages of ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ methods. We need to examine all methods from the viewpoint of the same questions about trustworthiness, to consider how best to match methods to research questions, and to find ways of integrating a range of methods in carrying out socially useful inquiries.” Another group of feminists point out that both qualitative and quantitative methodology is grounded in androcentrism therefore both need to be rejected.

In the background of the above discussion, this chapter will, first, discuss the details of epistemology, methodology and methods, the way it is employed in the sciences, second, the feminist critique of the scientific way of doing research and third, the feminist approach to epistemology and methodology.

Section 1: Epistemology and Methodology in Science and Social Sciences

Before embarking on a feminist critique of mainstream epistemology and methodology it is important to understand the tenets of what they are critiquing. Mainstream epistemology and methodology is based on Natural Science paradigm. Natural scientists view the world as a given, something that is out there for researchers to discover/uncover and re-present. They propose a positivist method of doing research. Life scientists and social scientists follow a similar worldview and hence attempt at carrying out research in a scientific manner to obtain results, which are accurate to the ‘reality’ that they seek to study. Since it is assumed that the reality is ‘out there’, it is also assumed that no matter who goes to study that reality, the results will be the same. Mainstream science has always had a positivist orientation. Positivism champions the goals of objectivity and value neutrality in research. The discovery of the ‘really real’ needs to be necessarily objective, without the subjectivity of the researcher seeping into the research process. Therefore, objectivity and context neutrality are valued as essential assets of positivism (Hesse-Biber, Leavy and Yaiser 2004:5-6). It is assumed that an objective and neutral researcher, with a set of quantitative tools, will be able to discover the measurable facets of Reality that exist out there. If the researcher does not effectively use the tools of research, for instance a questionnaire or a test, then the research may get biased. Certain safety measures are introduced in scientific methods in order to safeguard against biases that may creep into the research process; a theory that emerges as a result of following the positivist method must also withstand the test of validity and reliability. The positivist quest for quantifiable and objective reality is “combined with empirical observations in order to discover and verify causal laws that can beused to predict human behaviour” (Hesse-Biber, Leavy and Yaiser 2004:5). The discovery of causal laws is based on research on a sample population that is then generalised for a larger population. The patterns that emerge in the causal law enable the researcher to argue for the theory’s capacity to predict social behaviour of a population group. Thus generalisability and predictability are features of a good scientific theory.

It is evident that positivism follows a process of carrying out research which is divided into neat units without any scope for overlap or ambiguity. As mentioned earlier, this emerges from a certain understanding of Reality— what is worthy of being known and who is capable of being the knower. Positivism has already been established as a valid way of establishing the methodology of scientific research. One can find the roots of this methodology in the epistemological position that scientific research assumes. The ability to know the Reality is bestowed in the hands of the Objective knower, who will be able to ‘cut the Reality at its joints’ and present a logical view of the world. Therefore, all that is not considered to be objective and all that is not measurable (so that it can be generalized) is deemed to be outside the scope of science. In this way science determines its scope and limits. The knower is expected to work within the dualistic laws of thought to be able to present a Rational and objective picture of the Reality. Greater the attainment of conceptual order or consistency, closer one is to the Truth. In order to attain this conceptual order there is need for ordered principles. Consequently, emotions and lived experiences that are not quantifiable and are not strictly within the realm of the Rational are considered to be pollutants of good methodology.

Feminists have critiqued scientific epistemology and methodology’s emphasis on Rationality, Logic, and Reality of a specific kind to arrive at a Truth. Arguably the mainstream privileges the experience of men and positions them at the centre of theory-construction. The lived experiences of women, that are often different, are placed at the margins of mainstream theory. A theory that has a male bias is known as an androcentric theory. The next section will discuss the feminist critiques of mainstream methodology and androcentrism.

Section 2: Feminist Critiques of Androcentrism and Mainstream Methodology

There is no one feminist position. Feminists are committed to pluralism across the board after the advent of Third-World feminism. Feminist positions on knowledge production emerge from a premise of how they view the world (reality), in other words, their epistemological position. As opposed to the mainstream/positivist way of looking at the world (Reality), discussed in the previous section, feminist researchers do not subscribe to an ordered and quantifiable way of looking at the world. They question the positivist approach and raise epistemological questions like who can produce knowledge, how knowledge is or can be obtained and what is knowledge. Feminist understanding of truth is different and they believe that there are multiple ways of acquiring knowledge and the production of knowledge cannot be relegated to a set group of researchers (Hesse-Biber, Leavy, Yaiser 2004:11). Feminists argue, not only the core-groups, marginalised groups of people also have the capacity to produce knowledge. According to Hesse-Biber et al (2004:12), “Positivists traditionally seek knowledge in a narrow self-contained way whereas feminists aim at developing knowledge with their research subjects who bring their own experiential knowledge, concerns, and emotions to the project”. Such an approach is debunked by the mainstream. In response the feminists accuse mainstream scientific research of displaying an androcentric bias.

In the 1970s feminists realized that the root cause of sexism is not in the immediate concrete social context but at a deeper conceptual level. Concepts and conceptual schemes were identified as hidden sources of sexism. Androcentrism, the perception of social life from a male point of view with a consequent failure to accurately perceive or describe the activity of a woman was seen as the root cause of everyday-sexism faced by women. Androcentrism, therefore, is not only about masculinity but also about masculinity-in-a-position-of-power. Feminists point out that male bias is different from androcentrism. This is because bias would lead to neutrality as a solution which itself is contentious. Male bias is overt but androcentrism is covert. Feminists point out that male bias is perpetuated under the garb of neutrality because feminists believe that no knowledge is value-free; all knowledge emerges from the social location of the researcher, therefore it is situated (Haraway 1988). Thus, the subjectivity of both the researcher and the research participants need to be taken into consideration. They believe in the existence of an engaged, enmeshed knower and not one who is detached. Stanley and Wise argue, that “…all knowledge, necessarily, results from the conditions of its production, it is contextually located, and irrevocably bears the marks of its origins in the minds and intellectual practices of those lay and professional theorists and researchers who give voice to it” (Stanley and Wise 1983:39). Feminists, therefore, do not see knowledge as a re-presentation. For them all reality is constructed and knowledge produced of such a reality depends on the researcher’s social location and perceptions.

Further, with regard to the critique of androcentrism, feminists argue that the mainstream systems of knowledge have been designed in a way that women’s lives and their social worlds are hidden from mainstream society (Smith 2004). From the 1970s, feminists opposed such production of knowledge and argued that absence of women’s voices was not the result of a natural process; systems-of-knowledge are designed in such a way that they silence and devalue the voices of women, either through acts of omission, implying that women’s voices and experiences are left out from the process of knowledge production by mistake, or acts of commission through which women’s voices and experiences are intentionally left out of the process of knowledge-production (Langton 2000:130-134). Moitra (2002:105), who believes this to be an act of commission, points out that the exclusion of women’s experiences is “due to an androcentric bias which treats ‘human’ as a neutered concept and on every occasion tries to replace woman by human”. She also points out that due to the creation of these neutered ‘human’ qualities, women’s experiences, which do not converge with ideas about ‘human’ experiences, are left out of theory-construction on the pretext that they do not match the desired or aspired for human qualities. By rendering women’s experiences unworthy of theory construction, they are left out of the process of knowledge-construction and gradually silenced and marginalised. Scientific research, she observes, dehumanises, objectifies and refuses to accept the subjectivity of the person present.

In the ordered world of scientific research, there is no apparent place for experiences that do not fall within the regimented understanding of ‘human’ experience. Feminist scholars have pointed out that a rational, logical and often teleological presentation of experience is considered appropriate for the purpose of knowledge creation within a positivist framework followed by scientific research. Women’s experiences are often marginalised on the pretext that they are based on emotions and therefore are irrational, inappropriate and undesirable for theory (Foss and Foss 1994:39-43). There is, therefore, no place for vagueness or ambiguity; emotion or pain; evidence has to be ‘factual’ and either true or false. It is assumed that it is the inability of the knower to understand fully the ‘fact’ of the matter, which allows ambiguity to creep into a proposed research. However, what can be an alternative way of looking at ambiguity is that it is omnipresent in all our lived experiences. Feminist theorisations reflect scepticism of the ‘neatness’ that science proposes, questioning the ways in which knowledge is organised.

Critique of objectivity constitutes an important component of the feminist critique of positivism. According to Moitra, “Feminist thought opposes the classical notion of objectivity. It either offers a revised version of objectivity or it rejects it altogether as a myth” (Moitra 2002:100). The debate on objectivity emerges broadly between the supporters of the epistemological position of viewing the world as a context independent stand-alone fact and the upholders of the view that the world is always known through the perspective of the knower. Positivists propound that the research process should be unbiased, objective and hence neutral. However, there have been various discussions around the ‘impossibility’ of a value-free research (see for instance, Harnois 2013, Brooks and Hese-Biber 2007). To say that any research is completely value free or free of assumptions is but an over-ambitious statement and expectation, as human activities can never be value free (Moitra 2002:100-124). Humans need to be understood in the context of the social, political and historical contexts in which they are embedded. There is a continuum along which the various understandings of objectivity can be understood. Feminists themselves are greatly divided on the understanding of objectivity and its role in the process of knowledge production. Feminists reject the thesis that Knowledge is autonomous and context neutral. They hold that knowledge is always situated in a gendered context. Their reasons for considering gender relevant for epistemology may often vary. This does not imply that they give up on the commitment to objectivity (Langton 2000:146). Feminists such as Helen Longino (1990), Donna Haraway (1988) and Sandra Harding (2004b) wish to redefine objectivity and not do away with it altogether. Harding proposes what she calls ‘strong objectivity’, which can be achieved if one rejects the idea of a neutral value free research. Also, she argues that there are some positions in the power hierarchy, which do not benefit from power structures. If knowledge is constructed from such positions it would ensure greater objectivity. Haraway proposes “a doctrine of embodied objectivity that accommodates paradoxical and critical feminist science projects: feminist objectivity means quite simply situated knowledges” (Haraway 1988).

Based on these differing positions vis-a-vis objectivity, feminists propose different methodologies to ensure objectivity in research. Their methodology is guided by their critique of positivist understanding of Reality, Rationality, Logic, Truth, Objectivity and Neutrality; which are perceived to be rooted in androcentrism. The following section will elucidate the different feminist approaches to methodology.

Section 3: Feminist Approaches to Epistemology and Methodology

Feminist research methodology emerged during the 1960s and ‘70s as a theoretical arm of the women’s movement that started in the West. Feminist research sought to transform women’s lives as well as the world of academics. Feminism, like Marxism, believes in praxis, i.e.,to not only interpret the world but also to change it.1 ‘Knowledge’-creating-space, like most other spaces, has been male dominated; male social scientists have created mainstream theoretical space and in the process they have systematically ignored women’s lived experiences. However, since the emergence of feminism a palpable pressure has been created on the demography of academic space. As has already been pointed out, feminists challenge the process of knowledge production and point out that the knowledge produced by the mainstream is androcentric in nature. What is understood as knowledge is also male-centric in nature. For these reasons women’s ‘knowledge’ has been understood as irrational since male-centric theory dismissed it as gained out of intuition and not through accredited scientific tools of investigation. It was assumed that women cannot derive knowledge by the help of different means and women cannot be an autonomous knower/knowledge seeker (Smith 2004). Feminists perceive a hidden political agenda in this ‘exclusion’. A double standard is being maintained by the mainstream – on the one hand they profess neutrality on the other they are wedded to covert gender bias.

Feminist research when it began had a well-defined political motive. As has been already established, feminists understand knowledge as contextualised. They advocate a research process that is more attentive to power differentials and acknowledges the role of various social structures in not only the formulation of a research problem but also the ways in which the research is carried out, therefore drawing a link between epistemology, methodology and method. Feminist research, especially when a woman conducts it, has an emancipatory potential for both the researcher as well as the researched. This is because a female researcher who is committed to highlighting the oppression of women in order to find ways to end it, is not only sensitive to the prevalence of sexism and its repercussions in the lives of other women but also in their own personal lives where they are toeing the lines of norms and gender roles. Feminist research, therefore, contributes towards the process of liberation from the inbuilt androcentric ways of thinking and being. In effect, feminist research projects have an element of exploration attached to them. Exploration here can be understood in terms of what Acker et al say: “…an open and critical process in which all the intellectual tools we have inherited from a male dominated intellectual tradition are brought into question, including ideas about the basic nature of human beings, the nature of social life, the taken-for-granted world-view of traditional science, what concepts and questions might help to illuminate our shared condition, and how we should go about developing such knowledge” (Acker et al 1991:136). Despite this assumption, feminists are aware of the importance of reflexivity in research and how differences in women’s social locations may impact research in different ways. Therefore, feminist scholars have noted, “Research conducted within a feminist framework is attentive to issues of difference, the questioning of social power, resistance to scientific oppression, and a commitment to political activism and social justice” (Hesse-Biber, Leavy, and Yaiser 2004:3). While feminist research brings into question not only the dominant intellectual traditions and their ways of doing research, it is also continuously reflexive about its own methods of doing research. The feminist researcher needs to be aware of the power differentials acting in the research processes and accordingly needs to transform the methodology. At times there are no articulated boundaries of domination and resistance; in such cases, it becomes difficult for feminism to locate and identify points of contention. But feminist researchers need to be continuously conscious of the hierarchy and the power relations that may be recreated in interactions with the oppressed or marginalised group with whom they seek to do research.

Feminist contribution to epistemology has been two fold, one to show that when it comes to knowledge women get left out and second, to show how when it comes to knowledge, women get hurt. There are two ways in which women get left out as objects of knowledge. First, when, for instance, a discussion on labour does not take into consideration the unpaid labour carried out by women within the confines of the homes, or a medical research takes into consideration only the male body as the prototype. Often the reason for this exclusion may be cast on women on the grounds that they are ‘unknowable’. Second, women are left out because they fail to be ‘knowers’. There may be several reasons for this. Women may not have acquired the knowledge men have due to generations of exclusion from basic education. Therefore, barriers need to be removed for women to become ‘knowers’. Another reason could be that women are not even counted as ‘knowers’, despite the exemplary work they may be doing in their field of study. In that case the barriers are not to their access to knowledge but to their credibility as ‘knowers’. Yet another perspective could be that women are left out as ‘knowers’ because the mainstream conception of knowledge is flawed. Processes of exclusion and objectification put together hurt women (Langton 2000:129-134).

Feminist empiricists such as Richmond Campbell (1994) and Janet Saltzman Chafetz (2004) argue that sexist and androcentric biases may be removed if existing methodological norms are strictly adhered to. They propose an appropriate use of positivist methods to further a feminist cause; hence they retain the idea of objectivity. They do not identify the role of power in the process of knowledge production and propose that the inclusion of more women as researchers and more research topics on women would help eliminate the bias. They would, therefore, resonate an old proverb: “don’t throw the baby with the bath water”, suggesting that there is no need to reject the idea of logic altogether. Instead, they believe in ‘breaking the master’s house with the master’s tools’. An inclusive methodology will address the issue of marginalisation of women in the process of knowledge production.

Feminist standpoint theorists like Sandra Harding (2004c), Nancy Harstock (2004) and Patricia Hill Collins (1986) look at social life from different vantage points from where it is experienced. They propose to “start off thought and research from women’s experiences, lives, and activities (or labour) and from the emerging collective feminist discourses” (Harding 2004a:6). It is believed that an insight into the lives of the marginalised would give an insight into the lives of the dominant as well. In order to develop strategies for resistance, the marginalised are considered as being aware of not only their own lives but also the lives of those who oppress them and their modes of operation (Harding 2004a:1-15). Hesse-Biber et al (2004:16) point out that, “By starting with lives of the marginalized people, standpoint theory not only critically examines the marginalized groups as done in the past, but also critically examines the lives of the dominant groups. It centres on the relationship between politics and knowledge.” The basis of knowledge building from a standpoint epistemology lies in the politics of the relationship between the dominant and the oppressed.

To adopt a standpoint epistemology is not to make a claim that the standpoint of the person or group being studied is authentic. Rather, it implies that the standpoint of the person or group needs to be included in the discourse not simplistically or uncritically but in a way that it brings out the power dynamics of the hierarchical structure of which the individual or group is a part. Moitra (2002:115) discusses that what “differentiates a standpoint from the mainstream is not sex identity but power identity. Feminist standpoint theorists believe that women and other marginalised groups have been least corrupted by power, therefore, their understanding of marginal lives as well as of the macro-social order is likely to be more objective” (Moitra 2002:115). Standpoint epistemology is used to get an understanding of the political and social positioning of a standpoint and the various ways in which women are marginalised or silenced.

Stanley and Wise trace the various modes and forms that standpoint epistemology may take. They suggest that intersectionality is an important consideration while thinking about standpoint epistemology. They go on to discuss black feminist epistemology and lesbian feminist epistemology with the help of works of Patricia Hill Collins (1990) and Marilyn Frye (1983), and suggest that a range of feminist epistemologies exist. They point out that what marks out for example a lesbian standpoint from the standpoint of a heterosexual woman is an “explicit consciousness of oppression, out of silences, intrusions, misnaming” (Collins and Frye as cited in Stanley and Wise 1983:33). They argue that we need to identify the differences that exist between women and understand “that the category woman needs deconstructing in order to focus on ontological separations as well as similarities” (Stanley and Wise 1983:33-34).

Postmodern feminist theorists put forth a challenge to the grand narratives and point out how power is a constitutive of concepts and theories. They critique feminist empiricists and standpoint theorists on the grounds of adopting an essentialist framework in the way the category ‘woman’ is used. For postmodern feminists the question lies beyond the inclusion of subjects or objects in research and focuses on the constitution of the subject/object itself. They further point out that the experience of the subject is mediated, is constitutive of the relationships of domination and subordination and is embedded in its historical context (Scott 1992). According to them it is not enough to include women’s voices in the process of knowledge production. It is important to pay attention to the discursive fields in which experiences are articulated. One of the major critiques of postmodern feminism has come from within feminism itself: that this new form of knowledge building seeks to threaten or undermine the success of feminism just when women are beginning to be included in the research process and have been given a ‘voice’ (Leavy 2007).

Thus, from the above discussions it can be derived that there is no ‘feminist methodology’; rather there are ‘feminist methodologies’. A feminist research project often derives its methodology from a combination of two or more methodological positions. Therefore, though the different methodologies have been discussed as distinct from each other there are several areas of overlaps and continuities.

Conclusion

A feature, which may distinguish feminist research from other research, is that it generates its problematic from the perspective of women’s experiences (Harding 1987:7). Stanley and Wise (1983:24) suggest that feminist theory may have four basic features:(1) the theory may be derived from experience entered into it by the feminist researcher, (2) it may be subject to revision in the light of that experience, (3) it should be reflexive and self-reflexive and available for examination to everyone, and it should not be enshrined only in texts and considered to be incorrigible. Feminist research lays emphasis on using women’s experiences as a source for knowledge of social life and social structures. Along with the experiences of women, they emphasise on the need to explore the role of emotion and pain in social life and social structures rather than a positivist pursuit of ‘factual truth’. The constant use of the term ‘feminist research’ here is not to suggest that there is only one way of doing feminist research. There are many feminisms2 and as already mentioned, there are varied feminist methodologies. The point that is being made here is that there is a distinction between feminist researchers and mainstream science and social science researchers.

Though feminists claim for an acknowledgement of women’s lived-experience they are aware of the intersecting hierarchies of class, caste, race and religion that may influence the narrations of women. As pointed out, feminists believe that all individuals are socially located and therefore, knowledge about social structures can be derived from their individual narration of experiences. Hesse-Biber et al (2004:14) point out that, “There is no universal truth in a hierarchical society but rather partial and context-bound truths that can be accessed through relationships with our research participants”. Therefore, reflexivity, an awareness of the way in which power is constituted in the research process and the relationship between the researcher and the research participants is an important component of feminist research (Mehta 2014). Individual experiences enable us to draw connections between the various structures and institutions of power and the interconnected role that they play. In fact one of the roles of a feminist researcher is to locate various social structures and imposed categories, which contribute to the experiences of individual women (Stanley and Wise 1983:43).

There are probably no fixed answers to the question raised by Sandra Harding in 1987 in her article titled ‘Is there a Feminist Method?’ but over the years feminists have found meaning to this question in various ways. Most feminists would agree that gender is a category of interpretation in the forms of knowledge and process of knowledge production. How they seek to address the issue may be different. There may be different indicators and parameters that may define feminist research methodology and it need not be based on one fixed idea of epistemology and methodology.

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