critically examine the feminist approach to social research

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Feminist approaches to social science: epistemological and methodological tenets

Affiliation.

1 Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago 60607-7137, USA. [email protected]
PMID: 11109478
DOI: 10.1023/A:1005159716099

This paper is a primer for community psychologists on feminist research. Much like the field of community psychology, feminist scholarship is defined by its values and process. Informed by the political ideologies of the 1970s women's movement (liberal, radical, socialist feminism, and womanism), feminist scholars reinterpreted classic concepts in philosophy of science to create feminist epistemologies and methodologies. Feminist epistemologies, such as feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism, recognize women's lived experiences as legitimate sources of knowledge. Feminist methodologies attempt to eradicate sexist bias in research and find ways to capture women's voices that are consistent with feminist ideals. Practically, the process of feminist research is characterized by four primary features: (1) expanding methodologies to include both quantitative and qualitative methods, (2) connecting women for group-level data collection, (3) reducing the hierarchical relationship between researchers and their participants to facilitate trust and disclosure, and (4) recognizing and reflecting upon the emotionality of women's lives. Recommendations for how community psychologists can integrate feminist scholarship into their practice are discussed.

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Understanding Feminist Research Methodology in Social Sciences

15 Pages Posted: 15 Jun 2019

Ramandeep Kaur

Punjabi University, Department of Economics

Sangeeta Nagaich

Punjabi University-Department of Economics

Date Written: March 15, 2019

For the purpose of analysis and assessment of the great literary and non-literary argumentations, the research methodology has always been a vital concern in today’s scenario. Women’s perspective has been always taken into account in feminist research as the base of the research. The commencement of feminist research is emerging from the viewpoint that values women’s experience, needs, and perception of the social world. Feminist research also aims at bringing transformation and phasing out the gender asymmetry in the world. The deliberate discrimination of women at household level which results in a higher level of unhappiness and morbidity among women can be easily understood and unpacked from the perspective feminist lens. This research is prerequisite and essential for achieving the goal of equitable social and economic development. The present piece of work tried to give the backdrop on understanding the meaning of feminist research and the origin of feminist research methodology for conducting the research from the gender perspective. This paper also envelopes the pivotal standpoints on how feminist research is differentiated from social science research. Since, the social science research generally omits and overlooks the manifold aspects of gender relations resulting in incomplete and biased research, which in turn leads to the construction of incomplete development policies and programs. So, this work will also try to scrutinize the approaches that feminist methodologies have been used in the development of gender-sensitive indicators and measurements of change. The focus has also been given to highlight the use of feminism in the indigenous Indian context for addressing Indian issues. It suggests that before the onset of feminist studies, social scientists had not engaged critically with patriarchal and androcentric structures which oppress and dominate women. Lastly, an attempt has been made to discuss various methods used for feminist research and the main focus has been given on the understanding of feminist action research and its emergence.

Keywords: Feminism, Feminist Research, Feminist Research Methodology, Indian Primitive Feminism, Feminist Action Research, Social Transformation, Gender Inequality

JEL Classification: B00, B5, B54

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Ramandeep Kaur (Contact Author)

Punjabi university, department of economics ( email ).

Patiala India

Punjabi University-Department of Economics ( email )

Patiala India Patiala, IN Punjab 147002 India

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Home > Books > Women and Society

Feminisms in Social Sciences

Submitted: 28 March 2023 Reviewed: 20 April 2023 Published: 06 March 2024

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.111652

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Feminism is a social and political movement that aims to advance gender equality and challenge the patriarchal power structures that marginalize and oppress women. Feminist theory has become a significant perspective in the social sciences, including sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, and political science. Feminist theory has made significant contributions to the social sciences, challenging traditional views of gender, and highlighting the importance of studying women’s experiences and perspectives. Feminist scholars have provided important insights into the ways in which gender intersects with other forms of oppression and have advocated for policies and practices that promote gender equality and social justice. This chapter is based on desktop research, shows the concept of feminism in social science domain. The fundamental concept of feminism is the belief in gender equality and the rejection of patriarchal power structures that oppress and marginalize women. Feminism is a social, political, and cultural movement that advocates for the empowerment of women and the recognition of their rights as equal members of society. This chapter provides the general outlines of feminism in social sciences with reference to postmodern era and feminism, postmodernism and feminisms, history of feminist’s theory, major characteristics of feminisms in social science domain, the founding scholars of feminisms, social science and feminisms theory, sociology and feminisms contemporary development, environmentalism, and feminism a new direction of new movement, interconnectedness of environmentalism, feminism, and its influence on social sciences, the feminist approach to organizational analysis and the organizational sociological view.

social sciences
anthropology
gender equality
environmentalism
ecofeminism
organizational analysis

Author Information

Medani p. bhandari *.

Akamai University, USA
Sumy State University, Ukraine
Atlantic State Legal Foundation, USA

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

Feminism is a social, political, and cultural movement aimed at achieving gender equality, challenging, and dismantling gender-based oppression and discrimination, and advocating for women’s rights on the grounds of social, economic, and political equality to men. Feminism can encompass a range of beliefs and practices, but at its core, it seeks to promote women’s empowerment and challenge patriarchal norms and structures that limit women’s opportunities and choices. Feminism also recognizes that gender intersects with other social identities, such as race, class, and sexuality, and seeks to address the unique experiences of women who face multiple forms of oppression [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ].

Feminism is based on the idea that gender is a social construct that has been used to justify the subordination of women. Feminist theorists argue that gender is not an innate characteristic but is instead a set of social norms and expectations that are imposed on individuals based on their sex. These norms and expectations can lead to gender-based discrimination and inequality in all aspects of life, including education, employment, healthcare, and politics.

Feminism also recognizes the intersections of gender with other forms of oppression, such as race, class, and sexuality. Intersectionality is a key concept in feminist theory, which acknowledges that individuals experience multiple forms of oppression that cannot be separated from one another [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ].

The fundamental concept of feminism is the belief in gender equality and the rejection of patriarchal power structures that oppress women. Feminism recognizes the importance of challenging social norms and expectations that reinforce gender inequality, and advocates for policies and practices that promote the empowerment of women and the recognition of their rights as equal members of society.

1.1 Postmodern era and feminism

Most importantly, feminism approach has been considered mainstream knowledge in the postmodern era.

The postmodern era is a period that began in the mid-twentieth century and is characterized by a rejection of the grand narratives of modernism and an emphasis on the fragmented, complex, and pluralistic nature of contemporary society. In the postmodern era, there is a recognition that reality is not fixed and objective, but is instead constructed through language, culture, and social relations.

Postmodernism is a cultural and intellectual movement that emerged in response to the failures of modernism, which was characterized by a belief in rationality, progress, and the ability of science and technology to solve social problems. Postmodernism challenged these assumptions, arguing that there is no universal truth or objective reality, and that knowledge and meaning are contingent on historical and cultural contexts.

In the postmodern era, there is a focus on diversity, difference, and the plurality of experiences and identities. Postmodernism has influenced a wide range of fields, including art, literature, architecture, philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies. It has also been associated with critical theory, feminism, postcolonialism, and other social and political movements that seek to challenge dominant discourses and power structures [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ].

There are many scholars who have played important roles in challenging the traditional knowledge base system.

Jean-François Lyotard : A philosopher and literary theorist who is known for his work on the postmodern condition and the fragmentation of knowledge in contemporary society.

Jacques Derrida: A philosopher and literary critic who is known for his development of deconstruction, a method of analyzing language that reveals the hidden assumptions and contradictions of texts.

Michel Foucault : A philosopher and social theorist who is known for his work on power and knowledge, and for his critique of institutions such as prisons, hospitals, and mental health facilities.

Donna Haraway : A philosopher and feminist theorist who is known for her work on cyborgs, animals, and the boundaries between human and non-human entities.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari : Philosophers who are known for their collaborative work on topics such as rhizomes, the body without organs, and the politics of desire.

These and many other scholars of social science have significant contribution for postmodern knowledge creation including supporting and empowering the feminism theory.

1.2 Postmodernism and feminisms

Postmodernism and feminisms share a critical approach to the dominant discourses and power structures of society. Both reject the idea of a fixed, essential identity, and emphasize the importance of diverse experiences and perspectives.

Feminist postmodernism emerged in the 1980s as a response to the limitations of traditional feminist theories, which often essentialized women’s experiences and identities. Feminist postmodernism emphasized the role of language, discourse, and cultural representation in shaping gender identity and inequality. It argued that gender is not a fixed biological category but is instead a social construct that is constantly being constructed and reconstructed through cultural practices and discourses [ 12 , 14 , 20 , 23 , 26 ].

Feminist postmodernism also challenged the idea of a universal female identity, arguing that women’s experiences are diverse and shaped by intersecting factors such as race, class, sexuality, and nationality. It emphasized the importance of recognizing and valuing these differences, and of challenging the power structures that privilege certain groups over others.

Postmodernism and feminist postmodernism have had a significant impact on feminist theory and practice, influencing the development of innovative approaches such as intersectionality, postcolonial feminism, and queer theory. These approaches emphasize the importance of understanding the complex, multiple, and intersecting ways in which gender, race, class, and other factors shape individual and social experiences [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ].

2. History of feminist’s theory

“ The history of feminist politics and theory is often talked of as consisting of three ‘waves.’ First-wave feminism is associated with the women’s suffrage movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. First-wave feminism was characterized by a focus on officially mandated inequalities between men and women, such as the legal barring of women from voting, property rights, employment, equal rights in marriage, and positions of political power and authority. Second-wave feminism is associated with the women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. While seeing themselves as inheritors of the politics of the first wave which focused primarily on legal obstacles to women’s rights, second-wave feminists began concentrating on less ‘official’ barriers to gender equality, addressing issues like sexuality, reproductive rights, women’s roles, and labor in the home, and patriarchal culture. Finally, what is called third-wave feminism is generally associated with feminist politics and movements that began in the 1980s and continue on to today. Third-wave feminism emerged out of a critique of the politics of the second wave, as many feminists felt that earlier generations had over-generalized the experiences of white, middle-class, heterosexual women and ignored (and even suppressed) the viewpoints of women of color, the poor, gay, lesbian, and transgender people, and women from the non-Western world. Third-wave feminists have critiqued essential or universal notions of womanhood, and focus on issues of racism, homophobia, and Eurocentrism as part of their feminist agenda ” Patricia Hill Collins [ 29 ] ( https://routledgesoc.com/profile/feminist-social-theory Retrieved March 25. 2023 ). Whereas the Fourth Wave of Feminism describes the feminist movement that emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This wave builds on the achievements of the previous feminist movements, but also addresses new issues and challenges faced by women in the contemporary world. The Fourth Wave of Feminism represents a continued evolution of the feminist movement, with a focus on intersectionality, digital activism, and an expanded set of issues affecting women and marginalized groups in the contemporary world.

Feminist theory has a complex and varied history that has evolved over the course of many centuries. Here is a brief overview of the major historical developments:

The Enlightenment (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries): During this period, writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft argued for women’s equality and advocated for their right to education.

First-wave feminism (nineteenth and early twentieth centuries): This movement focused on women’s suffrage, or the right to vote, and the basic legal rights of women. Key figures included Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the United States and Emmeline Pankhurst in the United Kingdom. The first-wave feminism movement focused on achieving legal rights for women, such as the right to vote, property rights, and reproductive rights. This movement was largely centered in Western Europe and the United States.

Second-wave feminism (1960s and 1970s): This movement focused on a wider range of issues, including reproductive rights, workplace discrimination, and sexual violence. Key figures included Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and bell hooks. The second-wave feminism movement focused on challenging the ways in which gender inequality was produced and maintained in a range of social and cultural domains, including the workplace, the home, and popular culture. This movement was global in scope and influential in shaping the development of feminist theory and activism.

Third-wave feminism (1990s and 2000s): This movement sought to address the shortcomings of second-wave feminism, particularly its lack of diversity and inclusivity. Key figures included Audre Lorde, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Rebecca Walker.

The third-wave feminism movement focused on the intersections of gender with other forms of social inequality, such as race, class, and sexuality. This movement emphasized the importance of individual agency and empowerment and sought to challenge the ways in which gender oppression was experienced and expressed in diverse and complex ways.

Fourth-wave feminism (2010s and onward): This movement is characterized by its use of social media and digital platforms to advance feminist causes, as well as its focus on intersectionality and the experiences of marginalized groups. Key figures include Malala Yousafzai, Tarana Burke, and Emma Watson. The postmodern and postcolonial feminisms challenged the idea that there is a single, universal experience of women’s oppression, and instead emphasized the importance of recognizing and challenging the ways in which gender inequality is shaped by race, class, and colonialism.

The intersectional feminisms , which have emerged more recently, seek to understand and challenge the ways in which multiple forms of social inequality, such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, intersect and shape experiences of oppression and privilege.

Throughout these various waves, feminist theory has explored a wide range of issues, including the gendered nature of power and oppression, the ways in which gender intersects with race, class, and sexuality, and the impact of feminist movements on society as a whole.

These movements have had a significant impact on shaping societal attitudes and norms related to gender and gender equality and have helped to advance the cause of women’s rights and gender equality around the world. Although the goals and strategies of these movements have evolved over time, they all share a commitment to challenging and transforming systems of gender inequality and oppression.

3. Major characteristics of feminisms in social science domain

Feminisms in the social science domain refer to a range of theoretical and political perspectives that focus on understanding and addressing gender inequalities in society. Some of the major characteristics of feminisms in social science include:

Recognition of the social construction of gender: Feminist scholars in the social sciences argue that gender is not a fixed biological category but rather a social construct that is shaped by cultural and historical factors.

Focus on intersectionality: Feminist social science recognizes the importance of intersectionality, or the interconnectedness of multiple forms of oppression such as gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability [ 29 , 30 ].

Critique of patriarchal power structures: Feminist social science is concerned with analyzing and challenging patriarchal power structures that perpetuate gender inequalities.

Emphasis on diversity and inclusivity: Feminist social science seeks to promote diversity and inclusivity by valuing and centering the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups, particularly women and gender minorities [ 31 , 32 , 33 ].

Action-oriented: Feminist social science is often action-oriented, seeking to apply research findings to inform policy and social change efforts that promote gender equality [ 34 , 35 ].

Emphasis on reflexivity: Feminist social science recognizes the importance of reflexivity, or self-awareness, in the research process. This involves critically reflecting on one’s own social location and biases as well as acknowledging the ways in which power relations shape research [ 36 , 37 ].

Interdisciplinary approach: Feminist social science draws on multiple disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, political science, and psychology, to understand and address gender inequalities in society [ 38 , 39 ].

4. The founding scholars of feminisms

There is no one single founding scholar of feminisms, as the movement has been shaped and influenced by numerous thinkers and activists throughout history. However, some of the key figures in the development of feminist theory and activism include:

Mary Wollstonecraft: An English writer and philosopher who wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1792, arguing that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men.

Simone de Beauvoir: French writer, philosopher, and feminist thinker who lived from 1908 to 1986. She is best known for her book “The Second Sex,” which is considered a seminal work in feminist theory and is often credited with inspiring the second wave of feminism. In “The Second Sex,” de Beauvoir argues that women are not born, but rather made into a subordinate category by society. She suggests that women have historically been defined in relation to men, and that this has limited their opportunities and perpetuated gender inequality. She also argues that women must reject traditional gender roles and work to achieve greater social, economic, and political equality. De Beauvoir’s work had a significant impact on feminist theory and the broader feminist movement. She challenged traditional views of femininity and masculinity, and helped to popularize the idea that gender is a social construct. She also argued that women must work together to achieve social change, and that feminist solidarity is crucial to overcome gender inequality. In addition to her work in feminist theory, de Beauvoir was a prolific writer and philosopher. She wrote novels, essays, and memoirs, and was a close friend and collaborator of Jean-Paul Sartre. She also wrote about topics such as existentialism, ethics, and politics, and was widely regarded as one of the leading intellectuals of her time.

Betty Friedan (1921–2006): An American writer and activist who wrote “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963, which is often credited with sparking the second wave of feminism in the United States. Friedan criticized the idea that women’s primary role was to be wives and mothers and argued for women’s rights to education and employment. Other works include- It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement (1963); The Second Stage (1981); and The Fountain of Age (1993).

Audre Lorde: An African American poet, essayist, and activist who wrote about the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in her work. Lorde was a key figure in the development of black feminist theory.

Bell Hooks: An African American author, feminist theorist, and cultural critic who has written extensively on the intersections of race, gender, and class in her work.

Dorothy Smith was a Canadian sociologist and feminist scholar who made significant contributions to the field of sociology through her development of feminist standpoint theory. She was born on July 6, 1926, and passed away on June 3, 2022.

Smith’s work challenged the traditional and often exclusive perspective of mainstream sociology, which tended to view the social world from the standpoint of those in positions of power and authority. Instead, she argued that sociologists needed to consider the experiences and perspectives of those who are marginalized or oppressed, particularly women.

Smith’s feminist standpoint theory suggested that the experiences and perspectives of women are crucial to understanding the social world, and that women’s experiences are shaped by social structures and institutions that perpetuate gender inequality. She argued that women’s standpoint is not just a matter of personal experience but is shaped by the broader social context in which they live.

Smith’s work had a significant impact on feminist theory and social research, and she was an influential figure in the development of feminist sociology. She authored many books and articles throughout her career, including “The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology” and “Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People.”

In recognition of her contributions to sociology and feminist theory, Smith was awarded many prestigious awards throughout her career, including the John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award from the Canadian Sociological Association and the Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association.

Patricia Hill Collins is a sociologist and a prominent scholar in the fields of race, gender, and social inequality. She was born on May 1, 1948, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is currently a Distinguished University Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Collins is known for her work on intersectionality, which is the idea that different forms of social oppression, such as racism, sexism, and classism, intersect and interact in complex ways to shape individuals’ experiences. She has also written extensively on the experiences of Black women in the United States and has argued that understanding the unique experiences and perspectives of Black women is crucial to developing a comprehensive understanding of social inequality.

Collins has authored numerous influential books and articles throughout her career, including “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment,” which is considered a foundational text in the field of Black feminist theory. In this work, she argues that Black feminist thought provides a unique perspective on the world that challenges traditional theories of knowledge and power.

Collins has received many awards and honors for her contributions to sociology and feminist theory, including the W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association and the John Hope Franklin Award from the American Philosophical Association. She is widely recognized as a leading scholar in the fields of race, gender, and social inequality, and her work has had a significant impact on the study of social issues and social justice.

Judith Butler is a philosopher and gender theorist who has made significant contributions to feminist and queer theory. She is best known for her work on the concept of gender performativity, which suggests that gender is not a natural or fixed characteristic, but rather a socially constructed identity that is created through repeated performances of gendered behaviors and expressions.

Butler’s work has been influential in challenging traditional notions of gender and sexuality, and in advocating for the recognition and protection of marginalized identities. She has also written extensively on topics such as power, violence, and political resistance, and has been a prominent voice in debates around feminism, queer theory, and social justice.

One of Butler’s most famous works is the book “Gender Trouble,” which was first published in 1990. In this book, Butler argues that gender is not an innate or biological characteristic, but rather a social construct that is constantly reinforced through our actions and interactions. She suggests that the idea of binary gender categories, such as male and female, is limiting and oppressive, and that we need to explore alternative ways of thinking about gender and identity.

Butler’s work has been both celebrated and criticized for its complex and often challenging ideas. However, her contributions to feminist and queer theory have had a profound impact on the way we think about gender and identity and have opened up new avenues for thinking about social justice and political resistance.

Nancy Chodorow: Her most highly acclaimed book, The Reproduction of Mothering, first published in 1978, has won numerous awards. Chodorow’s more recent books include Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory (1989), Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond (1994), and The Power of Feelings: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture (1999).

Raewyn Connell (formerly R. W. or Bob Connell): books, including Ruling Class, Ruling Culture (1977), Class Structure in Australian History (1980), Gender and Power (1987), The Men and the Boys (2000), and Masculinities (1995), Southern Theory (2007).

Kimberlé Crenshaw: a legal scholar and critical race theorist who is known for coining the term “intersectionality” and for her work on the intersection of race, gender, and other forms of identity-based oppression.

Sara Ahmed: a cultural theorist and feminist philosopher who has written on topics such as queer phenomenology, affect theory, and the politics of diversity.

Angela Davis: a political activist and scholar who has written extensively on issues related to race, gender, and social justice, and who has been involved in movements for civil rights and prison abolition.

These scholars and activists have made significant contributions to the development of feminisms and have shaped feminist theory and practice in diverse ways. These are just a few of the many scholars and activists who have contributed to the development of feminisms throughout history.

5. Social science and feminisms theory

The social sciences, including sociology, psychology, political science, and economics, have all been influenced by feminist theory and have in turn influenced the development of feminist theory.

Feminist theory is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that seeks to understand and challenge the ways in which gender inequality and the oppression of women are produced and maintained in society. Feminist theorists draw on a range of disciplines and perspectives, including sociology, psychology, political science, economics, and philosophy, to analyze the ways in which gender intersects with other forms of social inequality and to develop strategies for challenging and transforming existing power structures and norms [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ].

In sociology, feminist theory has influenced the study of gender and gender inequality and has led to the development of new theories and perspectives on gender and society. For example, feminist theory has challenged the idea that gender is a natural and biologically determined aspect of identity and has instead emphasized the social and cultural construction of gender and the ways in which gender is shaped by power and inequality [ 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ].

In psychology, feminist theory has influenced research on gender and the experiences of women and has led to the development of new theories and perspectives on gender and the psychology of women. For example, feminist psychologists have challenged the idea that women are inherently less competent or less capable than men and have instead emphasized the ways in which gender stereotypes and gender-based discrimination impact women’s experiences and opportunities [ 49 , 50 ].

In political science, feminist theory has influenced research on gender and politics, and has led to the development of new theories and perspectives on the ways in which gender shapes and is shaped by political institutions and processes. For example, feminist political scientists have challenged the idea that politics is a purely male-dominated domain and have instead emphasized the ways in which women’s political participation and representation are impacted by gender-based discrimination and unequal power relations [ 51 ].

In economics, feminist theory has influenced research on gender and the economy and has led to the development of new theories and perspectives on the ways in which gender shapes and is shaped by economic processes and institutions. For example, feminist economists have challenged the idea that the economy is gender-neutral and have instead emphasized the ways in which women’s economic opportunities and experiences are shaped by gender-based discrimination and unequal power relations [ 52 , 53 , 54 ].

Overall, feminist theory has had a significant impact on the social sciences and continues to shape and inform research and thinking in these fields. By challenging existing assumptions and power structures, feminist theory has provided new and innovative perspectives on a range of social, cultural, and political issues, and has helped to advance the cause of gender equality and the empowerment of women [ 49 , 50 , 52 , 53 , 54 ].

6. Sociology and feminisms contemporary development

In contemporary sociology, feminist theory continues to play a significant role in shaping research and scholarship. Here are some key developments in the intersection of sociology and feminisms:

Intersectionality : Intersectionality is a key concept in feminist theory that highlights the ways in which different forms of oppression, such as sexism, racism, and classism, intersect and shape individuals’ experiences. Contemporary feminist sociology has continued to explore intersectionality, examining the ways in which different forms of oppression interact with each other to produce unique experiences of oppression and privilege [ 55 , 56 ].

Global feminisms : Feminist sociology has increasingly focused on issues of globalization and transnationalism, examining the ways in which gender operates across national borders and in diverse cultural contexts. This has led to the development of a variety of “global feminisms,” which seek to address the unique challenges faced by women in various parts of the world [ 57 , 58 ].

Queer theory: Queer theory is a theoretical framework that explores the ways in which gender and sexuality are socially constructed and intersect with other forms of identity. Feminist sociology has increasingly engaged with queer theory, examining the ways in which gender and sexuality are fluid and complex and how they intersect with other forms of identity [ 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ].

Political activism : Feminist sociology has continued to be closely connected to political activism, with many feminist scholars and activists working together to advocate for gender equality and social justice [ 63 , 64 , 65 ]. This has led to a variety of initiatives and movements, such as the #MeToo movement and the fight for reproductive rights.

Overall, feminist sociology continues to be an important and dynamic field, exploring new questions and challenges as they arise and working to create a more equitable and just society for all.

7. Environmentalism and feminism a new direction of new movement

“Ecological feminism is a feminism which attempts to unite the demands of the women’s movement with those of the ecological movement in order to bring about a world and worldview that are not based on socioeconomic and conceptual structures of domination” [ 66 ].

Environmentalism and feminism have been intersecting for many years, and the relationship between these two movements has been growing stronger in recent years. The intersection between environmentalism and feminism is often referred to as ecofeminism, which recognizes the links between environmental degradation and the oppression of women and other marginalized groups [ 9 , 66 , 67 ].

Ecofeminism argues that the root cause of both environmental degradation and gender oppression is a dominant culture that values and prioritizes the interests of the powerful over the needs and well-being of marginalized communities, both human and non-human. This approach recognizes that environmental issues are not just technical or scientific problems but are also social and political issues that require collective action to challenge and transform the existing power structures and norms [ 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ].

One of the key arguments of ecofeminism is that the oppression of women and the exploitation of the environment are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. For example, the destruction of the environment can lead to displacement, loss of traditional livelihoods, and exposure to hazardous chemicals and pollutants, which disproportionately affect women and other marginalized groups. Additionally, women have historically played a crucial role in the preservation and management of natural resources and have often been at the forefront of environmental activism and advocacy [ 68 , 72 ].

Ecofeminism provides a new direction for environmental and feminist movements, which recognizes the importance of intersectionality and collective action in addressing the challenges of environmental degradation and gender oppression. By acknowledging the links between these two issues, ecofeminism offers a more holistic and inclusive approach to environmental and social justice and has the potential to mobilize a wider range of communities and constituencies in the fight for a more just and sustainable world [ 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ].

8. Interconnectedness of environmentalism, feminism, and its influence on social sciences

Interconnectedness of environmentalism and feminism has given a new direction and movement on social political, economic, and psychological field especially on women empowerment, social justice, inequality, and equity in general.

The interconnectedness of environmentalism and feminism has led to the emergence of a new direction in social and political movements that recognize the links between environmental degradation and gender oppression. Ecofeminism is a theory and movement that highlights the connections between the domination of nature and the oppression of women, and the need to challenge and transform the power structures that sustain both [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ].

At the heart of ecofeminism is the recognition that the exploitation of the environment and the oppression of women are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The destruction of natural resources can lead to the displacement of marginalized communities, and exposure to hazardous chemicals and pollutants, which disproportionately affect women and other vulnerable groups. Additionally, women have historically played a crucial role in the preservation and management of natural resources and have often been at the forefront of environmental activism and advocacy [ 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ].

Ecofeminism offers a more holistic and inclusive approach to environmental and social justice, recognizing the importance of intersectionality and collective action in addressing the challenges of environmental degradation and gender oppression.

In terms of social science and feminism theory, ecofeminism builds on and extends the insights of earlier feminist theories, such as liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, and radical feminism. Ecofeminism recognizes the limitations of these earlier theories in addressing the intersections of gender and environmental issues and offers a more nuanced and complex approach to understanding the interconnections between social, political, economic, and ecological systems.

Ecofeminism also draws on the insights of social science disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, and geography, to understand the social and cultural dimensions of environmental issues, and the ways in which gender shapes these dynamics. The theory and movement have also been influenced by developments in ecological science, such as the recognition of the interdependence of ecosystems and the importance of biodiversity [ 9 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 ].

Ecofeminism offers an analytical overview of the social, political, economic, and psychological influences of environmental degradation and gender oppression, and the need for a more holistic and inclusive approach to addressing these challenges. The theory and movement recognize the interconnectedness of social, economic, and ecological systems, and the importance of intersectionality and collective action in achieving a more just and sustainable world.

9. The feminist approach to organizational analysis

The feminist approach to organizational analysis is a critical perspective that examines gender-based power dynamics in the workplace. It challenges traditional organizational theories, which have been based on a male-dominated perspective and have largely ignored the experiences of women in the workplace.

Feminist organizational analysis focuses on the social construction of gender, the gendered nature of work, and the impact of gendered power relations on organizational practices. It aims to uncover the ways in which gender shapes organizational culture, policies, and practices, and how these in turn affect women’s experiences in the workplace.

One of the key insights of feminist organizational analysis is that gender is not just an individual characteristic, but a social construct that is created and reinforced through social interactions and institutional practices. This means that gender is not simply a matter of biology, but is shaped by cultural norms and expectations, and can vary across time and place.

Feminist organizational analysis also draws attention to the ways in which gender intersects with other forms of social inequality, such as race, class, and sexuality. This intersectionality perspective recognizes that individuals may experience multiple forms of discrimination and oppression, and that these intersecting identities can have a compounding effect on their experiences in the workplace.

Another important aspect of feminist organizational analysis is its focus on challenging and transforming existing power relations in the workplace. This includes addressing issues such as the gender pay gap, unequal representation of women in leadership positions, and sexual harassment and discrimination.

9.1 The organizational sociological view

Organizational sociology is a subfield of sociology that focuses on the study of organizations, including their structure, culture, behavior, and social dynamics. It examines how organizations operate and how they are shaped by social and cultural factors, as well as the impact of organizations on individuals, groups, and society as a whole [ 45 , 46 , 48 , 75 , 76 , 77 ].

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): With a growing awareness of social justice issues, many organizations are focusing on creating more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. Organizational sociologists are studying how organizations are implementing DEI policies and programs and the impact of these initiatives on organizational outcomes and employee well-being.

Digitalization and technology: The increasing use of digital technologies and platforms in organizations has significant implications for work and employment. Organizational sociologists are examining how digitalization is changing work practices, organizational structure, and the employment relationship.

Globalization and multinational corporations: Multinational corporations are becoming increasingly powerful and influential in the global economy, and organizational sociologists are studying their impact on societies and cultures around the world. They are examining how multinational corporations operate across different national contexts, the role of cultural differences in organizational behavior, and the implications of these factors for organizational strategy and effectiveness.

Workplace democracy: The idea of workplace democracy, or giving employees more say in decision-making and governance, is gaining traction in some organizations. Organizational sociologists are studying the potential benefits and challenges of workplace democracy, as well as the different models of participatory decision-making in organizations.

Sustainability and corporate social responsibility: There is growing pressure on organizations to be more environmentally and socially responsible. Organizational sociologists are examining how organizations are responding to these pressures, the impact of sustainability initiatives on organizational outcomes, and the role of organizations in addressing social and environmental issues more broadly.

9.2 The organizational sociological view on feminist

The organizational sociological view on Feminist approach emphasizes the importance of gender equality in organizations. This approach recognizes that gender-based power inequalities exist in many organizational settings and seeks to address these imbalances through critical analysis and social change. The organizational feminist approach incorporates the main essence of organizational sociology and beyond that, searches how, why, what, and in which way these approaches incorporate the gender perspectives in day-to-day organizations operation.

From an organizational sociological perspective, Feminist approach can have significant implications for organizational behavior and outcomes. The approach challenges traditional gender roles and stereotypes, recognizing that gender is a social construct that is created and reinforced through cultural norms and practices. It emphasizes the importance of creating gender-inclusive organizational cultures that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Feminist approach also emphasizes the importance of addressing structural barriers to gender equality in organizations. This includes issues such as the gender pay gap, unequal representation of women in leadership positions, and sexual harassment and discrimination. Feminist scholars argue that these barriers are not simply individual problems, but are deeply embedded in organizational structures and practices, requiring systemic change.

Furthermore, Feminist approach recognizes the intersectionality of gender with other forms of social inequality, such as race, class, and sexuality. It recognizes that individuals may experience multiple forms of discrimination and oppression, and that these intersecting identities can have a compounding effect on their experiences in the workplace.

Overall, the organizational sociological view on Feminist approach highlights the importance of creating gender-inclusive organizations that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. By challenging traditional gender roles and stereotypes and addressing structural barriers to gender equality, it opens up new possibilities for creating more equitable and just organizational cultures.

Within the feminist organizational sociological view, Arlene Daniels 1975:349 states that “The women’s movement contributes far more to sociology than a passing interest would. The development of a feminist perspective in sociology offers an important contribution to the sociology of knowledge. And through this contribution, we are forced to rethink the structure and organization of sociological theory in all the traditional fields of theory and empirical research” (as cited by [ 78 ]). Daniels captures the notion of feminist movements, which I think presents a major turn, not only to change the directions women face in the twentieth century onwards but also to provide a ground for the development of feminist scholarship. Adding to this notion, Tracy, and Thorne [ 79 ] brings an important account of how sociology developed by the privileged western, white, upper-middle-class, straight men (page 306). This hegemony of the male began to be challenged; however, it was not a strong stand until the feminist movements began at an organized level. The foundation developed through the first wave of feminist movements. The first wave had influence on the women’s stand to some extent; however formally this stand became more visible only in the 1960s. Since then, various feminist scholars have challenged the one-sided view of society (privileged western, white, upper-middle-class, straight men), including postmodern thinkers.

I agree that the feminist movement has made a significant contribution to sociology, particularly in terms of developing a feminist perspective that challenges traditional sociological theory and research methods. The feminist movement has also played a critical role in bringing attention to issues of gender inequality and discrimination, which has led to greater awareness and understanding of these issues within the field of sociology. It is important to recognize the limitations of traditional sociological theory and research, which has been shaped by the perspectives of privileged western, white, upper-middle-class, straight men. By incorporating diverse perspectives and experiences, including those of women and marginalized groups, we can create a more inclusive and accurate understanding of society.

This challenge brought a new way to examine society. Academicians began to examine society more openly and flexibly, which helped to develop new thoughts and theories relating to feminism, racism, etc. Within sociology, scholars began to see society deeply through feminist perspectives 1 (Dorothy Smith, Marjorie DeVault, Gisela Bock, and Susan James). Organizational sociology has developed new perspectives (rational, natural, and open system (primarily) and environmental, demographic, ecological, etc., more recently). At first, the women’s standpoint in the organization was not much focused upon, as discourse dealt more often with women’s freedom as individuals as the feminisms movement began to examine the women’s stand in every sector of social life including formal and informal social organizations, scholars began to see the women’s role in organizational structure. Several authors in feminist scholars have contributed to organizational theory development. In this essay, I will only focus on Martha Calas and Linda Smircich’s contribution to organizational theory building. They primarily examine women’s standing in organizational management and apply a postmodern perspective to analyze the organization based on the perspectives developed by Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, Jurgen Habermas, etc.

Martha Calas and Linda Smircich state that organization theories—once they are presented as knowledge—guide organizational participants in their efforts to understand and control organizations. In this sense organizational scientists “make” organizations as much as we study them … Thus, having a socially conscious organizational practice may depend first on having a more socially conscious organizational scholarship ([ 80 ], pp. 223, 234).

These authors’ approach to organization study is particularly based on postmodern notions of thought. They analyze organizations from various perspectives and provide a detailed account of the functionalist liberal way to postmodern power dynamism. I think Foucault’s notion of power politics and social change through knowledge is a relevant ground for them to examine organizational dynamism. Because of the changing faces of organizations within modern neo-liberal socio-economic scenarios, it is hard to develop universal principles for organizational management. Calás and Smircich’s analysis goes beyond traditional sociological scholarship which was silent about women’s standing and roles in the organization and elaborates on how women are ignored, or at least passed over, in organizational power politics. Another aspect they have analyzed is the impact of colonialism on the developing world’s organizations. In the following paragraphs, I will examine how these two authors view feminism in organizational management and what they have contributed to organizational theory development.

I agree that the authors’ approach to organizational study is heavily influenced by postmodern thought, particularly Foucault’s notion of power politics and social change through knowledge. They provide a detailed analysis of organizational dynamics, which moves beyond traditional sociological scholarship and highlights the role of women and marginalized groups in organizational power politics.

Calás and Smircich’s analysis of feminism in organizational management is an important contribution to the development of organizational theory. They argue that traditional management theories are based on a functionalist liberal perspective that ignores the role of gender and other forms of diversity in organizational dynamics. They show how women are often excluded from positions of power in organizations and how this exclusion is perpetuated by organizational structures and cultural norms.

Furthermore, Calás and Smircich highlight the impact of colonialism on the developing world’s organizations, which often perpetuate neocolonial power dynamics. They show how organizations in the developing world are often organized around Western ideals of management and ignore local cultural values and practices.

Overall, Calás and Smircich’s analysis is an important contribution to the development of organizational theory. They provide a critical perspective that challenges traditional management theories and highlights the importance of diversity in organizational dynamics. Their work also demonstrates the importance of understanding the impact of historical and cultural contexts on organizational dynamics.

Calás and Smircich [ 81 ] state that the word “feminism” cannot contain the notion of the strength of the feminist theory, because it includes several perspectives, hence it should be “feminisms.” This minute correction encapsulates the seriousness of their stand. Another point they state is that feminist theories go beyond ‘women’s issues’ where they examine feminisms as critical and political issues, which have been embedded in society since earliest times and can be seen in every aspect of social, economic, and political spheres. They argue that feminist theorists should situate themselves as a part of any project “in research” to articulate the real grounds of tension. Authors are not satisfied with the existing theory of feminism which according to them are not necessarily in sequential order. They state that theories of feminism built on, responded to, and changed as a result of different dialogs—boundaries between them are “blurry and blurring.” They look into existing organizational theories through feminist perspectives and evaluate how feminisms contribute to organizational theory building in the context of existing liberal, radical, psychoanalytic, Marxist, socialist, poststructuralist/ postmodern, and third world/(post) colonial perspectives.

Calás and Smircich [ 81 ] explain each of these categories, which provide an important basis for how organizations can be analyzed and explained. The following paragraphs give a brief account of such points, developed by Calás and Smircich, which can be used in studying social organizations. Similarly, their liberal perspective is based on the functionalist/positivist approach, which mostly examines sex and gender as a variable, not a framework for organizational analysis. At the individual and psychological level , this approach examines the sex and gender differences in leadership, power, job stress, satisfaction, organizational commitment, sex stereotypes, androgyny, recruitment, selection, and performance appraisal. It also examines the glass ceiling, organizational demography, career building, and social networks and evaluates whether organizations provide equal opportunity and take affirmative action without discrimination against the women workers in the organizations. Calás and Smircich are analyzing the situation of women in organizational management around 1996, and where women stand more than ten years later is not presently clear.

Likewise, the radical feminist approach uses case studies and ethnographies to examine organizations, and search for innovative ideas of alternative organizations that may arise for the creation of “woman space.” Calás and Smircich [ 81 ] illustrate Koen’s five alternatives to increase women’s role in organizations such as participatory decision-making, rotating leadership, flexible and interactive job designs, and equitable distribution of income, interpersonal and political accountability. However, the question is whether it is possible in the real ground to apply these principles or not. Here questions arise, such as who heads the organization for whose interest? While most organizations still operate with the traditional functional system of governance, whether this new radical approach can take a forward step? These authors are silent about the implementation part. Another approach they reveal is psychoanalytic. Here, they state that organizational study should examine whether women have equal advantages in the organization or not, in terms of leadership and teamwork capabilities. This approach “considers the consequences of women’s different psychosexual development for their roles in organization and management” ([ 81 ], page 224). The psychoanalytic aspects of the organizational study have been little considered in practice. Many scholars have analyzed organizational behavior; however, they have seldom adequately represented the essential differences governing women’s standpoint and roles.

Calás and Smircich [ 81 ] next elaborate on the Marxist approach, where they criticize capitalism and patriarchy together: “work organizations are important sites for analyzing the ongoing reproduction of sex/gender inequality as they expose the intersections of patriarchy and capitalism” ([ 81 ], p. 226). They state that the socialist approach to organizational research examines the case studies of “women in the organization.” In this approach organization studies do not distinguish individuals from private and public life: “families and societies are mutually constituted through gender relations” ([ 81 ], p. 227). This approach is opposite to Max Weber’s notion of the bureaucratic model. As Kilduff and Mehra note: “Feminist postmodern researchers seek to represent women as subjects rather than objects and to give voice to the narratives of those who violate what Cassell [ 82 ] referred to as the “principles of the incarnate social order” (Kilduff and Mehra, p. 472). However, traditional bureaucratic expositions reject this notion. Feminist scholars criticize the traditional organizational model because it focuses on power in the hierarchical order which is silent about the women’s stand in the decision-making process. I think an alternative model can be proposed based on dialectical classification (in terms of gender, sex, race, ethnicity, and country of origin) and where organizations can be analyzed in the context of sex/gender, north, and south, or as a power struggle.

Calás and Smircich further explore the subject from the poststructuralist/postmodern perspective. This approach is based on power relationships (as Foucault illustrates). They state that postmodern feminist ethnography “subverts many images about what it is to be a gendered self-belonging to particular ethnic groups within particular life circumstances; as well as what counts as theory and where the boundary is between the empirical and the theoretical” ([ 81 ], p. 231) and note poststructuralist study of “secretaries as a social group and their discursive constructions in the day-to-day relationships of power” ([ 81 ], p. 231). Calás and Smircich’s postmodern approach examines women’s role in the organization in terms of power politics. In the bureaucratic web, power is considered a major aspect to manage the operation of the organization. In this context, to study organizations from any perspective, it is important to see how the organization is structured and who makes the decisions. The authors propose a final approach, the study of the third world’s perspective, which is still an innovative approach that focuses on how the organization or agency formed and how knowledge is created within it. The western scholars dominate organizational study. Scholars are silent about the developing world situation on “how organizations are created, operated, and how they function.”

Another silent feature is the changing face of the developing world’s organizations in the postcolonialism condition. Calás and Smircich highlight this issue and state that knowledge developed by third world women is still not for them (as I have observed, too often the benefits of financial and another aid benefit disproportionally the donor country rather than the recipient). Chandra Mohanty [ 83 ] examines how western eyes see women of color in the United States. She states “I would like to suggest that the feminist writings I analyze here discursively colonize the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the third world, thereby producing/ representing a composite, singular ‘third-world woman’ - an image which appears arbitrarily constructed but carries with it the authorizing signature of western humanist discourse” ([ 83 ], p. 63). Her focus was to see how third world women are examined from western eyes. She argues that the third world is facing western hegemony in many ways. Mohanty’s notion is valid even to propose alternatives in the feminist discourses. This sector needs to be examined more deeply through a comparative study of how southern women are changing their stand in society. Women’s participation in the decision-making process is limited. Calás and Smircich insist that the western world needs to explore more about women’s role in the southern context.

Calás and Smircich are considered feminist and postmodern organizational theorists (Joanna [ 84 ]). They examine organizations in two major frames (1) feminisms and (2) modernism and postmodernism. From the feminisms perspective, they bring the notion of how identity makes difference in organizations 2 due to sex, class, and culture. The identity issue not only applies in the organizational setting but equally works with other social behavior. In the organizational setting, Calás and Smircich bring three basic points about identity i.e. it constitutes a racial term and condition of employment, it is a form of race-plus discrimination, and it reflects racial stereotyping. The question arises, then, how to address such an issue. Here the authors lack clarity.

It is worthwhile to evaluate what Calás and Smircich have added to organizational theory. In this context, Joanna Brewis’s [ 84 ] summary of Calás and Smircich’s organizational theory is useful to quote. 3 Calás and Smircich present a valid argument to apply postmodern perspectives in the organizational study (see Endnote 23). I am not a fan of the postmodern approach, but in researching the place where women stand in organizations, their points provide some assistance.

In the context of the postmodern approach to organizational research, Foucault’s power dynamism is the major ground for Calás and Smircich. However, the postmodern approach 4 itself is not universally accepted in organizational research. Calás and Smircich [ 81 ] advocate postmodern thought, in their words: “Insofar as postmodern perspectives allow for questioning conventional approaches to theory development, the argument goes; they provide incisive analyses showing the inner workings and assumptive basis of those theories. At the same time, however, the elusiveness of theory under postmodern premises prevents those who articulate postmodern perspectives from theorizing other, alternative views, because they do not have any ‘solid ground’ from which to speak” ([ 81 ], p. 649).

Foucault’s power dynamics are a major ground for feminist postmodern approach to organizational research. Their work challenges traditional approaches to theory development and highlights the importance of questioning the assumptions that underlie conventional theories.

However, I see the postmodern approach to organizational research is not universally accepted. Some critics argue that the elusiveness of theory under postmodern premises makes it difficult to develop coherent and testable hypotheses. Moreover, the postmodern approach has been criticized for being overly skeptical and rejecting the possibility of objective truth.

Despite these criticisms, I believe that the postmodern approach has made an important contribution to organizational research by challenging traditional assumptions and providing new insights into the complexities of organizational dynamics. The postmodern approach encourages researchers to examine how power is constructed and contested in organizations, and to question dominant narratives about organizational life [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. While the postmodern approach may not provide a single, objective truth about organizational dynamics, it can help us to develop a more nuanced and critical understanding of the social and cultural factors that shape organizational life.

Overall, the feminist approach to organizational analysis offers a valuable framework for understanding and addressing gender-based inequalities in the workplace. By highlighting the gendered nature of organizational practices and challenging traditional theories and assumptions, it opens up new possibilities for creating more equitable and inclusive organizations.

10. Conclusion

In conclusion, the study of feminisms in social sciences has evolved significantly over the years and has contributed to the development of critical approaches to understanding society and social issues. The postmodern era and feminist postmodernism have played a significant role in shaping contemporary feminist theory and practice, emphasizing the importance of recognizing diversity and difference in experiences and identities.

This chapter has provided a comprehensive overview of feminism in social sciences, covering a broad range of topics from the history of feminist theory to contemporary developments in sociology and environmentalism. The major characteristics of feminism in social science and its impact on organizational analysis were also highlighted, as well as the significant role of founding scholars in shaping feminist discourse.

Feminisms in social sciences have also influenced the development of novel approaches to understanding organizational structures, environmental issues, and political and social movements. By challenging traditional male-centric knowledge bases and power structures, feminisms have opened up new avenues of inquiry and have provided important insights into the complexities of social life.

Moreover, the chapter emphasizes the interconnectedness of environmentalism, feminism, and their influence on social sciences. The emergence of eco-feminism as a new direction for the feminist movement is a significant development that highlights the importance of recognizing the interdependence of gender, social justice, and the environment.

Overall, this chapter demonstrates the ongoing evolution of feminist thought in social sciences and the significant contributions it has made to our understanding of gender, society, and the environment. As we continue to explore new directions in feminist theory and research, it is clear that the intersectionality of these fields will continue to shape our understanding of the world around us.

It is important to recognize the value and significance of feminist theories and approaches in understanding social issues and addressing inequalities. By incorporating feminist perspectives into our work, we can better understand the diverse experiences and perspectives of those we work with, and work toward creating more just and equitable societies.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife Prajita Bhandari and daughter Manaslu Bhandari, giving insight of what is the meaning of being women in the patriarchal society. My mother Heema Devi Bhandari who always remain suppressed in the family has different story. I think listening to the experiences and perspectives of own circumstance is an important part of understanding the ways in which gender inequality operates in our society. By being open to their insights and learning from them, we can help to create a more inclusive and equitable world for all.

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75. Bhandari MP. Live and let others live- the harmony with nature /living beings-in ref. to sustainable development (SD)- is contemporary world’s economic and social phenomena is favorable for the sustainability of the planet in ref to India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan? Advanced Agricultural and Environmental Science. 2019b; 2 (1):37-57. DOI: 10.30881/aaeoa.00020. Available from: http://ologyjournals.com/aaeoa/aaeoa_00020.pdf
76. Bhandari MP. Sustainable development: Is this paradigm the remedy of all challenges? Do its goals capture the essence of real development and sustainability? with reference to discourses, creativeness, boundaries, and institutional architecture. Socioeconomic Challenges. 2019c; 3 (4):97-128. DOI: 10.21272/sec.3(4).97-128.2019. Available from: http://armgpublishing.sumdu.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/9.pdf
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“A vision of feminist social justice emerges in the writings of contemporary American women writers Toni Morrison, Joy Harjo, Barbara Kingsolver, and Adrienne Rich. Their collective bodies of work envision a world that does not devalue and separate people, a world connected to ideals of justice grounded in the interrelationships of words and deeds. These writers argue that we need to create a new way of seeing and interacting with the world around us, recognizing our individual responsibilities for creating better communities, questioning government actions, and seeking, above all, a society that sustains people regardless of gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, or access to resources. As such, these writers variously articulate what we propose as a feminist vision of justice—one which asserts that interdependence, responsibility, respect for and relationship with the environment, and an ethics of care are the foundation for a more reasoned and reasonable practice of justice” Riley Jeannette; Torrens Kathleen; Krumholz Susan (2005), Contemporary feminist writers: envisioning a just world, Contemporary Justice Review, Volume 8, Number 1, March 2005, pp. 91–106(16).
In their article “Identity Performance,” Calás and Smircich state “A person’s experiences with and vulnerability to discrimination is based not just on a status marker or difference (call this a person’s status identity) but also on the choices that person makes about how to present her difference (call this a person’s performance identity)” Everyone performs identity. Though we may not recognize that we are doing it, by making choices about what we wear, how we talk, how we walk, and how we structure a conversation…we are performing identity (ies) Different intersections of identities can bring varying amounts of privilege and oppression. It is not addictive but is contextual, relational, and historical. For instance, we do not try to determine who is oppressed more: an able-bodied upper-class, black gay man or a working-class white woman that uses a wheelchair… (71).
Joanna Brewis states “(1) revealing ‘the inner workings and assumptive basis’ ([85]: 649) of existing organization theory, identifying the arbitrary discursive limitations within which it operates; (2) focusing on the fixing of meaning in organization theory and therefore on how our scholarship represents some phenomena, interests and groups and marginalizes others (while implicitly or explicitly making much more universalist claims); (3) seeking to make space for non-traditional voices in organization theory, whilst being aware of the difficulties in attempting to speak for these Others; (4) disavowing notions of enduring truths about organizations; (5) acknowledging the ‘real-world’ power of organization theory and considering how it might best be undertaken; (6) creating localized, temporary and subjective accounts of organizations which are sensitive to how they ‘realize’ their subject matter; and (7) acknowledging that writing on organizations exists to be read, and that the author is ‘just one interpreter among other readers’” (1999: 653 as cited from [84], p. 80).
Kilduff; Mehra state “Within the social sciences in general, the specter of postmodernism has aroused widespread anxiety. Postmodernism has been viewed as an enterprise that calls for the death of all scientific inquiry; the end of all new knowledge; the dissolution of any standards that may be used to judge one theory against another; a banishment into utter relativism wherein a clamor of fragmented and contentious voices reigns” (see Pauline Rosenau’s 1992 balanced review of these concerns and Stanley Fish’s [I9961 recent discussion of misunderstandings of postmodernism) (p. 454). Calás and Smircich [86] have a slightly different perspective than what Kilduff; Mehra have highlighted.

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Writing an article for ‘Research Made Simple’ on feminist research may at first appear slightly oxymoronic, given that there is no agreed definition of feminist research, let alone a single definition of feminism. The literature that examines the historical and philosophical roots of feminism(s) and feminist research is vast, extends over several decades and reaches across an expanse of varying disciplines. Trying to navigate the literature can be daunting and may, at first, appear impenetrable to those new to feminist research.

There is no ‘How To’ in feminist research. Although feminists tend to share the same common goals, their interests, values and perspectives can be quite disparate. Depending on the philosophical position they hold, feminist researchers will draw on differing epistemologies (ways of knowing), ask different questions, be guided by different methodologies and employ different methods. Within the confines of space, this article will briefly outline some of the principles of feminist research. It will then turn to discuss three established epistemologies that can guide feminist research (although there are many others): feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint and feminist postmodernism.

What makes feminist research feminist?

Feminist research is grounded in a commitment to equality and social justice, and is cognisant of the gendered, historical and political processes involved in the production of knowledge. 1 It also strives to explore and illuminate the diversity of the experiences of women and other marginalised groups, thereby creating opportunities that increase awareness of how social hierarchies impact on and influence oppression. 2 Commenting on the differentiation between feminist and non-feminist research, Skeggs asserts that ‘feminist research begins from the premise that the nature of reality in western society is unequal and hierarchical’ Skeggs 3 p77; therefore, feminist research may also be viewed as having both academic and political concerns.

Reflexivity

The practice of reflexivity is considered a hallmark of feminist research. It invites the researcher to engage in a ‘disciplined self-reflection’ Wilkinson 9 p93. This includes consideration of the extent to which their research fulfils feminist principles. Reflexivity can be divided into three discrete forms: personal, functional and disciplinary. 9 Personal reflexivity invites the researcher to contemplate their role in the research and construction of knowledge by examining the ways in which their own values, beliefs, interests, emotions, biography and social location, have influenced the research process and the outcomes (personal reflexivity). 10 By stating their position rather than concealing it, feminist researchers use reflexivity to add context to their claims. Functional reflexivity pays attention to the influence that the chosen research tools and processes may have had on the research. Disciplinary reflexivity is about analysing the influence of approaching a topic from a specific disciplinary field.

Feminist empiricism

Feminist empiricism is underpinned by foundationalist principles that believes in a single true social reality with truth existing entirely independent of the knower (researcher). 8 Building on the premise that feminist researchers pay attention to how methods are used, feminist empiricist researchers set out to use androcentric positivist scientific methods ‘more appropriately’. 8 They argue that feminist principles can legitimately be applied to empirical inquiry if the masculine bias inherent in scientific research is removed. This is achieved through application of rigorous, objective, value-free scientific methods. Methods used include experimental, quasi-experimental and survey. Feminist empiricists employ traditional positivist methodology while being cognisant of the sex and gender biases. What makes the research endeavour feminist is the attentiveness in identifying potential sources of gendered bias. 11

Feminist standpoint

In a similar way to feminist empiricism, standpoint feminism—also known as ‘women’s experience epistemology’ Letherby 8 p44—holds firm the position that traditional science is androcentric and is therefore bad science. This is predicated on the belief that traditional science only produces masculine forms of knowledge thus excluding women’s perspectives and experiences. Feminist standpoint epistemology takes issue with the masculinised definition of women’s experience and argue it holds little relevance for women. Feminist standpoint epistemology therefore operates on the assumption that knowledge emanates from social position and foregrounds the voices of women and their experiences of oppression to generate knowledge about their lives that would otherwise have remained hidden. 12 Feminist standpoint epistemology maintains that women, as the oppressed or disadvantaged, may have an epistemological advantage over the dominant groups by virtue of their ability to understand their own experience and struggles against oppression, while also by being attuned to the experience and culture of their oppressors. 11 This gives women’s experience a valid basis for knowledge production that both reflects women’s oppression and resistance. 13

Feminist standpoint epistemology works on the premise that there is no single reality, 11 thus disrupting the empiricist notion that research must be objective and value-free. 12 To shed light on the experiences of the oppressed, feminist standpoint researchers use both quantitative and qualitative approaches to see the world through the eyes of their research participants and understand how their positions shape their experiences within the social world. In addition, the researchers are expected to engage in strong reflexivity and reflect on, and acknowledge in their writing, how their own attributes and social location may impact on interpretation of their data. 14

Feminist postmodernism

Feminist postmodernism is a branch of feminism that embraces feminist and postmodernist thought. Feminist postmodernists reject the notion of an objective truth and a single reality. They maintain that truths are relative, multiple, and dependent on social contexts. 15 The theory is marked by the rejection of the feminist ideology that seeks a single explanation for oppression of women. Feminist postmodernists argue that women experience oppression because of social and political marginalisation rather than their biological difference to men, concluding that gender is a social construct. 16

Feminist postmodernists eschew phallogocentric masculine thought (expressed through words and language) that leads to by binary opposition. They are particularly concerned with the man/woman dyad, but also other binary oppositions of race, gender and class. 17 Feminist postmodernist scholars believe that knowledge is constructed by language and that language gives meaning to everything—it does not portray reality, rather it constructs it. 11 A key feature of feminist postmodernist research is the attempt to deconstruct the binary opposition through reflecting on existing assumptions, questioning how ways of thinking have been socially constructed and challenging the taken-for-granted. 17

This article has provided a brief overview of feminist research. It should be considered more of a taster that introduces readers to the complex but fascinating world of feminist research. Readers who have developed an appetite for a more comprehensive examination are guided to a useful and accessible text on feminist theories and concepts in healthcare written by Kay Aranda. 1

Western D ,
Giacomini M
Margaret Fonow M ,
Wilkinson S
Campbell R ,
Wigginton B ,
Lafrance MN
Naples NA ,
Hesse-Biber S

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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Feminist theory and its use in qualitative research in education.

Emily Freeman Emily Freeman University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1193
Published online: 28 August 2019

Feminist theory rose in prominence in educational research during the 1980s and experienced a resurgence in popularity during the late 1990s−2010s. Standpoint epistemologies, intersectionality, and feminist poststructuralism are the most prevalent theories, but feminist researchers often work across feminist theoretical thought. Feminist qualitative research in education encompasses a myriad of methods and methodologies, but projects share a commitment to feminist ethics and theories. Among the commitments are the understanding that knowledge is situated in the subjectivities and lived experiences of both researcher and participants and research is deeply reflexive. Feminist theory informs both research questions and the methodology of a project in addition to serving as a foundation for analysis. The goals of feminist educational research include dismantling systems of oppression, highlighting gender-based disparities, and seeking new ways of constructing knowledge.

feminist theories
qualitative research
educational research
positionality
methodology

Introduction

Feminist qualitative research begins with the understanding that all knowledge is situated in the bodies and subjectivities of people, particularly women and historically marginalized groups. Donna Haraway ( 1988 ) wrote,

I am arguing for politics and epistemologies of location, position, and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims. These are claims on people’s lives I’m arguing for the view from a body, always a complex, contradictory, structuring, and structured body, versus the view from above, from nowhere, from simplicity. Only the god trick is forbidden. . . . Feminism is about a critical vision consequent upon a critical positioning in unhomogeneous gendered social space. (p. 589)

By arguing that “politics and epistemologies” are always interpretive and partial, Haraway offered feminist qualitative researchers in education a way to understand all research as potentially political and always interpretive and partial. Because all humans bring their own histories, biases, and subjectivities with them to a research space or project, it is naïve to think that the written product of research could ever be considered neutral, but what does research with a strong commitment to feminism look like in the context of education?

Writing specifically about the ways researchers of both genders can use feminist ethnographic methods while conducting research on schools and schooling, Levinson ( 1998 ) stated, “I define feminist ethnography as intensive qualitative research, aimed toward the description and analysis of the gendered construction and representation of experience, which is informed by a political and intellectual commitment to the empowerment of women and the creation of more equitable arrangements between and among specific, culturally defined genders” (p. 339). The core of Levinson’s definition is helpful for understanding the ways that feminist educational anthropologists engage with schools as gendered and political constructs and the larger questions of feminist qualitative research in education. His message also extends to other forms of feminist qualitative research. By focusing on description, analysis, and representation of gendered constructs, educational researchers can move beyond simple binary analyses to more nuanced understandings of the myriad ways gender operates within educational contexts.

Feminist qualitative research spans the range of qualitative methodologies, but much early research emerged out of the feminist postmodern turn in anthropology (Behar & Gordon, 1995 ), which was a response to male anthropologists who ignored the gendered implications of ethnographic research (e.g., Clifford & Marcus, 1986 ). Historically, most of the work on feminist education was conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, with a resurgence in the late 2010s (Culley & Portuges, 1985 ; DuBois, Kelly, Kennedy, Korsmeyer, & Robinson, 1985 ; Gottesman, 2016 ; Maher & Tetreault, 1994 ; Thayer-Bacon, Stone, & Sprecher, 2013 ). Within this body of research, the majority focuses on higher education (Coffey & Delamont, 2000 ; Digiovanni & Liston, 2005 ; Diller, Houston, Morgan, & Ayim, 1996 ; Gabriel & Smithson, 1990 ; Mayberry & Rose, 1999 ). Even leading journals, such as Feminist Teacher ( 1984 −present), focus mostly on the challenges of teaching about and to women in higher education, although more scholarship on P–12 education has emerged in recent issues.

There is also a large collection of work on the links between gender, achievement, and self-esteem (American Association of University Women, 1992 , 1999 ; Digiovanni & Liston, 2005 ; Gilligan, 1982 ; Hancock, 1989 ; Jackson, Paechter, & Renold, 2010 ; National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, 2002 ; Orenstein, 1994 ; Pipher, 1994 ; Sadker & Sadker, 1994 ). However, just because research examines gender does not mean that it is feminist. Simply using gender as a category of analysis does not mean the research project is informed by feminist theory, ethics, or methods, but it is often a starting point for researchers who are interested in the complex ways gender is constructed and the ways it operates in education.

This article examines the histories and theories of U.S.–based feminism, the tenets of feminist qualitative research and methodologies, examples of feminist qualitative studies, and the possibilities for feminist qualitative research in education to provide feminist educational researchers context and methods for engaging in transformative and subversive research. Each section provides a brief overview of the major concepts and conversations, along with examples from educational research to highlight the ways feminist theory has informed educational scholarship. Some examples are given limited attention and serve as entry points into a more detailed analysis of a few key examples. While there is a large body of non-Western feminist theory (e.g., the works of Lila Abu-Lughod, Sara Ahmed, Raewyn Connell, Saba Mahmood, Chandra Mohanty, and Gayatri Spivak), much of the educational research using feminist theory draws on Western feminist theory. This article focuses on U.S.–based research to show the ways that the utilization of feminist theory has changed since the 1980s.

Histories, Origins, and Theories of U.S.–Based Feminism

The normative historiography of feminist theory and activism in the United States is broken into three waves. First-wave feminism (1830s−1920s) primarily focused on women’s suffrage and women’s rights to legally exist in public spaces. During this time period, there were major schisms between feminist groups concerning abolition, rights for African American women, and the erasure of marginalized voices from larger feminist debates. The second wave (1960s and 1980s) worked to extend some of the rights won during the first wave. Activists of this time period focused on women’s rights to enter the workforce, sexual harassment, educational equality, and abortion rights. During this wave, colleges and universities started creating women’s studies departments and those scholars provided much of the theoretical work that informs feminist research and activism today. While there were major feminist victories during second-wave feminism, notably Title IX and Roe v. Wade , issues concerning the marginalization of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity led many feminists of color to separate from mainstream white feminist groups. The third wave (1990s to the present) is often characterized as the intersectional wave, as some feminist groups began utilizing Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality ( 1991 ) to understand that oppression operates via multiple categories (e.g., gender, race, class, age, ability) and that intersecting oppressions lead to different lived experiences.

Historians and scholars of feminism argue that dividing feminist activism into three waves flattens and erases the major contributions of women of color and gender-nonconforming people. Thompson ( 2002 ) called this history a history of hegemonic feminism and proposed that we look at the contributions of multiracial feminism when discussing history. Her work, along with that of Allen ( 1984 ) about the indigenous roots of U.S. feminism, raised many questions about the ways that feminism operates within the public and academic spheres. For those who wish to engage in feminist research, it is vital to spend time understanding the historical, theoretical, and political ways that feminism(s) can both liberate and oppress, depending on the scholar’s understandings of, and orientations to, feminist projects.

Standpoint Epistemology

Much of the theoretical work that informs feminist qualitative research today emerged out of second-wave feminist scholarship. Standpoint epistemology, according to Harding ( 1991 , 2004 ), posits that knowledge comes from one’s particular social location, that it is subjective, and the further one is from the hegemonic norm, the clearer one can see oppression. This was a major challenge to androcentric and Enlightenment theories of knowledge because standpoint theory acknowledges that there is no universal understanding of the world. This theory aligns with the second-wave feminist slogan, “The personal is political,” and advocates for a view of knowledge that is produced from the body.

Greene ( 1994 ) wrote from a feminist postmodernist epistemology and attacked Enlightenment thinking by using standpoint theory as her starting point. Her work serves as an example of one way that educational scholars can use standpoint theory in their work. She theorized encounters with “imaginative literature” to help educators conceptualize new ways of using reading and writing in the classroom and called for teachers to think of literature as “a harbinger of the possible.” (Greene, 1994 , p. 218). Greene wrote from an explicitly feminist perspective and moved beyond simple analyses of gender to a larger critique of the ways that knowledge is constructed in classrooms.

Intersectionality

Crenshaw ( 1991 ) and Collins ( 2000 ) challenged and expanded standpoint theory to move it beyond an individual understanding of knowledge to a group-based theory of oppression. Their work, and that of other black and womanist feminists, opened up multiple spaces of possibility for feminist scholars and researchers because it challenged hegemonic feminist thought. For those interested in conducting feminist research in educational settings, their work is especially pertinent because they advocate for feminists to attend to all aspects of oppression rather than flattening them to one of simple gender-based oppression.

Haddix, McArthur, Muhammad, Price-Dennis, and Sealey-Ruiz ( 2016 ), all women-of-color feminist educators, wrote a provocateur piece in a special issue of English Education on black girls’ literacy. The four authors drew on black feminist thought and conducted a virtual kitchen-table conversation. By symbolically representing their conversations as one from the kitchen, this article pays homage to women-of-color feminism and pushes educators who read English Education to reconsider elements of their own subjectivities. Third-wave feminism and black feminism emphasize intersectionality, in that different demographic details like race, class, and gender are inextricably linked in power structures. Intersectionality is an important frame for educational research because identifying the unique experiences, realities, and narratives of those involved in educational systems can highlight the ways that power and oppression operate in society.

Feminist Poststructural Theory

Feminist poststructural theory has greatly informed many feminist projects in educational research. Deconstruction is

a critical practice that aims to ‘dismantle [ déconstruire ] the metaphysical and rhetorical structures that are at work, not in order to reject or discard them, but to reinscribe them in another way,’ (Derrida, quoted in Spivak, 1974 , p. lxxv). Thus, deconstruction is not about tearing down, but about looking at how a structure has been constructed, what holds it together, and what it produces. (St. Pierre, 2000 , p. 482)

Reality, subjectivity, knowledge, and truth are constructed through language and discourse (cultural practices, power relations, etc.), so truth is local and diverse, rather than a universal experience (St. Pierre, 2000 ). Feminist poststructuralist theory may be used to question structural inequality that is maintained in education through dominant discourses.

In Go Be a Writer! Expanding the Curricular Boundaries of Literacy Learning with Children , Kuby and Rucker ( 2016 ) explored early elementary literacy practices using poststructural and posthumanist theories. Their book drew on hours of classroom observations, student interviews and work, and their own musings on ways to de-standardize literacy instruction and curriculum. Through the process of pedagogical documentation, Kuby and Rucker drew on the works of Barad, Deleuze and Guattari, and Derrida to explore the ways they saw children engaging in what they call “literacy desiring(s).” One aim of the book is to find practical and applicable ways to “Disrupt literacy in ways that rewrite the curriculum, the interactions, and the power dynamics of the classroom even begetting a new kind of energy that spirals and bounces and explodes” (Kuby & Rucker, 2016 , p. 5). The second goal of their book is not only to understand what happened in Rucker’s classroom using the theories, but also to unbound the links between “teaching↔learning” (p. 202) and to write with the theories, rather than separating theory from the methodology and classroom enactments (p. 45) because “knowing/being/doing were not separate” (p. 28). This work engages with key tenets of feminist poststructuralist theory and adds to both the theoretical and pedagogical conversations about what counts as a literacy practice.

While the discussion in this section provides an overview of the histories and major feminist theories, it is by no means exhaustive. Scholars who wish to engage in feminist educational research need to spend time doing the work of understanding the various theories and trajectories that constitute feminist work so they are able to ground their projects and theories in a particular tradition that will inform the ethics and methods of research.

Tenets of Feminist Qualitative Research

Why engage in feminist qualitative research.

Evans and Spivak ( 2016 ) stated, “The only real and effective way you can sabotage something this way is when you are working intimately within it.” Feminist researchers are in the classroom and the academy, working intimately within curricular, pedagogical, and methodological constraints that serve neoliberal ideologies, so it is vital to better understand the ways that we can engage in affirmative sabotage to build a more just and equitable world. Spivak’s ( 2014 ) notion of affirmative sabotage has become a cornerstone for understanding feminist qualitative research and teaching. She borrowed and built on Gramsci’s role of the organic intellectual and stated that they/we need to engage in affirmative sabotage to transform the humanities.

I used the term “affirmative sabotage” to gloss on the usual meaning of sabotage: the deliberate ruining of the master’s machine from the inside. Affirmative sabotage doesn’t just ruin; the idea is of entering the discourse that you are criticizing fully, so that you can turn it around from inside. The only real and effective way you can sabotage something this way is when you are working intimately within it. (Evans & Spivak, 2016 )

While Spivak has been mostly concerned with literary education, her writings provide teachers and researchers numerous lines of inquiry into projects that can explode androcentric universal notions of knowledge and resist reproductive heteronormativity.

Spivak’s pedagogical musings center on deconstruction, primarily Derridean notions of deconstruction (Derrida, 2016 ; Jackson & Mazzei, 2012 ; Spivak, 2006 , 2009 , 2012 ) that seek to destabilize existing categories and to call into question previously unquestioned beliefs about the goals of education. Her works provide an excellent starting point for examining the links between feminism and educational research. The desire to create new worlds within classrooms, worlds that are fluid, interpretive, and inclusive in order to interrogate power structures, lies at the core of what it means to be a feminist education researcher. As researchers, we must seriously engage with feminist theory and include it in our research so that feminism is not seen as a dirty word, but as a movement/pedagogy/methodology that seeks the liberation of all (Davis, 2016 ).

Feminist research and feminist teaching are intrinsically linked. As Kerkhoff ( 2015 ) wrote, “Feminist pedagogy requires students to challenge the norms and to question whether existing practices privilege certain groups and marginalize others” (p. 444), and this is exactly what feminist educational research should do. Bailey ( 2001 ) called on teachers, particularly those who identify as feminists, to be activists, “The values of one’s teaching should not be separated sharply from the values one expresses outside the classroom, because teaching is not inherently pure or laboratory practice” (p. 126); however, we have to be careful not to glorify teachers as activists because that leads to the risk of misinterpreting actions. Bailey argued that teaching critical thinking is not enough if it is not coupled with curriculums and pedagogies that are antiheteronormative, antisexist, and antiracist. As Bailey warned, just using feminist theory or identifying as a feminist is not enough. It is very easy to use the language and theories of feminism without being actively feminist in one’s research. There are ethical and methodological issues that feminist scholars must consider when conducting research.

Feminist research requires one to discuss ethics, not as a bureaucratic move, but as a reflexive move that shows the researchers understand that, no matter how much they wish it didn’t, power always plays a role in the process. According to Davies ( 2014 ), “Ethics, as Barad defines it, is a matter of questioning what is being made to matter and how that mattering affects what it is possible to do and to think” (p. 11). In other words, ethics is what is made to matter in a particular time and place.

Davies ( 2016 ) extended her definition of ethics to the interactions one has with others.

This is not ethics as a matter of separate individuals following a set of rules. Ethical practice, as both Barad and Deleuze define it, requires thinking beyond the already known, being open in the moment of the encounter, pausing at the threshold and crossing over. Ethical practice is emergent in encounters with others, in emergent listening with others. It is a matter of questioning what is being made to matter and how that mattering affects what it is possible to do and to think. Ethics is emergent in the intra-active encounters in which knowing, being, and doing (epistemology, ontology, and ethics) are inextricably linked. (Barad, 2007 , p. 83)

The ethics of any project must be negotiated and contested before, during, and after the process of conducting research in conjunction with the participants. Feminist research is highly reflexive and should be conducted in ways that challenge power dynamics between individuals and social institutions. Educational researchers must heed the warning to avoid the “god-trick” (Haraway, 1988 ) and to continually question and re-question the ways we seek to define and present subjugated knowledge (Hesse-Biber, 2012 ).

Positionalities and Reflexivity

According to feminist ethnographer Noelle Stout, “Positionality isn’t meant to be a few sentences at the beginning of a work” (personal communication, April 5, 2016 ). In order to move to new ways of experiencing and studying the world, it is vital that scholars examine the ways that reflexivity and positionality are constructed. In a glorious footnote, Margery Wolf ( 1992 ) related reflexivity in anthropological writing to a bureaucratic procedure (p. 136), and that resonates with how positionality often operates in the field of education.

The current trend in educational research is to include a positionality statement that fixes the identity of the author in a particular place and time and is derived from feminist standpoint theory. Researchers should make their biases and the identities of the authors clear in a text, but there are serious issues with the way that positionality functions as a boundary around the authors. Examining how the researchers exert authority within a text allows the reader the opportunity to determine the intent and philosophy behind the text. If positionality were used in an embedded and reflexive manner, then educational research would be much richer and allow more nuanced views of schools, in addition to being more feminist in nature. The rest of this section briefly discussrs articles that engage with feminist ethics regarding researcher subjectivities and positionality, and two articles are examined in greater depth.

When looking for examples of research that includes deeply reflexive and embedded positionality, one finds that they mostly deal with issues of race, equity, and diversity. The highlighted articles provide examples of positionality statements that are deeply reflexive and represent the ways that feminist researchers can attend to the ethics of being part of a research project. These examples all come from feminist ethnographic projects, but they are applicable to a wide variety of feminist qualitative projects.

Martinez ( 2016 ) examined how research methods are or are not appropriate for specific contexts. Calderon ( 2016 ) examined autoethnography and the reproduction of “settler colonial understandings of marginalized communities” (p. 5). Similarly, Wissman, Staples, Vasudevan, and Nichols ( 2015 ) discussed how to research with adolescents through engaged participation and collaborative inquiry, and Ceglowski and Makovsky ( 2012 ) discussed the ways researchers can engage in duoethnography with young children.

Abajian ( 2016 ) uncovered the ways military recruiters operate in high schools and paid particular attention to the politics of remaining neutral while also working to subvert school militarization. She wrote,

Because of the sensitive and also controversial nature of my research, it was not possible to have a collaborative process with students, teachers, and parents. Purposefully intervening would have made documentation impossible because that would have (rightfully) aligned me with anti-war and counter-recruitment activists who were usually not welcomed on school campuses (Abajian & Guzman, 2013 ). It was difficult enough to find an administrator who gave me consent to conduct my research within her school, as I had explicitly stated in my participant recruitment letters and consent forms that I was going to research the promotion of post-secondary paths including the military. Hence, any purposeful intervention on my part would have resulted in the termination of my research project. At the same time, my documentation was, in essence, an intervention. I hoped that my presence as an observer positively shaped the context of my observation and also contributed to the larger struggle against the militarization of schools. (p. 26)

Her positionality played a vital role in the creation, implementation, and analysis of military recruitment, but it also forced her into unexpected silences in order to carry out her research. Abajian’s positionality statement brings up many questions about the ways researchers have to use or silence their positionality to further their research, especially if they are working in ostensibly “neutral” and “politically free” zones, such as schools. Her work drew on engaged anthropology (Low & Merry, 2010 ) and critical reflexivity (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008 ) to highlight how researchers’ subjectivities shape ethnographic projects. Questions of subjectivity and positionality in her work reflect the larger discourses around these topics in feminist theory and qualitative research.

Brown ( 2011 ) provided another example of embedded and reflexive positionality of the articles surveyed. Her entire study engaged with questions about how her positionality influenced the study during the field-work portion of her ethnography on how race and racism operate in ethnographic field-work. This excerpt from her study highlights how she conceived of positionality and how it informed her work and her process.

Next, I provide a brief overview of the research study from which this paper emerged and I follow this with a presentation of four, first-person narratives from key encounters I experienced while doing ethnographic field research. Each of these stories centres the role race played as I negotiated my multiple, complex positionality vis-á-vis different informants and participants in my study. These stories highlight the emotional pressures that race work has on the researcher and the research process, thus reaffirming why one needs to recognise the role race plays, and may play, in research prior to, during, and after conducting one’s study (Milner, 2007 ). I conclude by discussing the implications these insights have on preparing researchers of color to conduct cross-racial qualitative research. (Brown, 2011 , p. 98)

Brown centered the roles of race and subjectivity, both hers and her participants, by focusing her analysis on the four narratives. The researchers highlighted in this section thought deeply about the ethics of their projects and the ways that their positionality informed their choice of methods.

Methods and Challenges

Feminist qualitative research can take many forms, but the most common data collection methods include interviews, observations, and narrative or discourse analysis. For the purposes of this article, methods refer to the tools and techniques researchers use, while methodology refers to the larger philosophical and epistemological approaches to conducting research. It is also important to note that these are not fixed terms, and that there continues to be much debate about what constitutes feminist theory and feminist research methods among feminist qualitative researchers. This section discusses some of the tensions and constraints of using feminist theory in educational research.

Jackson and Mazzei ( 2012 ) called on researchers to think through their data with theory at all stages of the collection and analysis process. They also reminded us that all data collection is partial and informed by the researcher’s own beliefs (Koro-Ljungberg, Löytönen, & Tesar, 2017 ). Interviews are sites of power and critiques because they show the power of stories and serve as a method of worlding, the process of “making a world, turning insight into instrument, through and into a possible act of freedom” (Spivak, 2014 , p. xiii). Interviews allow researchers and participants ways to engage in new ways of understanding past experiences and connecting them to feminist theories. The narratives serve as data, but it is worth noting that the data collected from interviews are “partial, incomplete, and always being re-told and re-membered” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012 , p. 3), much like the lived experiences of both researcher and participant.

Research, data collection, and interpretation are not neutral endeavors, particularly with interviews (Jackson & Mazzei, 2009 ; Mazzei, 2007 , 2013 ). Since education research emerged out of educational psychology (Lather, 1991 ; St. Pierre, 2016 ), historically there has been an emphasis on generalizability and positivist data collection methods. Most feminist research makes no claims of generalizability or truth; indeed, to do so would negate the hyperpersonal and particular nature of this type of research (Love, 2017 ). St. Pierre ( 2016 ) viewed the lack of generalizability as an asset of feminist and poststructural research, rather than a limitation, because it creates a space of resistance against positivist research methodologies.

Denzin and Giardina ( 2016 ) urged researchers to “consider an alternative mode of thinking about the critical turn in qualitative inquiry and posit the following suggestion: perhaps it is time we turned away from ‘methodology’ altogether ” (p. 5, italics original). Despite the contention over the term critical among some feminist scholars (e.g. Ellsworth, 1989 ), their suggestion is valid and has been picked up by feminist and poststructural scholars who examine the tensions between following a strict research method/ology and the theoretical systems out of which they operate because precision in method obscures the messy and human nature of research (Koro-Ljungberg, 2016 ; Koro-Ljungberg et al., 2017 ; Love, 2017 ; St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000 ). Feminist qualitative researchers should seek to complicate the question of what method and methodology mean when conducting feminist research (Lather, 1991 ), due to the feminist emphasis on reflexive and situated research methods (Hesse-Biber, 2012 ).

Examples of Feminist Qualitative Research in Education

A complete overview of the literature is not possible here, due to considerations of length, but the articles and books selected represent the various debates within feminist educational research. They also show how research preoccupations have changed over the course of feminist work in education. The literature review is divided into three broad categories: Power, canons, and gender; feminist pedagogies, curriculums, and classrooms; and teacher education, identities, and knowledge. Each section provides a broad overview of the literature to demonstrate the breadth of work using feminist theory, with some examples more deeply explicated to describe how feminist theories inform the scholarship.

Power, Canons, and Gender

The literature in this category contests disciplinary practices that are androcentric in both content and form, while asserting the value of using feminist knowledge to construct knowledge. The majority of the work was written in the 1980s and supported the creation of feminist ways of knowing, particularly via the creation of women’s studies programs or courses in existing departments that centered female voices and experiences.

Questioning the canon has long been a focus of feminist scholarship, as has the attempt to subvert its power in the disciplines. Bezucha ( 1985 ) focused on the ways that departments of history resist the inclusion of both women and feminism in the historical canon. Similarly, Miller ( 1985 ) discussed feminism as subversion when seeking to expand the canon of French literature in higher education.

Lauter and Dieterich ( 1972 ) examined a report by ERIC, “Women’s Place in Academe,” a collection of articles about the discrepancies by gender in jobs and tenure-track positions and the lack of inclusion of women authors in literature classes. They also found that women were relegated to “softer” disciplines and that feminist knowledge was not acknowledged as valid work. Culley and Portuges ( 1985 ) expanded the focus beyond disciplines to the larger structures of higher education and noted the varies ways that professors subvert from within their disciplines. DuBois et al. ( 1985 ) chronicled the development of feminist scholarship in the disciplines of anthropology, education, history, literature, and philosophy. They explained that the institutions of higher education often prevent feminist scholars from working across disciplines in an attempt to keep them separate. Raymond ( 1985 ) also critiqued the academy for not encouraging relationships across disciplines and offered the development of women’s, gender, and feminist studies as one solution to greater interdisciplinary work.

Parson ( 2016 ) examined the ways that STEM syllabi reinforce gendered norms in higher education. She specifically looked at eight syllabi from math, chemistry, biology, physics, and geology classes to determine how modal verbs showing stance, pronouns, intertextuality, interdiscursivity, and gender showed power relations in higher education. She framed the study through poststructuralist feminist critical discourse analysis to uncover “the ways that gendered practices that favor men are represented and replicated in the syllabus” (p. 103). She found that all the syllabi positioned knowledge as something that is, rather than something that can be co-constructed. Additionally, the syllabi also favored individual and masculine notions of what it means to learn by stressing the competitive and difficult nature of the classroom and content.

When reading newer work on feminism in higher education and the construction of knowledge, it is easy to feel that, while the conversations might have shifted somewhat, the challenge of conducting interdisciplinary feminist work in institutions of higher education remains as present as it was during the creation of women’s and gender studies departments. The articles all point to the fact that simply including women’s and marginalized voices in the academy does not erase or mitigate the larger issues of gender discrimination and androcentricity within the silos of the academy.

Feminist Pedagogies, Curricula, and Classrooms

This category of literature has many similarities to the previous one, but all the works focus more specifically on questions of curriculum and pedagogy. A review of the literature shows that the earliest conversations were about the role of women in academia and knowledge construction, and this selection builds on that work to emphasize the ways that feminism can influence the events within classes and expands the focus to more levels of education.

Rich ( 1985 ) explained that curriculum in higher education courses needs to validate gender identities while resisting patriarchal canons. Maher ( 1985 ) narrowed the focus to a critique of the lecture as a pedagogical technique that reinforces androcentric ways of learning and knowing. She called for classes in higher education to be “collaborative, cooperative, and interactive” (p. 30), a cry that still echoes across many college campuses today, especially from students in large lecture-based courses. Maher and Tetreault ( 1994 ) provided a collection of essays that are rooted in feminist classroom practice and moved from the classroom into theoretical possibilities for feminist education. Warren ( 1998 ) recommended using Peggy McIntosh’s five phases of curriculum development ( 1990 ) and extending it to include feminist pedagogies that challenge patriarchal ways of teaching. Exploring the relational encounters that exist in feminist classrooms, Sánchez-Pardo ( 2017 ) discussed the ethics of pedagogy as a politics of visibility and investigated the ways that democratic classrooms relate to feminist classrooms.

While all of the previously cited literature is U.S.–based, the next two works focus on the ways that feminist pedagogies and curriculum operate in a European context. Weiner ( 1994 ) used autobiography and narrative methodologies to provide an introduction to how feminism has influenced educational research and pedagogy in Britain. Revelles-Benavente and Ramos ( 2017 ) collected a series of studies about how situated feminist knowledge challenges the problems of neoliberal education across Europe. These two, among many European feminist works, demonstrate the range of scholarship and show the trans-Atlantic links between how feminism has been received in educational settings. However, much more work needs to be done in looking at the broader global context, and particularly by feminist scholars who come from non-Western contexts.

The following literature moves us into P–12 classrooms. DiGiovanni and Liston ( 2005 ) called for a new research agenda in K–5 education that explores the hidden curriculums surrounding gender and gender identity. One source of the hidden curriculum is classroom literature, which both Davies ( 2003 ) and Vandergrift ( 1995 ) discussed in their works. Davies ( 2003 ) used feminist ethnography to understand how children who were exposed to feminist picture books talked about gender and gender roles. Vandergrift ( 1995 ) presented a theoretical piece that explored the ways picture books reinforce or resist canons. She laid out a future research agenda using reader response theory to better comprehend how young children question gender in literature. Willinsky ( 1987 ) explored the ways that dictionary definitions reinforced constructions of gender. He looked at the definitions of the words clitoris, penis , and vagina in six school dictionaries and then compared them with A Feminist Dictionary to see how the definitions varied across texts. He found a stark difference in the treatment of the words vagina and penis ; definitions of the word vagina were treated as medical or anatomical and devoid of sexuality, while definitions of the term penis were linked to sex (p. 151).

Weisner ( 2004 ) addressed middle school classrooms and highlighted the various ways her school discouraged unconventional and feminist ways of teaching. She also brought up issues of silence, on the part of both teachers and students, regarding sexuality. By including students in the curriculum planning process, Weisner provided more possibilities for challenging power in classrooms. Wallace ( 1999 ) returned to the realm of higher education and pushed literature professors to expand pedagogy to be about more than just the texts that are read. She challenged the metaphoric dichotomy of classrooms as places of love or battlefields; in doing so, she “advocate[d] active ignorance and attention to resistances” (p. 194) as a method of subverting transference from students to teachers.

The works discussed in this section cover topics ranging from the place of women in curriculum to the gendered encounters teachers and students have with curriculums and pedagogies. They offer current feminist scholars many directions for future research, particularly in the arena of P–12 education.

Teacher Education, Identities, and Knowledge

The third subset of literature examines the ways that teachers exist in classrooms and some possibilities for feminist teacher education. The majority of the literature in this section starts from the premise that the teachers are engaged in feminist projects. The selections concerning teacher education offer critiques of existing heteropatriarchal normative teacher education and include possibilities for weaving feminism and feminist pedagogies into the education of preservice teachers.

Holzman ( 1986 ) explored the role of multicultural teaching and how it can challenge systematic oppression; however, she complicated the process with her personal narrative of being a lesbian and working to find a place within the school for her sexual identity. She questioned how teachers can protect their identities while also engaging in the fight for justice and equity. Hoffman ( 1985 ) discussed the ways teacher power operates in the classroom and how to balance the personal and political while still engaging in disciplinary curriculums. She contended that teachers can work from personal knowledge and connect it to the larger curricular concerns of their discipline. Golden ( 1998 ) used teacher narratives to unpack how teachers can become radicalized in the higher education classroom when faced with unrelenting patriarchal and heteronormative messages.

Extending this work, Bailey ( 2001 ) discussed teachers as activists within the classroom. She focused on three aspects of teaching: integrity with regard to relationships, course content, and teaching strategies. She concluded that teachers cannot separate their values from their profession. Simon ( 2007 ) conducted a case study of a secondary teacher and communities of inquiry to see how they impacted her work in the classroom. The teacher, Laura, explicitly tied her inquiry activities to activist teacher education and critical pedagogy, “For this study, inquiry is fundamental to critical pedagogy, shaped by power and ideology, relationships within and outside of the classroom, as well as teachers’ and students’ autochthonous histories and epistemologies” (Simon, 2007 , p. 47). Laura’s experiences during her teacher education program continued during her years in the classroom, leading her to create a larger activism-oriented teacher organization.

Collecting educational autobiographies from 17 college-level feminist professors, Maher and Tetreault ( 1994 ) worried that educators often conflated “the experience and values of white middle-class women like ourselves for gendered universals” (p. 15). They complicated the idea of a democratic feminist teacher, raised issues regarding the problematic ways hegemonic feminism flattens experience to that of just white women, and pushed feminist professors to pay particular attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality when teaching.

Cheira ( 2017 ) called for gender-conscious teaching and literature-based teaching to confront the gender stereotypes she encountered in Portuguese secondary schools. Papoulis and Smith ( 1992 ) conducted summer sessions where teachers experienced writing activities they could teach their students. Conceptualized as an experiential professional development course, the article revolved around an incident where the seminar was reading Emily Dickinson and the men in the course asked the two female instructors why they had to read feminist literature and the conversations that arose. The stories the women told tie into Papoulis and Smith’s call for teacher educators to interrogate their underlying beliefs and ideologies about gender, race, and class, so they are able to foster communities of study that can purposefully and consciously address feminist inquiry.

McWilliam ( 1994 ) collected stories of preservice teachers in Australia to understand how feminism can influence teacher education. She explored how textual practices affect how preservice teachers understand teaching and their role. Robertson ( 1994 ) tackled the issue of teacher education and challenged teachers to move beyond the two metaphors of banking and midwifery when discussing feminist ways of teaching. She called for teacher educators to use feminist pedagogies within schools of education so that preservice teachers experience a feminist education. Maher and Rathbone ( 1986 ) explored the scholarship on women’s and girls’ educational experiences and used their findings to call for changes in teacher education. They argued that schools reinforce the notion that female qualities are inferior due to androcentric curriculums and ways of showing knowledge. Justice-oriented teacher education is a more recent iteration of this debate, and Jones and Hughes ( 2016 ) called for community-based practices to expand the traditional definitions of schooling and education. They called for preservice teachers to be conversant with, and open to, feminist storylines that defy existing gendered, raced, and classed stereotypes.

Bieler ( 2010 ) drew on feminist and critical definitions of dialogue (e.g., those by Bakhtin, Freire, Ellsworth, hooks, and Burbules) to reframe mentoring discourse in university supervision and dialogic praxis. She concluded by calling on university supervisors to change their methods of working with preservice teachers to “Explicitly and transparently cultivat[e] dialogic praxis-oriented mentoring relationships so that the newest members of our field can ‘feel their own strength at last,’ as Homer’s Telemachus aspired to do” (Bieler, 2010 , p. 422).

Johnson ( 2004 ) also examined the role of teacher educators, but she focused on the bodies and sexualities of preservice teachers. She explored the dynamics of sexual tension in secondary classrooms, the role of the body in teaching, and concerns about clothing when teaching. She explicitly worked to resist and undermine Cartesian dualities and, instead, explored the erotic power of teaching and seducing students into a love of subject matter. “But empowered women threaten the patriarchal structure of this society. Therefore, women have been acculturated to distrust erotic power” (Johnson, 2004 , p. 7). Like Bieler ( 2010 ), Johnson ( 2004 ) concluded that, “Teacher educators could play a role in creating a space within the larger framework of teacher education discourse such that bodily knowledge is considered along with pedagogical and content knowledge as a necessary component of teacher training and professional development” (p. 24). The articles about teacher education all sought to provoke questions about how we engage in the preparation and continuing development of educators.

Teacher identity and teacher education constitute how teachers construct knowledge, as both students and teachers. The works in this section raise issues of what identities are “acceptable” in the classroom, ways teachers and teacher educators can disrupt oppressive storylines and practices, and the challenges of utilizing feminist pedagogies without falling into hegemonic feminist practices.

Possibilities for Feminist Qualitative Research

Spivak ( 2012 ) believed that “gender is our first instrument of abstraction” (p. 30) and is often overlooked in a desire to understand political, curricular, or cultural moments. More work needs to be done to center gender and intersecting identities in educational research. One way is by using feminist qualitative methods. Classrooms and educational systems need to be examined through their gendered components, and the ways students operate within and negotiate systems of power and oppression need to be explored. We need to see if and how teachers are actively challenging patriarchal and heteronormative curriculums and to learn new methods for engaging in affirmative sabotage (Spivak, 2014 ). Given the historical emphasis on higher education, more work is needed regarding P–12 education, because it is in P–12 classrooms that affirmative sabotage may be the most necessary to subvert systems of oppression.

In order to engage in affirmative sabotage, it is vital that qualitative researchers who wish to use feminist theory spend time grappling with the complexity and multiplicity of feminist theory. It is only by doing this thought work that researchers will be able to understand the ongoing debates within feminist theory and to use it in a way that leads to a more equitable and just world. Simply using feminist theory because it may be trendy ignores the very real political nature of feminist activism. Researchers need to consider which theories they draw on and why they use those theories in their projects. One way of doing this is to explicitly think with theory (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012 ) at all stages of the research project and to consider which voices are being heard and which are being silenced (Gilligan, 2011 ; Spivak, 1988 ) in educational research. More consideration also needs to be given to non-U.S. and non-Western feminist theories and research to expand our understanding of education and schooling.

Paying close attention to feminist debates about method and methodology provides another possibility for qualitative research. The very process of challenging positivist research methods opens up new spaces and places for feminist qualitative research in education. It also allows researchers room to explore subjectivities that are often marginalized. When researchers engage in the deeply reflexive work that feminist research requires, it leads to acts of affirmative sabotage within the academy. These discussions create the spaces that lead to new visions and new worlds. Spivak ( 2006 ) once declared, “I am helpless before the fact that all my essays these days seem to end with projects for future work” (p. 35), but this is precisely the beauty of feminist qualitative research. We are setting ourselves and other feminist researchers up for future work, future questions, and actively changing the nature of qualitative research.

Acknowledgements

Dr. George Noblit provided the author with the opportunity to think deeply about qualitative methods and to write this article, for which the author is extremely grateful. Dr. Lynda Stone and Dr. Tanya Shields are thanked for encouraging the author’s passion for feminist theory and for providing many hours of fruitful conversation and book lists. A final thank you is owed to the author’s partner, Ben Skelton, for hours of listening to her talk about feminist methods, for always being a first reader, and for taking care of their infant while the author finished writing this article.

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Gender, Justice, and Equity in Education
Education, Women, and the Politics of Curriculum
Risky Truth-Making in Qualitative Inquiry
Ecofeminism and Education
Qualitative Approaches to Studying Marginalized Communities
Poststructural Temporalities in School Ethnography
Gender and Technology in Education
Gender and the Superintendency
Activism and Social Movement Building in Curriculum
Gender Equitable Education and Technological Innovation

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Mainstreaming Gender: An Examination of Feminist Methodology in Social Work Research

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Katie R Lauve-Moon, Shelby Enman, Vanessa Hentz, Mainstreaming Gender: An Examination of Feminist Methodology in Social Work Research, Social Work , Volume 65, Issue 4, October 2020, Pages 317–324, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swaa039

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Despite gender being central to any given social issue and the profession of social work’s commitment to social justice, gender and gender inequality remain tangential to mainstream social work goals as partially indicated by the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative led by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. Feminist methodologists prioritize the investigation of gender inequality by elevating the voices of oppressed groups, particularly women, using qualitative and mixed-methods studies, focusing on structural social change, and emphasizing the need for intersectional inquiry. Feminist and other critical methodologies frame structural inequality as central to the examination of all social issues and research questions. This study investigates the extent to which gender and gender inequality are investigated in mainstream social work research. Specifically, drawing on 404 research articles from three mainstream social work journals, this research relies on content analysis to demonstrate the dearth of studies examining gender and gender inequality in mainstream social work research. This work also presents opportunities for social workers to position gender as central to understanding persisting structural inequalities of the 21st century and work toward a more equitable social order.

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Feminist Theories: Knowledge, Method, and Practice

First Online: 08 November 2022

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critically examine the feminist approach to social research

Katherine R. Allen 5 ,
Abbie E. Goldberg 6 &
Ana L. Jaramillo-Sierra 7

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Feminist theorizing in family science is an intellectual and a political project, where feminist theorists engage the world through critical intersectional perspectives to know it (knowledge), understand it (method), and change it (practice). Feminist family theories offer a fierce and flexible framework that is contentious and political, encompassing a vast enterprise of intellectual scholarly work, collective engagement, and constant agitation for social change. In this chapter, we examine the history of feminist thinking in family science across four eras of academic and activist feminist movements. We define key feminist concepts, including the social construction of gender, intersectionality, patriarchy, privilege, power, praxis, and reflexivity. We consider feminist theorizing in relation to related, though not synonymous, ways of critically theorizing about inequality, power, and the need for social change, including intersectionality theory, queer theory, and global and transnational feminisms. We analyze tensions, controversies, and limitations of feminist theorizing, and offer empirical examples of feminist-informed family research. Finally, we address future directions for feminist theorizing about families.

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Allen, K.R., Goldberg, A.E., Jaramillo-Sierra, A.L. (2022). Feminist Theories: Knowledge, Method, and Practice. In: Adamsons, K., Few-Demo, A.L., Proulx, C., Roy, K. (eds) Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methodologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92002-9_27

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Learning critical feminist research: A brief introduction to feminist epistemologies and methodologies

B. Wigginton , Michelle N Lafrance
Published in Feminism and Psychology 3 September 2019
Psychology, Sociology

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Understanding Feminist Research Methodology in Social Sciences

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1. Introduction

1.1 Postmodern era and feminism

1.2 Postmodernism and feminisms

2. History of feminist’s theory

3. Major characteristics of feminisms in social science domain

4. The founding scholars of feminisms

5. Social science and feminisms theory

6. Sociology and feminisms contemporary development

7. Environmentalism and feminism a new direction of new movement

8. Interconnectedness of environmentalism, feminism, and its influence on social sciences

9. The feminist approach to organizational analysis

9.1 The organizational sociological view

9.2 The organizational sociological view on feminist

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Article contents

Introduction

Histories, Origins, and Theories of U.S.–Based Feminism

Standpoint Epistemology

Intersectionality

Feminist Poststructural Theory

Tenets of Feminist Qualitative Research

Positionalities and Reflexivity

Methods and Challenges

Examples of Feminist Qualitative Research in Education

Power, Canons, and Gender

Feminist Pedagogies, Curricula, and Classrooms

Teacher Education, Identities, and Knowledge

Possibilities for Feminist Qualitative Research

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