Feminist Research and the nature of Social Science

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Feminist Research and the nature of Social Science

This lecture is going to cover some of the ground that last week's lecture on feminist research would have covered.  It is going to link that in with revisiting the topic of what research is about and how it should be gone about.    It is a very broad topic  not necessarily expected that you will become fully conversant with all the arguments in this area.  However I hope this lecture helps refresh some of the material we covered earlier in the term and gives an overview of the arguments.  A copy the notes will be placed in the SRC.

It is going to begin by outlining some of the roots for the feminist challenge to traditional social science.  I am then going to take a step back and look at the what social research is and in particular what the traditional scientific method in social research is.  I shall then return to the radical feminist critique of traditional ideas of social research as well as some of the broader arguments surrounding the topic today.

There is a growing body of literature focused on what is known as Feminist Research.  Like all feminism itself feminist research is not a single agreed research methodology.  

Unsurprisingly different feminist ideologies are linked to different conceptions of the purpose and method of social research.

Some of these accept the traditional assumptions of applied scientific method in social research.  Others are more radical in adopting positions critical of the application of scientific method to social science.  Therefore the starting point in discussing feminism and social research is to look at the varieties of femininsm that exist.

There are a number of broad categories of feminism.

Liberal Feminism -  To recap some of the ground we have covered.

Liberal feminists can be seen as following the tradition of the first wave of feminism.  The early feminist movement focused on achieving equal rights - especially getting the vote for women.  

Liberal feminists generally believe that the goal of equality can be achieved by gradual reform of the existing system.    

Given that belief they tend to engage in politics in order to bring about such reform.  

How does this relate to social science?

- Liberal feminists generally believe that there is no distinctive feminist methodology.

- They see methods themselves as value neutral.  So there is nothing intrinsically male about survey research, interviewing, or observation.  

- Argue that the disadvantages women suffer can be identified empirically.  

e.g. Anti-sex discrimination legislation is a good example of how liberal feminists argue their goal of equality can be achieved.  This legislation makes it illegal to pay men and women different rates for identical or equivalent jobs.  Social Research  can be used to identify instances where this is the case.  In other words it can provide empirical proof of discrimination.  By identifying discrimination in this way it makes it possible to tackle discrimination.

Similarly liberal feminists will use social statistics to point to other areas of social or political life where women are possibly disadvantaged.  For example the number of women in senior business positions, women in education and so on.  

For Liberal Feminists there are two possible sources of male bias in social research.  

- Firstly bad research - the methods are applied badly and produce a male bias.

An example of this might be

- Secondly subject matter.  The questions that are asked introduce a male bias.

So for example it might be that a researcher undertakes a study of women’s employment in academic institutions.  

Now let us imagine that the method employed is to compare the numbers of full time male staff with the number of full time female staff.

It may well be that the findings show that the numbers of male and female staff are roughly equivalent.

However clearly that does not mean that  men and women have roughly equivalent roles within academic institutions.  It may be that women are concentrated predominantly in certain types of positions.  These may be in lower paid posts or in certain kinds of jobs such as administration and service jobs.  

A second example might be the common focus on the affect of working mothers on child development.  It is noticeable that there is not a similar stress on the affects of working fathers.   Again Liberal feminists are not necessarily arguing that the research itself is faulty or has in itself male bias.  However they are arguing that the accumulation of such questions being asked do produce a male bias in our stock of knowledge.

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Therefore Liberal Feminists stress that it is important to focus on the questions relevant to women’s lives.  This has often not been the case in the past.  This is not just the case in political science.

“..male historians in the past, including Marxists, have grossly neglected the female half of the human race.”  (Hobsbawm,1978)

Thus many liberal feminists argue that academic research has been undertaken from a male perspective.  It is generally argued that the dominant position of men in senior research positions created this situation.  The more recent increase in research focusing on women’s concerns is ...

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