Feminist research methods : exemplary readings in the social sciences

279 Pages·1990·68.186 MB·English

by  Joyce McCarl Nielsen (editor)

Feminist
Research Methods
-
About the Book and Editor
Feminist inquiry has affected the nature of research in all the social and
natural sciences over the past decade., but ,nuch contemporary writing on
fc,ninist methods sin1ply offers a critique of traditional n1ethods. This book,
one of the first to offer a practical guide to conducting research informed
by feminist methods, is based on the premise that abstract discussion of
methodological issues is most meaningful and instructive in conjunction
with exa1nples of actual research.
A comprehensive and far-reaching introduction defines feminist research
and explains how it differs from traditional methodology in the social and
natural sciences. In a beautifully clear style, Dr. Nielsen guides the reader
through a number of philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology
of knowledge issues that are fundan1t:ntal to understanding the nature of
scientific method in its traditional sense and the role of feminist scholarship
in the larger intellectual movement that is transforming and redefining
scientific methodology. Pan One presents the best of fen1inist commentary
on both feminist and traditional methods. Part Two consists of readings
that illustrate particular fe,ninist n1ethods, including oral history, linguistic
analysis, feminist anthropology inforn1ed by fen1inist literary criticism, and
reinterpretation and reanalysis of en1pirical data from a feminist perspective.
Substantive issues addressed in the readings include won1en's suffrage in the
United States, women as shamans, sex differences in suicide rates, sex
differences in cognitive abilities, gender dominance through conversation,
gender and public policy, and public-private sphere dichotomies.
Joyce McCarl Nielsen is associate professor of sociology at the University
of Colorado- Boulder. She is the author of Sex and Gender in Society:
Perspectives on Stratification.
Feminist
Research Methods
Exen1plary Readi11gs in
tl1e Social Sciences
EDITED BY
Joyce McCarl Nielsen
University ofC olorado- Boulder
WESTVIEW PRESS
Boulder, San· Francisco, & London
c .4
Feminist research methods •
•
exemplary readings in the
social sciences
The di.1gr:11n on p:1ge 22 is reprinted from George Ritzer, Sociology: A Mulripk l'.iradigm S6cncc
(Bos1011: Allv11 and Baron, 1975). p. 3. Used br pcnnission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. The editorials
;rnJ :utirks on pages 123, 124, 124-126, and 130 arc reprilllcd from the New fork Times. Copyright
© 1912 by 1he New York Times Company; reprinred by permission.
All rights rescr,·c,I. No parr of this public.uion mar br reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
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n:trin·al system. without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyrighr © I9 90 by West view Press, Inc.
Published in 1990 in 1hc United Srates of Amcric,1 by Westview Press, lnr., 5500 Central Avenue,
Boul,kr, Color,1do 80301, and in the Unitrd Kingdom by Wcstview Press, Inc., 13 Brunswick Ccll!rc,
London WC IN I AF, Engh111d
Lihrnry of Congrrss Cataloging-in-1'11blica1io11 Darn
Feminist rese.ud, methods : exemplary readings in the social sciences /
cdi1nt br Joyce McCarl Nielsen.
p. "·m.
Coll!cllls: Grn,kr and sdrn,·e / Evelyn Fox Keller - Femi11is1
.-riti,·ism of 1hc social scicnccs / Marcia Westkott - Knowledge and
women's interests / Judith A. Cook a11d Mary Margaret Fonow -
Beginni11g where we arc ti:minist methodology in oral his1ory /
K.11hryn Anderso11 . .. jer al.J - L1ur:1 Ellsworth Seiler : in thc
srrecrs / Shern., Berger Gluck - The visio11 of a woman Shama11 / Anna
Lowcnlmrpr Tsi11g - Berwccn rwo worlds : German fcminis1 approaches
co working .. c.:bss \vomcn and work / Myra Marx Ferree - \.\'omen and
sui,idc in hisrori,·al perspcctke / Howard I. Kushner - How large
.ire cogniri\'c gc11der ditkrcnces? / Jam·r Shible)' Hyde -
l111cra,·1ion : 111<· work wome11 do / l'ar11cla M. Fishman - A new
.1pproach ro undersranding rhe imp,,er of gender on rhe legislari,·c
pro,·css / Lvn K,11 h !enc.
ISBN 0-8133-0604-3. - ISBN 0-8133,0577-2 (pbk.)
I. Womc11's s111dics- Mcrhodology. 2. Fcminism- Rcscarch
Methodology. I. Nielsen, Joyce McCarl.
HQI180.F465 1990
305.42'072- dc20 89-29019
CIP
Primed and bound in rhe United Sute.s of America
The paper used in rhis publicatio11 meets rhc rcquiremcms of the American National
Sr,111dartt for P,·rmancnce of Paper for Primed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
IO 9 8 7 <, 5 4
REED COlLEGE LIBRARY
__ ,.... _ _ .. ,._ _,...._,.,..-"~ • n~n nl'I
Contents
Preface
\"JI
Acknowledg1nents
IX
Introduction, Joyce McCarl Nielsen l
PART ONE
FEMINIST RESEARCH METHODS
1 Gender and Science, Evelyn Fox Keller 41
2 Feminist Criticism of the Social Sciences,
Marcia Westkott 58
3 Knowledge and Women's Interests: Issues of
Epistemology and Methodology in Feminist
Sociological Research, Judith A. Cook and
Mary Margaret Fonow 69
4 Beginning Where We Are: Feminist Methodology
in Oral History, Kathryn Anderson, Susan Arn1iragc,
Dana Jack, and Judith Wittner 94
PART TWO
EXEMPLARY READINGS
5 Laura E!Jsworth Seiler: In the Streets,
Sberna Berger Gluck 115
6 The Vision of a Woman Shaman, Anna Lowcnhaupt Tsing 147
7 Between Two Worlds: German Fe1ninist Approaches
to Working-Class Women and Work, Myra Marx Ferree 174
V
n Contents
8 \"lo111en and Suicide in Historical Perspective,
Howard I. Kushner 193
9 How Large Arc Cognitive Gender Differences?
A Meta-Analysis Using w2 and d, Janet Shibley Hyde 207
10 Interaction: The Work Women Do, Pa1ncla M. Fishn1a11 224
l l A New Approach to Understanding the Impact of
Gender on the Legislative Process, Lyn Kathlene 238
List of Contributors 261
Preface
Editing this book was both a difficult and a satisfying experience. Writing
the Introduction gave me an opportunity to develop and integrate a number
of disparate themes, thoughts, and impressions that had been on 111y mind
for some time. The first such idea was the power of the won1en studies
paradigm itself; as director of a women studies program I had witnessed
the sheer generative impact of focusing on women in all the disciplines.
Mainstream knowledge seemed constricted, as if in an intellectual straitjacket,
con1pared to the expansiveness and richness of feminist work. A second idea
was that feminist scholarship can be conceptualized as part of the larger
postpositivist academic stage, about which I knew just enough to want to
know more.
Third, as both a student and a teacher of research n1ethods, I have always
thought that the best way to learn 1nethods was by exan1ple. Early in 111y
postgraduate education in the Sociology Department at the University of
Washi,ngton (where positivism was stressed), I noticed that those we jokingly
called "real scientists" (biochemists, physicists, geologists) did not take
separate methods courses per se. They might have a section on a specific
laboratory or field technique, such as tissue culture or radioactive dating,
but the basics of the approach (for example, 111aking controlled comparisons)
were taught as an assumed, or given, part of the subject n1atter. Students
in those disciplines were not asked to read about the value of scientific
n1ethod; they saw it concretely in the work they studied every day. They
absorbed it along with the subject matter in an integrated, holistic fashion.
This is not to say that I think reading about methods is not worthwhile
but in order to learn a discipline's methodology, the :nore direct and
compelling approach seems to me to be learning by the example of its best
work. Studying Durkheim's Suicide in detail, for example, will help a student
learn statistics in a way that a methods text cannot. Likewise, feminist
research, which is still being developed and defined, imparts knowledge
about feminist research methods.
Finally, as both a student and an instructor, I have become fan1iliar with
and have done research using a variety of theoretical approaches, each with
VII