Women's Role In Feminist Research

There are several question that are asked surrounding feminism. One of them are questions about women's role in research like is there a feminist research research different from other social science research and are there any specific feminist research methods? If one believes that feminist research is research about women, by women, and for women, then one may conclude that there are distinct methods that feminists use to study the oppression of women. Also, if one believes, as does Liz Stanley (1993), that there is a direct relationship between feminist consciousness and feminism, then there is research that is distinctly feminist.In trying to answer the above posed questions, we need to examine not only political ideologies as suggested

As Marjorie DeVault has stressed "Nearly every writer on the topic agrees that there is no single feminist method, yet there is a substantial literature on ‘feminist methodology’, representing a diverse community of sociologists in lively and sometimes contentious dialogue” .What makes feminist research "feminist" is the method used by the researcher. There are certain research methods that are original forms of feminist research methods. Such methods include consciousness-raising, creating group diaries, drama, genealogy and network tracing, the non authoritative research voice or multiple-person stream-of-consciousness narrative, conversation, using intuition or writing associatively, identification, studying unplanned personal experiences, structured conceptualization, photography or the taking-pictures technique, and speaking freely into a tape recorder or answering long, essay-type questionnaires (Reinharz, 1992)."This suggests that what makes research 'feminist' is not the methods as such, but the framework within which they are located, and the particular ways in which they are deployed" (Maynard & Purvis, 1995).Hence feminist can use different techniques of research as a feminist researcher can use both qualitative and quantitative

Both men and women can do feminist research. However, many feminist researchers, believe that nothing is separate from social life and experiences, nor does it exist outside the social . We also believe that men and women experience the social world differently, in turn, experience research and leadership differently. Therefore, feminist research methods must reflect feminist ontology, epistemology, and methodology which are developed from the experiences of women.Another way feminist research differs from mainstream research is that the feminist researcher makes sense of the world and produces generalized knowledge-claims on the basis of experiences. Feminist researchers also treat knowledge as situated because they make the assumption that particular structures are defined as facts external to and constraining upon people. In addition, feminist researchers are aware of the varying degrees of oppression in relation to a woman's social location and in relation to men, thus necessitating prising apart the category men and women's experiences of different men in different times, places and circumstances .Feminist research differs from mainstream research in that it rejects using research to colonize material differences among women. This is done by presenting a social constructionist and non-essentialist notion