Title: Feminist Philosophy on Epistemology and Science

Name: Darshil J. Chauhan

Roll No: 13110027

Word Count: 2019

Introduction:

Feminist Epistemology studies how gender difference does and should

influence our concepts of knowledge and subjects who acquire knowledge, as
well as other practices related to that. It is a diverse subject as it collects its
work from a lot of philosophers. Feminist philosophy in science also focuses
on how entry of women into science research and other science-related fields
has changed some of the science practices and popular views of them. It
also tries to discuss whether those changes are good or bad and whether
they should be encouraged.

Feminist Epistemology emphasizes on how people acquire knowledge.

Subjects who apprehend knowledge are called knowers. Feminist
Epistemology specifically focuses on situated knowers knowledge that
depends on the perspective of the knower.

Situated Knower

The concept of situated knower sees knowledge as specific to the knower,

rather than knowledge as universal truth. Different people perceive
knowledge in different ways, which is why we need to bring in this concept.
This concept can be applied in feminist epistemology because we need to
study how difference of gender can affect the perception of knowledge
among people.

People grasp knowledge about an object in different manners according to

following factors:

Embodiment: Physical situation. We experience world through our

bodies. Since our bodies are in different locations and doing different
activities, we have different perceptions. For example, a person
 watching an object while standing in front of it may not have the same
knowledge of it as the person standing behind it.
First-person vs. Third-person Knowledge: People have different
knowledge of being in different mental and bodily states as a first
person by being in them directly. This is something which they cannot
fully communicate to a third person because third person does not
have access to mental and bodily states of the first person. A third
person can only try to assess this experience by outer symptoms of the
first person. That way, a third person cannot acquire knowledge same
as the first person.
Emotions, Interests and Attitudes towards Objects: Different people
have different attitudes towards different objects because of their
interests. For example, rich and poor people see a 10 rupee note
differently because their interests are different. Also, an object may be
of different values for different people because their emotions might be
differently attached (or not at all attached) to those objects.
Personal Knowledge of Others: People have different knowledge about
others. Usually it is incomplete and at times, incorrect. So different
people interpret others behaviors differently.
Know-how: People have different skills due to time and practice they
have put into it and other factors. That way, their knowledge differs.
For example, an expert guitarist knows how to get broad range of
notes from a guitar than an average guitarist.
Cognitive Style: People have different styles of assessing a situation.
For example, a theoretical physicist and an experimental physicist
tackles the same problem in physics differently.
Background Beliefs: Difference due to different social, economical and
physical backgrounds.

Gender:

First of all, sex and gender are different terms.

 1. Sex: Biological difference between males and females
2. Gender: How society differentiates according to sex. It includes
different roles, norms and expectations.

Gender has following issues to consider:

Roles: Men and women are assigned different roles by the society. In
Indian context, generally, women were assigned more domestic roles.
Norms: Men and women are expected to show different behaviors.
Women are expected to show more modest and inward behavior than
men generally. Men and women are expected to show norms according
to their roles.
Traits as Virtues and Vices: There are some traits that are considered
masculine or feminine traits. Accordingly, they are considered virtues
or vices in men or women. For example, trait of crying is considered
feminine in most cultures so it is considered a vice in men.
Identity: What a person believes to be their gender identity may not be
same as how society addresses them.

By applying above gender issues in situated knowledge, we can understand

gendered knowledge.

Gendered Knowledge:

It is nothing but how peoples gender affects the ways in which they acquire
knowledge. Different factors of epistemology and gender apply here.

Norm for Gendered Bodies: Peoples bodies are differentiated on the

basis of gender, rather than sex. On that basis, people are expected to
show different behaviors. For example, in rigid Indian context, boys are
given more freedom in behavior than girls. Once these norms are
accepted by people, it affects how they acquire knowledge because it
determines their lifestyle and interests.
 Gendered First-person vs. Third-person knowledge: Due to gender
difference, it may be difficult for a third person of different gender to
understand knowledge of the first-person. For example, women go
through different sexual experiences than men, so they have more
knowledge about it which might be difficult for a third-person man to
understand.
Gendered Emotions, Interests and Attitudes towards Objects: A
representation of an object or a subject can be androcentric or
gynocentric according to whether it depicts the object/subject
according to interests and attitudes of men or women, respectively. For
example, representation of a woman as attractive would be from a
perspective of an interested man, while the same woman can be
represented as friendly by another woman who is looking for
friendship. So first representation would be androcentric, while the
second would be gynocentric.
Gendered Skills: Some skills are required by men and women to play
their respective roles. So accordingly, they are labeled masculine or
feminine.
Gendered Cognitive Styles: Some theorists believe that men and
women actually have different cognitive styles. It may or may not be
true. Nonetheless, cognitive styles are labeled gendered by the society.
In general, deductive and analytic styles are considered masculine
while intuitive and narrative styles are considered feminine. This shows
why women have been done injustice in having a chance to research in
science. Since science requires first set of cognitive styles, for a long
period, women had been considered not up to the task for science
research.

There are some kinds of knowledge that is not gender specific. For example,
2+2=4, plants need sunlight etc. These are examples of simple
propositional knowledge about matters. But these types of knowledge do not
help in analyzing how gender affects epistemology. Rather, above discussed
gendered knowledge is the type of knowledge that does.

Approaches to Gendered Knowledge:

So what are the theories proposed to understand the problem and find the
solution? There are three approaches to the problem of gendered knowledge
in epistemology.

1. Feminist Standpoint theory

A standpoint theory is a method to analyze how people,
belonging in a group acquire and interpret knowledge. It claims
that peoples opinions are made based on their social
experiences.
Feminist Standpoint Theory analyzes social phenomena from a
perspective of women as a whole group.
This theory claims that there exists an epistemic privilege of
women in issues that are gender affected. Following are the
claims for that:
o Centrality: Claims that women are central to reproductive
system. Since they are in charge of lots of things that men
require, they have higher knowledge of how things should
be done. It is similar to Marxist theorys claim in which
workers are central to the system so they are given
epistemic privilege.
o Collective Self-Consciousness due to oppression: Due to
male dominance in most of the cultures, women have been
objectified much more than men. Due to that, women have
confronted and collectively resisted such objectification.
This experience gives them knowledge-based privilege
over men who have not undergone such experience.
 o Cognitive Style: It claims that womens cognitive style is
acquired by caring for others more than men. So this,
supposedly, gives them more knowledge than men.
o Access to standpoint: Each standpoint theory must give
access of the standpoint to each member of the society.
Here, the standpoint is feminist. So clearly, women have
easier access to it than men. This also helps them in
having better knowledge.
Criticism of This Theory:
o One of the major criticisms is made by Bar On on the point
that oppression gives better knowledge to women.
According to him, one cannot claim that. It is also possible
that such oppression would cause less and bad-quality
knowledge among women and forget having epistemic
privilege, they would not even be able to understand
things from their own perspective completely.

2. Feminist Postmodernism
Postmodernism claims that things have meaning only with
respect to other things. There is no external reality, from which
they can bring a definitive meaning. It also means that if we
were to add a new thing in existing understood system, the
meaning of existing things would also change since their
meaning is dependent on other things.
Within feminism, postmodernist ideas are against any theory that
has a sexist conclusion or result. So it is against any kind of
sexism, be it against women or men
Rejection of the concept of women:
o Unlike Feminist standpoint theory, it refuses to use the
concept of women In general. It claims that women cannot
be generalized as done in former theory.
 o It rejects any kind of universal claim in gender identity.
Because within gender groups, there is a lot of issues like
race, country, religious beliefs, social and economical
backgrounds, sexuality that sets them apart.
o It also opposes feminist standpoint theory by claiming that
we should not try to find a universal epistemic privilege
according to gender difference.
No Stable Perspective:
o It also claims that it is not possible to have a stable
perspective in epistemology. It shifts from time to time.
o Whatever perspective a person has, it is because of their
culture, race and other properties. So as these things
evolve, perspectives of knowledge evolve, too.
Criticism: Both of the above concepts face criticism.
o Feminists object to rejection of the concept of women in
general. Their argument is that just because women are
from different backgrounds and situations, it does not
mean that the gender issues that they face are not similar
and unifying.
o Plurality of perspective would endanger the possibility of
analytical focus and women coming together to make a
political and social impact.
Even after criticism, it is a powerful theory because it is well
accepted that plurality of perspectives is necessary in this kind of
analysis of society.

3. Feminist Empiricism
Empiricism is the viewpoint that experience is the primary source
of knowledge, unlike rationalism.
Feminist empiricists focus on how practices in science can be
improved by feminist values and exposing sexist bias in science.
Paradox of Bias:
 o Feminist empiricists try to uncover and stop sexist and
biased practices in science.
o This is because of the commitment that bias is
epistemically bad and it leads to false and useless theories.
o But they also believe that feminist values improve science,
which is biased. So they contradict themselves. This is
known as paradox of bias.
Paradox of Social Construction:
o They claim that sexist scientists are that way because of
social influence.
o So according to that, to eliminate such thing, social
influence should be minimized and individual knowledge
construction should be encouraged.
o But they stress on social construction of knowledge,
contradicting their selves. This is known as paradox of
social construction.
Feminist empiricists argue that above paradoxes can be resolved
by claiming that not all biases are bad because biases
sometimes provide different perspectives, which is good.
Criticism: This theory has been criticized for relying too much on
science and empiricism and ignoring feminist activities
(especially political).

Conclusion:

As we know, contributions in science by women are very less than men,

which is a matter of concern. To solve such issues, one should try to
understand the cause of such issues. The above approaches and concepts
try to do that. And in real world, the actions based on gender equality should
be encouraged on all fronts, especially in science.

References
 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - http://www.iep.utm.edu/fem-epis
the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) -
http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/teaching/2010_015/L
ecture8_FeministEpist.pdf
Free Dictionary - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Knower