Feminist Challenges


Book Description

In Feminist Challenges, new and established scholars demonstrate the application of feminism in a range of academic disciplines including history, philosophy, politics, and sociology. As Carole Pateman notes in her introduction, ‘all the contributors raise some extremely far-reaching questions about the conventional assumptions and methods of contemporary social and political inquiry.’




Feminist Challenges in the Social Sciences


Book Description

"Collection of articles on academic feminism, gender relations and history in the Basque Country"--Provided by publisher.




Science and Social Inequality


Book Description

In Science and Social Inequality, Sandra Harding makes the provocative argument that the philosophy and practices of today's Western science, contrary to its Enlightenment mission, work to insure that more science will only worsen existing gaps between the best and worst off around the world. She defends this claim by exposing the ways that hierarchical social formations in modern Western sciences encode antidemocratic principles and practices, particularly in terms of their services to militarism, the impoverishment and alienation of labor, Western expansion, and environmental destruction. The essays in this collection--drawing on feminist, multicultural, and postcolonial studies--propose ways to reconceptualize the sciences in the global social order. At issue here are not only social justice and environmental issues but also the accuracy and comprehensiveness of our understandings of natural and social worlds. The inadvertent complicity of the sciences with antidemocratic projects obscures natural and social realities and thus blocks the growth of scientific knowledge. Scientists, policy makers, social justice movements and the consumers of scientific products (that is, the rest of us) can work together and separately to improve this situation.




Feminist Methodology


Book Description

`An accessible, clearly explained review of difficult concepts within this arena as well as relevant debates. Its strengths are in outlining possible considerations that need to be taken into account when making methodological choices. It also clearly explains how these choices impact knowledge production. This book would undoubtedly be of considerable use to anyone seeking to understand and get to grips with feminist methodological issues′ - Feminism and Psychology Who would be a feminist now? Contemporary ′political realism′ suggests that the essentials of the battle have already been won, and the current generation of women entering University is used to seeing feminism presented as ′old fashioned′, ′extreme′ and ′unrealistic′. Challenging such assumptions, this important new book argues for the value of empirical investigations of gendered life, and brings together the theoretical, political and practical aspects of feminist methodology. Feminist Methodology - demonstrates how feminist approaches to methodology engage with debates in western philosophy to raise critical questions about knowledge production - shows that feminist methodology has a distinctive place in social research - guides the reader through the terrain of feminist methodology and clarifies how feminists can claim knowledge of gendered social existence - connects abstract issues of theory with issues in fieldwork practice. This timely and accessible book will be an essential resource for students in women′s studies, gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, social anthropology and feminist psychology.




Doing Feminist Research in Political and Social Science


Book Description

Guiding students step-by-step through the research process while simultaneously introducing a range of debates, challenges and tools that feminist scholars use, the second edition of this popular textbook provides a vital resource to those students and researchers approaching their studies from a feminist perspective. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book covers everything from research design, analysis and presentation, to formulating research questions, data collection and publishing research. Offering the most comprehensive and practical guide to the subject available, the text is now also fully updated to take account of recent developments in the field, including participatory action research, new technologies and methods for working with big data and social media. Doing Feminist Research is required reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses taking a feminist approach to social science methodology, research design and methods. It is the ideal guide for all students and scholars carrying out feminist research, whether in the fields of international relations, political science, interdisciplinary international and global studies, development studies or gender and women's studies. New to this Edition: - New discussions of contemporary research methods, including participatory action research, survey research and technology, and methods for big data and social media. - Updated to reflect recent developments in feminist and gender theory, with references to the latest research examples and new boxes considering recent shifts in the social and political sciences. - Brand new boxed examples throughout covering topics including collaborations, femicide, negotiating changing research environments and the pros and cons of feminist participatory action research. - The text is now written in the first (authors) and second (readers) person making the text clearer, more consistent and inclusive from the reader point of view.




Feminism and Methodology


Book Description

Appearing in the feminist social science literature from its beginnings are a series of questions about methodology. In this collection, Sandra Harding interrogates some of the classic essays from the last fifteen years in order to explore the basic and troubling questions about science and social experience, gender, and politics.




Feminism and Science


Book Description

"... thoughtful critiques of the myriad issues between women and science." -- Belles Lettres "Outstanding collection of essays that raise the fundamental questions of gender in what we have been taught are objective sciences." -- WATERwheel "... all of the articles are well written, informative, and convincing. Admirable editorial work makes this anthology unusually helpful for scholars and students... Highly recommended... " -- Choice Questioning the objectivity of scientific inquiry, this volume addresses the scope of gender bias in science. The contributors examine the ways in which science is affected by and reinforces sexist biases. The essays reveal science to be a cultural institution, structured by the political, social, and economic values of the culture within which it is practiced.




Feminist Research Methods


Book Description

Feminist inquiry has affected the nature of research in ail the social and natural sciences over the past decade, but much contemporary writing on feminist methods simply offers a critique of traditional methods. 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 examples 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 fundamental 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. Part One presents the best of feminist commentary on both feminist and traditional methods. Part Two consists of readings that illustrate particular feminist methods, including oral history, linguistic analysis, feminist anthropology informed by feminist literary criticism, and reinterpretation and reanalysis of empirical data from a feminist perspective. Substantive issues addressed in the readings include women'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.




The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia


Book Description

This book tells the story of new Yugoslav feminism in the 1970s and 1980s, reassessing the effects of state socialism on women’s emancipation through the lens of the feminist critique. This volume explores the history of the ideas defining a social movement, analysing the major debates and arguments this milieu engaged in from the perspective of the history of political thought, intellectual history and cultural history. Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, societies in and scholars of East Central Europe still struggle to sort out the effects of state socialism on gender relations in the region. What could tell us more about the subject than the ideas set out by the only organised and explicitly feminist opposition in the region, who, as academics, artists, writers and activists, criticised the regime and demanded change?




Feminism and the Politics of Childhood


Book Description

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood offers an innovative and critical exploration of perceived commonalities and conflicts between women and children and, more broadly, between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This unique collection of 18 chapters brings into dialogue authors from a range of geographical contexts, social science disciplines, activist organisations, and theoretical perspectives. The wide variety of subjects include refugee camps, care labour, domestic violence and childcare and education. Chapter authors focus on local contexts as well as their global interconnections, and draw on diverse theoretical traditions such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, postcolonialism, political economy, and the ethics of care. Together the contributions offer new ways to conceptualise relations between women and children, and to address injustices faced by both groups. Praise for Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? ‘This book is genuinely ground-breaking.’ ‒ Val Gillies, University of Westminster ‘Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? asks an impossible question, and then casts prismatic light on all corners of its impossibility.’ ‒ Cindi Katz, CUNY ‘This provocative and stimulating publication comes not a day too soon.’ ‒ Gerison Lansdown, Child to Child ‘A smart, innovative, and provocative book.’ ‒ Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University ‘This volume raises and addresses issues so pressing that it is surprising they are not already at the heart of scholarship.’ ‒ Ann Phoenix, UCL