Academic Feminism and the Process of De-Radicalization: Re-Examining the Issues

Author(s): Dawn Currie and Hamida Kazi

Source: Feminist Review, No. 25 (Spring, 1987), pp. 77-98
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395040
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Academic Feminism and the Process of
De-radicalization: Re-examining the Issues

Dawn Currle and Hamida Kazl

Despite the diversity of its arguments, feminism is unified through its

challenge to male power and by its vision of an alternative society; one
freed from inequalities based on sex and gender. For this reason,
feminism has given birth to many 'radical' ideas - ideas which stand in
direct opposition to accepted 'knowledge'.l In the struggle to create
new and alternative ideas, some feminists have developed work in
academia, an institution which some regard as a forum of intellectual
debate and harbinger of social change.2 But as Mary Evans (1982)
argues, bringing women's studies into academia has been met with
resistance, not only from anticipated sources of male chauvinism but
also from some feminists themselves. These feminists have pointed out
that the radical ideas of feminism have been transformed into an
academic debate which no longer has relevance for women outside the
hallowed halls of institutional life. To them, ideas inspired by
feminism have become separated from feminism as a social movement
and at this point lose their potential for change. In this way, ideas of
feminism have been 'de-radicalized, supporting the status quo rather
than working to undermine it.
For us as feminists, challenging the power structure within
academia has seemed a worthwhile goal. But at the same time, current
debates have led us to face an inescapable question: Is acaintc
ferntntsm the graveyard of radtcal zdeas? To us this is not merely
another point for academics to debate, for it challenges our basic iden-
tity as feminists and our ideas about a feminist struggle for equality. By
being both feminists and scholars our position is a contradictory one.
Like Gloria Bowles (1983) we find that on the one hand our continued
presence in the university shows that we still believe in the value of
that institution, but on the other hand, as feminists trying to create
new ideas and alternatives, we are opposed to the university as it cur-
rently exists. In this way, as well as struggling to end the sexual op-
pression of both women and men, we are at the same time struggling
with a demoralizing source of opposition - a process which appears

Femtntst Revtew No 26 March 1987

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78 Feminist Review

and claims to be impartial, but which in practice operates to render

feminism incompatible with academia. Underlying that process are
arguments about academic standards, levels of verification and the
many requirements of professionalism. Further, we have become
painfully aware of Gloria Bowles' and Renate Duelli Klein's (1983)
argument that women's studies may become a new road to elitism:
writing and thinking time for the privileged few, this time for white,
middle-class women. Liz Stanley and Sue Wise carry this even further,
arguing that this special relationship of feminist academics to theory
prevents all feminists from being involved in the production of
'feminism' (Stanley and Wise, 1983:43).
These debates, then, have led us to re-examine the 'de-
radicalization' of feminist ideas. This brought us face to face with
three possible sources of de-radicalization: feminism itself, the form of
rationality whereby theories are generated, and the method of doing
feminist research. On a day-to-day level we often accept these as un-
problematic. We tend to assume that feminism is radical; that as
feminists we will be able to develop logical explanations and solutions
to sexual inequality, and that our methods of doing research will
enable us to develop alternative visions of the world - radical visions
of both now and the future.

Sources of de-radlcalizatlon

Feminism means different things to different people. On the basis of

her analysis of the nature of sexual oppression, Janet Richards (1980)
has criticized many commonly held feminist views. She discusses-the
importance of making a distinction between feminism as a rigid doc-
trine and feminism as a belief about sexual inequality. She argues that
if feminism is narrowly defined in terms of an ideology and in
reference to a 'type of people' - that is to say, only women - it not on-
ly prevents us from critically reassessing our ideas, but in the long run
it may introduce contradictions that prevent us from realizing our
goals. We too see rigid orthodoxies as de-radicalizing, and therefore we
prefer a broad definition of feminism. We see feminism as founded
upon the belief that 'women suffer from systematic social iruustices
because of their sex' (Richards, 1980:14). The goal of feminism is to
eliminate this type of iruustice, something which will benefit both
women and men. Feminism per se is the struggle to realize a just socie-
ty, freed from sexual oppression. This struggle occurs on many fronts
because sexual oppression is found everywhere and is experienced by
individual women in different ways. Thus, there is no 'correct' way of
'being' feminist, of doing feminism. As Richards maintains, this broad
definition allows feminism to survive the failure of any particular set
of theories about the position of women (1980:16). At the same time,
feminism is by definition radical because it challenges the status quo
rather than supports it.3

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 Academtc Famtn?sm 79

Although all feminists share an assumption about the existence of

sexual oppression, feminist literature is not uniform in its analysis of
the cause or recommendations for the future. Rather, there are many
schools of argument which compete for some claims to the 'truth.
These claims, furthermore, often become the basis for a new type of
feminist competition. An example is the criticism that Marxist
feminism is not 'for' women because most women cant understand
Marxist feminist works. For this reason, feminists like Gloria Bowles
and Renate Duelli Klein (1983:131) maintain that differences within
academic feminism merely reproduce hierarchies and create new divi-
sions - this time between women. They claim that an emphasis on ra-
tional debate has the potential to de-radicalize feminism because ra-
tionality demands that we subordinate our feelings to reason and
therefore rationality will necessarily become a tool to oppress women,
whether used by men or women.
This type of academic competition and elitism has caused some
feminists to reject not only theory but also rationality. These rejections
are often introduced by the now-famous claim by Adrienne Rich
(1976:10) that objectivity (that detached attitude of science which
demands that the researcher remain emotionally uninvolved so as to
view all social phenomena as 'things) merely represents the term that
men have applied to their own subjectivity. As such, theory itself is a
tool of male oppression because the criterion of 'objectivity disallows
and discounts womens experiences of sexual oppression because they
are not 'objective facts - facts without emotional commitment. This
argument appears in a variety of forms. Germaine Greer (1971:108-9)
proudly claims that her arguments 'have all the faults of an insuffi-
cient regard for logic and none of its strength. We reject this anti-
rationality/anti-theoretical stance, agreeing with Janet Richards
(1980:37) that rational argument 'covers a much smaller area than
most people think. It is rooted in consistency, and simply insists that
incompatible statements cannot simultaneously be true. Displaying
strong feelings about your argument, changing your mind or being
unable to prove things have nothing to do with logicality or illogicality.
To be illogical is to claim that two incompatible statements are both
true. Similarly, irrationality is not intuition - that way of knowing at-
tributed to women but which in fact underlies many rigorously scien-
tific discoveries - but means sticking to a conclusion in the face of
conflicting evidence. As Richards argues, this kind of irrationality is
the basis for prejudice, which is of course at the core of feminist criti-
que (1980:40). Richards claims that a failure to understand the nature
of reasoned logic is a danger for feminists and has become a tool for
'undermining the very principles which were used to support the con-
clusion in the first place (1980:27). In her critique of contemporary
feminist thought, Hester Eisenstein (1984) has shown that we do not
need to go far to find examples of how this kind of irrationality can in-
troduce contradictions in feminist work. As far back as the seven-
teenth century, feminist writers showed the 'artificial nature of dif-

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80 Femtnist Revtew

ferences between women and men. For example, Aphra Behn (in
Spender, 1982:32-42) criticized the role that the double standard in
education played in the development of masculine/feminine traits.
Germaine Greer continued this line of argument in 7XeFernaleXunuch
(1971), leading to a general insistence by feminists that 'femininity is
socially rather than naturally produced. In the 1970s, however, this
principle was contradicted by feminists like Susan Brownmiller who
did not ask the same things about masculine aggression, but appeared
to view it as given and immutable. Her argument implies that mens
reproductive physiology determines their behaviour In this way,
Behns 'radical notion of behaviour as social is 'de-radicalized because
the fundamental feminist premise - that the behaviour of women is
culturally produced - is undermined by a contradictory claim that
mens behaviour is biological. We fear that these 'fruits of unreason'
(as Richards so aptly puts it) not merely contain an unintentional de-
radicalization of feminist ideas but offer a very odd alliance to
sociobiologists of the enemy camp. For this reason we argue that
feminism needs more rather than less theorizing. Many other feminists
also reject an anti-theoretical stance but identify the problem of tradi-
tional social science as the division between the subjective and objec-
tive, which leads to a denial of the subjectivity of women's ex-
periences by 'objective ways of knowing (see Stanley and Wise, 1983;
Oakley, 1981; Reinharz, 1983). With them the debate has shifted away

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 Academic Feminism 81

from theory and towards methods of knowing and learning about the
world which overcome this split. Behind this search for a method is the
claim, as expressed by Barbara Du Bois (1983:107), that 'the andro
centric (male) perspective in social sciences has rendered women n
only unknown, but unknowable'. Ann Oakley (1981), for example
shows how the rules of traditional interviewing proved to be un
suitable for exploring reproduction and motherhood - two areas th
have been largely ignored by malestream research. She argues th
scientific 'objectivity' denies the subjective experiences of both th
researcher and the researched, creating a one-way interaction in
which the interviewee becomes an object by being used as 'data'.
Duelli Klein (1983) further develops this theme, arguing that such
separation not only establishes a hierarchy between the research
and the researched, but in the end exploits women as research objects
and so produces research on women instead of researchfor women
Writers like Ruth Wallsgrove (1980) see the root of the problem as lyin
within positivism, a method which attempts to treat the social world
a world of scientific 'facts'. Wallsgrove argues that science is
characterized by detachment, rationality and the desire for control,
and is accepted in western society as the clearest way of thinking
because it is 'masculine'. At the same time, she sees it as a direct reac-
tion against the caring emotionality and 'mysterious' characteristics
traditionally defined as feminine. The project of feminism, then, is to
put the subjective in the knowledge. The quest for feminism is then a
quest for a method. This method is generally characterized as being
more than merely 'new wine in old bottles', as Maria Mies states
(1983:117). It becomes instead the basis for a revolution of the social
science endeavour by introducing new ways of 'knowing' about the
world (Reinharz, 1983).

Feminists on methodology

Underlying this search for a method, therefore, is the claim that

feminist research will be able to become researchfor women. Shulamit
Reinharz (1979) documents various problems encountered in the pro-
cess of trying to develop feminist research. She suggests that learning
through experience can become the basis for radical research
(Reinharz, 1983). By having our experiences as women accepted as
valid, feminists can begin to suggest 'an alternative set of assumptions'
about society (1983: 167). She then identifies these alternative assump-
tions and outlines a method which she calls 'experiential analysis'.
This method of research is characterized by co-operation between
researcher and researched in uncovering the phenomenon, and is call-
ed a 'participatory model'. This model requires that the research ques-
tion be of concern and of interest to the subjects, and that the question
posed be suitable for experiential analysis. In the final analysis, it is
argued that this method results in a non-hierarchical, non-

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82 Fninist Revie?u

authoritarian, non-manipulative, humble relationship to the 'subject'

and further that the separation of the world into subjects and objects
has been in part overcome.
This method of doing research may be suitable for the study of
women, but Carol Smart describes the problems she encountered in
trying to adapt such 'principles' of feminist research to her study of
magistrates. In the long run she concluded that

in both Oakley's discussion on doing feminist research and in Stanley

and Wise's book on the problems of research for feminists there is an
assumption that the power imbalance between the people 'being
researched' and the researcher is basically in favour of the latter . . .
But my experience of researching the 'locally powerful' does not fit
with this model at all . . . I find this assertion remarkable and only
explicable if we ignore all social class divisions and the structures of
dominance in society outside the academic world of research.
(1984: 157)

The methods of inquiry proposed by Reinharz and others are not only
unhelpful in some research situations, but also suggest that topics for
research are limited by the assumptions of the method, having the ef-
fect of specifically excluding research on the powerful. In the long
run, then, the development of rigid 'feminist' methodologies based on
these principles would de-radicalize feminist research by limiting
rather than broadening the field of research.
Liz Stanley and Sue Wise (1983) criticize the development of
methodologies which outline exactly what should be contained
within, and what lies outside of feminist research. They argue that two
fundamental insights of the women's movement have been forgotten.
The first is the validity of personal experience. The second is rejection
of the traditional distinction between 'objective' and 'subjective' as a
false separation that arises from a masculine experience of the world.
They argue that 'the traditional male emphasis has been on objectify-
ing experiences and "getting away from" the personal into some
transcendental realm of "knowledge" and "truth"'. Thus feelings
have been removed from our experiences of the world as these ex-
periences become objects of scientific study. This process of objec-
tification results in depersonalized 'truths' about the way in which
systems, structures and institutions are the source of oppression. In
the final analysis, Stanley and Wise argue that current trends in
feminist theory and research have de-radicalized feminism, betraying
earlier claims of the women's liberation movement that 'the personal
is political'.
To develop a feminist method, Stanley and Wise draw upon their
personal experience of oppression as lesbians to argue that 'ideas
about how "structures" impose themselves through "socializing"
various "internalized" behaviours and attitudes are, quite simply, ir-
relevant' (1983:80). Because they believe that the individual's ex-

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 Academic Feminism 83

perience should form the basis of both theory and practice, they insist
that

There is no 'going beyond' the personal, that chimera of contemporary

feminist theory. To talk about 'going beyond' is to posit a false
distinction between structure and process. (1983:83)

Stanley and Wise maintain that the original contribution to social

science by feminism is the proposal that women's experiences con-
stitute a different view of reality, a different way of making sense of
the world. They suggest that 'feminist consciousness' forms an untap-
ped source of knowledge about the world. This consciousness can be
an epistemological foundation for new theories.
In conclusion, they outline criteria for a feminist social science. To
begin, it must be a social science which starts from women's ex-
perience of our reality. It would explore the basis of our everyday
knowledge as women, as feminists and as social scientists. For this
reason they argue that what women spend most of their time doing
must obviously be the subject of feminist research. Because many 'ob-
jective realities' exist, feminist research takes as its task their explora-
tion rather than their obliteration, their dismissal as 'false con-
sciousness' or as 'inadequate' understandings of the world. They argue
that it is because of these multiple realities that a dislocation exists bet-
ween social science theory and women's experience. Therefore, they
believe that 'if we choose theory as opposed to experience, then we
necessarily deny the validity of our experiences as women' (1983:164).
We agree with many of the arguments in Breakteg Out. We agree
with Stanley and Wise that 'eachs of us has to find out the nature of our
own oppressions in order to fight them and that 'the nature and dimen-
sions of these differ according to our different lives'. We agree that
feminist theory should not become an 'experts' theory' which can re-
ject other women's experiences, when they don't correspond, by call-
ing them inadequate or falsely conscious. We also agree that power
and its use can be examined within personal life and that 'the system'
is experienced in everyday life and isn't separate from it. On the other
hand, however, we insist that structures and institutions are op-
pressive forces and that they are not constructed entirely out of every-
day life. Furthermore, we find Stanley and Wise's call for a feminist
consciousness which rejects the apparent 'objectiveness' of social in-
stitutions dangerous. We do not believe that the objectivelsubjective
split can be overcome by a research method which then can become a
way of 'doing feminist consciousness'. In the long run, this type of
feminist practice may be as de-radicalizing as the methods which it
claims to overcome. For this reason it becomes necessary to examine
Stanley and Wise's arguments in greater detail.
Stanley and Wise claim that feminist 'structure orientation' rather
than 'people orientation' rests in the feminist acceptance of
positivism4 as currently practised in social science. They begin their

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84 Fe1ninist Revie?u

analysis, therefore, by identifying how the positivist tradition within

social science creates a separation between the subject and the object
of study. Positivism portrays the social world as made up of social
'facts' that can be studied objectively, in much the same way that
natural facts are studied. Therefore, there is only one true reality. If
researchers stand back from this reality and remove themselves from
emotional involvement in their study of it, they can objectively
discover 'real' reality. Positivism depicts social science as the search
for social laws in order to predict and so control behaviour. And it
argues that the techniques and procedures of the natural sciences are
appropriately used within the social sciences. Basic to all of these is
what Stanley and Wise refer to as the 'subject/object dichotomy'.
Positivism sees what it studies as an 'object'. The subject, the resear-
cher, can stand back from this object and look at it objectively, in a
value free and natural way. As feminists and social scientists, Stanley
and Wise object to each of these aspects of positivism (1983:113) and
thus reject what they identify as the positivist assumption that struc-
tures are separate from people and that structures determine human
personality and behaviour outside human agency. Instead, they begin
from their own experience of oppression. They do not agree that struc-
tures like 'the family' are responsible for the oppression of lesbians
and other women, and they argue that 'the feminist use of the struc-
tural approach is a simple and an unsophisticated one' that unwittingly
allows people to hide in collectivisms and to avoid taking responsibility
for their own lives and actions (1983:106-7). Finally, they argue that
this approach denies a lived experience of oppression, a world in
which 'people' oppress people - they make decisions to do so, and the
oppressed sometimes comply in this oppression.
Obviously, individuals should and can take responsibility for their
sexist (and racist and elitist) attitudes and behaviours. Therefore,
where we part company with Stanley and Wise is not in terms of the
necessity to begin with the realm of experience. To us, theorizing is a
process which necessarily begins with the concrete, moving into the
realm of abstraction to understand constituent determinants and back
into the concrete with new understanding. We object, however, to the
claim that a feminist consciousness can necessarily overcome the 'sub-
jectlobject dichotomy'. It is one thing to reject a positivist science -
not an entirely unworthy project. It is another thing to identify it as
the cause of an apparent separation between subjectivity and objec-
tivity, between the individual and society. What we maintain is that
Comtian positivism is an effect of this separation. This perspective
clearly raises different questions and contains different implications.
While there are a number of objections to Stanley and Wise's rejec-
tion of what they call a 'structuralist' approach, we will focus here on
what we believe to be the fundamental source of our disagreement.
Thus we will begin with that process which they themselves identify
as central to oppression; the construction of social reality. For us social
reality consists of two distinct but related realms: a world of physical

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 Acade7nic Feminism 85

things and a non-material world of ideas, attitudes, beliefs (including

knowledge). Positivism claims to study the latter as though it were part
of the former, leading to Stanley and Wise's claim that it makes 'ob-
jects' out of personal behaviours and attitudes. Thus they argue that if
we reject positivism we will reject this tendency to depersonalize (that
is, objectify) oppression. This to us is, at best, an oversimplification. To
understand why, it is necessary to examine the relationship between
the subjective and 'objective' worlds which constitute social reality.

The productlon of soclal reallty

The relationship between ideas (or consciousness) and the material

world is a matter of ongoing academic debate. To begin, we see the
material world as consisting of both natural objects and human-made
artifacts. Because human beings have the capacity to 'reason' (or to
preconceptualize an outcome), they are able to produce material ob-
jects which will satisfy a perceived need. These objects which are pro-
duced through human labour can be used either to satisfy an im-
mediate need or for exchange, in which case they are commodities.
Societies can be organized in different ways to produce products. In
simple communal societies, products are made for use by their pro-
ducers. Tools for production are owned by the labourer or collectively
by the group. These products arise out of a need experienced by the
producer. Thus Marx argues that the product begins as an idea in con-
sciousness and human labour transforms this idea into a concrete ob-
ject which embodies the maker's subjective ideas and needs. In this
way, there is continuity between subject (the producer) and object,
between subjectivity and objectivity (see MacLean, 1986). If an in-
dividual produced her or his own material environment, it would be a
world which is a concrete manifestation of that individual's own ideas
and own needs - in other words, of her or his own subjectivity. In
capitalist societies, commodities rather than products are the objects
of human labour. Furthermore, the organization of the labouring pro-
cess has been qualitatively transformed. The tools necessary for pro-
ducing objects are owned privately, by capitalists rather than by
labourers. Labourers are no longer free to produce objects that express
their own ideas or needs. Instead, they must sell their labour-power to
a capitalist and so become an abstract 'extension' of the tool. Through
their labour, producers no longer give material expression to their own
ideas but to the ideas of others who design products that will bring a
retuin on the capital invested.
Thus the products of human labour in capitalist society do not em-
body the subjective need of their human maker, but rather the need of
the market, determined by the logic and the necessity to make profit.
In this way, in commodities produced by waged labour the continuity
between subjectivity and object is lost. The human-made environment

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86 Fem?n?st Rau?>ew

is no longer a concrete manifestation of either individual or collective

subjectivity and needs. We live in a world of alien objects produced by
a very real but 'impersonal' process. Although within capitalism the
material world is produced collectively, it is not a manifestation of the
subjectivity of that collective but of the powerful who control the pro-
duction of it. As a consequence, we live in aworld where there is a real
and not apparent separation between the individual and external
social reality. The material world is thus a concrete expression of social
relations based upon real differences in power. Because individuals
are separated from their social reality, the social conditions under
which this reality is produced are obscured and mystified. We lose con-
sciousness of how our environment is produced. It appears to stand
outside and above us with a life of its own that oppresses us. Through
an examination of its production, however, we can see that it is the
underlying power relations that are oppressive, not the objects
themselves which give shape to those relations. For example, if we
talk about the impact that technology has on women, or how
technology 'oppresses' women, we are assigning technology a human
quality. We have displaced the struggle from the realm of social rela-
tions through which that technology is produced to struggles over the
control of technology. This mistaken identification of the source of our
oppression is a result of our 'reified' conceptions of social reality.
Thus, as we shall see, the process of reification occurs is both the
material and non-material world.
In summary, we are arguing that the perception of social reality as a
world of external objects separated and alien to our subjectivity has a
material basis.

Institutlons and human needs

In their struggle to meet both needs of sustaining society on a day-to-

day as well as a generation basis, human beings form collectivities. If
stable over time, we call these 'institutions'. The family is one exam-
ple. The family is a 'collective' where individuals struggle to meet
material and emotional needs. Like Stanley and Wise, we recognize
that social institutions, as the product of human enterprise, have the
potential to satisfy human needs but in practice may frustrate those
needs. Stanley and Wise complain that feminists find the family rather
than thetr family oppressive, leading them to conclude that this stems
from a false dichotomy between 'structure' and 'experience'
(1983:68). We would prefer ts examine the material basis for that par-
ticular set of contradictions - an inquiry which leads us back to the
fundamental contradictions which stem from the endeavour to meet
human needs through alienated labour. It is from this initial 'separa-
tion' that further divisions emerge - between housework and 'work';
between private and public; between men and women; between the

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 Acadumtc Femtnwm 87

subjects and objects of social reality. This leads us from the ex-
periences of women to processes beyond them which embody the op-
pressive nature of a hierarchical society founded upon alienated
labour and the needs of the market. Thus individuals struggle to meet
their emotional needs as humans through the personal relations of
their own families while often experiencing the impossibility of that
goal, given a social reality whose mandate is the need of the market
rather than of waged labourers. Indeed, some families are unable to
meet either the material or emotional needs of their members. We do
not find it surprising that some feminists experience their own families
as a source of personal fulfilment and yet find the conditions under
which they operate oppressive. The question is, how does the family in
capitalist society frustrate human needs and become an 'anti-social'
institution? We believe that this can be answered only by examining
the historically specific process of privatization, unequal power, the
maintenance of a double standard of sexual morality, and other
aspects of family organization analysed by Michele Barrett and Mary
McIntosh (1982).

In other words, individuals' experiences of oppression within the

family are rooted in the basic contradiction between the family as a set
of personal relations through which individuals struggle to meet their
subjective needs and the family as a set of social relations which arise
through individuals' struggle to meet their material needs through
alienated labour. In capitalist societies families must meet their
material needs through a market mechanism which denies their sub-
jectivity. Thus two contradictory processes are set in motion. On the
one hand, the requirement to meet material needs involves a process
which 'de-humanizes' individuals by robbing them of their ability to
undertake creative labour. On the other hand, the family as a set of
personal relations can be a process whereby individuals are 'restored'
as humans because the family is one sphere where they struggle to
meet their needs as human beings. We believe, however, that the abili-
ty of families to meet the subjective needs of their members becomes
possible only when the contradictions underlying this institution are
abolished. In other words, it entails the reorganization of society at a
more fundamental level than the family.

In summary, we believe that Stanley and Wise are correct in stating

that only 'people' can oppress people. They recognize that we live in a
reified world. However, because they have not identified the material
basis of reification, they incorrectly suggest that we dismantle our
reality totally at the 'conceptual' level. That is to say that once we
have identified that institutions and so on are produced by humans
and do not exist independently, we will be able to reimpose our subjec-
tivity or needs on to these institutions. To them, we will overcome the
separation between individuals and their reality by a method of
reinterpreting that separation as existing entirely within the realm of
personal experience.

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88 Femtnist Revtew

The production of knowledge

Dale Spender (1982) has documented the history of feminist intellec-

tuals and argues that women's ideas have been lost from consciousness
because patriarchy is a totalitarian regime which suppresses alter-
native or subversive views. Thus she sees patriarchy as a dictatorship
and as such it is important to know who produces knowledge. She
argues that the domination of men in academia means that men's ideas
become 'encoded' in knowledge. As knowledge it becomes 'truth',
which very often stands in opposition to women's individual
knowledge or 'truths'. During socialization, these dominant patriar-
chal ideas are internalized so that the contradiction between women's
subjective consciousness and objective reality is mystified and
obscured. Knowledge then becomes an 'objective' link between the in-
dividual subjective reality and a reality of mystified power relations.
What we have seen as academics is that merely adding women to
the academy will not radicalize knowledge, because power relations
extend beyond the power of men over women. We believe that this is
because of the relationship between the organization of society for
commodity production and its organization for the production of
'ideas' . As we have seen, fundamental to the production of social reali-
ty is the separation between the generation of ideas and their execu-
tion as objects. When these two processes are commodified, a separa-
tion occurs between labourers who sell their manual or physical
capacity to labour and those who sell their ideas or intellectual labour.
This is often referred to as the 'mental-manual split'. It is rooted in the
Organization of the production of material reality but also extends to
the production of the 'non-material' world of knowledge. Academics
produce ideas about the world while necessarily being separated from
that world. Thus feminist academics may become engaged in produc-
ing concepts which apply to domestic labour without ever having been
engaged in that labour, owing to their economic position. In this way a
split emerges between women who produce 'knowledge' about
women's labour and women who perform that labour. The inclusion of
'some' women in the production of feminist knowledge and the exclu-
sion of others stems from the separation of mental/manual labour
which, in its current form, is an expression of property relations. For
this reason, the project of radicalizing knowledge involves more than
including women in the academy.
At the same time, we must examine not only who produces
knowledge, but how it is produced. John Horton (1971) has described
how the process of reification extends to academic labour. Through
this process, academics produce concepts which then become the ob-
ject of their study so that social scientists study abstract rather than
concrete forms in the 'real' world. Eva Kaluzynska (1980) argues that
academic debates about 'domestic labour' have shifted the focus away
from housewives and their experiences of oppression to academic con-
cepts, leading many women to feel that they 'aren't being let in on the

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 Acade7ntc Femtntsm 89

secret of women's oppression'. There are many lessons here for

feminists. While feminism has been critical of this process, we believe
that attempts to reimpose subjectivity upon products which are con-
crete expressions of power relations external to the individual would
de-radicalize feminist critiques. To begin, it merely mystifies further
the power relations which form the basis of social life.
A radical vision thus recognizes that reification - the process
whereby human institutions seem to take on a life of their own and
oppress their creators - occurs on two levels; at the material level of
human labour, and at the conceptual level, where the process of
reification and its basis in power relations are mystified and thus
obscured. The separation of the subject and the object occurs at both
levels. Contemporary sociology is both the effect of living in a world of
objects separated from collective subjectivity and a force in reproduc-
ing this split at the conceptual level.
The paradox of our analysis, however, is that we are left with a new
question rather than an answer. Given that the separation of subjec-
tivity and objectivity begins at the material rather than entirely at the
conceptual level, can feminism as a way of doing research bring the
two together? We believe that the answer lies in the recognition that
feminist research represents a struggle to transform the social
sciences, and yet is much more. If as intellectuals we choose to remain
within the academy, perhaps our task is both to recognize and to
challenge the current limitations that are imposed on the production of
ideas by hierarchies of all kinds. These hierarchies include social rela-
tions outside academia which represent, in the final analysis, the real
fetter to both the development of a radical feminist vision and a
method which would allow the realization of that vision. The point is
not to lapse into a utopian trance but to re-emphasize that the current
limitation of feminist thinking is not rooted in the absence of a method,
as some would claim, but in social relations which mitigate against the
full development of the feminist potential. The struggle is against
these relations. But at the same time, we believe that our task as both
feminists and social scientists is to challenge the second-level
mystification of society that occurs through academic practice. Horton
argues that in order to justify its enterprise, social science must engage
in the process of conceptual reification. This is accomplished by defin-
ing 'science' in a way that perpetuates the perception of social reality
as something separated from and unrelated to human subjectivity.
This process is legitimated by discourses about 'objectivity' and
interest-free knowledge as well as by a false belief in the separation of
knowledge from ordinary social and political affairs (Horton,
1971:177). Feminist research has always contained the potential to
challenge the social sciences at this level. But at the same time, there
can be no 'de-reification' in academia that is separated from practical
struggles to transfotm social relations. The paradox is, therefore, that
this radical v*sion of de-reification becomes the burial graund of
acaimia.

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90 Femtntst Revew

Whatever the fate of the academy, however, the struggle for

equality must be guided by systematic theory and research. For us as
academic feminists we therefore see our struggle as both within and
against the institution. As suggested by this article, it occurs on two
levels: at the level of 'first-order' reification, which corresponds to
struggles against the institution, and at the level of 'second-order'
reification, which involves struggles within the institution. As out-
lined previously, the struggle against the institution is against
alienated labour. It is from this fundamental 'separation' that the
manual-intellectual split develops which is reflected at higher levels of
social organization. In the academy, it is reflected in both its member-
ship and its activities. This separation of manual and intellectual
labour gives rise to a hierarchy among women and to separations bet-
ween women which represent the real limitations to the development
of a radical feminist vision of both now and the future. At the same
time, the struggle is also against reification which occurs at the con-
ceptual level, and thus it must be carried on within the institution.
Here the question is whether we can develop theories and methods
which do not become part of a reified social science that obscures and
mystifies power relations. Can we apply our scholarship in order to
achieve 'the goal of creating changefor women' (Westcott, 1983:215),
making our academic efforts part of our feminist struggle?
If we are to challenge hierarchies which occur in the academia, we
require theories that help us to conceptualize the processes of separa-
tion and domination that occur in that world. We see the potential for
such a theory grounded within dialectical historical materialism.

Dlalctical materlallsm

Dialectical materialism is widely considered as the philosophy of Marx-

tsm, 'in contrast and relation to Matsist science, distinguished as
h?stor7cal mater?altsm' (Bottomore et al, 1983: 120). However, on its
own understanding, dialectical materialism is cross-bred from the
union of two bourgeois philosophies: the mechanistic materialism of
the scientific revolution and Enlightenment, and Hegel's idealist
dialectics. The mechanism of the former, which is incompatible with
dialectics, and the idealism of the latter, which is incompatible with
materialism, are rejected and opposed as 'metaphysical' and
'ideological' (by Matx). The result is a philosophy in the sense of a
'world outlook' (Bottomore et al, 1983: 120).
Thus Matx transferred his attention to the real world by giving
fresh meaning to these concepts while removing their metaphysical
and idealist contents. The real world is dynamic. It produces changes
and growth based on human activity (labour) and coincides with
humans' economic and social life. The important element in this pro-
cess of change and growth is humans' relation to nature. The nascency
of history witnessed humans dependent on the vagaries of nature, but

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 Acadumtc Femtnwm 91

as life evolved they transformed this relationship with nature. This

change came about through human labour which mediates between
humans and nature in the creation of the material world which
changes and develops. However, while people actively shape the
world they live in, it at the same time shapes them. Consequently, our
perception of the material world is also conditioned by society. Thus,
dialectics is not only a way of viewing the world but it also serves as a
method of inquiry. As the world is dynamic and interconnected, the
dialectical method of inquiry helps research into the manifold ways in
which entities are related. Inter-relation of individual entities con-
stitutes totality; that is, human society. Through historical develop-
ment, totalities make the transition from one stage to another. In order
to understand totality at a particular stage of historical development,
Marx uses the term 'abstraction', which refers to the units whose ties
with the totality are obscure. For example, Marx regards labour as a
special product of capitalism but as an abstraction, because it is
generally considered to be found in all societies. Wage labour,
however, is a specific form of labour found in capitalism as opposed to
slave labour and indentured labour. If, therefore, we made wage
labour a starting point, we would be analysing capitalism before we
understood the historical development through which we have arrived
at capitalism. However, labour used as an abstraction would give us a
point of departure to analyse the capitalist system as a whole. Thus,
Marx's use of abstraction in this case highlights the relationship bet-
ween production and surplus value and thus the furthering of the
capitalist system.
In view of what has so far been elaborated, we consider dialectical
materialism as having two implications for feminism: i) the method in-
cludes a study of the role of women, as, for example, women's labour
in the production of material worlds and the reproduction of labour
itself; ii) the method leads towards an understanding of the relation-
ship between women in the First and Third Worlds, to which we shall
return later.
Any proposition to use dialectical materialism is often branded as
either Marxist feminism or as tantamount to imposing Marxism on
feminism. In their criticism of Marxist feminism, Stanley and Wise
argue that theorizing such as that of Michele Barrett is 'fitting women
in' to Marx's grand theory (Stanley and Wise, 1983:43). In our view
Marxist feminism is neither 'fitting women in' nor working for a
socialist revolution at the expense of women's liberation. It is rather a
mode of analysts that enables us to connect everyday life and an
analysis of the social institutions that are part of that life. Another
argument with regard to Mamism overshadowing feminism is that 'the
analytical power of Matsism with respect to capital has obscured its
limitations with respect to sexism' (Hartman, 1979:1). Hartman argues
that 'while matsist analysis provides essential insights into laws of
historical development, and those of capital in particular, the
categories of marxism are sex-blind' (1983:1).

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92 Femintst Review

While we agree that in Matsism the issue of women's oppression is

submerged in socialist revolutiony we think feminism should not have
to look upon Marxism in this way. On the contrary, this very limitation
of Marxism can pave the way for the development of feminism. Thus
we consider the use of dtatecttcat materzal?sm to feminist analysisjust
as appropriate as Matx found it when he transferred the meanings of
these concepts from metaphystcal and zdealtst systems to the real
world. Furthermore, dialectical materialism leads to conclusions not
only about the nature of past events but also about events currently
taking place. Above all, the material conception of history is a theory
not only about how to interpret history but also about how to make
history, and therefore is a basis for practical action (Cornforth, 1976).
Thus, in our understanding, Marxist feminism is not the uncritical ac-
ceptance of Matsism but, in George Lukacs' words, refers to method
(1971). Using it as a method, howevery does not reduce Maixism itself
to method because Matx's subject matter, with its inter-related en-
tities, is a totality in process at every stage of its development. This is
why dialectics folm the basis of his analysis of totality. Thus, while
Marxism uncovers the processes of the real world through dialectics, it
in itself also becomes a method of analysis, and it is this aspect of Maix-
ism - that is, dialectical materialism - in which there exists a poten-
tial to stress the primacy of the relationship between theory and ex-
perience. This leads us to believe that it is possible not to immerse
oneself in the 'ramifications of grand theory'. Instead, dialectical
materialism can be employed in the analysis of women's oppression
within a feminist perspective. As Duelli Klein puts it, this means
'assuming a perspective in which women's experiences, ideas and
needs (different and differing as they may be) are valid in their own
right' (1983:89). In this way, through a feminist analysis, an individual
woman does not necessarily lose herself in the social whole. Rather, as
a woman she finds her identity with other women. Thus we agree with
Stanley and Wise that a feminist social science should begin with the
personal (1983:165). But to what extent should 'the personal' form the
basis for a feminist social science?

From tho porsonal to tho soclal

To answer this question it is necessary to recognize the ways in which

the personal does not exist in isolation from the social. As Stanley and
Wise themselves state, 'we interact with other people at all times,
either physically or in our minds' (1983:166). To us, society is the 'sum
of the relations in which individuals stand to one another' (Marx,
quoted by Ollman, 1971). Although these relations are sometimes
treated as existing externally to individuals, society is both the pro-
duct of individuals' reciprocal activities and lies within individuals
themselves (Torr, 1941:7). The relationship between the individual
and society is a dialectical one and therefore any struggle for change

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 Acade7nic Feminism 93

has to be carried out at these two levels. Marx's view, as has been ex-
plained by Cornforth (1976), was that the struggle over ideas and in-
stitutions in society is a struggle through which people become con-
scious of conflicts, and it is through trying to combat these conflicts
that on the one hand people 'defend' and on the other hand they
'strive to end' a given system of production relations.
While at the conceptual level dialectical materialism provides us
with a mode of analysis, at the material level we need feminist
research that will help us to develop researchfor women. We need
research which is a way both of understanding our oppression and of
bringing change. Thus the development of research which is not just
'personal' but which relates the personal to the social is a prerequisite
for the unity of theory and practice. And it is by the union of theory
and practice that substantial social change can be effected. Within this
requirement, we argue for the development of research which
specifically bridges the gap between women and scholars, researchers
and researched, subjects and objects. This, we think, is possible for
two reasons. Firstly, as women we can relate our personal experience
to social reality; secondly, belonging to one of the oppressed groups,
we can benefit from our experiential knowledge. Furthermore, to
bridge the gap materially, research must essentially be made an
'instrument of the women's liberation movement' (Mies, 1983:120).
However, this can happen only when academics consciously attempt
to make feminist research an integral part of their struggle for eman-
cipation. When the focus of their research changes from research on or
about women, to the 'process of individual and social changes
(1983:126), they themselves will bridge the gap between the resear-
cher and the researched.
We do not intend to propose one single feminist research method, in
the same way that we do not think in terms of a single feminist theory.
However we do see a dialectical relationship between a feminist
theory that analyses our oppression and a methodology that validates
our analysis. This would enable us to reach our object of research with
feminist unity rather than as mere researchers. The outcome of such a
methodology would certainly be new theories with more clarity (Duelli
Klein, 1983). By emphasizing the development of feminist
methodology we do not mean insistence on a feminist methodology.
On the contrary, we think feminism should be able to make competent
use of social science methods, especially those qualitative methods
male scientists consider not quite wamen's cup of tea. However, we
argue that most social science research uses people as objects,
selfishly, either for the sake of research about people to enhance the
knowledge in various disciplines, or to serve reasearcherss individual
objectives. Whenever research is policy-oriented it is often in the ser-
vice of goverrunents, agencies and so on (we do not claim it to be
always the case). Most of all, when women are the target of social
science research, even by women researchers, they become mere ob-
jects, as if devoid of human intelligence. The development of feminist

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94 Feminist Review

methodology should not have to lead to the exclusion of all other

research methods. Instead, it should mean using other social science
methods involving new technology, such as computerprogrammes and
data processing, with the strength of a feminist methodology that has a
feminist perspective. We think the development of feminist
methodology will not only broaden the use of other social science
methods but will also help to break male domination over them.
We think it is the task of feminism and feminists to work towards
the development of feminist methodology. There have been such ef-
forts in the recent years, of which Action research (Mies, 1983) is one
good example. It is aimed at bridging the gap between the researcher
and the researched and has the potential to incorporate conventional
social science methods such as case studies, personal history and inter-
view technique. In her work on Action research, Maria Mies has sug-
gested seven postulates for femininst research;6 for example, that the
'researcher's view from above must be substituted by a view from
below'; and that women 'must taLk together about our experience and
generalize from it in order to understand the social cause of our in-
dividual deprivation'. Mies also warns us that:

women cannot appropriate their own history unless they begin to

collectivize thir own experzences. Women's studies therefore must
strive to overcome the individualism, the competitiveness, the
careerism, prevalent among male scholars. This has relevance both for
the individual woman scholar engaged in research and for her
methodology. If she is committed to the cause of women's liberation,
she cannot choose her area of research from a career point of view but
must merely try to use her relative power to talse up issues central to
the women's movement. (Mies, 1983:127-8)

Thus, by following research strategies such as Action research we can

hope to take the women's liberation movement to those women
deprived of feminism.
Also relevant to the search for a feminist methodology is the debate
as to whether First/Third World women can form one platform for
their emancipatory struggle. Although it is beyond the scope of this ar-
ticle to discuss the issue in detail, we consider it imperative to touch
upon it in relation to the project of our feminism to eliminate hierar-
chies and separations at all levels. Consequently, we see the necessity
for theory and research which is capable of i) drawing together
women, whether professional or not, towards new social transforma-
tions, and ii) developing a 'global vision'. Understandably, a global vi-
sion is not something all feminists agree with or think is possible.
Nevertheless, we argue that we live under a world market system
whereby the high standard of living of First World people draws much
of its strength from the Third World. For its survival much of the Third
World depends on the co-operation and assistance of the First World.
Thus women in both worlds need to have a 'global vision' to analyse

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 Academic FeZminism 95

and understand the differences in the specificity of their oppression.

They also need to examine the possibilities and limits of a 'global vi-
sion'. We would like to point out that the systematic oppression of
Third World women occurs at the structural or institutional level,
through processes of global economic expansion and intellectual im-
perialism of western scholarship. It is not only the multinational com-
panies which appropriate women's cheap labour in the Third World.
Social scientists are also guilty of this inasmuch as they consistently
make these women the object of their research. This is usually carried
out under the auspices of international aid agencies with the aim of in-
corporating women into the economic development of so-called
developing nations. This in turn helps to perpetuate global economic
processes. Here again we refer to Mies (1981) who has shown through
her work that Third WorXd women are conscious of their situation and
able to analyse it. Such recognition of Third World women's potential
can serve western feminists as a guide to pursue their research in the
Third World for women within a feminist perspective rather than as
charitable humanist projects. What is needed, then, is working
towards feminist methodology.
In conclusion, we think the debate on academic feminism and
feminist academics will continue for some time. It is important to
realize that a) as women our struggle within academia is not divorced
from women's struggle against our oppression; b) if feminism is to
become a social movement and a political force for change then there
is a need to develop feminist theory and research methodology. As
Duelli Klein (1983) argues, feminist researchers seek 'new whats and
new whys' in their fields of research; they should think of new 'hows'
as well. Without 'appropriate methodologies' we cannot simply do
what we want to do if we are dependent on 'mainstream' social
science methodologies. It is our contention that within this framework
we would be on our way to achieving the goals of feminism, especially
those of us who find ourselves at a crossroad as academic feminists.

Notes

Dawn Currie received her BA and Master of Arts at the University of Saskat-
chewan, Canada, before she went to study at the London School of Economics.
Together with Hamida, Dawn was actively engaged in the establishment of a
Graduate Seminar in Women's Studies which gave birth to this article. Her PhD
research is about reproductive choice and reproductive decision-making.
While in London, Dawn also lectured in feminist theory at Middlesex
Polytechnic. She is currently Associate Professor at the University of Saskat-
chewan.

Hamida Kazi received her Masters degrees in sociology from Bombay and Bir-
mingham Universities. She is about to complete her PhD at the London School
of Economics where she also teaches sociology part-time. She is actively in-
volved in black women's organizations and at the women's centre in the Lon-
don Borough of Waltham Forest, where she is also working on a project on

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96 Feminist Re7riew

women's employment conditions in the borough, in collaboration with the loca

Union Resource Centre.

We would like to thank Hilary Homans for her detailed comments on an earlier
draft of this article and Michele Barrett for her advice and encouragement in
the completion of the final draft. Also our deepest thanks to LSE Graduate
Seminar group for generating lively discussions on the subject, and Sherry
MacKay for her comments.

Obviously, we refer to feminism as 'radical' in terms of its challenge to and

struggle against a status quo founded upon fundamental inequalities. We
are referring, then, to the ability of feminism to continue this challenge
and struggle. We are not referring to any particular political philosophy or
to 'radical feminism' as a political tendency within the women's move-
ment.

2 Being an 'academic' means to assume the institutionalized form of intellec-

tualism. This is an important distinction to make. Intellectual feminism is
the legecy of feminism which dates back to the Greeks and continues on
through the sixteenth century (see Spender, 1982). We see academic
feminism as an historically specific form of intellectualism that emerges
both with the increasing institutionalization and bureaucratization of in-
dustrial life, and with the emergence of labour (be it manual or intellec-
tual) as a commodity (elaborated later).
3 Althouth feminism may be inherently radical, many of the feminist
strategies developed are reformist, in that they advocate slow changes
rather than changes that would fundamentally alter the basis of society.
Betty Friedan (1963), for example, argued for a 're-education' of members
of society. She thus presents a reformist rather than a radical approach
that would argue to change society's structure. Because we see strategies
as solutions which are suggested by analysis (i.e. theory), we see dif-
ferences between strategies as reflecting differences between radical or
reformist theories. This is one reason why we believe that more rigorous
theorizing is required.

4 August Comte, one of the founders of sociology, introduced the concept of

'positivism'. He argued that the social world can be studied in a scientific
manner by applying the principles used to study the natural world. This
scientific study would lead to the discovery of 'laws of society' which
would enable us to predict and control social change. His follower, Emile
Durkhein, argued that the subject matter of sociology is 'social facts' that
are external to the individual, impersonal in that they endure over time,
and that they can be studied as 'things'.
6 For a detailed account of these postulates, see Mies (1983).

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