What makes Feminist Research

Feminist?
The Structure of Feminist Research
within the Social Sciences
Written, edited and revised by Jennifer Brayton
This essay has been presented at several conferences, and is copyrighted to Jennifer
Brayton, 1997-present.

Introduction
Definitions of Principal Concepts
Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Differences and Similarities
Feminist Criticisms of the Qualitative/Quantitative Debate
Defining Feminist Research
Some Limits with Feminist Research
Conclusions

"Feminist research . . . consists of no single set of agreed upon research guidelines or

methods. Nor have feminists agreed upon one definition of feminist research" (Maguire,
1987, p. 74)

Introduction
What makes feminist research feminist? Having read through a wide range of feminist
research papers as well as feminist essays on methods and methodology, it has become
apparent that what makes feminist research uniquely feminist are the motives, concerns
and knowledge brought to the research process. As this paper will illustrate and argue,
certain themes seem to consistently arise when authors attempt to define feminist
research. While there is no standard agreement over what constitutes feminist research,
many authors seem to draw upon certain elements as defining features to feminist
research. These features help distinguish feminist research from traditional social
sciences research, research that studies women, and research that attends to gender. This
essay will act as the starting point into discussing the shape and forms of feminist
research.

Definitions of Principal Concepts

"Feminist theory - of all kinds - is to be based on, or anyway touch base with, the
variety of real life stories women provide about themselves" (Lugones and Spelman,
1990, p. 21).

If feminists have not been able to agree upon the structure of feminist research, it may
be due to the lack of agreement over what constitutes feminism as theory and practice.
As I utilize the term, feminism is about challenging gender inequalities in the social
world. While I fundamentally recognize differences in social location, such as
orientation, age and race, as structuring the way women experience their lives as
women, I believe that at a basic level feminism recognizes the organizing of the social
world by gender. This is not to suggest that feminism is a singular unifying theory but
that the overarching element to different feminist theorizing is the attention to gender.
As Patricia Maguire sums up more concretely: "Feminism is: (a) a belief that women
universally face some form of oppression or exploitation; (b) a commitment to uncover
and understand what causes and sustains oppression, in all its forms and (c) a
commitment to work individually and collectively in everyday life to end all forms of
oppression" (Maguire, 1987, p. 79).

Similarly, much debate has occurred historically over the definitions and constructions
of research terminology. While methods, methodology and epistemology are all
connected and interrelated as research concepts, they are separate and distinct terms that
refer to different aspects of research as process. Methods are the tools and techniques
used to gather evidence, information and data. Methods are the research practices
chosen by the researcher, be it qualitative or quantitative methods. Methodology
addresses theoretical questions about the study of research and how research is done. As
Sandra Harding suggests in the introduction to Feminism and Methodology: "A
methodology is a theory and analysis of how research does and should proceed"
(Harding, 1987, p. 3). Epistemology concerns theories about knowledge construction by
questioning whose knowledge is validated and what constitutes knowledge. It is the
philosophy of knowing, the construction and authentication of certain forms of
knowledge.

Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Differences and Similarities

"Qualitative research thus refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics,

metaphors, symbols and descriptions of things. In contrast, quantitative research refers
to counts and measures of things" (Berg, 1995, p. 3).

Typically, qualitative and quantitative research methodologies are constructed as

distinct research processes. At a basic level, qualitative research commonly refers to the
collection and the analysis of material that seeks to uncover meaning and understanding
of experience. By contrast, quantitative research is about the collection and analysis of
numerical data - the social facts. Certain methods and research techniques are associated
with these difference research processes. Qualitative research strategies traditionally
include ethnographies, fieldwork, participant observation, content analysis, interviews
and oral histories (Berg, 1995, p. 3). Quantitative methods typically include
questionnaires, surveys, studying rates, variables and relationships between social
factors. The construction of these methods as relating to either qualitative or
quantitative research are grounded in methodological choices. One chooses research
methods on the basis of what one is seeking to uncover, be data and information in the
form of numbers or meanings.

The difference between the two research processes is structured in terms of

methodology and epistemology. From a methodological standpoint, what is being
suggested is that qualitative and quantitative research is conducted for different reasons.
How the data is acquired and the process of attaining data for each is seen as radically
different. The fundamental difference is organized around the material being assessed,
between research based on data that can be counted and data that is experiential
(Jayaratne, 1983, p. 144). These differences are also talked about in terms of
epistemology. Qualitative research is thought to value subjective, personal meaning and
definition, commonalities and giving voices to the oppressed. In contrast, quantitative
research is constructed in terms of testing theories and make predictions in an objective,
value free way where the researcher is detached from both the participants and the
research process.

But qualitative and quantitative social science research both seek to uncover the richest
possible data from a setting or situation. The overall goal of social science research is to
capture and accurately convey "reality", be it the reality of an event or experience or the
truth of a population. Both research processes start from the interests of the researchers -
they determine what to study as a topic and field of analysis. Qualitative researchers
may be more open in bringing this to light by trying to acknowledge their own social
location and starting point. However, quantitative research also starts with a researcher
asking a question based on her/his own interest in a particular field. The language of
quantitative research simply does not permit the question to be asked about ‘why this
research’, because of the built-in and unquestioned emphasis on objectivity and
neutrality.

In social science research, the researcher has confidence that the material is unbiased in
accurately representing social reality. In quantitative research, this is assessed in terms
of objectivity, maintaining a space between the researched and the researched so that the
researcher is not influenced by the research process. In qualitative research, neutrality is
possible by removing the distance between the researcher and the participant to ensure
biases the researcher brings into the research are acknowledged and that the participant
can confirm the validity of the depiction of their experience and social reality. As an
illustration, with participatory research, the goal is the inclusion of the participant’s
perspective and voice in all aspects of the research process. "Participatory research
proposes returning to ordinary people the power to participate in knowledge creation,
the power that results from such creation, and the power to utilize knowledge"
(Maguire, 1987, p. 39). The assumption behind this agenda is that the material revealed
will be more accurate and objective in representing the reality of the social experience
and situation. By including the participants in the process, it is felt that the data will be
unbiased and more truthful in representing the event in agreement with the participant.
In both instances, the overall objective for social science research is for the data to be
accurate and representative of the situation.

At the heart of it, both qualitative and quantitative research share a common
methodological and epistemological agenda: control. In quantitative research, the
element of control is suggested by the belief that there are variables that must be
controlled. This is grounded in the epistemological base of objectivity and neutrality.
Without control of the research, bias will appear and distort the results. In qualitative
research, the researcher is seeking, through methodology, to capture the best
representation of social reality. The goal of this research is to have the meaning and
experience of the event conveyed in the most realist manner. The inclusion and
recognition of the influence held by the researcher facilitates a greater control over the
degree of accuracy of the data in representing the participant’s reality. Historical
arguments have constructed social science research into different camps, qualitative and
quantitative, a distinction that has come into question.
Feminist Criticisms of the Qualitative/Quantitative Debate

"Attending to the basic significance of gender involves accounting for the everyday
experiences of women which have been neglected in traditional sociology" (Cook and
Fonow, 1986, p. 22).

As many contemporary feminist researchers suggest, there is no actual difference

between qualitative and quantitative research since both are inherently biased in their
definitions and depictions of social reality. Patricia Maguire points to the fact that the
arguments made by researchers for the importance and validity of alternative
(qualitative) research compared to traditional (quantitative) research still are ignorant in
attending to gender. "Feminism allowed me to see the male bias common to both
dominant and alternative paradigms" (Maguire, 1987, p. 76). In the dominant/alternative
research model debate, only men were thought to have argued for the creation of an
alternative perspective. As she points out, that belief is, in itself, biased and
androcentric. Feminism brings another dimension to this debate, where feminist
research versus patriarchal research crosses paths with qualitative versus quantitative
research strategies.

Shulamit Reinharz attempts to summarize the claims of social science research as being
common to both qualitative and quantitative research. She differentiates between
conventional or mainstream sociology and alternative/feminist sociology. With the
former, she sees the objectives of research as being oriented around beliefs in
impersonalness, objectivity, generalizability, control of events, replicability and
predefinitions of the situation (Reinharz, 1983, p. 168). While the traditional debate on
qualitative and quantitative tends to suggest these claims as being quantitative, as she
argues, these same elements exist and are part of qualitative research as well.
Traditional social science research can not be broken down into qualitative and
quantitative processes, since as a disciple, social science research is still fundamentally
flawed. Qualitative research is as much grounded in assumptions about objectivity as
quantitative research has grounding in subjective biases. The true epistemological
difference in research methods lies between traditional social science research and
feminist research.

Feminists have argued that qualitative and quantitative research models are biased
because they present distorted knowledge about the world. The knowledge that has been
reflected has been with a specific orientation in mind: that of men, and more
specifically, white, middle class, heterosexual men. "Institutions, paradigms, and other
elements of knowledge validation procedure controlled by elite white men constitute the
Eurocentric masculinist validation process. The purpose of this process is to represent
white male standpoint" (Hill Collins, 1990, p. 203). What is being defined as human
knowledge is, in fact, specifically male knowledge and the focus of feminist
epistemology has been on the location of men as "the source of knowledge"
(Hawkesworth, 1989, p. 539). This bias is never addressed as an issue or problem in
traditional social science research.

As feminism challenges traditional social science research, it supports its arguments by

recognizing that patriarchal values and beliefs in our social world shape both the
construction and definition of how research is done and how knowledge is determined.
Male bias in the world determines how and why research is done and shapes the
interpretation of data. Fundamentally, traditional social science research with its claims
to objectivity (in both qualitative and quantitative methods) is flawed because it does
not recognize how its own biases impact on the research process from the choice of a
topic to the final presentation of data.

Defining Feminist Research

"Empirical feminist research is guided by feminist theory" (Reinharz, 1992, p. 249)

Doing research is a process that involves an on-going series of decisions and choices.
Overall, feminist research is uniquely feminist because it is feminist beliefs and
concerns that act as the guiding framework to the research process. Methodologically,
feminist research differs from traditional research for three reasons. It actively seeks to
remove the power imbalance between research and subject; it is be politically motivated
and has a major role in changing social inequality; and it begins with the standpoints
and experiences of women. Sandra Harding makes similar claims to the defining
features of feminist research when she argues that studying women from their
perspective, recognizing the researcher as part of the research subject and
acknowledging that the beliefs of the researcher shape the research is what makes
feminist research feminist. As she states, "They can be thought of as methodological
features because they show us how to apply the general structure of scientific theory to
research on women and gender" (Harding, 1987, p. 9). This section will discuss in-depth
the features that shape and define what is meant by feminist research.

First, the unequal power relationship between the researcher and the subject is
restructured to validate the perspective of the participant. The premise is to remove the
hierarchical relationship between researcher and participant. Changing research
terminology from one of hierarchy to one of equality is the first step. Many authors talk
about the use of "participant" as a preferred term to the use instead of "subject" or
‘researched". However, addressing the imbalance in power relations between researched
and researched is more than simply changing the language of research. Changing the
power relationship would entail involving the participants at all levels of the research
process.

Recognizing the participants as the experts and authorities on their own experiences is
taken as the starting point to research. Participants are part of the social world and as
critical thinkers are also conscious and aware of the patterns of social relationships that
can impact upon their own lived realities. As Diana Ralph indicates, it is important that
feminist researchers recognize and identify the women engaged as participants are
"often actively working to change the conditions of their oppression" (Ralph, 1988, p.
139). One of the concerns of feminist research is to ensure the accuracy of the research
in depicting women’s lives and experiences. It is important for the researcher to take the
finalized information back to the participants for verification, since they are the experts
and owners of their own personal experiences. While the standard within traditional
social science research is to see the research as "owned" by the researcher, feminist
research that seeks to restructure inequality also seeks to remove the notion of
ownership of knowledge (Wolf, 1996, p. 3). Maintaining the originality and authenticity
of how the participants give meaning to their experiences is also part of what constitutes
changing the power imbalance in feminist research. "A feminist method gave me the
flexibility to be able to relate to women in subjective ways on their terms rather than in
objective ways on the researchers’ terms" (Edwards, 1990, p. 489).

Recognizing the researcher as part of the research process also constitutes changing the
power relation between the researcher and the participant. The social location of the
researcher (e.g. age, race, orientation, class) plays a role in shaping the research process.
It is important for the researcher to identify their own location in order to address biases
that may result from their own location in the social world. "Our own frameworks of
understanding need to be critically examined as we look for the tensions and
contradictions they might entail" (Lather, 1988, p. 576). The researcher is as much an
active agent in the world as the participant and acknowledging individual agency is
important to restructuring the power relationship. The choices being made by the
researcher are shaped and motivated by social location, from the choice of a research
topic to decisions on how to present the material.

Women as researchers bring their own experiences and history into the role of
researcher and the research process. The feminist researcher may be both insider and/or
outsider to the environment and topic they are exploring. As insider, they have a
stronger understanding of the dynamics and play of social relationships that inform the
situation under investigation. The issue of inequality may be overcome through the
affiliation of the researcher with the context, where participants may feel more
comfortable in sharing information with someone who is within the situation
(Matsumoto, 1996, p. 165). By contrast, the feminist researcher who lives outside the
situation being examined may also be able to change the imbalance of the power
relations with the participants. Having to explain personal experiences and feelings with
an outsider allows women the space to critically assess their own lived realities. It
reinforces their location as author and expert to the situation. It also potentially gives
women the opportunity to safely criticize their community, organization or situation
without fear of discovery. Striving for balance and equality between researcher and
participant entails negotiating the often blurry insider/outsider relationship between the
two parties.

The location of the researcher also plays a significant role in the research process
through the dynamics of the interactions between researcher and participant. As women,
both researcher and participant share a common location in the social world on the basis
of their gender and can communicate on the basis of this similarity. However, the
location of the researcher as different can also have consequences on the research
process. Bringing feminist concerns into research entails recognizing the differences
between women. Gender similarities may not transcend all social locations. For some
participants, factors other than gender may play a more prominent role in their
experiences. Issues surrounding the race, class or orientation of the interviewer to the
participant are important to address in feminist research. As Rosalind Edwards notes,
race can be a barrier for women seeking to do research "outside" of their own race,
where finding participants willing to take part in the research can be difficult (Edwards,
1990, p. 483). Questions about the motivations for the researcher to study women of
other races, cultures, ages, abilities and classes need to be addressed as part of the
research process.

Addressing inequality in the research relationship is more than simply acknowledging

different social locations. It is also taking an active role in negotiating across these
differences with the participants. Difference in social location is not an insurmountable
barrier to the research process, but difference must be recognized and addressed as part
of the process. How this negotiation can occur is not defined by feminist research and
no perfect solutions are given. Instead, feminist research involves context driven
choices, the recognition that the choices of the feminist researcher are guided by
feminist principles and how these principles are negotiated are unique to each research
project.

On a final note, changing the problematic power relationship s in research means

addressing inequalities within the research team. The research process is informed by
the relations of power among the team players, where traditionally women have been
exploited as research labourers without being credited for their work involvement. As
feminist researchers, it is important for women to question the nature and structure of
their own research team, and look at the differences in power relations within the group.

Second, research for the sake of research is insufficient. As Maria Mies states, "the
change of the status quo becomes the starting point for a scientific quest" (Mies, 1983,
p. 135) . Research must serve the interests of women instead of being a tool to support
the dominant masculine world view. Feminist research must not be abstract and
removed from the subject of investigation but instead must have a commitment to
working towards societal change. In the form of recommendations for policy or with the
researcher being part of a collective involved in political activity, the research can not
simply seek to present data and information. "Feminist research is, thus, not research
about women but research for women to be used in transforming their sexist society"
(Cook and Fonow, 1986, p. 13). How this is played out in the research process is again
the result of choices being made by the researcher. Having the research question come
from a women’s collective or organization is one such way into staying grounded within
the women’s movement. The commitment to feminism as the underlying motivation to
feminist research means that research and action can not be separated.

In part, a commitment to societal change involves a commitment to the participants of

the research. Feminist research can be thought about in terms of consciousness raising
for the participants. Being involved as active members of the research process give
women the space to question and critically assess their experiences. It also permits the
recognition of the connections and links between events in their lives as well as the
connections to the social world (Kasper, 1994, p. 273). Identifying the connections
between individual experience and social relations can facilitate personal analysis and
transformation. Empowerment arises with education and knowledge about issues, and
the affirmation that one’s individual experiences are part of a larger social structure. By
choosing to conduct informal interviews with young women during dinner, Michelle
Fine and Pat Macpherson illustrate how these women create meaning and engage in a
process of self analysis as they articulate their own experiences with feminism. "Our
talks became an opportunity to "try on" ways of being women, struggling through
power, gender, culture, and class" (Fine and Macpherson, 1992, p. 201).

Finally, it is not sufficient to simply add women to the research equation. Feminist
research is not simply having women engaged as researchers. Nor is it about studying
gender as a category or including women as a variable in research. Feminist research is
about taking women’s location and standpoint in the world as the basis for research,
where "research will proceed from a perspective that values women’s experiences, ideas
and needs rather than assuming we should be more like men" (Weston, 1988, p. 148).
The multiple and often contradictory perspectives of women act as the orientation and
starting point for grounding the research process. This means women’s experiences and
standpoint must be grounded in the larger social and political context of culture.

Knowledge of women’s lives have been absent or constructed from the perspective of
men. What is valued as areas to study, where knowledge arrives from, are areas that are
of interest to men. Specifically, public places or man’s social worlds are what is
investigated in both qualitative and quantitative social science research. Women’s
experiences in public places are made invisible or are spoken about from the view of
men - what they think are the important questions to ask about the public world. "The
overt ideological goal of feminist research in the human sciences is to correct both the
invisibility and distortion of female experience" (Lather, 1988, p. 571). Feminist
research takes women’s situations, concerns, experiences and perspectives as the basis
for research. It embodies women’s experiences in the social world from their own
interpretation and using their language.

Issues that are important to women become the starting point for doing research.
Research has meaning in the world, and feminist research must attend to the meaning
women give to their experiences, what they identify as being topics that concern them.
Women’s societal identification with the private sphere has meant that issues of
importance to women’s lives in the private realm (marital rape, the experience of being
a mother, violence, incest) have been ignored or not defined as issues of importance to
research. What is viewed as important questions to ask and what social phenomenon get
defined as problem areas for exploration have been defined by male researchers.
Women’s lives, experiences, ideas and needs have been absent from social science
research because we live in a world which values male knowledge and perspective and
defines it as being objective truth. "A male view of the social world has become the
view" (Maguire, 1987, p. 82). The questions women have about the world and areas
they experience as problematic are issues that must be addressed by feminist research.
Feminist researchers must attend to language when trying to accurately represent
women’s perspectives and realities. Taking women’s standpoint as the grounding for
research means attending to how women construct and articulate their experiences in
their own words: "the essential meaning of women’s meanings can be grasped only by
listening to the women themselves" (Kasper, 1994, p. 266). This is problematic for
feminist researchers. The writing of social reality is grounded in a language that reflects
male power, male perspective and male control of the definitions of the world.
Language does not equally value women and men and "language, to some extent,
shapes or constructs our notions of reality rather than labelling that reality in any
transparent and straightforward way" (Ehrlich, 1995, p. 45). As Marjorie DeVault
suggests, women use a language not their own to articulate their reality. She uses the
term "translate" to illustrate the process women experience when trying to use language
to convey their perspectives (DeVault, 1990, p. 96). Listening to how women use
language to translate and convey their experiences as women is importance to feminist
research. Since women are the experts and authorities to the situation, the way they
create and give meaning to their experience becomes of central. Language shapes the
words, concepts and stereotypes of society, and in turn also shapes actions, behaviours
and expectations.
In addition, the sexism in everyday language is also contained in the research process.
As feminist researchers, it is important to recognize how language is used to construct
and recreate the dynamics of a research situation. Taking the perspective of women as
the starting point for feminist research means using the language and meanings given by
the participant within the research. It is not sufficient for the researcher to reinterpret
and depict the research subject by using language from outside the context. Listening to
women and the meaning they give to their experiences and using their meanings within
the research is central to feminist research. Listening includes hearing how women
reflect upon their experiences, the feelings and meanings that are conveyed through
their use of language (Anderson et al, 1987, p. 111).

Attending to the use of language within the research process also recognizes the way
language determines and influences the research process. Language informs the
sociological categories that constitute social science research. Our categories and codes
determining what is valued as research have been shaped by male prerogative. Feminist
research that acts from the standpoint of women opens up the possibilities of new topics
for research that go beyond standard social science labels and categories. Language also
enters the research process where it frames the questions being used as the starting
point. Feminist researchers must attend to how research questions are being organized
and the implications suggested by the choice of words (Anderson et al., 1987, p. 114).

I have used three principle categories to outline the defining features of feminist theory.
Different authors construct these issues in feminist research in different ways. Judith
Cook and Mary Margaret Fonow identify 5 basic epistemological principles in feminist
methodology (Cook and Fonow, 1986, p. 5). These include the taking of women and
gender as the focus of analysis; the importance of consciousness raising (feminist
researcher inhabits a double world of women/researcher and brings feminist knowledge
into process); the rejection of subject and object (between researcher and participant -
means valuing the knowledge held by the participant as being expert knowledge; how
research valued as objective is still biased); a concern with ethics (ie use of language,
use of research results); and an intention to empower women and change power
relations and inequality (new knowledge is generated when one challenges the
inequalities in society - validates a new perspective and definition of events). As is
apparent, these five principles have been addressed in different ways within the body of
this essay. Feminist may not agree how to shape or define feminist research, but there is
a high degree of concurrence over the epistemological grounding to the research
process.

Some Limits with Feminist Research

"I think it is important to recognize, acknowledge, and accept the imperfections and the
incompleteness of feminist research goals" (Wolf, 1996, p. 36).

In re-framing the qualitative/quantitative debate to examine the debate between

traditional social science and feminist research, I have intentionally chosen to focus on
the common features of feminist research. This is not to suggest that feminist research is
the ultimate way out of the qualitative/quantitative debate. Within feminist writings on
research is much discussion and division over the value of quantitative research for
feminist theorizing.
One problem I initially confronted with early feminist writings on social science
research was that some authors suggested that quantitative research was inappropriate
for feminist research. The central claim was that the attention to numbers and so called
"hard" data was essentially masculine. These arguments suggest that qualitative
research, with its focus on meaning, definitions and experiences, was somehow more
feminine and better for feminist research due to its emotional underpinning. Yet, this
simply reinforces traditional gender stereotypes.

In some cases, the distrust of quantitative research has been the result of the use of
statistics and numbers to devalue or trivialize the reality of women’s experiences in the
world. For example, the documented number of incest, child and spousal abuse cases
has been statistically small and critics have used these statistics to argue that these were,
therefore, not significant social issues. Statistics do not acknowledge the patriarchal and
sexist climate of social values that do not permit women and children to reveal these
abuses. The problem is not with the quantitative research process, but with the sexist
value and belief system that determines what is researched and how it is questioned.
Sexist and elitist values that support the status quo are not inherent to quantitative
research but are reflective of the larger social milieu. Feminist researchers have been
using quantitative research to provide statistical data that is generalizable about the
experiences of women. This is viewed as being particularly useful in showing the
patterns and influences of multiple factors in shaping attitudes in society (O’Neill, p.
343, 1995). It would also be beneficial to "counter the pervasive and influential
quantitative sexist research which has and continues to be generated in the social
sciences" (Jayaratne, 1983, pp. 158-159).

The valuing of experiential research over numerical based data by some feminists is
also problematic, as it simply seemed to take sides within the qualitative/quantitative
debate yet again. The problem is not with qualitative and quantitative research itself, but
the valuing of one form of research over another and how patriarchal values have
informed both research processes. Ultimately, there are a wide range of methods
available to feminist researchers. Instead of focusing on which type of research is better,
it makes more sense to allow the context and purpose of the research to guide the choice
of research tools and techniques. There is no one method or strategy for feminist
research. In fact, buying into the qualitative/quantitative division ignores one of the
highlights of feminist research, namely, its ability to combine research methods to attain
the widest and most accurate representation of reality. By attending to the context of the
situation as central, feminist researchers can chose methods that will best represent
women’s situations and experiences (Greaves et al., 1995, p. 334). The situation should
guide the methodological choices, instead of having a trust in the method as appropriate
for every context and situation.

Recognising the impact of decisions and choices as part of the feminist research process
is highly significant when trying to define the nature of feminist research. Marianne
Weston sees all research as existing on a fluid scale between traditional research and
ideal feminist research. She argues that one can evaluate to what degree a research
project is feminist by looking at the choices being made by the researcher. In her eyes,
the ideal feminist research process would have the subjects as authorities and owners of
the research, involved in determining the choice of methods and the conducting,
interpreting and writing of the data with the participation of the researcher (Weston,
1988, pp. 146-148). Outlining the principles for feminist research as part of a continuum
recognizes that the researcher has an active role in informing the nature, structure and
shape of the research process. But for Weston, most research that studies women is not
feminist. While I agree that many research projects do not utilize feminism as the
grounding principle, this argument ignores the reality of feminist research as a
negotiated process. While feminist researchers can aim and strive for the ideal feminist
research process, there often exists a large gap between the reality and ideal goals of
doing feminist research. This is an uncomfortable zone of discussion for many feminist
authors. While the desire may be to promote equality in the research process through the
validation of the women’s experiences and enact social change and transformation,
many barriers confront feminist researchers from achieving these aims. The process of
doing research involves a long series of choices and decisions. While feminist beliefs
and concerns will help guide and direct the decision making process, outside forces also
play a key role in the research process. Diana Ralph constructed a power pyramid that
illustrates how power informs the decision making process, where the feminist
researcher is on the bottom of the structure and has more difficulty in controlling the
choices being made (Ralph, 1988, p. 140). The culture or society in which one conducts
research, the external funding agencies, the organizations or individuals who have an
investment in the outcome of the research process, publishers, and even the research
team all significantly impact on the decisions being made pertaining to the research
process.

While the expressed goals of feminist research are to empower women, take women’s
standpoint as the perspective and restructure power imbalances in the research
relationship, attaining these goals can be frustrated by these external forces. Defining
participants as the owners of knowledge may be blocked or resisted by gatekeepers,
such as journal or conference regulations, who demand common standards surrounding
authorship. Bringing the research back to the participants in order to have the material
critiqued and validated can increase costs for the project or may not be seen as
necessary or worthwhile to the research funding agency (Wolf, 1996, p. 33).
Recognizing the degree of control and power the researcher has over the research
process is an issue for feminist researchers to address.

As Joyce Pettigrew acknowledges, in fieldwork observation, the societal expectations

based on gender play a significant role in the research process. As a feminist researcher,
her needs as a researcher to have free access to participants came into conflict with the
cultural expectations for women to be supervised or remain in the home (Pettigrew,
1981, p. 68). Gunseli Berik similarly addresses how one negotiates choices as a feminist
researcher. In her project, she intentionally chose to accept a subordinate social role as a
woman that contradicted her feminist beliefs. She also chose to gather data that would
reflect women’s experiences in rural Turkey instead of promoting and producing social
change (Berik, 1996, p. 57). Her justifications for such decisions illustrate how practical
issues, such as living within a culture and the demands of research on an individual
researcher, influence the outcome of a feminist project. As these two illustrations
suggest, feminist researchers are consciously and intentionally negotiating the structure
and form of feminist research while within the process.

Real life circumstances impact on the degree to which the research is feminist and
suggest that striving to achieve all ideal goals of feminist research is more problematic
than is discussed. Negotiating the chasm that exists between the reality and the ideals of
feminist research can be of personal concern to women as researchers. While choices
and decisions are made throughout all social science research projects, feminist
researchers are negotiating choices that are tied into their own personal belief systems
as feminists (Wolf, 1996, p. 2). Having to conform to societal expectations based on
gender that are contradictory to one’s own identity can be difficult for feminist
researchers. Using one’s identity as a woman as a way of accessing information may be
a strategy available to the feminist researcher, but a strategy that may undermine or
come into conflict with one’s feminist beliefs.

Conclusions

"The challenge is to continue to search for new and better topics, methodologies and
strategies which will liberate women and, perhaps more than that, to challenge us to be
feminists first in our research efforts" (Weston, 1988, p. 149).

So what then, constitutes feminist research? Feminist research is, by definition, research
that utilizes feminist concerns and beliefs to ground the research process. Feminism
takes women as its starting point, seeking to explore and uncover patriarchal social
dynamics and relationships from the perspective of women. Feminism is also a
commitment to social change, arising from the actions of women to refuse the
patriarchal social structure as it stands in favour of a more egalitarian society. Feminism
also addresses the power imbalances between women and men and between women as
active agents in the world. Feminist research seeks to include feminism within the
process, to focus on the meaning women give to their world while recognizing that
research as a process is contained within the same patriarchal relations. Feminist
research is research that uses feminist principles throughout all stages of research, from
choice of topic to presentation of data. These feminist principles also inform and act as
the framework guiding the decisions being made by the researcher.

This is not to suggest that feminist researchers believe that feminist research is one
unified research methodology. There are many varying and diverse interpretations of
what feminist research is and should be. The only agreement seems to be to have no
agreement - to revel in the diversity and recognize that these differences facilitate and
permit different knowledges to be put forth. To seek one feminist research method is
invalid, and simply reinforces patriarchal beliefs in totalizing theory, that there exists
one truth, one knowledge in the world to be objectively discovered. Feminist research is
about multiple, subjective and partial truths. Black feminist writers such as bell hooks
and Patricia Hill Collins have strongly argued against the biases that exist in white
academic feminist writing, such as class exclusion, heterosexism, racism and
ethnocentrism. Feminist research can not claim to speak for all women, but can provide
new knowledge grounded in the realities of women’s experiences and actively enact
structural changes in the social world.

Feminist Research Bibliography