References
Joan Acker, Kate Barry and Joke Esseveld (1983) “Objectivity and Truth: Problems in Doing Feminist Research” Women’s Studies International Forum. 6(4): 423-435.
Bat-Ami Bar On (1993) “Marginality and Epistemic Privilege” in Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds.) Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge pp. 83-100.
Lorraine Code (1993) “Taking Subjectivity Into Account” in Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds.) Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge pp. 23-57.
Lorraine Code (2014) “Feminist Epistemology and the Politics of Knowledge: Questions of Marginality” in Mary Evans et al. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Feminist Theory. London: Sage pp. 9-25.
Patricia Hill Collins (2000) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. London: Routledge.
Donna Haraway (1988) “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” Feminist Studies 14(3): 581-607.
Sandra Harding (1986) The Science Question in Feminism. London: Cornell University Press.
Sandra Harding (1993) “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is ‘Strong Objectivity’?” in Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (eds.) Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge pp. 49-82.
Nancy Hartsock (1983) “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism” in Sandra Harding (ed.) Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues. Bloomington: Indiana University Press pp. 157-180.
Nancy Hartsock (1997) “Comment on Heckman’s ‘Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory REvisited’: Truth or Justice?” Signs 22(2): 367-374.
Dorothy Smith (1974) “Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology” Sociological Inquiry 44: 7-13.
Dorothy Smith (1977) “Some Implications of a Sociology for Women” In Nona Glazer and Helen Waehrer (eds.) Woman in a Man-Made World: A Socioeconomic Handbook. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Patricia Williams (1991) The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Pages: 1 2
We got 7 accepted and 3-5 were progressing favourably.
1) “In a sense, they are correct in this; ‘subjectivity’ is indeed understood as more rigorous than ‘objectivity,’ and the fields in which we work are fundamentally political and politicized. Where they err, however, is in thinking that these characteristics of our fields are problems.”
OK, then. This works. Our claim was that this happens and people in the fields think it is fine. You have confirmed this. We can continue arguing about whether this is good or not.
2)”Their claim that there is something particularly wrong about ‘grievance studies’ also entails some spectacular ‘looking away’ because, surprise!, similar critiques have been also tested in other scientific fields (see, for instance, this blog post for the case of psychology).”
We do claim there is something particularly wrong in grievance studies. This does not imply that there is nothing particularly wrong in other fields of study. The thing with particular fields is that they tend to have particular problems. We are addressing epistemology and ethics because those are our areas of research. We support people in psychology who are addressing its replication problem.
“Curiously, they suggest feminist academia encourages ‘an epistemological and moral relativism’, yet critique feminist thought for its unique and pernicious dogmatism. ”
We don’t criticise “feminist” critique. We criticise a particular form of feminist epistemology which draws on intersectionality and critical race theory and queer theory – in short the branch of feminist “theory” which drew on and evolved from postmodern theory. We used French feminist ideas of fragmentation and pluralism once because it drew on postmodern ideas which are shared by the cultural constructivists although their work diverges considerably after that. We avoided critiquing liberal, radical, materialist and socialist feminism because this is not what we were exploring here and, in fact, some of the strongest support for our project has come from these feminists. We even had one of our papers (Mein Kampf) be very critical of liberal, neo-liberal & choice feminism and postfeminism because we knew that would go down well with our targeted feminists – the intersectional and critical race epistemologists.
3) Again, we know that people in the field will consider papers like Hooter’s perfectly acceptable. They are proper papers drawing on much scholarship. This is why we objected to people calling them “hoaxes” and keep stressing that we wrote proper papers via which we tested various ideas about what can be acceptable and that what we did can be better understood as a kind of uncontrolled reflexive ethnography. Hooters and HoH2 are the most orthodox, We have many disclaimers and mention of limitations because it adds to the silliness and also navigates anticipated objections. The thesis of Hooters was that the writer would go and watch men being attracted to women and create a complicated analysis that this is because they wanted to recreate patriarchy where they could order women about it. It’s an example of reading a situation through a preconceived power balance.
Anyway, thank you for your review! I am grateful that you actually read some of our papers before doing so.
How do we know that certain groups are discriminated or oppressed? We know about the gender pay gap because we have statistics about how men and women are paid. We know that African Americans are economically deprived because of socio-economic data and we know that they have a long history of discrimination behind because of historical facts. On the other hand, we know that the claim that whites in South Africa would be undergoing a “genocide” is bogus because the actual probability to be a homicide victim in South Africa is lower for whites than for blacks. Power relations cannot really be understood, analyzed let alone transformed without reference to some kind of truth and objective reality.The problem with the approach that Helen Pluckhouse has called “grievance studies” is that the latter, while claiming to reject “objectivity”, in reality reposes on a dogmatic understanding of truth, it just does not spell it out.
[…] Engenderings – Study Your Grievances – “In this vein, maybe Pluckrose et al. could spend the next year actually doing the research that they faked. This could, perhaps, contribute towards understanding the dynamics of dominance that they so gleefully — and with apparent ease — spent their time narrating.” And who paid for all this? Still not revealed. […]