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Standpoint theory is a

women. They have a distinctive outlook because their experiences are different from those of people who occupy other positions in society. (Tanesini 1999) Women have access to a special standpoint that gives them an epistemic advantage

or makes them ‘epistemically privileged’. (Saul 2003:240)

Marxist Origin

epistemic viewpoint

. (Tanesini 1999)

Defining Feminist Standpoint

The original formulations of feminist standpoint theory hold that women’s labor, like workers’ labor, gives them access to a privileged perspective on social reality. (Saul 2003) Their work in giving birth to and raising the next generation, and in supplying the basic necessities of daily life for themselves and their families, makes them especially central to society’s functioning. As a result, women were said to have access to a privileged standpoint for understanding the world. (Saul 2003)

Sexual division of labor

commodities

. (Hartsock 1998)

“Women’s

epistemic privilege of their perspective

.” (Tanesini 1999:140)

Insider/outside status

social role that a woman’s experiences reflect more accurately than a man’s the reality

of current relations. (Smith 1988)

Criticism

experiences

which pertains to women seems to presuppose that women have essential features and to ignore the many important differences among women.” (Tanesini 1999:145)

Objective thought

colleague as either a normal form of interaction between men and women in the workplace, or as an instance of sexual harassment

. (Tanesini 1999:150)

Harding stresses objectivity in defining standpoint by starting research from women’s lives rather than experiences. In doing so, it is recognized that experience is not immediately given but assumes some theory and understanding. (Harding 1991) Objectivity also acknowledges that women belonging to different groups lead different lives. (Harding 1991)

For Harding, a person has taken up a feminist standpoint if they manage to ‘start their thought’ from women’s lives. (Saul 2003:245) It is not only women who are capable of doing this, according to her, although it comes more easily to women. (Saul 2003) Harding maintains that it is possible for men to take up a woman’s standpoint, or for whites to take up a black standpoint. (Saul 2003)

Multiple Standpoints

historically shared, group-based experience”. (Collins 1997:375) Groups have a degree of permanence over time such that group realities transcend individual

experiences. For her, standpoint theory places less emphasis on individual experiences within socially constructed groups than on social conditions that construct such groups. (Collins 1997)

Take, for example, the differences between how U.S. Black women> interpret their experiences as single mothers and how prevailing
job discrimination, inadequate child support, inferior housing, and street violence, far too much social science research seems mesmerized by images of lazy ‘welfare
queens’ content to stay on the dole.
— (Collins 2000:255)

Collins (2000) also maintains that there are a variety of privileged standpoints and that each provide privileged yet partial knowledge- a black

heterosexual and an Asian man all have different standpoints available to them, and each standpoint is epistemically privileged in its own way. None of these standpoints can be considered the best for obtaining knowledge, but each should instead be considered vital for providing at least part of the truth

.

Each group speaks from its own standpoint and shares its own situated knowledge. But because each group perceives its own truth as partial, its knowledge is unfinished. Each group becomes better able to consider other groups’ standpoints without relinquishing the uniqueness of its own standpoint or suppressing other groups’ partial perspectives.
— (Collins 2000:270)

A Privileged Standpoint

Men have predominantly ruled the field of

errors and things that have been left out. (Saul 2003) One can argue that better science can be done from a women’s standpoint because women are more likely to notice mismatches between theory and reality

. (Saul 2003)

Women also have (in general) less

scientific

issues. (Saul 2003)

References

Collins, Patricia Hill (1997). ‘Comment on Hekman’s Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited: Where’s the Power?’. Signs 22(2): 375.

Collins, Patricia Hill (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.

Gardner, Catherine Villanueva (2006). Historical Dictionary of Feminist Philosophy. Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Harding, Sandra (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Hartsock, Nancy (1983). ‘The Feminist Standpoint Theory: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism’. In Sandra Harding, and Merrill B. Hintikka (Eds), Discovering Reality. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp.283-310.

Hartsock, Nancy (1998). The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays. Oxford: Westview Press.

Saul, Jennifer Mather (2003). Feminism: Issues and Arguments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Smith, Dorothy (1988). The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Tanesini, Alessandra (1999). An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies. Oxford: Blackwell.

External Links

Standpoint Theory: http://www.afirstlook.com/manual6/ed6man34.pdf

Feminist Epistemology: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/

Nancy Hartsock: http://www.stumptuous.com/comps/hartsock.html

Sandra Harding: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/281/5383/1599?ck=nck http://jac.gsu.edu/jac/15.2/Articles/1.htm

Patricia Hill Collins: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/252.html http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/courses/BLKFEM.HTML