INTRODUCTION

In earlier chapters, three often-used research techniques, quantitative social surveys, qualitative interviewing, and participant observation, have been presented. Although quantitative and qualitative approaches differ from each other in many ways, in practice most of them do share a commitment to mainstream social science. The foci of this chapter, by contrast, are feminist methods that are based in a fundamental critique of conventional social science, its methods, and the roots of the knowledge on which it is based. Today, feminist methods represent a prime example of the research imagination, literally imagining a less conventional purpose for research. Feminists claim that patriarchal, or male-centered, perspectives and concerns have historically dominated mainstream research. They believe that their methods are more likely to produce valid findings or truthful and inclusive accounts of social experience.

Although some feminist research tools are new, many others are identical to the surveys and interviews you have already read about. feminist methods, therefore, are not so much a specific toolkit as they are a distinctive perspective or understanding of research practices. So, in this chapter, before the methods or techniques themselves can be specified, considerable attention must be devoted to feminist theory because the perspective that informs feminist method is embedded in theory.

From the feminist perspective, all knowledge is “socially located and situated” and thus partial or incomplete. That is, one's position in the social system of gender and class relations influences how research is conducted and, ultimately, one's research findings.