Feminism is relevant to social epistemology because most of humanity is female, and gender has always been an important basis for demarcating spheres of knowledge and power. However, a defining ambiguity running through the heart of feminism is whether it is primarily about women as such or women as a privileged perspective from which to pursue the universal project of humanity. This ambiguity is captured in the dual meaning of “standpoint” in terms of both specific location (or situatedness) and source of an overarching vision. The word “standpoint” derived from the kind of epistemic privilege that the Marxist philosopher Georg Lukàcs had attributed to the proletariat. Specifically, as the bulk of the labour force, the proletariat are necessary for the operation of capitalism, yet their subordinate social position renders their stake in the perpetuation of capitalism minimal. This semi-detachment constituted a sociological simulation of objectivity. It was also exactly the position alleged for women, according to feminist theorists such as Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway. Women and workers shared several salient characteristics that gave them epistemic power, which (hopefully) could be translated into political power: their numerical majority, their relative invisibility from society's legitimizing narratives, and their material centrality to crucial moments in societal reproduction.

Nevertheless, by the time the concept of standpoint migrated from Marxism to feminism in the early 1980s, its universalist (see universalism versus relativism) pretensions had already been seriously eroded within Marxism.