by being men. A better science would be based on women’s domestic experience and practice. Professor Virginia Held offers hope that ‘a feminist standpoint would give us a quite different understanding of even physical reality.’ Conversely, those who are most socially favored, the proverbial white, middle class males, are in the worst epistemic position.
What do mainstream philosophers make of the idea of ‘standpoint theories’? Professor Susan Haack of the University of Miami is one of the most respected epistemologists in the country. She is also an equity feminist. In December 1992 she participated in a symposium on feminist philosophy at meetings of the American Philosophical Association. It was a unique event. For once, someone outside the insular little world of gender feminism was asked to comment on gender feminist theories of knowledge. Watching Professor Haack critique the ‘standpoint theorists’ was a little like watching a chess grandmaster defeat all opponents in a simultaneous exhibition, blindfolded.
Haack told the audience that she finds the idea of ‘female ways of knowing’ as puzzling as the idea of a Republican epistemology or a senior citizens’ epistemology. Some of her arguments are too technical to review here. I cite only a few of her criticisms:
I am not convinced that there are any distinctively female ‘ways of knowing’. All any human being has to go on, in figuring how things are, is his or her sensory experience, and the explanatory theorizing he or she devises to accommodate it; differences in cognitive style, like differences in handwriting, seem more individual then gender-determined.
She pointed out that theories based on the idea that oppression or deprivation results in a privileged standpoint are especially implausible: if they were right, the most disadvantaged groups would produce the best scientists. In fact, the oppressed and socially marginalized often have little access to the information and education needed to excel in science, which on the whole puts them at a serious ‘epistemic disadvantage’. Professor Haack also observed that the female theorists who argue that oppression confers an advantage are not themselves oppressed. She asks: if oppression and poverty are indeed so advantageous, why do so many highly advantaged, middle-class women consider themselves so well situated ‘epistemically’?
Ms Haack identifies herself as an ‘Old Feminist’ who opposes the attempt of ‘the New Feminists to colonize philosophy’. Her reasons for rejecting feminist epistemologies were cogent and, to most of the professional audience, clearly convincing. Unfortunately, her cool, sensible admonitions are not likely to slow down the campaign to promote ‘women’s ways of knowing’.
The gender feminists’ conviction, more ideological than scientific, that they belong to a radically insightful vanguard that compares favourably with the Copernicuses and Darwins of the past animates their revisionist theories of intellectual and artistic excellence and inspires their program to transform the knowledge base. Their exultation contrasts with the deep reluctance of most other academics to challenge the basic assumptions underlying feminist theories of knowledge and education. The confidence of the one and the trepidation of the other combine to make transformationism a powerfully effective movement that has so far proceeded unchecked in the academy.’
In an effort to learn more about militant feminism in the United Kingdom I googled the keyword ‘feminism’. It resulted in ‘about 114,000’ website hits. I gained the firm impression after just a few website visits that militant feminism is well and truly the product of, and sustained by, academics; and therefore financed by long-suffering British taxpayers. Almost all these academics are women, it need hardly be said. From the website of the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association, Fwsa.org.uk:
‘The FWSA is a UK-based network promoting feminist research and teaching, and women’s studies nationally and internationally. Through its elected executive committee, the FWSA is involved in developing policy on issues of central importance to feminist scholars in further and higher education, supporting postgraduate events and enabling feminist research. Committed to raising awareness of women’s studies, feminist research and women-related issues in secondary and tertiary education, the FWSA liaises regularly with other gender-related research and community networks as well as with policy groups.’
In a later chapter we shall read of a curious seminar advertised on the FWSA website, ‘Experiencing and Celebrating Fatness’. For the purpose of this chapter let’s consider another:
‘Celebrating the feminist within
22nd September 2010 – University of East Anglia
July 30, 2010
Feminist academics in leadership positions report difficulty pursuing feminist ideals [Author’s note: at last, some positive news…], often preferring to leave their ‘radical’ feminist identities at home with some professing desires to unite their dual identities of scholar and activist. Black feminists are particularly marginalised within academia, although the increased diversity of the student population in the UK brings hope for a new generation of black feminists entering the academy. To counter the apparent attitudes in academia that are suspicious of feminists and feminism, the Centre for Diversity and Equality in Careers and Employment Research (Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia) is holding a one day free networking event for up to 40 female and male feminist academics, research staff and PhD students on the 22nd September, 2010. The day will:
- promote wider debate of what feminism can mean in academia and research;
- provide a platform for feminist academics from a range of backgrounds (age, class, gender, ethnicity, discipline) to share their experiences;
- bring discussions about feminism in universities into the open;
- provide networking opportunities to help reduce feelings of isolation and possibly lead to future collaborative projects, particularly for early career researchers, and;
- act as a pilot event for similar events in other regions in the UK.’
We couldn’t ask for clearer evidence that the militant feminist world is a closed one. The term ‘male feminist’ is enough to make any man shudder, but the FWSA had posted a message from one such person on its website, so presumably believed it had some merit:
‘I wonder if your research and curiosity ever brings you to look at our understanding of nuclear power and the Atomic World. Our knowledge of this subject derives entirely from a masculine way of looking and thinking about the already invisible world of the atomic particles. Our knowledge is consequently overlain with patrician and misogynist perceptions. No wonder it creates such messy issues.
I’ve gone some way towards developing a more balanced account. There’s some surprising things to see. Nuclear fission is essentially a story of passion and romance, and finally despair. Impossible for our physicists to understand. Oh! [Author’s note: a nice dramatic touch, that ‘Oh!’ Nurse, fetch the smelling salts…] This whole subject dearly needs feminine insight and values, to make it whole. Please don’t pass it by.
Thanks and good wishes,
<name supplied>’
This perspective was so reminiscent of those found in Women’s Ways of Knowing that I felt compelled to post the following reply:
‘I was interested to read your post about the Atomic World. I have a number of questions:
- in what sense is our knowledge of atomic particles ‘overlain with patrician and misogynistic perceptions’?
- when I graduated with a science degree over 30 years ago, nuclear fission was already very well understood.
