Feminism and Social Science
Sociologists Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne in an article on the state of feminist theory in sociology lament that feminism has failed to radically transform paradigms in sociology. They are especially discouraged about sociology as compared to anthropology, about whose progress they are more optimistic than I. They contend that feminism has been somehow contained or coopted by either functionalist or Marxist traditions within sociology and that feminist thinking has been more successful in changing interpretive rather than positivist traditions.[4]
It is unrealistic to expect feminist approaches to effect anything like a total transformation in the positivist tradition in social science. Perhaps some of the "empirical" analyses we as feminists are so afraid of are "telling it like it is" but interpreting it wrongly. In my view, empiricism can be used in the service of a radical critique of "the way things are." Beyond this, it is essential that feminists also use empiricism to help in understanding why we see things as we do. Feminism itself could not have been "invented" in other times and places.
While Audre Lorde is probably correct to contend that one cannot use the masters tools to dismantle the masters house,[5] the tools of social science do not belong just to the master. A better analogy is that social science tools are knives that can cut both ways. It is neither possible nor necessary to start from scratch and dismantle the edifice. This is not to deny the pervasiveness of male bias in the social sciences, but science itself is not totally a male construction nor has it been impervious to feminist input. I believe feminist scholars (and I include myself here) are emerging from the era of the global critique of "man-made" science and are being more selective in their criticism. We really do not want a women's so-
ciology, or a women's anthropology, or, for that matter, a women's "science."
Feminism's contribution to "social science" could be to encourage a broader focus and to discourage disciplinary parochialism. Feminism itself is interdisciplinary, and we need to make connections between disciplines that will shift and merge paradigms but not totally destroy them. In this book I discuss data from many different disciplines and various feminist perspectives. The feminism that informs my approach is one that applauds women's less hierarchical ways of thinking and women's ability to see connections instead of conflict. I try in this book to demonstrate the value of applying this approach to an examination of women's situation and to feminism itself. I hope that my analysis will help bridge some of the failures of communication between disciplines, between feminists, and between feminists and social scientists.
This is a book not of discovery but of interpretation. Much of what I do is to take an analytical approach to what radical feminists have been saying about heterosexual relations all along. I differ from many radical feminists, however, in my more positive view of "the maternal" and in my belief that inequality is not inherent or inevitable in heterosexual relations. I have no particular quarrel with many Marxist-feminist analyses, and my focus on ideological factors and noneconomic structures is done in the spirit not of minimizing material factors but rather of balancing the account.
My goal is to be sensitive to the diversity of women's experience but not to give up on the possibility of making meaningful generalizations by following through on a few simple distinctions. I try to maintain a focus on the problem of male dominance while locating this dominance more specifically in heterosexual interactions rather than in women's mothering.