Difficulty of Men Conducting Feminist Research

In McDowell’s article, “Doing Gender”, she outlined the fears of every graduate student, especially those of us who study outside of the norm. She describes students in the geography department not studying feminist issue due to the perception that studying those issues will not lead to academic advance. I, as a man studying women’s studies, fear the same thing and believe McDowell did a disservice by only addressing women studying feminism in her article. I was practically shocked when she stated in describing qualitative research popular in women’s studies that, “it is often argued that qualitative, small scale, and case study work is ideally suited to women studying women” (406). I realize she is critiquing the assumptions made about female feminist scholars but the entire tone of her article seems to ensure that gender studies become “female ghettos” which she states needs to be addressed (403).  

           

Scott in “Evidence of Experience” reminds us of the difficulty of studying the other. She reminds us that experience affects our research. In other words, my experience as a man will always affect any feminist project I undertake. I need to be careful in my work to ensure that I am not only studying women in terms of their oppression but I also need to look at the privilege of men which my experience will be both helpful and a hindrance.  

           

Miraftab in “Can you Belly Dance”, shows us that the research subject can be an equal partner in our research and we should engage them as such. We need to pay particular attention to the power imbalance inherent in the research relationship and if I am to study women I need to be particularly careful.

           

As a man in the women’s studies field I will have to be careful at all times to ensure I use feminist research methods at all times and do not let my male privilege affect my research. Even though this research will be quite difficult it will be both personally and intellectually rewarding.

Work Cited:

McDowell, L. (1992). Doing gender: feminism, feminists, and research methods in human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series, 17(4), 399-416.

Scott, J. (1991). The evidence of experience. Critical Inquiry, 17(4), 773-797.

Miraftab, F. (2004). Can you belly dance? methodological questions in the era of transnational feminist research. Gender, Place and Culture, 11(4), 595-604.

  

Exploring Five Things Men Must Do

I thank the.strenuous.briefness for taking the time to respond to my open question regarding what feminist men should teach other men about feminism even though I “shouldn’t expect [women] to want or be ready to discuss where [men] fit in or what role [they] should take” I applaud her work because it moves beyond the call for and joy for by feminists for men to join their movement and offers practical facts and warnings for men as they head on that endeavor. She lists five things that men should do which I explore below:

Teach men humility:
This recommendation points to the difficulty that the men will have as he becomes a feminist and points to what I have encounter as a feminist. Yes, feminists are happy when men join their movement but one cannot see this as a congratulatory sign. All people should be feminists and work towards the end of feminism. We must listen to feminists that came before us, reflect on their work, and only then can we add to the feminist discourse.

Teach men that they have unearned privilege:
This recommendation will also be difficult for men to internalize. Yes, racist, gay, female jokes are bad and unfortunately are also a big part of male culture. Male culture needs to change and one’s masculinity should not be questioned if a man rejects a part of male culture. When men question why they should be part of the feminist movement and all the things they claim they will lose illustrate for them what they will gain with the ending of gender binaries and all that they will be able to do when they are not constrained by their masculinity.

Teach men to account for their unearned privilege:
Men need to be careful when teaching/learning about women’s studies as it is impossible to check our male privilege at the door. We need to listen more then we speak. We can’t expect to have women council us through our emotions and we cannot assume we know the oppression of women just because we are also oppressed in some way in our lives. For the most part, we are on this journey only with other men and we need to counsel ourselves and take advice from each other on how to adopt to this feminist world view.

Teach men they are not the first, nor the only:
Yes, there are other male feminists that are out their. We need to not only read and discuss their work but we need to become unified to learn about how the feminist struggle will affect us as men and find concrete ways to incorporate feminism into both our own lives and into masculinity. When we do this we need to make sure men of color are included in this conversation as they have important insights to share.

Teach men to work with us, not for us:
All of humanity is in this together and we need to treat this endeavor as such. We need to listen to the conversation that is already in progress and work towards fulfilling the goals of the conversation. Only after completing this step can we fully be true partners in the feminist movement.

Getting Away from Generalizations under Western Eyes

Mohanty teaches us that we need to be careful when doing research that we not make assumptions about people who do not live in the west. We need to see the world through a global lens and not a western lens. We cannot assume that religious women are not progressive, family oriented women are traditional, illiterate women are ignorant, or domestic women are backwards (Mohanty: 1984, 352). We need to take into account all the complexities and history of a particular group and not let our pre-conceived notions (read western) effect the conclusions of our work.


As an example of this Mohanty briefly looks at the veiled Arab women an example I will further expand upon comparing western ideas of the veiled Arab to reality while comparing this image to the non-veiled western women (Mohanty: 1984, 342). In the western world we see the American women as having a lot of choice. Our western eyes see this woman as having the option of choosing a partner of either gender, choosing whether she wants to cohabitate before marriage, choosing whether is even going to get married and choosing if she will have children. Our western eyes tell us that everything the western woman is allowed to do the Arab women is not allowed to do. Because of this many see the Arab women as being more oppressed and less “happy” then the western women. But by looking at it from another point of view where sexual violence and divorce (50% divorce rate) runs rampant in the western world we see the Arab women as having a more stable life.

Even the above analysis while flipping some beliefs on their head does exactly what Mohanty tells us not to do. She tells us not to generalize (Sexual violence, and divorce exist in the Arab world) and to take into account history and location (different practices in different countries, what exactly does Arab refer to? What exactly does western refer to?) We need to escape from these categories and study specific peoples.

In Mohanty’s attempt to revisit her original work she is able to further revise and refine her thinking (Mohanty: 2002, 500). In this article she challenges us to rethink how women ’s studies teaches students about global women. She suggests that we incorporate global women into all of our courses and not just courses that have a global focus (Mohanty: 2002, 518-523). This will allow future scholars of women’s studies to be global in their thinking and not make mistakes of looking through the world through a western lens of generalizations and assumptions.



Work Cited:

Mohanty, C. (1984). Under western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourse. boundary 2, 12(3), 333-358.

Mohanty, C. (2002). “Under western eyes” revisited: feminist solidarity through anticapitalist struggles. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 28(21), 499-535.

Breaking Down Concrete Walls

Interdiciplinarity is a buzzword in women’s studies departments. So much so that in my program we are required to take a course in a discipline new to us (the interdiciplinarity requirement), and we are constantly told that one of the cornerstones of feminist research is interdiciplinarity. Because of this I found Davis critique of interdiciplinarity to be very interesting. In his article he suggests that administrators see interdiciplinarity to be a cost cutting and reorganizing measure and that many scholars use interdiciplinarity as an excuse to teach a class in a discipline that they are interested in but only an amateur of. If this is how interdiciplinarity is seen in the academic community then why does women’s studies hold that interdiciplinarity is so important?

Using Davis’s definition of true interdiciplinarity (which he believes not everyone in the academy subscribes to), “being willing to let go of what you know so well and free fall into what is only beginning to be formulated” I would suggest that this definition is also the definition of what women’s studies has done and continues to do in the academy. Women’s studies imagines a world where we let go of the patriarchal structures and beliefs that the academy (and the world) so strongly subscribes to and discover a true knowledge without patriarchal undertones. Because of this, women’s studies seeks to be revolutionary and forget about the concrete walls that separate disciplines to allow knowledge to be created. I would suggest that women’s studies is one of the “new disciplines” that Davis calls for the creation of and I only wish other departments and university structures as a whole be broken down to allow for more true interdiciplinarity to occur within the academy.

Work Cited:
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Grand-Unified-Theory-of/13328/

Pushing the Boundaries of Feminist Research: Reflectivity: The Importance of Qualitative/Quantitative Hybrid Research

Reflectivity- the quality of being reflective is an important part of the feminist literature. Fonow and Cook identify that almost all pieces of feminist research contain some kind of reflective quality in them (2218). Because of this feminist research has been accused of being biased and only reflective of the author’s opinions or experiences. I believe the opposite to be true. All work is in some way reflective of the author even if it is fiction. It is impossible not to let your own opinions drift into your work and by being reflective and telling your audience what your standing is to the issue they can better understand the value in the conclusion you have drawn. This is especially important when one embarks on empirical research. As Presser shows us, something as simple as one's gender can affect your findings and by being able to reflect on her interviews with convicts and ex-convicts she contributed an important finding to the field: that “stories are constructed situationally” (Pressor, 2087).
        

While reading Pressor’s account, I could only find myself agreeing with her belief that stories are constructed situationally and that if someone of a different gender was interviewing the subjects in a different environment and gave different responses to their answers the subjects would tell their story in a different way. This then calls into question empirical research and fields such as women’s studies that rely so heavily on work that is based on empirical research. This is why as feminist researchers we need to also base our findings on quantitative methods. This will help us create convincing arguments that will in turn help our political activism and create social change (Fonow and Cook, 2226).  

  

When doing global research in the developing world it is especially important to use this hybrid model. An example of this is when measuring women’s participation in government we need to look at both the number of women that are in parliament in addition to the quality of their participation and its impact on society (Beetham and Demetriades, 205). If we were to just look at the number of women in parliament (quantity), it would not give us significant information because those women may not be allowed to have their voices heard. On the other hand if we only looked at the quality of their participation, their might be just one women in parliament who makes quality contributions. This quantity/quality model then is used to determine that we are looking at the most accurate picture as possible.   

It is important that we as feminist researchers continue to challenge the traditional methodologies that constrain traditional disciplines. At the same time I believe that we need to expand the definition of feminist research. Feminist research cannot and should not be just defined as research by a woman seeking to end the oppression of women. It should also include men that do research on ending gender binaries in a way that challenges the status quo. When reading the articles that are cited in this post, I was deeply frustrated by their unstated assumptions that feminist research is only done by women (Negotiating Power and Narratives in Research: Implications for Feminist Methodology) or that the only feminism worth studying is to advance the status of women in the world (Feminist Research Methodologies and Development: Overview and Practical Application, and Feminist Methodology: New Applications in the Academy and Public Policy). Feminism needs to open its tent not only to include nontraditional research methods but also to include research that challenges the basic tenets of feminism.       

Work Cited:
Beetham, G, & Demetriades, J. (2007). Feminist research methodologies and development: overview and practical application. Gender and Development, 15(2), 199-216.

Fonow, M, & Cook, J. (2005). Femenist methodology: new applications in the academy and public policy. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(4), 2211-2236.

Presser, L. (2005). Negotiating power and narrative in research: implications for feminist methodology. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(4), 2211-2236.