Feminist Research by Dr Ranjay Vardhan India
Ranjay Vardhan, Govt. College for Girls, Sector 42, Chandigarh (affiliated to Panjab University, Chandigarh), India, ranjayvardhan@yahoo.com
Feminist Research: Challenges before Male Researchers
Feminist research has emerged as a legitimate, relevant and popular research model. The quality and the validity of its findings are beyond contention, and over the years it has produced a significant output that has provided guidelines for policies central to modern societies (Roberts, 1981). Its domain is wide and diverse, and so are its basic methodological principles. The foundations of feminist research are those of critical theory, and hence this research model is critical and emancipatory. It studies the social conditions of women in a sexist, male-stream and patriarchal society (Stanley and Wise, 1983) and enlightens people about taken-for-granted sexist practices that displaced, ignored and silenced women, leading to an unequal and discriminating social order, and held them captive for millennia. It also indicates the gender-blindness of government and community practices in the subjugation of the females. Hence, the focus of research that binds together all branches of feminist research is their strong commitment to changing the status of women in modern societies and studying women. Different waves of `feminisms ' lead to women 's differing interests in topics for research, preference for techniques, theories for interpreting what they see as going on, and conclusions about what new actions need to be taken. Feminist research is done both by men and women and it is wrong to ask the question can men do feminist research. Some men are pro-feminist and others are engaged in anti-patriarchal research. They are doing research on women 's experience directly despite limitation of their gender and labels of being chauvinist. They face difficulties in collection of data on women on sensitive issues and at times there may be refusals to share the
Feminist Research: Challenges before Male Researchers
Feminist research has emerged as a legitimate, relevant and popular research model. The quality and the validity of its findings are beyond contention, and over the years it has produced a significant output that has provided guidelines for policies central to modern societies (Roberts, 1981). Its domain is wide and diverse, and so are its basic methodological principles. The foundations of feminist research are those of critical theory, and hence this research model is critical and emancipatory. It studies the social conditions of women in a sexist, male-stream and patriarchal society (Stanley and Wise, 1983) and enlightens people about taken-for-granted sexist practices that displaced, ignored and silenced women, leading to an unequal and discriminating social order, and held them captive for millennia. It also indicates the gender-blindness of government and community practices in the subjugation of the females. Hence, the focus of research that binds together all branches of feminist research is their strong commitment to changing the status of women in modern societies and studying women. Different waves of `feminisms ' lead to women 's differing interests in topics for research, preference for techniques, theories for interpreting what they see as going on, and conclusions about what new actions need to be taken. Feminist research is done both by men and women and it is wrong to ask the question can men do feminist research. Some men are pro-feminist and others are engaged in anti-patriarchal research. They are doing research on women 's experience directly despite limitation of their gender and labels of being chauvinist. They face difficulties in collection of data on women on sensitive issues and at times there may be refusals to share the
References: Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (1993) Feminist Epistemologies, Routledge, London Alcoff, L Burton, Dawn, 2000, Research Training for Social Scientists, Sage Publications, London Code, L May, Tim, 2001, Social Research; Issues, methods and processes, Open University Press, Buckingham Oakley A Ramazanoğlu, Caroline and Holland, Janet, 2002. Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications Sharlene Nagy and Hesse-Biber and Michelle L Shulamit Reinharz, 1992. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press. Somekh, Bridget and Lewin, Cathy, 2005, Vistaar Publications, New Delhi Stanley, L Vardhan Ranjay, 2008, Single Women: A Study of Spinsters, Indian Publishers Distributors, Delhi Vardhan Ranjay, 2009, European Union Manifesto and Other Essays, Indian Publishers Distributors, Delhi