Is Longino's Conception of Objectivity Feminist?

Helen Longino's account of objectivity has been highly regarded by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science. However, I have encountered three feminist philosophers who have all offered one especially compelling feminist critique of Longino's view: far from vindicating or privileging the work of feminist scientists, Longino's account actually requires the active cultivation of anti‐feminist and misogynist scientists to balance out the possibility of feminist bias. I call this objection the Nazi problem, for the particular version that claims that her view requires even the active cultivation of Nazi scientists in objective inquiry. In this paper I consider one response to the Nazi problem, which I call the good faith argument. I show that the good faith argument itself is just as objectionable, on feminist grounds, as the Nazi problem it is meant to address.     

Humankind at a Turning Point? Feminist Perspectives

This paper was presented at the XIX World Congress of Philosophy, “Mankind at a Turning Point: Philosophical Perspectives” held in Moscow, August 22-28, 1993. The author, representing the International Association of Women Philosophers, criticizes the use of “Mankind” in the Congress title and incorporates a resolution, subsequently passed unanimously by the steering committee of the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophic, that calls for the use of non-sexist language at future World Congresses.     

Is Pregnancy Necessary? Feminist Concerns About Ectogenesis

To what extent are women obliged to be child-bearers? If reproductive technology could offer some form of ectogenesis, would feminists regard it as a liberating reproductive option? Three lines of reproductive rights arguments currently used by feminists are applied to ectogenesis. Each fails to provide strong grounds for prohibiting it. Yet, there are several ways in which ectogenesis could contribute to women's oppression, in particular, if it were used to undermine abortion rights, reinforce traditional views of fertility, increase fetal rights in pregnancy, and perpetuate the unequal distribution of scarce medical resources. A re-thinking of women's relationship to pregnancy is needed in order to challenge ectogenetic research.     

What Can Feminist Epistemology Do for Surgery?

Surgery is an important part of contemporary health care, but currently much of surgery lacks a strong evidence base. Uptake of evidence‐based medicine (EBM) methods within surgical research and among practitioners has been slow compared with other areas of medicine. Although this is often viewed as arising from practical and cultural barriers, it also reflects a lack of epistemic fit between EBM research methods and surgical practice. In this paper we discuss some epistemic challenges in surgery relating to this lack of fit, and investigate how resources from feminist epistemology can help to characterize them. We point to ways in which these epistemic challenges may be addressed by gathering and disseminating evidence about what works in surgery using methods that are contextual, pluralistic, and sensitive to hierarchies.     

Do Promise Keepers Dream of Feminist Sheep?

This article describes a qualitative researchstudy of Promise Keeper fathers. Twenty-two middleclass, primarily White suburban fathers were interviewedin focus groups abouttheir fathering experiences. The grounded theory analysis found that the menwere experiencing gender role strain as they tried toconform to traditional masculine role norms. The PromiseKeeper movement provided them with an ideology and social supportsystem that facilitated theirbecoming more involved fathers, while simultaneouslyreassuring them that they were the leaders of theirfamilies. Using these supports, the men were able to construct a more personally gratifyingfatherhood identity. These results suggest a possibleinterpretation of why the Promise Keeper movement hasappealed to more men than has the pro-feminist men's movement.     

Kitzinger’s Feminist Conversation Analysis: Critical Observations

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions on feminism and the analysis of discourse. In particular, I examine Celia Kitzinger’s [(2000), Doing feminist conversation analysis. Feminism and Psychology, 10, 163–193 and (2002) Doing feminist conversation analysis. In P. McIlvenny (Ed.), Talking gender and sexuality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.] claims to be engaged in “feminist conversation analysis.” This paper identifies susceptibilities in her arguments at both the theoretical level and the level of data analysis. My argument is that Kitzinger fails to appreciate the fact that her enterprise is basically a formal analytic one and that as such it is both radically different from, and incommensurate with, ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA). Indeed her attempts to supplement feminism with EM/CA are unnecessary and counterproductive from an EM/CA position insofar as they crucially undermine its integrity.

Do Feminist Women Feel Better About their Lives? Examining Patterns of Feminist Identity Development and Women’s Subjective Well-being

Relations between women’s patterns of feminist identity development and their subjective well-being were explored through an online study with a sample of 691 women ages 18 to 83 from across the United States. The results of a hierarchical cluster analysis indicated that women fall into three groups based on their feminist identity development processes: Women with Traditional Values, Women with Moderate Values, and Women with Feminist Values. The results of the analysis of covariance showed that women who held feminist and moderate values scored significantly higher on a measure of overall well-being—particularly on subscales measuring purpose in life, autonomy, and personal growth—than women with traditional values.     

Radical Visionaries – Feminist Psychotherapists: 1970–1975

ABSTRACT

The work of feminist scholars, activists, therapists, and theorists has continuously impacted the United States and international cultural narrative since the radical days of the 1960s and 1970s. This special issue was created to highlight contributors to this remarkable transformation by documenting the narratives of their lives and careers. These profiles, nearly all written by or with the pioneers themselves, highlight their contributions to feminism, feminist psychology, and the vast societal change that followed their work.     

What Good is a Feminist Identity?: Women’s Feminist Identification and Role Expectations for Intimate and Sexual Relationships

Women’s feminist identification is associated with a growing list of favorable outcomes, predicting that these correlations will extend to egalitarian and assertive role expectations for committed and sexual partnerships, respectively. Surveying 165 undergraduate US women, nonfeminist passive acceptance was linked to low egalitarian expectations overall and across all seven subscales of the marriage role expectation inventory. It also was related to depressed sexual assertiveness overall and specifically in initiating sexual encounters and engaging in safe sexual practices. These negative associations were nonsignificant or positive for women with stronger feminist identification. When endorsement of passive acceptance was controlled for, the positive correlation between egalitarian and assertive expectations fell to nonsignificance, consistent with regarding nonfeminist attitudes as a confounded third common factor.     

Just for Women? Feminist Multicultural Therapy with Male Clients

Feminist multicultural therapy is an integrative approach to psychotherapy that emphasizes a systems-level understanding of psychological distress and the process of therapeutic change. In the present exploratory study, the experiences of feminist multicultural therapists working with male clients were studied using Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) (Hill et al. 1997). Phone interviews were conducted with eight female practicing licensed or license-eligible therapists who had worked with at least one male client in the past 6 months. Consistent with the theoretical approach, all of the therapists interviewed expressed their belief that psychological symptoms can be seen as a reaction to a loss of power or related to the effects of an oppressive system. Additionally, the therapists believed that this theoretical model is broad enough to be used with varying types of intersecting social identities. The findings illustrate the ways in which the counseling approach may work similarly across genders, as well as ways in which one’s therapeutic approach may be altered when working specifically with men. Implications for therapists who work with male clients (both the rewards and the challenges) as well as for researchers who wish to study the application of therapeutic interventions with men are discussed.     

Moral Understandings: Alternative “Epistemology” for a Feminist Ethics

Work on representing women's voices in ethics has produced a vision of moral understanding profoundly subversive of the traditional philosophical conception of moral knowledge. 1 explicate this alternative moral “epistemology,” identify how it challenges the prevailing view, and indicate some of its resources for a liberatory feminist critique of philosophical ethics.     

Is Therapeutic Alliance Influenced by a Feminist Approach to Therapy?

Although the feminist critique of marriage and family therapy has been a significant part of the literature for many years, its impact has been blunted by two criticisms. The first suggests that the feminist critique lacks empirical support. The second suggests that the feminist critique promotes an alliance with women clients at the expense of men. The first criticism has been addressed in recent years. The present study examined the relationship between feminist principles and therapeutic alliance. Results suggest that feminist principles actually enhance therapeutic relationship for men clients but has no effect on therapeutic relationship for women clients.of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program     

Experience and Performance: Contrasting ‘Identity’ in Feminist Theorizings

Connecting identity, broadly defined to recent advances in educational research, this paper takes up two different feminist treatments based in pragmatism and poststructuralism. The first is from Charlene Haddock Seigfried on experience, and the second is from Peggy Phelan on performance. The first is in keeping with a dominant tradition to secure identity through visibility and the second suggests critique through a turn to invisibility. The first arises out of Dewey's naturalism and the second through Lacan, performance art, and anti-representation. At bottom is suggestion that an entire narrative tradition in educational research is potentially self-defeating.     

If She’s a Feminist it Must Not be Discrimination: The Power of the Feminist Label on Observers’ Attributions About a Sexist Event

This study examined the reactions of 207 undergraduate women (mean age?=?20.6, 91.3% White) from a Northeastern U.S. university to a scenario in which a feminist or non-feminist woman did or did not indicate that gender discrimination was the reason that she was passed over for a leadership role. Participants rated the feminist woman as less a victim of discrimination and as more of a complainer than the non-feminist woman. Participants also had a more positive impression of the woman and rated her as less of a complainer when discrimination was certain or ambiguous than when there was little evidence of discrimination. Discussion considers how a feminist label may lead to discounting the possibility of gender discrimination.     

The Plausibility of a Feminist Philosopher’s Take on Freudian Analysis

The analytic tradition of thought in the West started in the late nineteenth century with what is known as ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy. But as a methodological movement, it impacted other areas of knowledge as well. Feminist scholars react to the analytic tradition of thought in many various ways. Many of them critique and challenge the tradition. The present paper aims at a review of a feminist take on Sigmund Freud who imported analytical tradition in psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century. Luce Irigaray questions the legitimacy of Freudian analysis and challenges the claim of neutrality of Freudian discourse by accusing that Freud works within a patriarchal-biased ideology. About the logical basis of Freudian discourse, Irigaray alleges that a logic of indifference is at work there. But how far has Irigaray, as a feminist, been successful in showing the biases and loopholes in Freudian discourse? This paper attempts to show that the Irigarayian line of argument and critique of Freud does not offer a stronger and plausible feminist stance.

     

Neutrality And Feminist Perspective: Can They Co-Exist In Family Therapy?

An argument is forwarded for the integration of feminist and systemic perspectives, specifically focusing on neutrality. The position taken is that both feminist principles and systemic practice have indispensable merits when applied to relationship-oriented therapy. Issues of abuse in family therapy are presented by promotion of a view that judgment against the abuser and a neutral investigative process can both be achieved. A neutral stance and circularity contribute to process maps, hypothesis generation, and gaining influence with all family members. Cecchin's updated perspective of neutrality as curiosity about multiple perspectives is emphasized. A case example demonstrates integration of neutrality and a feminist perspective.     

The Feminist Identity Development Model: Relevant for Young Women Today?

We explored whether the Downing and Roush model of feminist identity development is relevant for young women today. Two-hundred seventeen older and younger feminists and non-feminists were recruited on a college campus and online in the United States. They completed, online, the Feminist Identity Composite and reported whether they would have endorsed items for each stage more strongly in the past. Qualitative data was collected about prior stage experience. Older feminists scored higher in active commitment, and younger feminists scored higher in revelation. Feminist self-identification did not relate to synthesis scores, and young women high in synthesis did not report much prior stage experience. We postulate that synthesis is a starting point for young women, rather than an ending point.     

Predictors of Change in Feminist Activism Through Women’s and Gender Studies

Predictors of change in feminist activism were studied in a group of 519 women and 143 men enrolled in 48 women’s and gender studies (WGS) classes on six college campuses in a large Midwestern urban area. Over the semester-long classes, students increased their feminist activist behaviors and intention to engage in future activism. Although women had greater activist behaviors and intentions than men, increases were similar for women and men across time. African American and Euro American students increased to a similar extent and more so than Asian American students. Predictors of change included student initial gender attitudes, changes in attitudes over time, and feelings of empowerment gained from the class. Feelings of distress and anger were unrelated to activism. Both awareness of sexism and gender egalitarianism were predictive of changes in activist intentions, whereas only awareness of sexism predicted changes in activist behaviors. Empowerment mediated the relation between attitudes and activism. Pedagogical and methodological implications are discussed.