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Feminist Methodology
Feminist methodology is a perspective that originated in the field of women’s studies in the 1970s. It was developed by feminist scholars in response to the failure of traditional social science methodologies to capture the experiences of women and other marginalized communities. Much like the interdisciplinary field from which it originated, feminist methodology is applied in many different disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, history, political theory, and anthropology. Feminist approaches are understood to “emphasize action and social change.”

Development
Feminist methodology arose in the 1970s in response to androcentrism and the marginalization of women’s experiences in the production of social science knowledge.

The focus of feminist methodology has since expanded to all groups who have historically been excluded from the knowledge production process. These groups include women and racial and sexual minorities among other disenfranchised groups.

In addition to advocating for inclusion of groups previously excluded from the knowledge production process, scholars who practice feminist methodology also recognize the impact of intersecting social categories for social analysis. Kathy Davis defines intersectionality as “the interaction of multiple identities and experiences of exclusion and subordination.” The intersection of race, class, and gender is an example of a prominent intersection of social categories for social analysis. An analysis that looks at the intersection of social categories and its impact on social experience is called an intersectional analysis.

Critique of Positivism and Quantitative Methods
Feminist methodology offers a critique of positivism, the scientific method, and the quantitative methods widely utilized in social science. In particular, it critiques the methodological elitism and false objectivity they carry. Positivism posits the world can be experienced objectively, that there are a set of discoverable social laws governing our existence, and that the use of quantitative methods can yield objective knowledge. According to feminist researchers, the use of standardized measures is particularly concerning because of the hidden biases they contain. Specifically, feminist researchers argue that for each standardized measure there is “a specific historical and political context” that determines what is measured, who is measured, and how it/they are measured. A prominent example are the categories of "work" and "leisure", categories treated as being discrete but which are experienced differently by men and women. A feminist analysis, for example, recognizes that there are many more constraints on leisure for women than men.

Feminist scholars also argue that positivist scientific methods oversimplify and/or overlook the complexities of social life such as failing to recognize men's and women's differential contributions to family life. The impact is that the legitimacy afforded to women’s experiences is marginalized and patriarchal domination is reified. As a result, women have historically been excluded from standardized measurement, which contributes to measurement error. A number of prominent examples of this can be found in the U.S. census history. For example, for most of the U.S. census history, married women were counted as dependents even when they were heads of household.

Some of the ways in which feminist methodology attempts to address these critiques is by uncovering biases in standard measures, developing new gender sensitive measures, and developing measures from categories arising from the everyday life of marginalized communities.

Critique of Qualitative Methods
Although qualitative methods are featured prominently in feminist research because of their ability to more thoroughly capture the individuality and diversity of experience, feminist methodology also critiques methods utilized in qualitative research. For instance, feminist scholars have raised concerns about the importance of race/ethnicity, gender, and class, the relationship between researcher and subject, the objectification of research subjects, and the power displayed by researchers in deciding who can be a research subject and who cannot, among other concerns. Feminist scholars also argue that much like quantitative methodology grapples with underlying bias in measurement, qualitative methodology grapples with underlying bias in analysis.

Feminist Methodology
While there is a feminist methodology or perspectives, there are no specific feminist methods. Methodology refers to “a theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed” and method refers to “techniques for gathering evidence”. Most feminist researchers use the tools belonging to their disciplines but with sensibilities to these issues of androcentrism and the marginalization of certain social groups.

Research methodology is feminist when it takes on research questions that challenge inequalities across multiple social categories and makes use of multiple research methods, including both qualitative and quantitative, to articulate the diversity and complexity of human experience. Within a feminist perspective, researchers can employ a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research methods such as comparative case study, content analysis, ethnography, evaluation, experiments, meta-analysis, participant observation, oral history etc.

The difference between traditional research methods and their feminist versions is that the feminist version pays particularly close attention to the ways in which “key concepts are operationalized, the careful matching of statistical techniques to research questions, the transparency with which the researchers present their data and analysis, and the focus of the analysis on disenfranchised groups and salient policy issues”. Feminist research is also sensitive to ethical considerations and the impact of power differentials between the researcher and those researched.

Some of the ways in which researchers have applied a feminist perspective in the research process are by questioning if accepted categories for social analysis are appropriate for understanding women's lives or the lives of other minority and disenfranchised groups. Feminist researchers have undertaken this work by comparing models with and without controls for gender, analyzing groups separately, incorporating social context into the research design and challenging and innovating traditional data collection methods

Reflexivity and Standpoint
Feminist research that employs a feminist methodology also displays reflexivity. Reflexivity is an important component of feminist methodology. Reflexivity is practiced when the researcher acknowledges and addresses issues of power in the research encounter in an effort to recognize potential biases and their impact in the field.

Feminist methodology also urges researchers to reflect upon the standpoint from which they conduct their research. Standpoint describes how knowledge is grounded in both social and historical context.

According to Sandra Harding, in order to construct or identify a standpoint, a researcher needs to consider the following four elements in relation to their research: 1) social location 2) interest in that location 3) discourses and tools utilized to make sense of the location and 4) position in the social organization of knowledge production.

Critique of Feminist Methodology
The concern and critique of feminist scholars across a variety of disciplines is that positivism does not encourage researchers to give adequate consideration to the social and historical factors that contributed to its development. In addition, feminist scholars are also concerned that positivism does not encourage researchers to reflect upon their own individual subjectivities

A number of critiques have also been leveraged at feminist methodology. For example, the key practice of reflexivity has been criticized for focusing only on the researcher. As a result, there is concerted effort on the part of feminist researchers to also be reflexive about the populations they study. Feminist methodology has also been criticized for not offering sufficient strategies for how researchers can practice reflexivity while conducting empirical research.