Page 145 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 145
v. vendramin ■ the grammar of knowledge: a look at feminism ...
50).6 In any case, this question is quite hotly disputed, explains Londa
Schiebinger, and remains in the realm of theory (Schiebinger 1999, p. 11;
see also Vendramin, 2018). In my opinion, the statement of all the women
knowing the world differently (and, e.g., doing science differently)7 as all
the men is too basic, too one-dimensional, not least because gender should
be understood not primarily as an attribute of individuals but as an axis of
social relations (Anderson, 1995; Grasswick, 2008). This means that, scep-
ticism “about the idea of any unitary women’s consciousness or unitary
women’s experience” (Bart, 1998) should be present. Being a feminist is a
political identity, and political identities are “created in the flux of ideolo-
gy and practice. They are not natural extensions of particular kinds of psy-
ches or bodies” (Felski, 2000, p. 198).
Feminist theory began as an analysis of the ways in which knowledges
discriminated against women and helped to develop and perpetuate
harms done to women, both conceptually and materially; it emerged
through a recognition of the inadequacy of existing models to explain
women’s positions in the past and their potential for change in the pres-
ent and future. (Grosz, 2010, p. 49).
But, according to Elizabeth Grosz, it is important for the research focus
to be both conceptual and empirical (although she states that her own fo-
cus is conceptual rather than empirical, so I hope I am not stretching the
interpretation of her words too far),
not because the empirical has no place, but because, without a concep-
tual frame, the empirical has no value, no context, no power, it simply
is. The empirical is given without some understanding of how it comes
to be, without some assessment of its historicity and its potential to be
otherwise. Only a framework, a context, which explains the forces that
produce its givenness, can also show how it may be undone, or made dif-
ferently (ibid.).
This is very much in line with what Donna Haraway writes in her
seminal work Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991, p. 82): feminism is “a
6 Some additional questions: is there such a thing as feminist science, is there perhaps a
“female style” in science, do women do science differently to men (if so, how would this
research differ from traditional research) (Vendramin, 2018, p. 76)?
7 This is a very vast theoretical territory into which we unfortunately cannot venture at this
point. The thesis of automatic epistemic privilege (in other words: superior insight), which
means that those who are oppressed or marginalised always know more, or always know
better, because of their social/political location cannot always be backed up (see Wylie &
Sismondo, 2015; italics are mine). For a reflection on this, see Felski, 2000, which in my
opinion is a very succinct contribution on the politics of feminist identity.
143
50).6 In any case, this question is quite hotly disputed, explains Londa
Schiebinger, and remains in the realm of theory (Schiebinger 1999, p. 11;
see also Vendramin, 2018). In my opinion, the statement of all the women
knowing the world differently (and, e.g., doing science differently)7 as all
the men is too basic, too one-dimensional, not least because gender should
be understood not primarily as an attribute of individuals but as an axis of
social relations (Anderson, 1995; Grasswick, 2008). This means that, scep-
ticism “about the idea of any unitary women’s consciousness or unitary
women’s experience” (Bart, 1998) should be present. Being a feminist is a
political identity, and political identities are “created in the flux of ideolo-
gy and practice. They are not natural extensions of particular kinds of psy-
ches or bodies” (Felski, 2000, p. 198).
Feminist theory began as an analysis of the ways in which knowledges
discriminated against women and helped to develop and perpetuate
harms done to women, both conceptually and materially; it emerged
through a recognition of the inadequacy of existing models to explain
women’s positions in the past and their potential for change in the pres-
ent and future. (Grosz, 2010, p. 49).
But, according to Elizabeth Grosz, it is important for the research focus
to be both conceptual and empirical (although she states that her own fo-
cus is conceptual rather than empirical, so I hope I am not stretching the
interpretation of her words too far),
not because the empirical has no place, but because, without a concep-
tual frame, the empirical has no value, no context, no power, it simply
is. The empirical is given without some understanding of how it comes
to be, without some assessment of its historicity and its potential to be
otherwise. Only a framework, a context, which explains the forces that
produce its givenness, can also show how it may be undone, or made dif-
ferently (ibid.).
This is very much in line with what Donna Haraway writes in her
seminal work Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991, p. 82): feminism is “a
6 Some additional questions: is there such a thing as feminist science, is there perhaps a
“female style” in science, do women do science differently to men (if so, how would this
research differ from traditional research) (Vendramin, 2018, p. 76)?
7 This is a very vast theoretical territory into which we unfortunately cannot venture at this
point. The thesis of automatic epistemic privilege (in other words: superior insight), which
means that those who are oppressed or marginalised always know more, or always know
better, because of their social/political location cannot always be backed up (see Wylie &
Sismondo, 2015; italics are mine). For a reflection on this, see Felski, 2000, which in my
opinion is a very succinct contribution on the politics of feminist identity.
143
