Work · Science & Human Sciences
The Science Question in Feminism
Feminist empiricism, standpoint theory and postmodernism as three routes to a less distorted science.
Introduction
Sandra Harding, then a philosopher at the University of Delaware, published the book in 1986. She moves from the “woman question in science” – how to bring more women into science – to the “science question in feminism”: whether science itself, with its methods and ideal of objectivity, is shaped by gender. She sorts feminist epistemologies into three kinds. Feminist empiricism treats sexist bias as bad science, to be corrected by the usual methods; standpoint theory holds that research starting from women’s lives produces less distorted knowledge; feminist postmodernism doubts that there can be any single true story. Harding leaves the tensions between them open, and the typology became a standard reference in feminist philosophy of science.
Connections
Builds on
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions1962 · Thomas S. Kuhn
Taken up in
- Black Feminist Thought1990 · Patricia Hill Collins
- Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?1991 · Sandra Harding
More works by Sandra Harding
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made