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Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited Author(S): Susan Hekman Source: Signs, Vol Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited Author(s): Susan Hekman Source: Signs, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Winter, 1997), pp. 341-365 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3175275 . Accessed: 26/03/2013 07:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 212.175.32.130 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:49:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Truthand Method: FeministStandpoint Theory Revisited Susan Hekman N 1983, THE PUBLICATION of NancyHartsock's Money, I Sex,and Powerchanged the landscape of feminist theory. The scope ofthe book aloneensures it a prominentplace in feministthought. It includesa comprehensivecritique of positivism, an indictmentof masculinisttheories of power,and evena textualanalysis of Greekmy- thology.The centralconcern of the book, however, and thesource of its lastinginfluence, is Hartsock's epistemological and methodological argu- ment.Her goal is to definethe nature of thetruth claims that feminists advanceand to providea methodologicalgrounding that will validate thoseclaims. The methodshe definesis the feministstandpoint. Bor- rowingheavily from Marx, yet adapting her insights to herspecifically feministends, Hartsock claims that it is women'sunique standpoint in societythat provides the justification for the truth claims of feminism whilealso providingit witha methodwith which to analyzereality. In thesucceeding decade, feminist standpoint theory has becomea stapleof feministtheory. Nancy Hartsock's essay in SandraHarding and MerrillHintikka's pathbreaking book DiscoveringReality (1983) broughtthe concept to a philosophicalaudience. In a numberof influen- tial publications,Dorothy Smith developed a sociologicalmethod from the"standpoint of women." Harding featured feminist standpoint theory inher two important books on scienceand feminism. Patricia Hill Collins articulateda specifically black feminist standpoint. But in thelate 1980s andearly 1990s criticisms of the position mounted, and fewer discussions of it werepublished. Today the concept occupies a muchless prominent position.Particularly among younger feminist theorists, feminist stand- pointtheory is frequentlyregarded as a quaintrelic of feminism'sless sophisticatedpast. Several developments inthe late 1980s have led to this declininginfluence. First, the inspiration for feminist standpoint theory, Marxism,has been discreditedin both theoryand practice.Second, feministstandpoint theory appears to be at oddswith the issue that has [Signs:Journal of Womenin Cultureand Society1997, vol. 22, no. 2] ? 1997 byThe Universityof Chicago.All rightsreserved. 0097-9740/97/2202-0003$01.00 Winter 1997 SIGNS 341 This content downloaded from 212.175.32.130 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:49:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hekman TRUTH AND METHOD dominatedfeminist debate in the past decade: difference.Third, feminist standpointtheory appears to be opposed to two of the most significant influencesin recentfeminist theory: postmodernism and poststructural- ism.The Marxistroots of the theory seem to contradictwhat many define as the antimaterialismof postmodernism.For all of these reasons,the conclusion that feministstandpoint theory should be discardedseems obvious. I thinkthis conclusionis premature,that it is a mistaketo writeoff feministstandpoint theory too quickly.Feminist standpoint theory raises a centraland unavoidablequestion for feminist theory: How do we justify the truthof the feministclaim thatwomen have been and are oppressed? Feministstandpoint theory was initiallyformulated in the contextof Marxist politics.But fromthe outset,feminist standpoint theorists have recognizedthat feministpolitics demand a justificationfor the truth claims of feministtheory, that is, that feministpolitics are necessarily epistemological.Throughout the theory'sdevelopment, feminist stand- point theorists'quest fortruth and politicshas been shaped by two cen- tralunderstandings: that knowledge is situatedand perspectivaland that thereare multiplestandpoints from which knowledge is produced.As the theoryhas developed,feminist standpoint theorists have explored,first, how knowledgecan be situatedyet "true," and, second,how we can ac- knowledgedifference without obviating the possibilityof critiqueand thus a viable feministpolitics. Feministstandpoint theorists have an- sweredthese questions in a varietyof ways;many of theseanswers have been unsatisfactory;the theoryhas been frequentlyreformulated. In the course of theirarguments, however, these theoristshave made an indis- pensablecontribution to feministtheory. It is my contentionthat feminist standpoint theory represents the be- ginningof a paradigmshift in the conceptof knowledge,a shiftthat is transformingnot onlyfeminist theory but also epistemologyitself. What LorraineCode (1991) calls a "new mappingof the epistemicdomain" thatcharacterizes feminist theory owes muchto the articulationand de- velopmentof feministstandpoint theory. Finally, I assertthat this theory remainscentral to contemporaryfeminism because thequestions it raises are crucialto the futuredevelopment of feministtheory and politics.Re- centlythere has been muchdiscussion among feminists of theparameters of a "politicsof difference."I believe that feminist standpoint theory has laid the groundworkfor such a politics by initiatingthe discussionof situatedknowledges. I. Definingthe feministstandpoint In an articleoriginally published in Quest in 1975, Nancy Hartsock wrote: "At bottom feminismis a mode of analysis,a method of ap- 342 SIGNS Winter 1997 This content downloaded from 212.175.32.130 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:49:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TRUTH AND METHOD Hekman proachinglife and politics,rather than a set of politicalconclusions about the oppressionof women" (1981, 35). The power of feministmethod, she asserts,grows out of the factthat it enables us to connecteveryday lifewith the analysisof the social institutionsthat shape that life (36). This earlyarticle reveals the presupposition that defines her later formula- tion of thefeminist standpoint: the beliefthat feminism, while necessarily political, at the same time must be centrallyconcerned with method, truth,and epistemology.Feminism, for Hartsock, is about truthclaims and how we justifythem. But at thevery outset she refersto theissue that will complicateher search fortruth in a feministmode. She notes that the realityperceived by differentsegments of societyis varied.Thus, she concludes,"Feminism as a mode of analysisleads us to respectexperience and differences,to respectpeople enough to believethat they are in the best possible positionto make theirown revolution"(40). For Hartsock, activityis epistemology:women and men create their own realitiesthrough their different activities and experiences.If this werethe whole story,however, then both truth and realitywould be mul- tiple,even "relative," and Hartsockis veryconcerned to avoid thisconclu- sion. When she presentsher theoryof the feministstandpoint in Money, Sex, and Power (1983c), this is the focus of her attention.She insists that "the concept of a standpointrests on the fact that thereare some perspectiveson societyfrom which, however well intentionedone may be, the real relationsof humans with each otherand with the natural world are not visible" (117). Hartsock'sgoal in the book is to definethe conceptof a standpointand applyit to the case of women. She outlines fivecriteria of a standpointthat she adapts fromMarx's theory(118). Two potentiallycontradictory definitions of realitystructure this discus- sion. First,in what todaywould be called a social constructionistargu- ment,Hartsock assertsthat materiallife structures and sets limitsto an understandingof social relations.It followsthat reality will be perceived differentlyas materialsituations differ. It also followsthat the dominant (ruling)group in societywill label its perspectiveas "real" and reject otherdefinitions. Second, Hartsock insiststhat while the rulinggroup's perceptionof realityis "partialand perverse,"that of the oppressed is not, that it exposes "real" relationsamong humans and is hence liberatory. Throughouther work Hartsock struggleswith the relationshipbetween thesetwo definitionsof reality.It constitutesa kindof faultline thatruns throughher articulationof the feministstandpoint. Although her formu- lation changesover the years, she continuesto maintainboth that reality is sociallyand materiallyconstructed and thatsome perceptionsof reality are partial,others true and liberatory. Furtheraspects of feministstandpoint theory emerge in Hartsock's well-knownarticle "The FeministStandpoint" (1983b). In this article Hartsock statesthat a specificallyfeminist historical materialism "might Winter 1997 SIGNS 343 This content downloaded from 212.175.32.130 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:49:29 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Hekman TRUTH AND METHOD enable
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