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Abstract

This paper argues that knowledge and strategies of inquiry for producing knowledge are not gender-neutral. Bias in existing academic disciplines goes deeper than simply ignoring the existence of women as scholarly contributors or as a category for study. Bias extends to the very philosophical foundations of how inquiry is conceptualized. It extends to theories about how we think and to judgments about what constitutes “good” thinking. As a result, women in graduate school are often constrained to inquire in ways that are male-oriented and discontinuous with their life experience—to the detriment of their persistence in graduate programs. The paper discusses the relationships between feminist scholarship, science, feminist epistemology, and developments in the philosophy of science. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these relationships for the education of women.

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Women,Graduate Education,and Feminist Knowledge

Abstract

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References