Feminist scholars conducting research with non-feminist and anti-feminist women are confronted with a dilemma that is rarely articulated in feminist writing: how can we represent these women's lives as they experience them while at the same time challenging women's oppression? A related dilemma is whether a feminist researcher is justified in describing a woman as a feminist if that term is not one that the woman herself would select. The article surveys four strategies that are most commonly used when difference of gender consciousness becomes apparent in a research setting: (1) reliance on the concept of false consciousness, (2) the construction of research as a platform for `dialogue' culminating in the resolution of differences, (3) the redefinition of feminism, and (4) constructing gender and gender consciousness as a culturally and historically situated phenomenon. Drawing on interviews with a small group of old women, I discuss my own struggles with these and related issues.
Andrews, Molly
(1991) Lifetimes of Commitment: Aging, Politics, Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
Andrews, Molly
(1999) `The Seductiveness of Agelessness', Ageing and Society19: 301-318.
3.
Bartky, Sandra
(1977) `Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness', pp. 22-34 in Mary Betterling-Braggin, Frederick Elliston and Jane English (eds) Feminism and Philosophy. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams and Co.
4.
Bernard
, Miriam and Kathy Meade, eds (1993) Women Come of Age. London: Edward Arnold.
5.
Bhavnani, Kum-Kum
(1990) `What's Power Got to Do With it?' Empowerment and Social Research', pp. 141-152 in Ian Parker and John Shotter (eds) Deconstructing Social Psychology. London: Routledge.
6.
Borland, Katherine
(1991) '"That's Not What I Said": Interpretive Conflict in Oral Narrative Research', pp. 63-76 in Sherna Gluck and Daphne Patai (eds) Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History. London: Routledge.
7.
Burman, Erica
(1996) `The Spec(tac)ular Economy of Difference', pp. 138-140 in Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger (eds) Representing the Other: A Feminism & Psychology Reader. London: Sage.
8.
Cain, Maureen
(1986) `Realism, Feminism, Methodology, and Law', International Journal of the Sociology of Law14: 255-267.
9.
Chodorow, Nancy
(1989) `Seventies Questions for Thirties Women: Gender and Generation in a Study of Early Women Psychoanalysts', pp. 199-218 in Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
10.
Chodorow, Nancy
(1996) `Seventies Questions for Thirties Women: Some Nineties Reflections', pp. 21-50 in Sue Wilkinson (ed.) Feminist Social Psychologies: International Perspectives. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
11.
Clements, Barbara
(1979) Bolshevik Feminist: The Life of Aleksandra Kollontai. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
12.
DeVault, Marjorie
(1996) '"TaLking Back to Sociology": Distinctive Contributions of Feminist Methodology', American Review of Sociology22: 29-50.
13.
Foucault, Michel
(1981) Power/Knowledge. New York: Random House.
14.
Friedan, Betty
(1993) The Fountain of Age. London: Jonathan Cape.
15.
Gelsthorpe, Loraine
(1992) `Response to Martyn Hammersley's Paper "On Feminist Methodology"', Sociology26(2): 213-218.
16.
Gorelick, Sherry
(1991) `Contradictions of Feminist Methodology', Gender and Society5(4): 459-477.
Hammersley, Martyn
(1994) `On Feminist Methodology: A Response', Sociology28(1): 293-300.
19.
Haraway, Donna
(1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Routledge.
20.
Harding, Sandra
(1991) Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
21.
Harding, Sandra
(1997) `Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited": Whose Standpoint Needs the Regimes of Truth and Reality?', Signs22(2): 382-391.
22.
Hartsock, Nancy
(1983) Money, Sex and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism. London: Longman.
23.
Hartsock, Nancy
(1997) `Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited": Truth or Justice?'Signs22(2): 367-374.
24.
Hartsock, Nancy
(1998) The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
25.
Healey, Shevy
(1994) `Growing to be an Old Woman: Aging and Ageism', in Eleanor Stoller and Rose Gibson (eds) Worlds of Difference: Inequality in the Aging Experience. London: Pine Forge Press.
26.
Hekman, Susan
(1997) `Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory', Signs22(2): 341-365.
27.
Henwood, Karen
and Pidgeon, Nick (1995) `Remaking the Link: Qualitative Research and Feminist Standpoint Theory', Feminism & Psychology5(1): 7-30.
28.
Henwood, Karen
, Griffin, Christine and Phoenix, Ann, eds (1998) Standpoints and Differences: Essays in the Practice of Feminist Psychology. London: Sage.
29.
Hill Collins, Patricia
(1990) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. London: Unwin Hyman.
30.
Hill Collins, Patricia
(1997) `Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited": Where's the Power?'Signs22(2): 375-381.
31.
Jaggar, Alison
(1983) Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press.
32.
Kelly, Liz
, Burton, Sheila and Regan, Linda (1994) `Researching Women's Lives or Studying Women's Oppression? Reflections on What Constitutes Feminist Research', in Mary Maynard and June Purvis (eds) Researching Women's Lives from a Feminist Perspective, pp. 27-48. London: Taylor & Francis.
33.
Kitzinger, Celia
and Wilkinson, Sue (1997) `Validating Women's Experience: Dilemmas in Feminist Research', Feminism & Psychology7(4): 566-574.
34.
Kuhn, Maggie
(1991) No Stone Unturned: The Life and Times of Maggie Kuhn. New York: Ballantine Books.
35.
MacKinnon, Catharine
(1987) `Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence', pp. 135-156 in Sandra Harding (ed.) Feminism and Methodology. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
36.
Millen, D.
(1997) `Some Methodological and Epistemological Issues Raised by Doing Feminist Research on Non-Feminist Women', Sociological Research Online2(3) [http://www/socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/2/3/3.html]
37.
Oakley, Ann
(1998) `Gender, Methodology and People's Ways of Knowing: Some Problems with Feminism and the Paradigm Debate in Social Science', Sociology32(4):707-731.
38.
Paglia, Camille
(1992) Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays. New York: Vintage Books.
39.
Pilcher, Jane
(1998) Women of their Time: Generation, Gender Issues and Feminism. Aldershot: Ashgate.
40.
Ramazanoglu, Caroline
(1989) `Improving on Sociology: The Problems of Taking a Feminist Standpoint', Sociology23(3): 427-442.
41.
Ramazanoglu, Caroline
(1992) `On Feminist Methodology: Male Reason versus Female Empowerment', Sociology26(2): 207-212.
42.
Reinharz, Shulamit
(1992) Feminist Methods in Social Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
43.
Reinharz, Shulamit
(1994) `Feminist Biography: The Pains, the Joys, the Dilemmas', pp. 37-82 in Amia Lieblich and Ruthellen Josselson (eds) Exploring Identity and Gender: The Narrative Study of Lives, Volume 2. London: Sage.
44.
Rinehart, Sue
(1992) Gender Consciousness and Politics. New York: Routledge.
45.
Saltzman, Rachelle
(1987) `FoLklore, Feminism, and the Folk: Whose Lore Is It?,'Journal of American Folklore100: 548-567.
46.
Smith, Dorothy
(1974) `Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology', Sociological Inquiry44: 7-14.
47.
Smith, Dorothy
(1997) `Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited"', Signs22(2): 392-398.
48.
Spivak, G.
(1993) `Can the Subaltem Speak?' in P. Williams and L. Chrisman (eds) Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
49.
Stacey, Meg
(1989) `Older Women and Feminism: A Note About My Experience of the WLM', Feminist Review31: 140-142.
50.
Stanley, Liz
and Wise, Sue (1983) Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
51.
Wilkinson, Sue
and Kitzinger, Celia, eds (1996) Representing the Other: A Feminism & Psychology Reader. London: Sage.
52.
Williams, Anne
(1993) `Diversity and Agreement in Feminist Ethnography', Sociology27(4): 575-589.
