Objectivity and the double standard for feminist epistemologies

Elisabeth A. Lloyd

pp. 351-381

in: Synthese 104 (3), 1995.

Abstract

The emphasis on the limitations of objectivity, in specific guises and networks, has been a continuing theme of contemporary analytic philosophy for the past few decades. The popular sport of baiting feminist philosophers — into pointing to what's left out of objective knowledge, or into describing what methods, exactly, they would offer to replace the powerful “objective” methods grounding scientific knowledge — embodies a blatant double standard which has the effect of constantly putting feminist epistemologists on the defensive, on the fringes, on the run.