The discussion below this post has grown heated, with the topic of debate being less the original post itself and more feminist epistemology and what is sometimes called “standpoint theory.” SamSeaborn quotes Elizabeth Andersen, who writes:
Feminist standpoint theory claims an epistemic privilege over the character of gender relations, and of social and psychological phenomena in which gender is implicated, on behalf of the standpoint of women.
Sam wants to know how that impacts my marriage (which I labeled as “feminist”), but he also seems to be asking how this “standpoint theory” affects the role of male allies in feminist settings. Though he kindly takes me at my word when I note that I don’t go through my married life with an apology for being male always on my lips, he wonders how a male feminist cannot help but defer to what, according to Andersen, is the “epistemic privilege” of a woman’s perspective. Sam gets a vigorous, and to my mind, very effective response, from commenters Oldfeminist and Mythago, and I recommend folks check out the whole thread.
I may be the son of two philosophers, and I may have done a graduate field in medieval scholasticism many moons ago, but I am no theorist. Phrases like “epistemic privilege” make my head hurt, and I must bite back the urge to plead, “But I am a bear of very little brain.” I’ve labored through Cixous and Irigaray and Butler because they’re important and necessary, but feminist theory ain’t my bag. I defer to the many wonderful folks in the blogosphere whose intellectual capacities exceed my own, and whose talent for explicating in plain English the difficult philosophical nuances of feminist theory is infinitely greater than mine.
That said, I do have some thoughts on standpoint theory and its practical application.
Epistemology is the study of how we know things. In a relationship between two people who are of different sexes, classes, or ethnic backgrounds, it’s reasonable to assume that each person’s knowledge of the world will have been shaped in no small part by their status. Class and sex and race and faith are some of — but surely not the only — prisms through which we see and interpret the world. Patriarchy, the complex system through which male identity is privileged in an extraordinary number of ways, impacts everyone. Yes, as the famous phrase notes, it “hurts men too.” But one particular thing that patriarchy does is warp our understanding of everything around us, particularly things like power dynamics, sexuality, and how we communicate with one another. Feminists point out the deeply obvious: the class of persons most likely to be discriminated against by the system are also those most likely to be aware of the system itself. This “greater awareness” is the epistemic privilege to which Andersen refers.
Epistemic privilege means that in a heterosexual relationship, it is generally — though not universally — the case that the woman will see gender-based power imbalances more clearly than will her boyfriend or her husband. This isn’t because of “feminine intuition”, it’s because folks in an historically oppressed class are always required to be more aware of power dynamics than those who belong to the dominant group. The same epistemic privilege can occur in race and class relations, regardless of the sex of the people involved.
Obvious example: rape and parking lots. Both men and women are cognizant of the reality of rape, and most understand that it is men who generally do the raping and women who are generally the ones attacked. But because of his privilege, a man can walk into a parking lot by himself at night and forget about rape, because his maleness affords him the luxury of remaining unobservant of the possibility of sexual danger. A woman walking alone in a parking lot at night will have a different experience, rooted in her vulnerability as a member of a class targeted for sexual violence. Not only is she more vulnerable, but her very understanding of the issue is superior to that of a man walking in the parking lot. He has the privileged luxury of ignorance; she’s forced to reflect, constantly, on rape and its threat to her. That means that when the discussion of women’s vulnerability to assault comes up, women ought to enjoy “epistemic privilege” in the conversation.
This doesn’t mean, by the way, that women are “always right” and men “always wrong.” But it does mean that in heterosexual relations, it does mean that it is likely that a woman’s understanding of some dynamics (particularly around sex and power) will be superior to those of her male partner. In my marriage to Eira, for example, there are several layers of standpoint difference. I am male, she is female. I am white, the son of two college professors, and grew up in what most people seem to consider the upper-middle class. My wife is of mixed race, dark enough to have been called a “nigger” when she was a child; she grew up very poor and was the first member of her family to earn a bachelor’s degree. Around three intersecting issues — race, sex, and class — my wife’s experience has been radically different from my own. In a very real sense, that gives her a breadth and depth of knowledge about those issues that I cannot share.
When my wife and I are having a discussion about race or gender roles, topics about which we don’t invariably agree, standpoint theory doesn’t say that my wife (because she is a woman of color) is always right and I (because I am a white man) am always wrong. Critics like SamSeaborn seem to think that this is exactly what standpoint theory does say, and this has been at the heart of the heated disagreements we’ve been havin’ round these parts. What standpoint theory does say is that the one in the privileged position (and in my marriage, around issues of race and sex, that would be me) has a special obligation to reflect on the ways in which privilege may serve to blind — and the equally important ways in which sexism or racism may serve to give a women and ethnic minorities a deeper and more profound understanding of the dynamics at play. To put it simply, I have to ask myself a question over and over again: how is my “WASPy privileged maleness” distorting what I see?
It ought to be axiomatic that we can never adopt a true “view from nowhere.” We can defy gravity in outer space, but we can never slip the surly bonds of our human imperfection. Our experiences shape us each day, and our experiences are mediated for us by our gender identity, our race, our class, our faith and our communities. And while everyone sees “through a glass darkly” as a result, it seems eminently reasonable to say that the experience of being a member of an historically disadvantaged group (women; sexual, ethnic, or religious minorities; the working class) creates greater clarity about the dynamics of oppression. It’s only the well-off who say “money isn’t important”; the poor have a superior standpoint about the necessity of money. It’s generally only whites who say “racism isn’t a problem in America anymore”. Here’s the basic axiom: power conceals itself from those who possess it. And the corollary is that privilege is revealed more clearly to those who don’t have it.
Sometimes my wife is wrong. (Yes, my love, you are, even if it’s only every fifth Tuesday.) Sometimes I am right. We quarrel like any couple, though our experiences have given us tools like “fair fighting rules” that not everyone, alas, possesses. We know that in our marriage, each of us is equally important, each of us is entitled to his or her opinion, each of us deserves to be heard. But we also know that we didn’t come into this marriage as disembodied souls; we brought in our gender identities, our class backgrounds, our skin tones, our multi-generational family histories. And just as it’s absurd to pretend that we’ve come from equally privileged backgrounds, it is equally absurd to pretend that those backgrounds have not at least in part shaped our worldviews. Again, power obfuscates; oppression clarifies. So when the topic at hand is gender dynamics or race or class, the epistemic privilege is not mine. And thus the burden to reflect just a bit harder, is.
Thanks, Hugo, I’m going to show this to my partner. He gets frustrated with himself and me since so much more often I’m pointing out things he’s said as being sexist than he points out to me about things I say. This is a good explanation why I’m more aware than he is, at least on sexism; he’s more aware than I on class issues.
Ugh, feminist theory. While I appreciate all the hard work that goes into feminist theory, as well as the amazing results that come out of it, I wonder if it’s really all that difficult to write feminist theory in a way that’s accessible to more people. Which is why I vastly prefer to read Kimmel instead of Butler.
Hugo,
thanks for your reply.
“though not universally”
“Critics like SamSeaborn seem to think that this is exactly what standpoint theory does say, and this has been at the heart of the heated disagreements we’ve been havin’ round these parts.”
Elisabeth Andersen’s definition doesn’t say “except on every fifth Tuesday”. It says that SE (standpoint epistemology) claims that epistemic privilege - topically limited, but universally. And that’s the problem. How do you know when it is every fifth Tuesday? You don’t. You can’t. If you do assign epistemic privilege to one perspective, there’s no way for the less epistemically privileged mind to know.
Thanks for posting this Hugo. It does clear some up and it’s good to hear a perspective from more-or-less the “layman’s” approach without going off too far into philosophical cant.
Where I have trouble following the line of thinking is along the lines of what you and others promoting this viewpoint assume is “reasonable”, “deeply obvious”, and “axiomatic”, to whit: that members of oppressed groups will generally (though you concede not universally) be more aware of and cognizant of power dynamics between “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups than the members of the oppressor groups will. Firstly, we have the issue of what may fall into the category of this general (but not universal) truth: how are we to know when and where the wise oppressed does possess this superior understanding in any particular context? Secondly, I have to see this superior understanding applied directly and analytically in the context of a particular dynamic or interchange before it holds any credibility. Stating that this awareness exists generally (but not universally), and then making a claim that what that awareness perceives to be true is thus true, doesn’t logically follow. I want to see them superior understandings taken out to run for a bit before I give them much credence.
At the very least, I’d be more convinced if I saw actual arguments as to why gendered (or other) power dynamics influence a particular issue in a particular context, rather than defaulting to the assumed superior understanding of the oppressed group. For one example, you’ve cited before women’s assumed greater responsibility for and greater ability in carrying out household duties. I can see the argument there that that patriarchal norm puts an undue burden of responsibility on women for the condition of their households and the members thereof (e.g.: if the husband is not well put-together for work today, the wife will be blamed for it). I can see the patriarchal norm cutting that way in that particular context. On the other hand, again, another example from the household duties wars, women often employ that same assumption of superior ability offensively, at least from the standpoint of men, in calling men onto the carpet for not doing it the “right way”. Same assumption, different results in different contexts. Another example: your “myth of male weakness” puts the burden of being the gatekeeper on women to protect themselves from allegedly rapacious men. It also puts the burden of an ugly and often false stereotype on men.
On the example of rape and parking lots, I’m coming to the conclusion that rape examples and metaphors gets employed often in the context of discussing different perspectives between the genders because rape is a phenomenon in which each gender generally has such radically divergent experiences of exposure to risk, as well as one carrying such severe and damaging consequences to its almost exclusively female victims, that it serves to crystallize differences through an extreme, but unique example. That has its uses, but, again, the argument needs to be made why and how we can go from this extreme to more general and common experiences that are not so clearly divergent, unequal, and dire.
“And just as it’s absurd to pretend that we’ve come from equally privileged backgrounds, it is equally absurd to pretend that those backgrounds have not at least in part shaped our worldviews. Again, power obfuscates; oppression clarifies.”
Sorry Hugo, but this just restates the self-serving, unprovable nonsense in different ways. Obfuscates what? Clarifies what? Who gets to measure, study and conclude whose view of the world is clearer? How exactly how would you go about testing this?
This doesn’t even work at the extremes. To believe this, you would have to believe you could take some poor child, and just systematically and continuously torture the hell out of them as they grow from childhood to adulthood. And you would wind up with an empathetic, insightful, and clear-thinking adult. Not bloody likely.
“Here’s the basic axiom: power conceals itself from those who possess it. And the corollary is that privilege is revealed more clearly to those who don’t have it.”
No, the real “axiom” is this: We alone decide who is privileged, who is powerful, and what is just. And anybody who disagrees disagrees only because they are blinded by their power. Since they are powerful, it is right and just that we take what they have and ignore what they say in the interest of justice.
“it seems eminently reasonable to say that the experience of being a member of an historically disadvantaged group (women; sexual, ethnic, or religious minorities; the working class) creates greater clarity about the dynamics of oppression.”
No, it isn’t at all reasonable as a general rule, because it doesn’t account for the dynamic that oppression often triggers blind rage and a thirst for revenge. I mean, it isn’t exactly unknown in history for an oppressed group to rise up and then become oppressors in turn. So I’d ask any Standpoint Theorists to go back in history, look at some of these these cases and determine exactly when the formerly oppressed group lost all their “clarity.”
Wow, mistake to read some of these comments. Especially since apparently I’m so blind with rage, I’m totally unable to be objective, or to, maybe, have a better understanding of what it means to be in a particular subjugated group than a person who is not in that particular subjugated group …
I dislike standpoint theory, though; I don’t think that it’s that helpful, and it (obviously) plays pretty easily into the hands of trolls. It’s clear that Hugo and his wife work together to build a marriage based on equality, mutual respect, love, understanding, and a *desire* to have understanding. And it’s clear that some people can’t let go of the inaccurate (well, downright wrong) idea that feminism = women are always better.
Of course, there’s also a difference between people who genuinely want to learn about different ways of thinking and interacting, and people who just want to fight anything that’s different.
Sam, you’re turning standpoint epistemology into a methodologically individualist approach. This is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of standpoint theory, whether in its original class-based (Lukacs) or in feminist standpoint theory (Collins, Rose, Hartsock, Harding, etc). The social position and experiences of a particular group are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the generation of thorough (and critical and potentially liberatory) knowledge of that system. Nothing here implies that every individual whose social identity places them in that standpoint has perfect knowledge because of it, or for that matter that people not of that standpoint cannot come to share in that knowledge.
It’s fundamentally a structural, methodologically Marxist theory of social knowledge. It can’t be reduced to individuals they way Sam seems to think.
(Disclosure, one of the major standpoint feminist theorists was my dissertation advisor, although I didn’t work that subject)
djw,
no, the fundamental misunderstanding is the assumption that inclusion in a group, identified by some qualifiers, real or defined, will lead to a category of knowledge that is some kind of “second-person” and not “third-person” knowledge. (quote again from the article by Elisabeth Andersen).
“First-person vs. third-person knowledge. People have first-personal access to some of their own bodily and mental states, yielding direct knowledge of phenomenological facts about what it is like for them to be in these states. Third parties may know these states only by interpreting external symptoms, imaginative projection, or obtaining their testimony. People also have knowledge de se about themselves, expressed in the form “I am F here, now.” This is distinct in character and inferential role from propositional knowledge having the same content, which does not use indexicals.”
“Nothing here implies that every individual whose social identity places them in that standpoint has perfect knowledge because of it”
No need to claim perfect knowledge. As long as there’s a prescribed hierarchy of positions and perspectives, the one’s at the epistemic bottom have no logical way of challenging the notions identified by those at the epistemic top.
“It can’t be reduced to individuals they way Sam seems to think.”
This is not a reduction, it’s thinking intersectionalism to its logcial - marginal, individual - end. If you divide groups and their different perspectives long enough, you end up at the individual (as Butler did, and what lead to the mixed reception in of her work in the feminist camp, if I’m not mistaken).
That’s why standpoint epistemology is questionable as applied to individual experiences and transactions. If left to structural/historical questions, it might have value there. Taken to the micro-level, the standpoint perspective becomes so muddied by contingency and qualification that it turns into mush.
This is not a reduction, it’s thinking intersectionalism to its logcial - marginal, individual - end. If you divide groups and their different perspectives long enough, you end up at the individual (as Butler did, and what lead to the mixed reception in of her work in the feminist camp, if I’m not mistaken).
Setting aside for a moment your interpretation of Butler (which is not, imo, entirely off base), why would we want to do that? The arguments *for* standpoint theory make the most sense when applied to the social position/experience of a significant social group with a broadly shared (shared is important for standpoint epistemology) set of social experiences vis-a-vis power relations. Sure, we’re all precious unique snowflakes and everyone’s experience is different, but just because one *can* as an intellectual exercise execute a reductio ad individualism doesn’t mean it makes good theoretical sense to do so.
(While I’m a huge admirer of Elizabeth Anderson, and think “What is the Point of Equality?” is frankly the best article-length argument I’ve seen from analytic political philosophy in the last 20 years, I am not familiar with her writings on standpoint theory, so I’m working off of what I know–Hartsock, Harding, Collins, mostly)
djw,
“(shared is important for standpoint epistemology)”
This was what I was referring to with “second person”-knowledge above. “Shared” in itself is a circular assumption. You need to assign epistemic privilege to even get to the point of identifying “shared realities” that are more meaningful to the individual than statistics.
“Sure, we’re all precious unique snowflakes and everyone’s experience is different, but just because one *can* as an intellectual exercise execute a reductio ad individualism doesn’t mean it makes good theoretical sense to do so.”
no, it may or may not make good *practical* sense to do so. But theoretically, I don’t see any other way. I mean you really can’t have it both ways in an epistemological sense - it’s either or. And since one *can* execute a “reductio” ad individualism, that means it’s not “or”.
But theoretically, I don’t see any other way. I mean you really can’t have it both ways in an epistemological sense - it’s either or.
Why? I haven’t read through the other thread, but at least in this thread, your reasons for this very odd position are not at all clear to me.
Doing social epistemology means drawing conclusions and making distinctions about social reality.
Phira: “Of course, there’s also a difference between people who genuinely want to learn about different ways of thinking and interacting, and people who just want to fight anything that’s different.”
That’s absolutely true. Which group are you in?
Ha! Same here, although I think I’m musing more along the lines of “So…I should have taken a Women’s Studies course in there somewhere?”
Sam, I think your argument would make more sense if it were not couched in absolutes. Can somebody who lived in Cleveland never be wrong about Cleveland? If I am discussing Cleveland with a lifelong resident, am I always wrong and they always right?
The threshold question is whether or not we’re in Cleveland in the first place. What makes me suspicious about these grand narratives on Privilege and Patriarchy is that they seems to be inflated towards general and all-encompassing theories. Even if they aren’t regarded as so total, we still have the issue as to what the bounds are of situations in which the aforementioned superior understandings might apply.
At the very least, I’d be more convinced if I saw actual arguments as to why gendered (or other) power dynamics influence a particular issue in a particular context, rather than defaulting to the assumed superior understanding of the oppressed group.
Was that ever the default in anything but niche sites? I mean, when I peruse mainstream sites I find the opposite happens; that is, the majority group is the one that has the assumed superior understanding. How many times do we hear “it’s nothing important, it’s just _x_” when something like objectification of women is pointed out in popular culture? It’s practically endemic yet it gets dismissed a lot. The speaker does presume that they (of the majority) decide whether something is important or not, thus superior understanding of the situation.
Sure. And it may be that we think we’re arguing about who knows the way around Cleveland better, but then find out we’re actually in Toledo. That’s a bit different than saying being a lifelong resident of Cleveland doesn’t mean you know more about it than I do, because I looked up Cleveland on Wikipedia.
Hugo wrote: “the experience of being a member of an historically disadvantaged group (women; sexual, ethnic, or religious minorities; the working class) creates greater clarity about the dynamics of oppression”.
I would add the caveat that it can create greater clarity about oppression concerning *one’s own* disadvantaged trait (e.g. a black person may have a more sophisticated awareness of racism), but it doesn’t necessarily make the person more sensitive to oppression *in general* (as seen in, for example, the homophobic rhetoric that comes out of some black churches). As Sweating Through Fog said above, sometimes the opposite can be true - one’s own sense of oppression creates a feeling of entitlement to ignore other varieties.
Not that I think Hugo would disagree with the above - just wanted to mention it, since “standpoint epistemology” sometimes morphs into sentimentality about women, minorities, etc. being more spiritually aware in general, and that rightly makes some of the guys on this thread nervous.
Agreed, Jendi.
I have a standpoint about mental illness and addiction that my wife doesn’t, having struggled with both for so many years. In that area, I enjoy the “epistemic privilege” which she rightly claims in so many others.
True, and/or an inflated sense of one’s own tolerance. Why, I can’t possibly be bigoted; I myself am an oppressed person! (The LGBT community has a well=known problem in addressing racism in this way.)