Feminist Research with Non-Feminist and Anti-Feminist Women: Meeting the Challenge

Abstract

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.