Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: I Introduction -- Introduction -- T hree challenges to feminist methodology -- What is gender? -- What is f eminism in the twenty-first century? -- Are feminists women? -- What is methodology in social research? -- Is feminist methodology distinctive ly feminist? -- The structure of the book -- PART I FEMINISM'S ENLIGHTE NMENT LEGACY AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS -- 2 Reason, science and progress: feminism's Enlightenment -- inheritance -- Introduction -- Enlightenmen t thought -- Reason, science and progress: how Enlightenment thought ha s -- shaped feminist approaches to methodology -- Modem humanism -- The long shadow of the Enlightenment: challenges and -- contradictions at the roots of modem feminist methodology -- Conclusion -- 3 Can feminist s tell the truth? Challenges of -- scientific method -- Introduction -- Feminist research as a quest for valid knowledge of social -- realitie s by a knowing subject -- Feminist objections to scientific method in s ocial research -- Objectivity, subjectivity, relativism: competing path s to truth -- Conclusion -- 4 From truth/reality to knowledge/power: ta king a feminist -- standpoint -- Introduction -- The knowing feminist a t the limits of modern methodology -- A methodological continuum: slipp ing and sliding on -- Haraway's greasy pole -- What is a feminist stand point? -- Nancy Hartsock: achieving a feminist standpoint as a vantage -- point on male supremacy -- Dorothy Smith: taking women's standpoint; beginning in -- experience -- What problems remain? -- Conclusion -- P ART II FREEDOM, FRAGMENTATION AND RESISTANCE -- 5 Escape from epistemol ogy? The impact of postmodern -- thought on feminist methodology -- Int roduction -- Postmodern thought -- Postmodern freedoms: sweeping away t he foundations of -- feminist methodology -- Thus far but no further? F eminist resistance to postmodern -- thought -- Conclusion -- 6 Research ing 'others': feminist methodology and the -- politics of difference -- Introduction -- Confronting difference in feminist social research -- Being different: the constitution of 'otherness' -- Being different: ex periencing and resisting 'otherness' -- Complications of difference -- The politics of representing 'others': the privileged researcher -- The power of interpretation: data analysis -- Reflexivity in the research process -- Conclusion -- 7 Knowledge, experience and reality: justifyin g feminist -- connections -- Introduction -- The case against taking ex perience as a source of knowledge -- A case for taking experience as a source of knowledge -- The difficulties of connecting experience and ma terial realities -- Should feminists specify criteria of validity? -- T he idea of a feminist epistemic community -- Conclusion -- PART III MEE TING CHALLENGES, MAKING CHOICES -- 8 Choices and decisions: doing a fem inist research project -- Introduction -- What makes social research fe minist? -- The research process -- Situating your research question -- Face to face with the research: data production -- Face to face with th e researched: putting reflexivity into practice -- Face to face with th e data: analysis and conclusions -- Face to face with a blank sheet: wr iting up -- Conclusion -- 9 Conclusion -- Glossary -- References -- Ind ex.