FEMINISM, EPISTEMOLOGY AND POSTMODERNISM - REFLECTIONS ON CURRENT AMBIVALENCE

Feminism's eminent position in critical social science is now beyond question, and a range of substantial texts on feminism, epistemology and social theory have reworked the dominant male images of knowledge and society. However, within feminist discourses, some key epistemological questions - such as 'is feminist standpoint epistemology viable?' - remain unresolved. Indeed, they have become compounded by the anti-epistemological impetus of postmodernism. In this paper I draw attention to some general problems in the area of feminism and epistemology, and conduct a close textual analysis of some key writings by feminist theorists to see whether a specifically postmodernist philosophical ambience suits feminism better than an enlightenment ambience.