Feminism was one of
the earliest movements influenced by the ideas of Max Weber regarding social
research. Feminism, as a social theory, is not one unified approach and there
are a few types of feminist theory. The most commonly identified forms of
feminism are liberal feminism which argues for gradual change in the roles of
women, Marxist feminism which sees capitalism and gender as enemies of women
and radical feminism which criticises patriarchy and views masculinity as an
enemy. Another type of feminism is black feminism sees both racism and
masculinity as issues for Black women. The different strands of feminist theory
widely disagree on many points, but all of them share a common ground point of apposing
patriarchy.
Feminism built of Weber's notions
regarding the nature of social inquiry. Unlike positivist thinkers of his time,
Weber thought that there cannot be such a thing as an "objective"
study of human society. In other words Weber "sociolozied" science
and claimed the aspect like ideology influence the manner in which objects are
studies. Feminist thinkers drew on Weberian thought when they argued that
social sciences are in essence masculine, and in being so are agents in
sustaining patriarchy.
Following Max Weber, feminists tend
to argue that empirical, scientific approaches to research (be it social or exact)
are masculine in nature and orientation. Feminists reject the notion of value
free and objective sociology, claiming that it is 'malestream' and ideological
thought (this is especially true with feminism related to critical theory).
According to Millen, what makes feminist research feminist in intent is that it
is politically motivated and that it intends to have a role in changing social
inequality. It considers the experiences of women and provides a context for
the understanding of female issues. The researcher may actually become part of
the research process. Feminist research acknowledges that the politics of the
researcher influences the findings and actually views this bias as a strength
of the research process. It is this type of thought that makes feminism a
critical theory of society.
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