Feminist Research

Feminist research challenges traditional researchers to engage gender dynamically as a category of inquiry in the research process. Feminist researchers utilize both qualitative and quantitative research methods and sometimes a combination of methods. What makes research feminist lies in the particular set of theoretical perspectives and research questions that places women's issues, concerns, and lived experiences at the center of research inquiry. Feminist research stresses the importance of considering how gender intersects with other forms of women's oppression based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and so on. Feminist research promotes social justice and works to initiate social change in women's lives. Feminist research praxis emphasizes issues of power and authority between the researcher and the researched, offsetting the influence of these factors through the practice of reflexivity throughout the research process. This entry reviews the history of feminist research from the 1960s onward, beginning with attempts to include women as research subjects, then reviewing the result of putting women's lived experience at the center of research, and, finally, exploring the ways in which recognizing the differences in those experiences leads to greater attention to issues of race and ethnicity and to a more global perspective. Attention to these perspectives on research leads feminist researchers to an ongoing examination of the role of power and authority in understanding the research process generally.