Chapter+34+Standpoint+Theory+Presentation+Elizabeth+Heffner[1]

Chapter 34: Standpoint Theory

Presentation by: Brittany Harvey and Elizabeth Heffner

Theory in a NutshellStandpoint Theory:• Our social networks

influence:• A) how we experience

things • B) how we understand

and communicate with others.

• Our standpoint affects our world view.

Standpoint- A place from which we critically view the world around us.

Standpoint TheoryTheorists: Sandra Harding and Julia T. Wood

Interpretive Theory

Humanistic Theory

Midrange Theory

Sandra Harding and Julia T. WoodSandra Harding Julia T. Wood

• Philospher of science: women’s studies, education, philosophy at UCLA

• Stick in pond image (pg 441)

• Focus: Standpoint of women who are marginalized.

Professor of Communication at UNC-CH

Regards all perspectives as partial, BUT feels some are more partial than others based on perspective within different social hierarchies.

Women’s location on society’s margins doesn’t equal feminist standpoint.

Feminist Standpoint Theory RootsGeorg Hegel-1807German philosopherAnalyzed master-slave

relationshipExample: Those who

have been enslaved have a different perspective on the meaning of chains, laws, childbirth and punishment than their captors who participate in the same “reality” do.

However, since masters are backed by the structure of the society, they have the power to make their world views stick.

In essence, they are the ones writing the textbooks.

Feminist Standpoint Theory RootsKarl Marx and Friedrich Engels

From Proletarian standpoint to Feminist Standpoint

Proletarian standpoint:• The impoverished poor

provide sweat equity.• These people are known

as society’s ideal knowers.

• However, they are only ideal knowers if they understand the class struggle they’re involved in.

If you substitute women for proletariat, and gender descrimination for class struggle, you have the formula for early feminist standpoint theorists.

Feminist Standpoint Theory RootsStandpoint theory is

influenced by symbolic interactionalism which suggests that gender is socially constructed.

Standpoint theory is also influence by postmodern theorists like Jean-Francis Lyotard.

This suggests a critique of male-centered epistemologies.

Epistemology—theory of knowledge

BelovedScenesSilo and the school teacherMass murder sceneSchool master and Sethe

sceneInsert basic overview of

novel/moviehttp://www.youtube.com/watc

h?v=4mJ_FNjlmBg (trailer)

Part 1 of movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS3GkQE3kSg&feature=related

The Cider House Rules “A story about how far we must travel to find the place where we belong.” INSERT SYNOPSIS: A compassionate young man, raised in an orphanage and trained to be a doctor there, decides to leave to see the world. http://www.youtube.com/user/ClassicRocknRolla1http://www.youtube.com/user/ClassicRocknRolla1#p/search/4/AJhYRp2UUH8

Scene Selectionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxJr09u10co (trailer)

Need to find scene 1:40:32

Women as a Marginalized GroupStandpoint theorists

see important differences between women and men.

Julia Wood believes this is because :

Men want more autonomy

Women want more connectedness

•The evidence is found in each group’s communication:•Masculine community uses speech to: •accomplish tasks• assert self • gain power.

•Feminine community uses speech to:• build relationships•Include others•Show responsiveness

•Wood believes gender differences are there because of cultural expectations and gender treatment.

Importance of Social LocationStandpoint

theorists emphasize the importance of social location.

Why: Belief that only the priviledeged can define gender roles or anything else in a culture.

Sixo and the pig example (page 445)

When Sixo denies stealing the young pig, the school teacher takes on the role of Grand Interpreter.

While Sixo was clever, the schoolteacher beat him anyways to prove the point that definitions only belong to the definers.

Importance of Local KnowledgeLocal Knowledge:

“Knowledge situated in time, place, experience, and relative power, as opposed to knowledge from nowhere that’s supposedly value-free.”

Harding and Local Knowledge:

She put a distinction with the claim of traditional Western science that discovers “truth” that is value-free and available to any objective observer.

Importance of Local KnowledgeWhen doing research about reality, start with

people in the underclass.“Standpoint theorists do maintain, however,

that “the perspectives of subordinate groups are more complete and thus, better than those of privileged groups in a society.”

The Importance of Strong Objectivity

Strong Objectivity: “The strategy of starting

research from the lives of women and other marginalized groups, thus providing a less false view of reality.”

Harding and Strong Objectivity: She suggests not only taking all viewpoints into account but also suggests that comprehension produced from the standpoint of dominated groups offers, by contrast, only a weak objectivity.

An Example of Strong ObjectivityTo give an example of

what she means she uses Toni Morrison’s Beloved: “It is absurd to imagine

the U.S. slave owners’ view of Africans’ and African Americans’ lives could outweigh in impartiality, disinterestedness, impersonality, and objectivity their slaves’ view of their own and slave owners’ lives.”

“Harding emphasizes that it is the ‘objective perspective from women’s lives’ that provides a preferred standpoint from which to generate research projects, hypothesis, and interpretations. Perhaps such research could seriously explore perceptions of ‘a fate worse than death.’”

The Standpoint of Black Feminist ThoughtPatricia Hill Collins Her Book: Black

Feminist ThoughtAfrican American

sociologist at Brandeis University

Claims: patterns of “intersecting oppressions” African American women face in the United States have placed them in a different marginalized position in society compared to white women or black men.

“The heavy concentration of the U.S. black women in domestic work coupled with racial segregation in housing and schools” Meaning it helped these

women construct knowledge of how to survive in the world.

Along with other African-American feminist Collins feels they are a “unique group set undeniably apart because of race and sex with a unique set of challenges.”

Patricia Hill Collins

She believes there are four ways black women validate knowledge claims.

Lived experienced as a criterion of meaning: Living through actual experiences means those individuals are more credible then those who just read about the experiences.

The use of dialogue in assessing knowledge claims: Everyone has to participate in the experiment. If one person does not it is considered “cheating.”

The ethic of caring: Emotion equals a way to show how powerful the argument can be.

The ethic of personal accountability: The knowledge of the experience that someone claims has happened to them can all be evaluated based on the individual’s character, values, and ethics.

Seyla Benhabib: Interactive UniversalismProfessor of government

at Harvard UniversityWants to maintain that a

universal ethical standard is a viable possibility.

Sets out to “defend the tradition of universalism in the face of this triple-pronged critique by engaging the claims of feminism, communitarianism, and postmodernism.”

• Feels the force of three major attacks on Enlightenment rationality and Habermas’ discourse ethics

1. Postmodern Critique

2. Communitarian Critique

3. Feminist Critique

Seyla BenhabibPostmodern Critique

Communitarian Critique

Jean-Francois Lyotard states that there are no longer any grand narratives on which to base a universal version of truth.

Senhabib disagrees, saying that rather than reaching a consensus on how everyone should act, interacting individuals can align themselves with a common good.

Communitarians and postmodernists are drawn together by the idea that the “critique of Western rationality as seen from the perspective of the margins, from the standpoint of what and whom it excludes suppresses, delegitimatizes, renders mad, imbecilic or childish.”

Benhabib realizes the risk of creating a global moral template to apply to every situation.

So, to avoid this risk, Benhabib stresses the idea that any panhuman ethic can be achieved through interaction with collective concrete others instead.

Seyla Benhabib: Feminist CritiqueCarol Gilligan, Deborah Tannen, Sandra

Harding, Julia Wood, and Cheris Kramarae all concur that the way women experience something and then retell what happened is different from the way men experience something and talk about what happened.

Main point: Regardless of these three critiques, Benhabib believes that a new breed of universal ethic is still possible. She likes to believe that this may include a obligation of helping people survive and flourish.

Crictique: Susan Hekman and Nancy HirschmannFeminist ScholarsConcerned that Harding’s version of standpoint

theory miscalculate the function that language plays in conveying one’s sense of self and the perception of the world.

Along with many other theorists, they feel people’s “communication choices are never neutral or free-value, so people can’t separate their standpoint from the language they used to describe it. Words that are chosen are based on individuals’ cultural and societal filters.”

Table of Contents—My section1. Standpoint Theory Defininga. Theory in a Nutshellb. Theory range/Humanistic/interpreti2.Theoristsveai.Sandra Harding and her backgroundAii.Julia T. Wood and her backgroundB. Terms—standpoint i. Synonymous with viewpoint, perspective, outlook and position.ii. Claim that “the social groups within which we are located powerfully shape what we experience and know as well as how we understand and communicate with ourselves,

others, and the world.” Essentially, our standpoint affects our world view.iii. How the theory came to be—people who influenced it

a. George Hegeli. Info about him---master-slave relationshipb. Karl Marx and Freidrich Engelsii. Proletarian standpoint/ideal knowersiii. How it’s similar to feminist standpoint theorycd. Movie—Beloved. Jean-Francois Lyotard-how postmodernism is woven into this -post modernists applaud the standpoint emphasis on knowledge

e. Movie—The Cider House Rules

Postmodern critique:

Communitarian crique: Communitarians and postmodernists are drawn together by the idea that the “critique of Western rationality as seen from the perspective of the margins, from the standpoint of what and whom it excludes suppresses, delegitimatizes, renders mad, imbecilic or childish.” Benhabib realizes the risk of creating a global moral template to apply to every situation. So, to avoid this risk, Benhabib stresses the idea that any panhuman ethic can be achieved through interaction with collective concrete others instead.

Collective concrete others-ordinary people who live in a community.