ABSTRACT
When this book was first published, in 1983, it joined two other Routledge women’s studies1 texts dealing with what were then called the ‘methodological’ aspects of feminist social science. These were the collections edited by Helen Roberts (1981), Doing Feminist Research, and by Gloria Bowles and Renate D.Klein (1983), Theories of Women’s Studies. All three books were important in Britain for a number of years, providing the basic feminist references on methodological topics and issues. Breaking Out, then sub-titled ‘Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research’, continues to be widely cited and used, in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, India, New Zealand, the USA and other parts of the world, in books, journal articles and in theses, and in spite of having gone out of print in 1989.
