ABSTRACT
Ann Oakley's study of the transition to motherhood for fifty-five women is a good starting point for understanding feminist research. Marcia Westkott talked about the importance of holding criticism in tension with vision as well as the importance of the interaction between social knowledge and self-knowledge, which produces both anger about and distance from knowledge of women's subordination. Support for a beyond-feminism notion, for example, can be found in results from some women studies integration projects. Addressing the emancipatory element of feminist work more directly, P. Christopher Smith, Westkott, and others have argued that feminist research is for rather than about women. Briefly described, standpoint epistemology begins with the idea that less powerful members of society have the potential for a more complete view of social reality than others, precisely because of their disadvantaged position. The implication for developing a specifically feminist epistemology is that a woman's perspective will lead to more accurate, more complex knowledge.
