ABSTRACT
Most of us have been brought up to think of ‘theory’ as something arcane, mysterious and rather forbidding. And, particularly if we are women, we will have been encouraged to think of ‘theory’ as special, not a part of everyday life; something produced by clever people (who just happen to be men), not by us. But what we’ve been brought up to think of as synonymous with ‘theory’ is, in fact, just one particular kind of theory. This is ‘grand theory’. ‘Grand theory’ approaches have traditionally been used to explain the reason for women’s oppression.
