Feminist epistemology

Examination of the study of knowledge from a feminist standpoint Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology from a feminist standpoint. Overview Feminist epistemology claims that ethical and political values are important in shaping epistemic practices, and interpretations of evidence. Feminist epistemology has been in existence for over 40 years. Feminist epistemology studies how gender influences our understanding of knowledge, justification and theory of knowledge; it describes how knowledge and justification disadvantage women. Feminist epistemology is derived from the terms feminism and epistemology. Feminism is concerned with the abolition of gender and sex inequalities rooted in discrimination, while epistemology is the inquiry into knowledge's meaning. Scholars of feminist epistemology claim that some theories of knowledge discriminate against women by disbarring them from inquiry, unfairly criticizing their cognitive styles, and producing theories of women and social phenomena that reinforce gender hierarchies and represent women as inferior. The easy and uncontroversial point is that much of what has been recognised as knowledge and passed on in academic and