Conversations with Epistemologies of Feminism: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This article provides comprehensive and summarised insights to the epistemologies of feminism. It is an exploratory research, which used epistemological theory; and a methodological analysis embedded in the system approach theory of literature review as its theoretical foundation. Reviewing the literature as a means of researching could be problematic following the scanty, irrelevant and at times voluminous materials available to researchers. On account of this a content analysis research method was used. Among its revelations, this article reveals that feminism theorists seek to understand how political and social relations of gender have shaped our understanding of challenges, desires and anticipations of women, not only in the present and in limited capacity but also to understand how we ought to know and how we can improve our knowledge practices. Also, feminist theories provide justifications for the study of feminism and the need for linking the subject to other fields of inquiry given its links, for example, to capitalism and socialism as alluded to by Marxists and radical theorists respectively.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n1p353