Engendering Rationalities (review)

The essay collection Engendering Rationalities, edited by Nancy Tuana and Sandra Morgen, is based on a conference by the same name that was held at the Center for the Study of Women in Society, University of Oregon, in the spring of 1997. As a participant at this conference, I recall a watershed moment. Journalist and social critic Barbara Ehrenreich was giving one of the main addresses. Ehrenreich chided feminist scholars for not taking seriously enough the limits of the natural world and for promoting the view that various truths about the world were in fact "socially constructed," as were the criteria for truth itself. Ehrenreich's presentation was not well received and many in the audience denied the merits of her accusations. However, I recall noting that the title of the conference "enGendering Rationalities" gave at least prima facie support to Ehrenreich's concern.

Indeed, over the past twenty years feminist philosophers have authored numerous criticisms of standard epistemology, suggesting that a) traditional concepts of rationality were socially constructed; b) the constructions were designed along social axes, such as gender, in order to serve those in positions of power, typically a number of men; and finally c) the constructions would be better off for reflecting a wider representation of the social realm, in particular, more women. Of course, for feminist epistemologists, defining "better off" requires normative content no longer available in traditional appeals to truth, and so begin the complex discussions central to feminist philosophical discourse. That feminist articulations of "social construction" are varied and often more sophisticated than is recognized by critics still leaves feminist scholars in a tight spot vis-à-vis concerns about relativism. If truth is relative to the social realm in which it was produced, where does that leave the truths espoused by feminists?

To the credit of feminist philosophers, many of whom were in Ehrenreich's audience, this very question has been the focus of sustained investigation, both at the conference itself and in any number of academic venues before and after. Perhaps her negative reception at the conference was a result of Ehrenreich's failure to acknowledge that feminist philosophers are indeed aware of, and struggle with, the very concerns she was raising.

Putting these concerns in context, recall that as feminists and other social critics peeled back layer after layer of corruption and oppression in even our most hallowed of institutions (science, the academy, law), it seemed a necessary next step to question whether the conceptual tools developed by those institutions— "truth," "objectivity," "rationality"—could be used to criticize the institutions themselves. As Audre Lourde had asked, "Can the master's tools be used to dismantle the master's house?" The "enGendering Rationalities" conference and the essay collection it inspired represent the latest attempts by feminists to answer this question. And, as even the most cursory glance at the contents of the book makes clear, there is no easy answer in sight.

Of the sixteen essays in the collection, many face the problem head on, including "On Judging Epistemic Credibility: Is Social Identity Relevant?" by Linda Martín Alcoff, and "Epistemology Resuscitated: Objectivity as Trustworthiness" by Naomi Scheman. The presentations range from the clear analytic mode of Lynn Hankinson Nelson's "Relativism and Feminist Science Scholarship" and Richmond Campbell's "The Bias Paradox in Feminist Epistemology" to the impassioned pleas of Sarah Lucia Hoagland's "Resisting Rationality." Hoagland's essay was, for me, the most challenging. In engaging, personal tones she reminds her readers that, underwritten by traditional notions of rationality, people in power have consistently worked to redescribe the powerless as irrational, crazy, and insane. And so, she argues, the freedom fighter must resist prevailing standards of rationality. Irrationality as a banner for freedom has never been a compelling image for me, but Hoagland...