Practising Feminist Methodologies in Applied Research: The Undone Deal

Barriers to Accommodating Feminist Perspectives

Over time, there has been both acceptance and dissent within academia to feminist methodologies, while in the corporate setup I argue that we have not even begun the transformation, ² simply because no one ever questions the applied research or climate studies that organizations undertake. Scholars have often highlighted the negative connotation of the terms ‘Feminist’ or ‘Feminism’, as it has always had political connotations (North, 2009). In a recent work, Ging and Siapera (2019) highlight articulations of ‘anti-feminism’ in the digital realm (Ging & Siapera, 2019). Ferguson (1997) remarks that ‘…feminism’s vision of the world seems incompatible with the world that business has created’ (Ferguson, 1997). Two decades ago, Schaffer (1998) termed feminism/feminist a ‘scare-word’ and Beck (1998) as a ‘dirty word’.

Circumstances may have changed, but the iterations remain, this resistance to feminism can generate an inter-subjective agreement of sorts (Beck, 1998; Schaffer, 1998). Adopting feminist methodologies in my applied projects, tangibly evoked a broad spectrum of reactions, ranging from indifference, bewilderment, fear, opposition to avoidance.

Feminist methodologies in practice has the potential to open up new vistas. There could be epistemological or methodological concerns raised within feminist scholarship and this note acknowledges that complexity. Methods that I use in my consultancy research projects usually include interview, survey, case study, positive deviance, focus group discussions, thick descriptions, discourse analysis and admissible participatory approaches.

The epistemology of a researcher in a feminist approach would be to look at a research problem from the standpoint of the disadvantaged. I have been asked if there are compromises made to accommodate feminist goals. Does the research process vary? I explain how the research process and rigour are in fact enhanced and not compromised in anyway. Feminist methodology questions the process of discovery and construction of knowledge and makes the researcher look at appropriate means for producing or discovering knowledge, thereby aiming to establish validity in each step. Brooks and Hesse-Biber (2007) explain that:

…feminist research is a holistic endeavor that incorporates all the stages of the research process, from the theoretical to practical, from the formulation of research questions to the write-up of research finding. Feminist researchers emphasize the synergy and inter-linkages between epistemology, methodology and method and are interested in deferent ways that a researcher’s perspective on reality interacts with, and influences, how she goes about collecting and analyzing her data. (Charmaz, 2006; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006; Brooks & Hesse-Biber, 2007, p. 4)

The transparency in research is only enhanced and not haggled in any way. The feminist standpoint deconstructs ‘knowing the feminist’, explores ‘relationship between knowledge and power’, calls for ‘gendered and emotional embodiment’, and acknowledges ‘subjectivity’ thereby paving way for ‘strong objectivity’ (Harding, 2004). Clients I have interacted with, embrace and celebrate fairness in research, so what stops them from ascribing to a methodology that warrants it?

A founder of a technology start-up company, wanted help in identifying the ‘employees who didn’t fit in or feel belonged’. I explained standpoint theory and she loved it; however, when she sensed it had anything to do with feminism, she eventually requested an alternate approach ³ !

Commodification of Feminism

Consultants are hired to offer a solution to an issue, but feminist methodology that aspires to talk for the oppressed or those in the margin, doesn’t sell. But does feminism sell? It does! Suggestions I offer, are readily embraced and commodified. Commodification of feminism, can perhaps be understood from the prism of ‘corporate feminism’, projecting elite success stories, particularly of the privileged, rather than aspiring to collectively uphold the rights of women (Foster, 2016). Foster’s book was a rebuttal to the Facebook Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In’. Montoya (2018) also raises questions about Sandberg’s views, as they arguably internalized oppression, discrimination, hegemonic masculine norms, and why women ‘simply need to lean in’ (Montoya, 2018). ⁴ Documenting convenient individual and selective stories that celebrate success of women (who enjoy certain privileges), perpetuates corporate or capitalistic feminism, and defeats the purpose of adopting feminist methodologies. Such practices, will reproduce knowledge forms of knowing that have for centuries been built predominantly by the advantaged.

Feminist methodology is particularly concerned with the implication of the exclusion of women’s knowledge and experience from the traditional male constructors of knowledge. Feminist methodology is rightly conversant and augmented with a feminist epistemology, considering questions like who can be the agents of knowledge, what can be known and validated with prominence on the ontological position or standpoint. While feminist methodologies seek to intervene, negotiate within this space of patriarchal or class conventions and traditions that have systematically neglected women’s knowledge schemes in the world of practice, it continues to unroll the same way. My agency to influence change, gets seriously compromised too. While I am essentially an outsider (as a consultant to corporate organizations), my perspective is still valued, on the other hand I acknowledge that I have neither had unconditional agency nor control in how my advice or suggestion plays out. Agency has chronically been limited and circumstantial.

Emancipation, Agency and Power

Feminist methodologies are not homogenous in nature, they are in fact highly heterogeneous, often the position and trajectory an exploration takes is based on the epistemic perspective, rationale or leanings the practitioner subscribes to endeavouring to produce ‘emancipatory knowledge’ (Letherby, 2003).

The diversity and richness that a feminist investigation can embrace, tends to puzzle clients. Even in a classroom setting, while teaching feminist perspectives, the enigma of feminism is perceptible. I embrace these misperceptions, and draw their attention to epistemic standpoint outside the web of power (Medina, 2011). To declare upfront, the epistemic position and the epistemic advantage of a researcher are important in a feminist inquiry. One can ask, is it not important in every research, academic or applied? I then, narrate how historical texts have often silenced women as they have systematically excluded women as knowers or creators of knowledge repositories. Consequently, gender equality recommendations adorn organizational policies, but studying its implementation or attempts to theorize based on gender is resisted. Theorizing for the oppressed or silenced is critical to changing the way we see knowledge. My agency to influence remains restricted.

Feminism isn’t a homogenous blanket effort, but it is a practice that is situated within the realm of a discipline’s knowledge paradigm. It could also be within an interdisciplinary realm. Each paradigm advances, based on certain norms shaped by the academic branch of knowledge. As pointed out by Thompson, ‘An allegiance to a particular paradigm implies not only a worldview but also a paradigm-specific method of inquiry and even styles of presentation’ (Thompson, 2003, p. 122). The inquiry method and presentation may be rooted to a paradigm, yet the approach can accommodate a feminist standpoint. It can be transdisciplinary too. At this juncture, it may be interesting to note that based on my client interactions, most of them pin feminism to only literary studies or humanities. ⁵

In addition, feminists could be radical or liberal. The view or the standpoint is not always anti-patriarchal. Feminist methodology or activism is not to simplistically subvert male chauvinism but to examine the status quo and understand it better. A feminist inquiry can be androcentric too, taking the same trajectory of a gynocentric inquiry into the androcentric text. Contemporary feminism endeavours to capture the experience of the oppressed from a gendered viewpoint. While every context could spell out constructs such as agency, oppression and activism, in the corporate context it is vital to be conscious of the power struggles that happen within. When there are power struggles, agency has to be examined.

As Tadros (2018) observes ‘Agency cannot be simply examined in terms of the vision and actions of those exercising it, it has to be relational to other actors in the same context’; although this is suggested in a different context, it needs to be considered in every environment one may be exposed to as it is a critical inquiry perspective (Tadros, 2018, p. 82). This suggestion, when put forth is often met with resistance, as it is suggestive of activism. How does one study the climate within an organization if we fail to consider agency and its relational impact? There are multiple factors that construct the corporate environment, yet arguably there is a tendency to conveniently eclipse anything to do with feminism, oppression or power plays. ⁶ On another level, as registered earlier, the agency of the researcher also needs deliberation and understanding.

Action Research Circumventing Feminist Spirit?

Action research could be instituted across paradigms with ease, yet there is an unexplained discomposure. There are trepidations in embracing feminist methodologies. It is not the inability of feminist methodologies to fit into an accustomed paradigm with an intention to call out the silenced voices–it is the politicizing of it. The politics of subverting a particular gender, has become habitual and is the biggest elephant in the room, yet denial reigns supreme.

It also brands me, the researcher, as having a bizarre dependability to start something that could lead to politicizing issues. Clients also have the tendency to make sure I focus on only those factors that they enumerate as consequential. A research quest cannot begin with a pre-emptive list of causes, premeditated and simply seeking a researcher to validate it. In such instances, I have had no option but to walk out of those projects. I wish to assert that my disagreement or nonconformity has had no reverberation. Another researcher jumps into the fray replacing me, meeting their expectations and validating their conjectured surmises. Money has to be made!

If organizations already know the causal pattern, why do they hire researchers to authenticate it for them? My experiential premise is that they assume plausibility and authenticity are assimilated into organizational decision-making by attaching a third-party’s credibility ⁷ to their assertions. In such circumstances, they are unlikely to fuss over any methodological virtue.

However, reassuringly, I have also had the opportunity to work with like-minded team leaders that have granted the autonomy much needed for a researcher. It may not happen often, but when it does, I always begin by making the organization’s and my biases explicit. My clients seek an explanation on why this is done. I explain how a critical question asked in a feminist inquiry, to do with the assumptions of epistemology, is ‘whose knowledge is it’? The process of asking these questions, necessitates delineating one’s biases. There are many instances when knowing or acknowledging one’s biases has led to a solution, however such expeditions are swiftly marked ‘highly confidential’, so nothing changes! Feminist spirit and activism transmutes into abstract transient notions. Therefore, there’s nothing much said or recorded either.

The objectivity clause and confidentiality associated, triggers my musing over ‘disinterested knowledge’ and brings me back to the process of discovery and creation of knowledge. Harding (1991) raises pertinent questions on knowledge, asking ‘Must a researcher be disinterested, dispassionate, and socially invisible to the subject? What should be the purposes of the pursuit of knowledge? Can there be “disinterested knowledge” in a society that is deeply stratified by gender, race and class?’ (Harding, 1991, p. 109). Harding’s take on situated knowledge suggests that ‘…relativism is a way of being nowhere while claiming to be everywhere equally’ and ‘the equality of positioning is a denial of responsibility and critical enquiry’ (Harding, 2004, p. 89).

Can knowledge ever be unbiased? Is there not a bias when I decide what research problem to explore or work on? Does not the bias begin right there, with the organization or the researcher identifying his or her research area? This is reflected when traditional knowledge versus the interpretation of knowledge in modernist and post-modernist context is considered. It has seen a mighty shift; the play and complexities emerging between ‘context and power’ are in focus in the post-modernist context. Therefore, it is the ‘standpoint’ of the researcher and the examination of social reality from a contextual and power perspective that are pertinent in a feminist inquiry. When I follow other approaches, I find that my standpoint as a researcher does make its way to my final analysis; I can categorically label this a limitation, however, the problem remains in associating it with the feminist tag.

Feminist Methodology and Objectivity: Conflicts within Scholarship

Feminist methodology calls for a deeper understanding of the researcher. In a way, this is exclusive to feminist methodology. Feminists’ experience of undertaking consultancy projects especially that of action research that is paradoxically funded by corporate organizations themselves, is rarely narrated.

Feminists also critique the assumption that knowledge produced is ‘value free’ in empirical methods (Hardings, 1992). They acknowledge these factors while providing empirical evidence and, thereby, say that such an inquiry process increases objectivity, validity and reliability. Feminists call this strong objectivity (Hardings, 1992). Most methods of research can be used to attain feminist goals. I have, however, seldom been able to use much of it for my applied research expeditions, as no amount of persuasive explanation ever negates the negative connotations and irrational distress the word feminist sparks.

As with any approach, there are inherent conflicts within the feminist paradigm too. Perhaps these concerns, raised in the academic realm, manifest in the corporate and public spheres? One such conflict is to do with the representation of women by western feminists and non-western feminists. ⁸ Mohanty’s (2003) critique of western feminists has been that they are profoundly concerned with ‘binary oppositions’ such as mind versus body, reason versus emotion, male versus female. These archetypal representations ⁹ make feminism a narrower base and make the representation of women ‘homogenous’.

As far as my experience goes, my observations in the past, also mapped binary oppositions. ¹⁰ This would be a wonderful takeaway–moving away from such binary discourses has the potential to produce resonant solutions, not only in academic zones but also to corporate organizations. We have been forcing ourselves to mark situations as simply good or bad, as corporates identify with such conceptualizations. However, in the process, it entirely eclipses the lines of agreement, disagreement, neutrality, bias, politics, power-plays and the multitudes of definitions that may exist for good and bad!

Feminist Action Research: The Way Forward

Western feminists, non-western feminists, post-colonial, postmodern feminists may have their differences. In fact, dissent is passable in most academic circuits! However, I marvel how institutions and organizations that hire researchers to undertake applied research projects, atypically stand strikingly united in resisting anything to do with feminist methodologies ¹¹ !

The point of departure is that, whether one subscribes to it, partially accepts, or rejects feminist methodologies, the spirit and essence of this approach will not change. Maguire’s (2006) influential work discussed feminist action research, emphasizing how it is an uneven ground and ‘requires us to expose and unsettle gendering, as well as silencing mechanisms wherever encountered’ (Maguire, 2006). In the Indian context, there is marked lacuna in feminist action researchers documenting their experiences. Aren’t academicians being hired by corporates? Don’t they not engage in action research? If so, where are voices of those action researchers who identify themselves as feminists? This work, is a small step towards addressing this void in feminist scholarship. Despite my limited agency, I shall continue to advocate for feminist methodologies, as it seeks social change and strives to represent human diversity, therefore, aiming at reflexivity thereby paving the way, hopeful of producing legitimacy at different levels.