Politics of the knowledge Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Politics of the knowledge - Essay Example The two scientists strongly contest the objectivity of the contemporary knowledge and advocate new model of knowledge acquisition that encompasses feminist constructivist views and thereby delineating gender biases. Harding (1986) asserts that feminist theorists are objective in their hypotheses which are ‘free of gender loyalties’ (p. 138). At the same time, they also tend to ensure that women’s activities are fully represented within the broader scope of the social relation with the existing environment. The Marxist’s analysis of bourgeois labor becomes contentious as it ignores women’s experiences and therefore, need to be redefined to include women’s contribution to social life at all levels of interaction. Harding says that while subjectivity is inherent in the feminist epistemologies, the cultural production of gender identity necessitates greater understanding of changing social structure that ‘resists the continuation of the distorting dualities of modernism’ (p. 161). She emphasizes that feminist empiricism is pertinent as it challenges the androcentric biases. Indeed, women as enquirer considerably enhance objectivity of science. Haraway (1988) posits objectivity at the center of her arguments as male dominancy at all levels of scientific knowledge promotes biases in social constructions of not only identities but also in the social activities. She believes that feminist objectivity would help to translate knowledge across communities and power differentiated groups in a bias free manner. She says that more critical theories are required to construct meaning in order to ‘build meanings and bodies that have a chance for life’ (p. 25). The feminist objectivity highlights ‘situated knowledges’ (p. 26) that encourages paradoxical perspectives within scientific enquiry. She insists that there is no room for relativism within knowledge as it blurs the