From women studies to a feminist epistemology between domination and freedom

Abstract

This paper aims at approaching some crucial themes from the viewpoint of a feminist epistemology that is oriented to a sociological interpretation of contemporary societies.
In feminist epistemology women’s historical and social experience is a necessary premise to the interpretation of social dynamics. However, the proposition of its own internal heterogeneity implies an admission of partiality and relative sidedness of the assumption which, while trying to assert itself, cannot but distance itself from any anthropology of identity or politics of truth, following a deconstructive method. These considerations show the meaning of meta-narration in contemporary feminist epistemology: it is closely concerned with the domination-freedom relationship, which is nowadays the individual’s dilemma par excellence. For women, the dilemma is between protection and caring, subjection and seduction: these are the forces regulating, reproducing and partially solving gender contracts, patriarchal and post-patriarchal configurations in public and private relations, the ways in which and the extent to which the female body is accessible to men.
By looking from a sociological perspective of the feminist debate around social conflicts on necessaries such as caring, time, money, body, procreation, sexuality, I mean to highlight the cruces and reconfigurations of gender relationships in globalized European societies, where the intersection between gender, race and social class seems to advance various dual political constructions, among which the old tradition-modernity dichotomy.

Key words : Gender, Patriarchy, Feminist Epistemology