Feminist Epistemology

Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology (i.e., the philosophy of knowledge) from a feminist perspective; feminist epistemology has been described as concerned with the way in which gender influences our concept of knowledge and "practices of inquiry and justification". It comes under the umbrella of social epistemology, the broad set of approaches to the study of knowledge. Elizabeth Anderson argues that the concept of situated knowledge is central to feminist epistemology. Donna Haraway makes the point that most knowledge, in particular academic knowledge is always situated and "produced by positioned actors working in/between all kinds of locations, working up/on/through all kinds of research relation(ships)" (Cook, et al.), and thus what is known and the ways in which this knowledge can be known is subject to the position—the situation and perspective—of the knower.

The English feminist philosopher Miranda Fricker has argued that in addition to social or political injustices, there can be epistemic injustices in two forms: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice consists in prejudices that cause one to "give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker's word" and gives the example of a woman who due to her gender is not believed in a business meeting. She may make a good case, but prejudice causes the listeners to believe her arguments to be less competent or sincere and thus less believable. In this kind of case, Fricker argues that as well as there being an injustice caused by possible outcomes (such as the speaker missing a promotion at work), there is a testimonial injustice: "a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower".