Margrit Eichler - Nonsexist Research Methods

Published in 1988 by Allen and Unwin, Inc.

Reprinted in 1991 by

Routledge

An imprint of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.

29 West 35 Street

New York, NY 10001

Published in Great Britain by

Routledge

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London EC4P 4EE

Copyright 1991 by Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eichler, Margrit.

Nonsexist research methods.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. Social sciences Research. 2. Sexism. I. Title.

H62.E453 1987 300.72 87-11477

ISBN 0-04-497044-7

ISBN 0-415-90605-9 (pb)

British Library Catalouging in Publication Data

Eichler, Margrit

Nonsexist research methods: a practical guide.

1. Sexism in social science research

I. Title.

300.72 H62

ISBN 0-04-497044-7

ISBN 0-415-90605-9

The Four Primary Problems

The Three Derived Problems

This book is the result of several years of study in the area of sexism in scholarship and nonsexist alternatives. It has thus profited immensely from the various debates and publications on this topic. Many but not all of the authors who have contributed to this debate are cited in the text. I have also profited over the years from discussions with students. In particular, however, I am grateful to Paula Caplan, Marjorie Cohen, Jill Vickers, Maiylee Stephenson, and Wendy McKeen for reading and commenting on the entire manuscript, and to Robert Biym and Rhonda Lenton for reading and commenting on portions of the manuscript. The comments of the readers also resulted in several important changes in the final version. Finally, my greatest debt goes to Linda Williams, who provided invaluable research assistance at various points during the writing of the book.

I would also like to thank the following people for providing me with specific references: Paula Caplan, Ursula Franklin, Ester Greenglass, Thelma McCormack, Paul Olson, Ruth Pierson, Monica Townson, and Paul Wiesenthal.

The guidelines contained in the book have gone through many revisions and applications. Part of them were developed within the framework of a federal committee, the Canadian Womens Studies Advisoiy Committee of the Secretary of States Womens Programme. This committee was established to advise the federal government on where to locate five chairs on womens studies endowed by the Canadian government for the five geographic regions of Canada. Having received a broad rather than narrow mandate, the committee added the development of a set of guidelines for nonsexist research to its agenda. The entire committee, consisting of June Gow (chair), Donna Greschner, Gilberte Leblanc, Donna Mergler, Beth Percival, Charlotte Thibault, Jennifer Stoddart, and myself screened and discussed two earlier versions of the guidelines contained in this book. In particular, Donna Mergler contributed to the present shape ofthe guidelines.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge gratefully the excellent copy-editing done by Patricia Miller. Lisa Freeman-Miller of Allen &, Unwin was a dream come true in what you hope for in an editor.

Over a century ago, a schoolmaster named Edwin A. Abbott wrote an amusing Romance of Many Dimensions, entitled Flatland, space.

When the Square returns to his own country, he eagerly tries to spread the Gospel of Three Dimensions, but is predictably put into prison as a dangerous lunatic, where he languishes at the end of the novel, absolutely destitute of converts.

The following is an excerpt in which our hero, the Square, tries to convince the King of Lineland that there are, in fact, two dimensions. He argues that, in addition to Linelands motions of Northward and Southward, which are the only directions in which lines can move in Lineland, there is another motion, which he calls from right to left:

KING: Exhibit to me, if you please, this motion from left to right.

I: Nay, that I cannot do, unless you couldstep out of your Line altogether.

KING: Out of my Line? Do you mean out ofthe world? Out of Space?

I: Well, yes. Out of your Space. For your Space is not the true Space. True Space is a Plane; but your Space is only a Line.

KING: If you cannot indicate this motion from left to right by yourself moving in it, then I beg you to describe it to me in words.

I: If I cannot tell your right side from your left, I fear that no words of mine can make my meaning clear to you. But surely you cannot be ignorant of so simple a distinction.

KING: I do not in the least understandyou. (Abbott, 1952:62)

Like the King of Lineland, we have been brought up in an intellectually limited universe. Our dilemma is that all our major concepts, our way of seeing reality, our willingness to accept proof, have been shaped by one dimension one sex rather than by two. For as long as we remain within this intellectual universe, we are incapable of comprehending its limitations, believing it to be the only world that exists. In order to truly understand our universe, we must create a vantage point that allows us to observe it both for what it is and for what it is not. Not an easy task, as the Square found out when he tried to explain the existence of left and right to a person who had never experienced them.

Similarly, none of us has ever lived in a nonsexist society: moving toward nonsexist scholarship is comparable to trying to comprehend a dimension that we have not materially experienced. We can describe it in theoretical terms, but we cannot fully appreciate its nature until we are able to lift ourselves out of our current confining parameters. This involves becoming aware of sexism in research and starting to eliminate it.

Sexism in research was first recognized as a major problem around the mid-1970s. While books and articles that pointed out the problem existed before that time, it is only since the mid-1970s that critiques have appeared with some regularity and in more mainstream outlets.

In the early 1970s and continuing into the 1980s, various organizations, Nevertheless, sexism in research is still badly understood. Even less well understood is how to conduct research in a nonsexist manner.

This book has two major objectives: (1) to present an analysis of sexism in research that enlarges our understanding of this problem and sensitizes students and researchers to sexism in its various manifestations; and (2) to provide guidelines for solving the problem that offer clear and concise means of creating nonsexist alternatives.

Most analyses of sexism in research focus either on one discipline or subject area or else on one type of sexism. The term sexism suggests that we are dealing with one problem that may manifest itself in different areas differently, but which nevertheless is a single basic problem what one might call the big blob theory of sexism.

This book takes a different approach. Sexism is here broken down into seven different types. Of these seven types, four are primary a sexist problem as such, and rectifying it. In other words, the seven problems are intended to serve as tools to facilitate the recognition and correction of sexism in research, rather than as an ultimate system of categorization.