Black Feminist Epistemology or Bust: Challenging White Masculinist Thought-Models in Scientific Inquiry
But as Black feminists (Allen, 2002; Hill-Collins, 2000; hooks 1981; Houston & Davis, 2002; Watkins, 1999) strive to assert the importance and critical nature of their subjectively-centered knowledge base, they understand there is an epistemology already functioning that represents “elite White male interests” (Hill-Collins, 2000, p. 252). These opposing interests signal a power struggle for some, especially those who have worked hard to create a knowledge monopoly. For Mannheim (1954), if the origin and diffusion of a particular “thought-model” of a particular group were followed in detail, it would represent a particular way of interpreting the world (p. 276). The White masculinist way of envisioning reality is deeply rooted in scientific inquiry and knowledge claims. This perspective is highly exclusionary, effecting the knowledge validation process on multiple levels (Hill-Collins, 1989).
For instance, in his discussion of the philosophy of science, Johnstone (2002) implies that White male thinkers have dominanted the generation of scientific thought. Myletes (an island in Greece) is accepted as the absolute beginning of Athenian philosophy of science during approximately 600-425 B.C.. Nine White men (Phusis, Thales, Anaximznes, Anaximander, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Phythagous, Parmenides, Damatacrus) are credited with creating the foundation of scientific thought and inquiry (Johnston, 2002). In historicizing scientific episteme, Eberly (2002) continues this exclusionary discourse. Kant, Plato and Aristotle are discussed as the main philosophers of science. Throughout Pavitt’s book, The Philosophy of Science and Communication Theory, which outlines an extensive history of scientific inquiry, he only acknowledges two women’s contribution to science, one of which he disparages. In these examples, the contributions of White masculinist epistemological claims dominate the history of scientific thought.