Is the objectivity of historical inquiry a useful goal for feminist thought?

The feminist critique of objectivity arises in several subtly different forms depending on the discipline in question. Feminist scholars have questioned its validity, possibility and usefulness as a concept across disciplines such as science, psychology and metaphysics, but the problem takes on a markedly different dimension when it comes to the historical disciplines. The story of history and feminism has not been an easy one, while womens history that is, the study of women and their position throughout history - has been heralded by some feminist thinkers as a logical goal for feminist thought, others have questioned the very structures through which we gain historical knowledge, and whether history as a practice can be objective at all1. It is this question of the objectivity of historical inquiry that will be the subject of this essay, and my attempt at a response will be composed of two main parts. Firstly, before proceeding with any assessment of the usefulness of historical objectivity for feminist thought, it will be necessary to consider whether such objectivity is even possible. Once I have laid the groundwork for what I believe to be a plausible defence of the possibility of historical objectivity, the second part of the essay will be dedicated to defending the idea that it is desirable for a feminist history to aim towards some notion of objectivity. In order to properly understand the criticisms mounted against historical objectivity, we must first attempt to define it. Helen Longino has defined it as a characteristic ascribed variously to beliefs, individuals, theories, observations, and methods of inquiry. It is generally thought to involve the willingness to let our beliefs be determined by the facts or by some impartial and nonarbitrary criteria rather than by our wishes as to how things ought to be2. While her paper goes on to detail the position of objectivity in the scientific method, her definition identifies three important points common to our idea of historical objectivity. Firstly, that our beliefs are to be guided by it. That is to say, that objectivity provides an acceptable, sound basis for belief. Secondly, that this foundation for belief stems from a link to the facts, which is surely a guiding principle of history - as Crawford and Long note, historians started in the 19th century to consider their task as similar to scientists, recounting events as they really happened3. Finally, Longino contrasts this with allowing our beliefs to be lead by our own personal wishes, which is intuitively at odds with the generally accepted aims of historical inquiry. One cannot simply make history up from nowhere, based on what one would have preferred to happen. Working from primary sources,

For a concise overview of this tension, see Patricia Crawford and Jane Longs entry, History, in The Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories, pp. 249 252. 2 Helen Longino, Values and Objectivity, in Philosophy of Science: the central issues, p. 171. 3 Crawford and Long, p. 251.

historians are expected to arrive at a coherent account of our shared past which is comprehensive and useful to our present-day thoughts on our society. This objectivity has been the subject of attack from certain feminist thinkers, and these attacks can be divided into direct and indirect. A direct attack on objectivity is where a thinker takes issue with the very concept, or with some aspect thereof4, whereas indirect attacks are those where the conception of history from a feminist standpoint implicitly criticises the objectivity of current historical practice. Such an attack can be seen in the work of Joan Kelly-Gadol, who has criticised the accepted periodisation of history. For her, concepts like the Renaissance have been falsely accepted into the current historical canon because these periods have been assessed from the vantage point of men5. On the contrary to the current historical definition of the Renaissance as a period of accelerated intellectual, artistic and political progress - which women are assumed to have shared because of the underlying assumption that history is objective Kelly-Gadol suggests that a re-reading of the same period through a feminist lens will lead us to see it with a new, double vision and each eye sees a different picture6. This view of history calls into question the concept of its objectivity. Returning to Longinos original definition, if something is guided by the facts surely there cannot be two entirely opposing interpretations arising from them. The fact that Kelly-Gadol highlights different histories for men and women7 also carries with it the implication that these opposing interpretations stem from the influence of the historian on historical knowledge. That is to say, because the historical community has been composed largely of men, due to the exclusion of women from education and academic pursuits, only their interests have been thus far represented in historical inquiry, and therefore the way that history has been perceived has been extremely androcentric. This rejection of historical objectivity leaves us in a rather bleak position. If history can never be objective in this manner, then it appears that Pieter Geyls assertion that history is an argument without end is correct, which is directly opposed to the commonly accepted view of history outlined above. More problematic for the feminist philosopher, though, is the question of how we are to consider the history of women given such a revelation. For some, the solution is to re-periodise history according to cycles connected to women8, but for others the solution is

For further discussion of such attacks, see Crawford and Long, p. 252, and Ismay Barwells Towards a Defence of Objectivity, in Knowing the Difference: Feminist Perspectives in Epistemology, pp. 79 80. 5 Joan Kelly-Gadol, The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological Implications of Womens History, p 811. 6 Ibid, p 811. 7 Ibid, p 812. 8 Ibid, p. 812, and the work of Rosalind Miles in Who Cooked the Last Supper?: The Womens History of the World.

to re-visit history with a feminist perspective and take stock of how the big changes in society affected women9. It is here that we can see the tension between the rejection of history as androcentric and the promotion of a history motivated by feminist thinking. On one hand, the current canon of historical knowledge is rejected as flawed because it is androcentric, but on the other, there is a strong desire to re-appropriate history, which as an endeavour is itself politically motivated. This tension has been highlighted by Christopher Blake, who finds the entire project of questioning historical objectivity to be self-defeating. As he states, To ask can history be objective , in short, is rather like asking can novels be well written? or can anything be known?10. This standpoint essentially raises the issue inherent in the feminist historian who rejects the notion of objectivity. While it is true that some pieces of history are not objective, that is to say they are in some important way too influenced by the personal tastes and opinions of the historians charged with their creation, it is true that some pieces of history can be, much in the same way that some novels can be badly written, but some can be well written. This argument relies quite heavily on the common-sense usage of the word objective, which Blake freely admits in the rest of his paper. So while it may be true that every piece of history is in some way affected by the personal tastes and opinions of the historian, Blake claims that history can still be identified as objective until a certain amount of subjective influence can be identified. Where this line lies is of course the next hurdle to our definition of history as objective. Blakes paper convincingly points to a pragmatic approach. For him, there surely exist a set of professional standards mutually accepted by historians, and therefore at least a part, actually a very considerable part, of history which is acceptable to the community of professional historians beyond all question by these standards: to Marxists and to Liberals, to Catholics and to Protestants, to nineteenth-century Germans or to twentieth century Englishmen11. In essence, then, there are a set of practices acceptable to the vast majority of professional historians by which we can allow ourselves permission to judge the objectivity of historical enquiry. That these standards are ill-defined certainly, Blake offers no attempt at an outline of such standards, he rather leaves the vague concept of acceptable subjectivity hanging in the air is of little consequence. Blake appears therefore to suggest that, since there is a working system by which to judge historical objectivity, we should just continue to use it and not spend too much time concerning ourselves with the definition thereof.

Kelly-Gadol, p. 812. Christopher Blake, Can History Be Objective? p. 67. 11 Blake, p. 63.
10

For a feminist, this raises some important issues. Firstly, a feminist could argue that the system under which historians are currently working has been set up and mostly propagated by men, and therefore the fact that under such a system we have an approximation of historical objectivity acceptable to men is not a valid reason for its continued existence. Secondly, the fact that something does exist does not necessarily mean that it should; convenience is not in itself a good enough reason to support an idea. Thirdly, given the androcentric bias of current historical canon and practice, should we really be happy with an approximation of objectivity? Should history not adopt, as a central aim, the attainment of complete and utter objectivity? Surely, any residual subjective influence stemming from the historian them self should be eradicated if we are to make use of historical observation. Here, Blake offers a simple yet compelling response. He goes on to explain that this third charge of the unacceptability of incomplete objectivity is in fact demanding far too much of a historian. To require complete objectivity of anyone is to ask the impossible, an idea which is in fact proven by the fact that this particular critique of historical objectivity is motivated by feminist thought. Historians specialising in womens history would quite rightly consider themselves part of the profession of historians, but if their charge against current historical practice is that it is not objective because androcentric, then their own endeavours should be recognised as just as unobjective because motivated by feminist thought. If this is the case, then their contributions to history can only be considered as valuable as the androcentric status quo, and it would be acceptable to reject them in favour of the currently accepted historical thinking. This is clearly at odds with the feminist objective of redressing the balance in history between men and women. What is necessary is, as Louise A. Tilly points out12, a connection between findings by feminist historians and questions already under consideration by the historical community. It would be useless and self-defeating to produce a history of women and then deny that such a history has any value, because it is not objective, so the very concept of a feminist historian assumes the possibility of a basic level of objectivity; if there was no possibility of objectivity, the feminist historian would be redundant. Blakes common-sense approach to the definition of acceptable subjectivity in historical enquiry would remove such an obstacle to feminist history, and if we therefore accept such a definition, we can see that objectivity is, in some way, indeed possible. As Blake says, when considering the concept of objectivity, the cure for the tempting philosophical scepticism is to remember that, before we started to wonder, we did know how to use the word13.

12 13

Louise A. Tilly, Gender, Womens History, and Social History, p. 439. Blake, p. 78.

Assuming that the reader has followed the argument of this essay thus far, and I recognise that to do so involves the acceptance of several premises that one could just as well take issue with, they might still pose the question, is objectivity desirable for a feminist theory? First of all, I submit that having shown that an acceptance of objectivity is not only possible, but is inherent to the definition of the feminist historian, this carries with it the implication that the feminist historian cannot talk of herself as a historian without accepting some notion of historical objectivity. At this point, then, talk of whether it is desirable or not becomes meaningless, because the feminist historian could not exist without it. However, this assertion will hold little value for those readers who have taken issue with any part of the first section. In order to offer an argument to these readers, I appeal to the pedagogic aspect of our structures for acquiring knowledge. Judith M. Bennett has written at length about the ghettoisation of womens history in the US, noting that it has become less feminist and more seemingly objective14. This opposition of feminism and objectivity is interesting to note, because it highlights exactly the trend that I have highlighted in the first section, that is to say, the trend among feminist thinkers to reject traditional notions of objectivity wholesale and direct their inquiry in a different way. What Bennett has done is hit upon the notion that feminism, by rejecting these notions, has segregated its contributions from the mainstream historical canon, thereby severely limiting its scope of explanatory power. By rejecting objectivity, therefore, feminist history is reducing the claims that it can make. Acknowledging the subjective aspect of historical inquiry, which is a central claim of some feminist thinkers, the way that we acquire historical knowledge is through a constant revision of the facts and an overturning therefore of the dominant theories. If this method of inquiry accepts its own subjectivity, that is to say that selection of the facts that make up dominant theories is lead by the historians own culturally-informed interests, but also it is recognised that in order to be accepted into the current body of historical knowledge, research must hold itself accountable to some set of criteria by which we can purport to judge its objectivity, then for feminist history to deny this objectivity is essentially shooting itself in the foot. This claim is more than the mere claim that it is easier to uphold the status quo than to challenge it, because such a claim would hold very little philosophical value, what this claim in fact amounts to is that a rejection of the objectivity of historical inquiry equates to a denial that feminist history has any more importance for our common body of knowledge than the traditionally-accepted androcentric. A denial of objectivity, therefore, amounts to a lack of any proper method by which to settle historical disputes,
14

Judith M. Bennett, Feminism and History, p. 255.

which we would surely want to avoid. It is desirable for us as knowledge-holders to be able to say with certainty that it was not the Jewish population of Germany that caused the economic collapse of the country prior to the second World War, and that the claims to that effect were made by Nazi historians who were clearly allowing their own political motivations to overtake the facts. A rejection of the possibility of objectivity on feminist grounds would have the unpalatable conclusion that we would be forced to accept such knowledge, in addition to historical accounts that either ignore or downplay the position of women, as just as valid as the historical accounts motivated by feminist thinking because all three are clearly motivated by subjectivity15. Were we to accept a notion of objectivity in historical inquiry and that is not necessarily the account that I have provided in the first section, although that is certainly the account that I find most compelling and least problematic this problem would be reduced, because we would have some opportunity to define certain accounts as wrong, incomplete or in some way worse than other, more comprehensive accounts. So then, what are we to conclude? Firstly, I feel it is vital for any feminist historian or, indeed, feminist of any ilk to accept the possibility of objectivity. To refuse such a possibility would be to refuse the legitimacy of the feminist historians work. Secondly, I maintain that a feminist historian must desire to achieve some notion of objectivity since, without such an acceptance, feminism as an academic discipline risks ghettoising itself to the point where it would largely be preaching to the choir, while the other academic disciplines continued without the feminist contribution that could enhance their explanatory power. These two conclusions combine to form the ultimate conclusion that objectivity is vital for most feminist endeavours as we understand them the principles outlined in this paper could well apply to disciplines outside the historical sphere and therefore historical objectivity is indeed a useful goal for feminist thought.

15

Here, it could be argued that the Nazi and androcentric account of knowledge should be rejected because of their harmful implications for society, but this objection is itself difficult to uphold without recourse to the notion of objectivity because how are we to say which notions of history are harmful and to what groups without some sort of reference to the facts or how things are?

Bibliography Barwell, Ismay 1994: Towards a Defence of Objectivity, in Knowing the Difference: Feminist Perspectives in Epistemology, ed. Kathleen Lennon and Margaret Whitford, London: Routledge, pp. 79-94. Bennett, Judith M. 1989: Feminism and History, Gender and History 3: 251-72. Blake, Christopher 1955: Can History Be Objective?, Mind 253: 61-78. Crawford, Patricia and Long, Jane 2004: History, in The Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories, ed. Lorraine Code, New York: Routledge, pp. 249-52. Kelly-Gadol, Joan 1976: The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological Implications of Womens History, Signs 4: 809-23. Longino, Helen 1998: Values and Objectivity, in Philosophy of Science: the central issues, ed. M. Curd and J. A. Cover, Philadelphia: W.W. Norton. Miles, Rosalind 2001: Who Cooked the Last Supper?: The Womens History of the World, New York: Three Rivers Press. Tilly, Louise A. 1989: Gender, Womens History, and Social History, Social Science History 4: 439-62.