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Debate

Sociology
Copyright 2004
BSA Publications Ltd
Volume 38(1): 175189
[DOI: 10.1177/0038038504039374]
SAGE Publications
London,Thousand Oaks,
New Delhi

Quoting and Counting: An Autobiographical

Response to Oakley

Gayle Letherby
Coventry University

A B S T R AC T

In 1998 Ann Oakley published an article in Sociology entitled Gender, Methodology

and Peoples Ways of Knowing: Some Problems with Feminism and the Paradigm
Debate in Social Science. Within this piece she suggests that the main methodological concern of feminist sociologists is whether qualitative or quantitative
methods are the best way to find out about peoples lives. My reading of the feminist literature leads me to disagree and to suggest that the relationship between
the process and product, between doing and knowing, i.e. how what we do affects
what we get, while using both qualitative and quantitative methods, is the main
concern of contemporary feminists. In this piece I present my own review of the
feminist literature in order to demonstrate the centrality of the process and product/doing and knowing debate. I draw on a range of work, including other work of
Oakley, and I also refer to my own experiences of research and show how issues
of process and product/doing and knowing are relevant for me.
K E Y WO R D S

doing and knowing / epistemology / feminist research / methodology / process and

product

Introduction

nn Oakleys (1998) article Gender, Methodology and Peoples Ways of

Knowing: Some Problems with Feminism and the Paradigm Debate in
Social Science in Sociology takes a critical look at the paradigm dialogue, or paradigm argument as she calls it, within sociology and especially
within feminist sociology. I found the article informative and was interested in

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Oakleys historical reading of issues of method and epistemology in feminist

sociology. I find though that my reading of the main debates amongst feminists
on the research process has a somewhat different emphasis. For Oakley, the
main concern of feminists appears to be whether qualitative or quantitative
methods are the best way to find out about peoples lives. From my reading of
the literature, I would suggest that the relationship between the process and the
product, i.e. how what we do affects what we get (in both qualitative and quantitative work), is the central concern of feminist researchers. Thus, the key issue
here is the relationship between doing and knowing: how the way that we
undertake research (the process) relates to the knowledge we present at the end
(the product). Within this, acknowledgement of and reference to the power
dynamics within research are essential. In this piece my aim is to demonstrate
the process and product/doing and knowing relationship as the central concern
for feminists.
In her third footnote Oakley (1998: 725) writes:
I am here trying to summarise a substantial literature written by feminist social scientists about research methods; this literature includes some of my own work
(Oakley, 1981). The journey taken in this paper from a defence of qualitative methods to a recognition that what feminism and social science both need is a more
integrated approach encapsulates an autobiographical path; there is no sense in
which I see myself as outside the feminist critique.

I am writing my response through reference to my own autobiographical

path and refer to my own research experiences and make reference to the influence that other feminists (including Oakley) have had on these.
The main body of this piece is divided into three main sections. In
Gendered Paradigms? I review some of the feminist literature which aims to
consider the relationship between the process and its product through a critique
of the qualitative and defence of the quantitative. Following this in a section
entitled Personal Research Experiences, I use some of my own work as a case
study, outlining my own use of qualitative and quantitative methods and considering how concerns of process and product are central to my practice. In
Epistemology/ies I consider further the relationship between practice, philosophy and politics. Finally, I conclude by highlighting once more my own position
on the central methodological concern of feminists.

Gendered Paradigms?
Valuing the Participatory Model
In the academic year 1989/90 as a third-year undergraduate student, I too felt
that feminist researchers celebrated qualitative methods as best suited to the
project of hearing womens accounts of their experiences (Oakley, 1998: 708);
that the critique of quantitative overlapped with the critique of mainstream/
malestream; and that quantitative and qualitative approaches represented

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mutually exclusive ideal types (Oakley, 1998: 709). Indeed, it appeared to me

at that time that:
To be a feminist social scientist one must have a certain allegiance to the qualitative
paradigm, and a willingness to go along with the habit of dualistic either/or thinking (Oakley, 1998: 716)

So, I accept that:

The paradigm argument in which qualitative and quantitative ways of knowing are
seen as opposed is a historical and social construct. (Oakley, 1998: 724)

Feminists have long argued that the history of knowledge production is a

sexist one. Alongside this, quantitative methods, as Oakley (1998) notes, have
been identified as particularly guilty in distorting womens experience and
silencing womens voices (Jayaratne and Stewart, 1991). Specific criticisms of
quantitative research have included the selection of sexist and elitist research
topics, biased research design including the use of male-only respondents,
exploitative relationships between researcher and researched, claims to false
objectivity, inaccurate interpretation and generalization of findings (see
Jayaratne and Stewart, 1991, for a more detailed discussion). Quantitative
researchers then, the argument goes, at best misunderstood women and at
worst misrepresented them, and compounded the view that woman as not-aman is a deviation from the norm. This led many feminists to suggest that there
was a fundamental contradiction between the theory and method that was
accepted in mainstream social science and feminist goals and commitment.
Thus, writers such as Bowles and Klein (1983: 2) suggested that not only did
social science need feminist insights but that to introduce these represented a
radical challenge to knowledge and knowledge production. With specific reference to methods, Mies (1983: 117) suggested that new wine should not be
poured into old bottles.
Oakley (1981) herself (in a chapter in Helen Roberts edited book Doing
Feminist Research) provided a powerful and persuasive argument of the value
of the in-depth qualitative interview for feminist research: where the interviewer
has to invest her own personal identity in the research relationship, asking questions, sharing knowledge. This type of reciprocity, she argued, invites intimacy.
In the same chapter, Oakley does demonstrate how the interview can and has
been used in sexist ways. Elsewhere in the book Morgan (1981: 87) adds to this
by arguing that historically the qualitative approach has had its own brand of
machismo with its image of the male sociologist bringing back news from the
fringes of society, the lower depths, the mean streets.
For me the strength and the weakness in Oakleys (1981) chapter was its
focus on the power dynamics within research. Oakley called for the development of a participatory model for research: a model which aims to produce
non-hierarchical and non-manipulative research relationships which break
down the separation between researcher and researched (Reinharz, 1983). This
is not only viewed by many as politically correct but is clearly very relevant in

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terms of the development of an approach which is concerned to acknowledge

the relevance of the personhood of both the researcher and the respondent to
both the research process and product. So, letting women people speak for
themselves, and, in part at least, set the research agenda, is likely to produce
work which can be used by women to challenge stereotypes, oppression and
exploitation (e.g. Maynard and Purvis, 1994; Reinharz, 1992; Stanley, 1990a).
I feel that this aspect of Oakleys (1981) work has taken precedence over the
valuable points she makes concerning the potential problems with this method.
Certainly I know that I was guilty of reading it solely as a celebration of the
in-depth interview as the best way (both ethically and substantively) to find out
about peoples lives.

Critique of the In-depth Interview

However, many writers have been critical of the all-encompassing positive value
of the in-depth interview in relation both to the feminist research experience
and to substantive findings. While involved in my own undergraduate and postgraduate research, I became aware of both the critique of the qualitative and a
defence of the quantitative by feminist writers. Furthermore, a review of some
of the literature since Oakleys 1981 chapter demonstrates that many feminists
are not concerned to argue for the naming of a particular method as feminist
but rather want to ensure that the method used is appropriate to the research
questions and that all researchers address issues of power within research relationships.
With reference particularly to qualitative research and power dynamics,
Finch (1984) argues that friendly researchers are likely to bring forward vulnerable people who reveal very private aspects of their lives, and adds that
ideally respondents need to know how to protect themselves from interviewers.
McRobbie (1982) similarly argues that the researcher may sometimes feel that
she/he is holidaying on peoples misery, while also suggesting that it is patronizing to assume that respondents always want something back from the
researcher. Ramazanoglu (1989) and Marshall (1994) point out that women are
divided by variables other than gender. Cotterill (1992) adds that power is
likely to shift between respondent and researcher during research but that once
the researcher walks away with the data she/he is in control. Given these and
other issues, Stacey (1991) wonders if there can ever be a feminist ethnography,
arguing that ethnographic methods can easily be exploitative. While recognizing this potential exploitation, Skeggs (1994) and Millen (1997) argue that it is
important not to over passify respondents and automatically assume that they
are always less powerful than researchers. Thus, there is an acknowledgement
now that the generation of data through appealing to sisterhood is a simplistic
view of feminist research (e.g. Cotterill, 1992; Marshall, 1994; Millen, 1997;
Ramazanoglu, 1989; Ribbens, 1989).
Various writers have suggested that, when arguing for the participatory
model as enabling the collection of truer data, Oakley (1981) ignored poten-

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tially exploitative elements of this relationship (e.g. Collins, 1998; Cotterill,

1992; Kelly et al., 1994). For example, as Kelly et al. (1994) argue, women may
not always want to share their experiences with another woman and even if
they do this may not always be of personal benefit. This leads them to advocate
the use of questionnaires which combine yes/no answers and in-depth questions, allowing respondents to participate anonymously. They support Fonow
and Cook (1991) (and Oakley, 1998), who suggest that a quantitative study
that is well designed and properly undertaken is more useful to policy makers
and less harmful to women than a qualitative study that is badly designed and
poorly undertaken. With the work of Fonow and Cook (1991) and Jayaratne
and Stewart (1991) in mind, Kelly et al. (1994) describe Oakleys (1981) chapter as a classic. They suggest that what she offers is an account of how the interview in its traditional form can be adapted in relation to feminist practice in
terms of researcher/respondent relationships and in terms of the representation
of the lived experience of respondents. They suggest that it is necessary to at
least try to transform quantitative methods similarly.
Thus, Kelly et al. (1994) would agree with Oakley (1998: 724) when she
argues that, The critical question remains the appropriateness of the method to
the research question. They themselves suggest that rather than arguing for the
primacy of any method, our choice of method(s) should depend on the topic
and the scale of the study being undertaken, i.e. methods should be chosen with
reference to their relevance to the questions, the issue, the research goals and
not the other way around. Kelly et al. (1994) argue that by using only smallscale studies the researcher can be misled into believing that she has some
knowledge which has not actually been collected. They use the example of
work on sexual abuse and domestic violence, arguing that most work on these
areas has drawn on interviews and discussion with women who have somehow
made their lives public. Most research on domestic violence is focused on
women in refuges and so it is not clear whether the data collected can be extrapolated to women in general and/or whether it applies to those women suffering abuse but who have not voiced their experiences. As Kelly et al. suggest,
women who have not accessed refuges may have very different things to say.
Further to this, they and others suggest that there is no particular method that
is intrinsically feminist; rather it is the particular ways in which methods are
used that is the critical issue (e.g. Kelly et al., 1994; Millen, 1997; Stanley and
Wise, 1993). In other words and to put it simply, its not what you do but the
way that you do it that matters.

Challenging the Paradigm Divide

Early feminist methodological debate sometimes equated a sexist approach
with a particular method but it is also true that there is a long history of feminists using many different and varied methods. As Harding (1987) and
Reinharz (1992) note, feminists have used all existing methods used by social
scientists and some new ones as well. So, feminists have used the interview and

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the questionnaire, they have engaged in content analysis and worked with public and personal documents, as well as undertaking projects which have a multimethod approach and/or an action research focus (for some examples see
McCarl Nielsen, 1990; Reinharz, 1992; Roberts, 1990; Roberts, 1992; Stanley,
1990b). Furthermore, there is evidence of the use of techniques not normally
identified as research methods that have helped to uncover a more complete picture of what is going on in womens lives. Examples include group diaries,
drama, the use of autobiography, consciousness raising (e.g. Reinharz, 1992).
In presenting this, I am saying that I do not agree with Oakley (1998: 716)
when she argues that:
the claims of feminist social science preferentially to own the qualitative method
are part of its own professionalising agenda.

Clearly, as can be seen, not least through the examples I have presented
here, it is not necessary for a feminist researcher to engage in qualitative
research to prove her feminist credentials. The use of qualitative methods is not
the only legitimate feminist approach. This leads me to disagree with Oakleys
view that feminists have adopted a particular method in order to occupy a distinctive place in the academy and acquire social status and moral legitimacy
(1998: 716). As Harding (1987: 3) notes, it is not by looking at research methods that one will be able to identify the distinctive features of the best of feminist research. However, I do accept that outside the feminist community the
myth that feminists only do interviews often persists.
Further to this, and like Oakley (1998), others have also argued against
the construction of a gendered paradigm divide which poses an association
between qualitative work and feminism and can lead to an association between
quantitative work and work that is specifically masculine and/or positivistic
(e.g. Henwood and Pidgeon, 1995; Jayaratne and Stewart, 1991; Millen, 1997;
Randall, 1991; Stanley and Wise, 1990). A continued association of the interview as womens work compounds more established sexist views about
women as good listeners and ignores the hard emotion work which is now an
acknowledged aspect of much of the research undertaken by researchers
(women and men). Similarly, equating men with quantitative methods continues and confirms stereotypes about mens superior numerical abilities and their
lack of emotional skill (see e.g. Lee-Treweek and Linkogle, 2000; Ramsay,
1996; Warren, 1988). It is also inaccurate to classify all quantitative work as
positivistic, even though historically many textbooks do not make a distinction
between positivism and quantitative research (see Maynard, 1994 for further
discussion).1 A mutually exclusive divide between qualitative and quantitative is also epistemologically debilitating as it results in a knowledge cul-desac:
The more we speak the language of the paradigm argument, the more we use history to hide behind it; instead of looking forward to what an emancipatory (social)
science could offer peoples wellbeing, we lose ourselves in a socially constructed
drama of gender, where the social relations of femininity and masculinity prescribe

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and proscribe, not only ways of knowing, but what it is that we do know. (Oakley,
1998: 725)

Yet, despite all of this and despite the above reservations, qualitative methods remain popular amongst feminists. This is probably because, as Maynard
notes (1994), many of the issues that feminists have been concerned to put on
the agenda namely the private, the emotional, the subjective lend themselves
more readily to qualitative work and open-ended strategies. It is difficult to
imagine how to explore these issues empirically other than through use of qualitative methods. This creates a tension and, as Maynard (1994: 21) adds, feminists argue for the need to rehabilitate quantitative methods whilst
simultaneously often supporting the epistemological and ethical superiority of
qualitative approaches, i.e.: The best way to find out about peoples lives is to
let them tell you about it. This is a tension which we need to continue to
address. Thus, there is much still to be done in adapting malestream methods
and models to suit feminist values (Oakley, 1998).
What I have suggested so far then is that, since Oakleys 1981 work, feminists have been concerned to highlight the important relationship between process and product/doing and knowing within research. Many agree with her
1998 assertion of the danger of claiming one method as feminisms own.
Rather, methods should be chosen to suit projects and not the other way
around. Whatever methods are chosen, a critical consideration of how methods
are used is essential. This is important not just in terms of power relations
between researcher and researched but also because the way that methods are
used (the process) affects the knowledge produced (the product). In the next
section of this piece I consider these issues further with reference to some of my
own research experiences.

Personal Research Experiences

Issues of process and product/doing and knowing are central to my own practice whether engaged in qualitative or quantitative work. My experience also
demonstrates how doing research can lead to the discovery of new methods (see
Reinharz, 1992, for further examples). My first experience of solo research was
as an undergraduate. In 1989/90 I conducted a small qualitative research project which focused on womens experience of miscarriage. Following this, I
undertook doctoral research which was concerned with womens (and to a
lesser extent mens) experience of infertility and involuntary childlessness.2
As I began each project I felt that the in-depth interview would enable my
respondents to tell it like it is. Indeed, although this method is as potentially
exploitative of respondents as any, and although the interviews that I undertook
were not always an enjoyable experience for myself or for my respondents, the
interview was an experience most of my respondents spoke of positively
(Letherby, 1997; 2000).

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However, my experience of postgraduate research led me, by accident

rather than design, to another method that I had not previously considered. In
the absence of a readily available sampling frame, I advertised for respondents
in a variety of publications including local and national newspapers, womens
magazines and infertility and involuntary childless support group magazines.
This brought forward individuals who either preferred to write rather than talk
about their experience (sometimes anonymously) and/or individuals who lived
a considerable distance away. With these respondents, I engaged in what myself
and Dawn Zdrodowski (Letherby and Zdrodowski, 1995) have called research
by correspondence: an exchange of letters. Early on in the process I sent
respondents a letter detailing the issues that I was interested in. I presented these
as a mixture of questions and topic areas. From the perspective of respondents,
it is possible to see a letter (which indicates to the respondents the areas and
issues in which the researcher is interested but does not ask specific questions)
as something between a questionnaire and an in-depth interview.
Prior to data analysis I expected the voices of those I interviewed to take
precedence in the text. Yet, within my thesis the accounts of those who wrote
to me are as central as those to whom I spoke. Initially I was also worried that
research by correspondence may cause people distress in that some questions
may be ambiguous and need further qualification and others may be insensitive and inappropriate, i.e. allowing neither the flexibility nor the responsiveness of proper qualitative research. Within an interview it is possible to
change direction and/or stop talking if the respondent is distressed, and it is
not possible to do this with the same spontaneity when receiving and replying
to letters (Letherby and Zdrodowski, 1995). Indeed, with reference to my
research, respondents with whom I corresponded sometimes made it clear that
I had been insensitive in that several complained about the style or content of
my letter detailing the issues that I was interested in. No one criticized me like
this in a face-to-face interview. Others wrote that they had decided not to follow the format I had provided them with and to write their own story, and
some wrote only once anonymously. Thus, these respondents had a control
over the research process that the women and men I interviewed did not seem
to have. Several respondents also wrote to both Dawn Zdrodowski and myself
about the value of writing about their experience. Although we never met these
respondents, many also asked lots of questions and received lots of answers
about us and our lives, i.e. the relationship was often participatory. However,
as we also acknowledged, when using correspondence research (just as when
using other methods), it is the researcher who makes the final decision about
what to include and what to leave out of the final report. So the final shift of
power is in the researchers favour (e.g. see Cotterill, 1992; Fine, 1994). Our
experience of using research by correspondence led us to suggest that this
method is under-used and under-discussed by feminist researchers (Letherby
and Zdrodowski, 1995), not least because a consideration of the use of
research by correspondence highlights nicely the relationship between process

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and product/doing and knowing in terms of both power relations and substantive issues.
A more recent research experience demonstrated to me that the issues and
concerns researchers have during data collection, analysis and presentation are
or should be the same irrespective of whether qualitative or quantitative methods are used. I recently finished work with a colleague on a project concerned to
explore student experiences of and attitudes to Womens Studies. Following
two focus group discussions (a method that I had never used before), we developed a questionnaire with both agree/disagree type statements, and statements
requiring qualitative responses. We were keen for respondents concerns, rather
than our own, to be central, so all the quantitative and qualitative statements
were generated from the focus group discussions. For the first stage of our
research, the questionnaire was completed by four groups of students in our
own institution: Womens Studies degree students; students taking Womens
Studies modules; social science students not taking Womens Studies modules;
and non-social science students. For the second stage, we asked colleagues in
three other universities to distribute our questionnaires to Womens Studies
degree students and students taking Womens Studies modules. Together we
have reflected on some of the methodological and epistemological implications
of what we did and how we did it (Letherby and Marchbank, 1998, 2001).
Among other things we considered: differences and similarities between
researching women and researching men; involving colleagues as gatekeepers to
respondents; researching those less powerful than ourselves; emotion and the
research process; our own personal and political identities and the relevance of
these while doing fieldwork and analysing data; and our power in terms of the
representation of others, both with respondents we knew and those we did not.
My point here is that the issues we considered in relation to data collection and
analysis in this mostly quantitative study are the same as those I considered in
my previous mostly qualitative work. Our concern, as with my doctoral work,
was with how what we do affects what we get: the relationship between process
and product/doing and knowing.
So, whatever method we use, knowledge is always rooted in the particular
perspective of knowledge producers and therefore it is important that we make
transparent the analytical procedures involved (Stanley, 1997: 216). Thus, as
Oakley (1998, 1999) says, maintaining a false division between qualitative and
quantitative methods, and a feminist case against quantification, is unhelpful
practically, academically and politically. My own research experiences represent
a couple of examples (I am not claiming any unique activity or thinking here)
of feminist work that recognizes this.

Epistemology/ies
As Scott (1998: 1.2) suggests, there is currently much discussion among feminists concerning what she calls feminism-friendly epistemology, and this piece

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is part of that tradition. Feminists are concerned with who has the right to
know; the nature and value of knowledge in general and feminist knowledge in
particular; and the relationship between the method you use, how you use it
and the knowledge (findings/results) you get. Thus, as I have suggested here,
the main concern is with the relationship between the process and product of
feminist research and how epistemology becomes translated into practice. So,
although there is no one feminist method, I accept that with reference to
methodological considerations there is an accepted/expected feminist approach
(see Oakley, 1998, and above). Methodologically then, researchers need to be
morally responsible (Stanley and Wise, 1993: 200) and recognize that the
objects of research are subjects in their own right, and that what we do and
how we do it clearly affects what we get.
Epistemologically, feminists have disagreed over whether feminist knowledge, with its emphasis on emotion and subjectivity and grounded as it is in the
experience of people, provides a better type of knowledge, a successor science;
or whether, acknowledging that no research can be completely grounded as all
researchers go into the field with their own pre-established opinions, feelings
and theories, all is relative (see Harding, 1987; Morley, 1996; Scott, 1998;
Stanley and Wise, 1993). So, does feminist research represent the standpoint of
all women or is it part of the postmodern project? With respect to my own
work, these are issues that I grapple with. I find myself arguing for a variation
of what Stanley and Wise (1993) call a feminist fractured foundationalism: a
variation because, whilst I agree with Stanley and Wise (1993: 200) that I am
not intellectually superior to my respondents, I do think that I have an intellectual privilege with respect to both academic and research resources, with
access to a wider variety of experiences and reports than non-researchers can
have. I do hope that my work has made a difference and adds to knowledge,
but at the same time I appreciate that the work that I produce represents an
analysis from my perspective and is open to criticism. With respect to the academic labour process, I am concerned to detail my intellectual biography
(Holland and Ramazanoglu, 1994; Stanley, 1990a) by clearly outlining the processes involved in research procedures, analysis, and presentation of findings,
and by making the person explicit and reflecting on the relevance of my personal biography (Cotterill and Letherby, 1993) in the work that I do. I am also
conscious of the implications of representing the other as well as people like
me (Ribbens and Edwards, 1998; Wilkinson and Kitzinger, 1996) and of the
need and complexity of bringing men back in (Annandale and Clark, 1996;
Laws, 1990; Morgan, 1981; Reynolds, 1993). With all of this in mind, I agree
with Holland and Ramazanoglu who argue that:
The validity of our interpretations depends on the intensity of the interaction of our
personal experiences with the power of feminist theory and the power, or lack of
power, of the researched. Our conclusions should always be open to criticism.
(1994: 146)

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The important point here then is that the power of feminist theory implies
a constant, critical engagement with the issue and with responses.

Concluding Thoughts
For me, like many others referred to here, my central concern as a feminist is
not the qualitative/quantitative divide but the relationship between the process
and the product, between doing and knowing: how what we do affects what we
get. I am aware of and, I think, sensitive to the critique of both quantitative and
qualitative approaches. I have enjoyed all of my research experiences and
expect to enjoy future research projects. I hope and trust that my previous experiences (some of which are referred to here) will enable me to choose the most
appropriate method(s) in each instance. Yet, there are likely to be institutional
restrictions to the approach that I take. As Jayaratne and Stewart (1991) and
Kelly et al. (1994) note, it is useful to compare and combine methods, and to
discover the limitations and possibilities of each. However, when bound by
research contracts, this is a luxury that researchers do not often have (Kelly et
al., 1994: 356). Further to this, it is also noteworthy that some people work
within departments which (not contractually, but in practice) discriminate in
favour of some kinds of research and against others. This, in turn, should be
taken into account when considering the relationship between process and
product.
For me, then, doing and knowing are intertwined and, from my reading of
the plethora of writing concerned with both doing feminist research and theorizing about feminist understandings (only a small portion of which are represented here), many others feel likewise. I also feel that this process and
product/doing and knowing relationship with an emphasis on concern for the
use of appropriate methods and a recognition of power dynamics within
research and not the paradigm argument, as Oakley (1998) argues, is the
central debate amongst feminist researchers. Issues of process and
product/doing and knowing are equally relevant to quantitative and qualitative
work, and further debate and discussion in this area is likely to add to and not
detract from the development of an emancipatory social science in feminist
work and elsewhere. Clearly, we do not all agree, and as Harding (1987) suggests, this is a strength and not a weakness as it prompts further discussion and
avoids stagnation. When I first became interested in research I found Oakleys
work inspiring but I feel that in some ways I took it too seriously, too literally;
maybe I still do.

Notes
1

Positivism itself is also often misrepresented, as Oakley (1999: 156) argues

elsewhere: Anyone who believes that hypotheses need to be warranted, anyone

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who used numerical data or statistics, anyone who is concerned about representativeness or generalizability or the credibility or research findings is liable
to be deemed a positivist. She adds that positivism ceased long ago to have any
useful meaning.
My doctoral research highlighted complexity of experience and I write infertility and involuntary childlessness to demonstrate the problem of definition.
See Letherby, 1997, 1999 and 2000, for further discussion.

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Gayle Letherby
Is Reader in the Sociology of Gender, Associate Head of Social Work, Health and Social
Sciences and Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice at Coventry University.
Her research and writing interests include feminist methodology and epistemology;
motherhood, non-motherhood; kinship and the family; health; and working and learning
in Higher Education.
Address: School of Health and Social Sciences, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB,
England.
E-mail: g.letherby@coventry.ac.uk

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