A person’s perception of the world changes depending on their social standpoint. Since people’s gender, age, nationality, religion, and other factors that influence social location vary, so do their experiences and how they see the world. One of the theories that emerged based on this idea is standpoint feminism, which belongs to Dorothy Smith, who argued that women live in a world established and ruled by men (Dillon, 2011). Another scholar, Hartsock (1983), states that women were expected to have a regular job and take care of the household in the last few centuries. Also, in Hartsock’s opinion, that the whole society would benefit if women were allowed to have a role equal with men in a community. The state of women creates the base for feminist materialism (Hartsock, 1983). Additionally, Haraway (1988) also advocates for a system that transforms “knowledge and ways of seeing” (p. 416). This, in her opinion, would allow minorities with their unique experiences to be taken into consideration.
A standpoint of a single person may change the lives of many people around her. A woman, Amina Patel, lives in Great Britain and organizes walking groups for Muslim women (BBC, 2021). In her interview with BBC, she says that many people in the countryside are surprised to see her hike and climb mountains. Not only her gender but also her religion plays a role in the formation of her standpoint. As a Muslim woman living in the British countryside, Amina gets a unique experience that gives her a unique view of the world. Aside from that, it might have been what inspired her to start The Wanderlust Women project.
I partly agree with the argument that fully including women in society’s activities would benefit everyone. It is a rather old idea, mentioned even in J. S. Mill’s On Liberty, but it seems that not everyone in the Western society, let alone the others, has accepted it so far. It is clear to me as a feminist, but there are still many problems that affect women daily and are created by society, such as the wage gap, pressure to have children, etc. As long as these problems are not resolved, society will not develop as well as it could.
References
BBC. (2021). Bolton woman inspired to create Muslim hiking group. Web.
Dillon, M. (2011). Introduction to sociological theory: Theorists, concepts, and their applicability to the twenty-first century. Wiley-Blackwell.
Haraway, D. (2003). Situating knowlegdes: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. In McCann, C. R., & Kim, S. (Eds.), Feminist theory reader: Local and global perspectives (pp. 394-412). Psychology Press.
Hartsock, N. C. M. (2003). The feminist standpoint: Toward a specifically feminist historical materialism. In McCann, C. R., & Kim, S. (Eds.), Feminist theory reader: Local and global perspectives (pp. 354-369). Psychology Press.