Overcoming the Dichotomy: Cultivating Standpoints in Organizations through Research

Abstract

Feminist standpoint theories are seldom used by researchers. One possible reason is the ongoing debate between postmodern theorists and feminine standpoint theorists. The debate has been constructed in bipolar terms such that the issues are perceived as mutually exclusive. However, bipolar assumptions are damaging to women, both in general and in organizations. We contend that feminist standpoint theories should theorize similarities, material reality, and communal agency while being sensitive to differences, multiple realities, and individual agency. A study of academic women is used to illustrate how standpoints can develop around similarities while respecting differences. Using a creative narrative, participants’ organizational standpoints were developed around the common experiences of invisibility, overvisibility, isolation, energy dissipation, and a desire for community. Cultural differences, idiosyncratic differences, and differences in the evolution of a consciousness of oppression are discussed.