WHY THE NEGLECT OF WOMEN’S
ISSUES?
Why has geography for the most part assiduously
avoided research questions that embrace half the
human race? We believe the answer lies very simply in
the fact that knowledge is a social creation. The kind of
knowledge that emerges from a discipline depends
very much upon who produces that knowledge, what
methods are used to procure knowledge, and what
purposes knowledge is acquired for [78]. The number
of women involved in generating knowledge in a
given discipline appears to be important in determining
the degree to which feminism is absorbed in that
discipline’s research tradition. Although the number of
women researchers in geography is growing, women
still constitute only 9.6 percent of the college and
university faculty who are members of the Association
of American Geographers. The characteristics of
researchers influence the kinds of issues a discipline
focuses upon. Geographers have, for instance, been
more concerned with studying the spatial dimensions
of social class than of social roles, such as gender roles.
Yet for many individuals and groups, especially
women, social roles are likely to have a greater impact
than social class on spatial behavior.
Geography’s devotion to strict logical positivism in
recent years can also help to account for the lack of
attention to women’s issues. As King has pointed out,
positivism has not been particularly concerned with
social relevance or with social change [48]. It is a
method that tends to preserve the status quo. The
separation of facts from values and of subject from
object are elements of positivism that would prevent
positivist research from ever guiding, much less
leading, social change [15, 48]. Researchers in the
positivist tradition have tended to ask normative
questions that have little to do with defining optimal
social conditions (e.g. the traveling salesman problem).
This is not to say that positivism is incapable of asking
socially relevant normative questions, but only to point
out that the status quo orientation of positivism has not
fostered the sort of normative thinking that challenges
existing social conditions.
Although strict logical positivism no longer has a
life-threatening grip on the discipline, alternative
paradigms have done little to incorporate a feminist
perspective. Marxists have championed social change
but, with a few exceptions [14, 37, 58], they have not
explored the effects of capitalism on women. Phenomenologists
have promised a more humanistic
geography, a geography that would increase selfknowledge
and would focus on the full range of human
experience [15, 84], but even this research stream has
produced few insights into the lives of women.
Finally, the purpose of much geographic research
has been to provide a rational basis for informed
decision making. Insofar as planners are committed
to maintaining the status quo [29], and insofar as both
researcher and decision maker were, especially in the
past, likely to belong to the male power establishment,
a focus on women, or even a recognition of women,
was unlikely. In sum, most academic geographers
have been men, and they have structured research
problems according to their values, their concerns,
and their goals, all of which reflect their experience.
Women have not been creatures of power or status,
and the research interests of those in power have
reflected this fact.
รบกวนช่วยแปลบทความปรัชญาภูมิศาสตร์จากอังกฤษเป็นไทยหน่อยค่ะ
ISSUES?
Why has geography for the most part assiduously
avoided research questions that embrace half the
human race? We believe the answer lies very simply in
the fact that knowledge is a social creation. The kind of
knowledge that emerges from a discipline depends
very much upon who produces that knowledge, what
methods are used to procure knowledge, and what
purposes knowledge is acquired for [78]. The number
of women involved in generating knowledge in a
given discipline appears to be important in determining
the degree to which feminism is absorbed in that
discipline’s research tradition. Although the number of
women researchers in geography is growing, women
still constitute only 9.6 percent of the college and
university faculty who are members of the Association
of American Geographers. The characteristics of
researchers influence the kinds of issues a discipline
focuses upon. Geographers have, for instance, been
more concerned with studying the spatial dimensions
of social class than of social roles, such as gender roles.
Yet for many individuals and groups, especially
women, social roles are likely to have a greater impact
than social class on spatial behavior.
Geography’s devotion to strict logical positivism in
recent years can also help to account for the lack of
attention to women’s issues. As King has pointed out,
positivism has not been particularly concerned with
social relevance or with social change [48]. It is a
method that tends to preserve the status quo. The
separation of facts from values and of subject from
object are elements of positivism that would prevent
positivist research from ever guiding, much less
leading, social change [15, 48]. Researchers in the
positivist tradition have tended to ask normative
questions that have little to do with defining optimal
social conditions (e.g. the traveling salesman problem).
This is not to say that positivism is incapable of asking
socially relevant normative questions, but only to point
out that the status quo orientation of positivism has not
fostered the sort of normative thinking that challenges
existing social conditions.
Although strict logical positivism no longer has a
life-threatening grip on the discipline, alternative
paradigms have done little to incorporate a feminist
perspective. Marxists have championed social change
but, with a few exceptions [14, 37, 58], they have not
explored the effects of capitalism on women. Phenomenologists
have promised a more humanistic
geography, a geography that would increase selfknowledge
and would focus on the full range of human
experience [15, 84], but even this research stream has
produced few insights into the lives of women.
Finally, the purpose of much geographic research
has been to provide a rational basis for informed
decision making. Insofar as planners are committed
to maintaining the status quo [29], and insofar as both
researcher and decision maker were, especially in the
past, likely to belong to the male power establishment,
a focus on women, or even a recognition of women,
was unlikely. In sum, most academic geographers
have been men, and they have structured research
problems according to their values, their concerns,
and their goals, all of which reflect their experience.
Women have not been creatures of power or status,
and the research interests of those in power have
reflected this fact.