Feminist Theory and Survey

Research
The idea that there is only one road to the feminist revolution,
and only one type of truly feminist research, is as limiting and
as offensive as male-biased accounts of research that have gone
before.
~Liz Stanley and Sue Wise, 1983, p. 26.
Introduction
Over the past three decades, feminist methodologists have hammered home
one point with surprising regularity: Feminist research takes a variety of
legitimate forms; there is no distinctive feminist method of research
(Harding, 1987; see also Chafetz, 2004a, 2004b; Fonow & Cook, 2005;
Hawkesworth, 2006; Hesse-Biber, 2007; Risman, Sprague, & Howard,
1993; and Sprague, 2005). And yet, to this day, the relationship between
feminist theory and quantitative social science research remains uneasy.
Among feminist scholars, quantitative research is often seen as suspect for
its association with positivism and its pretense of objectivity (among other
things). At the same time, among quantitative researchers, feminist-identified
work is often dismissed as biased, activist, or substantively marginal.
While a number of scholars have recently published works outlining a
feminist approach to social science research, these books have gener-
ally steered clear of quantitative survey research. Some authors of feminist
1
1
2 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
methods texts limit their discussion of feminist survey research to a small
section (e.g., Hesse-Biber, 2007; Reinharz, 1992; Sprague, 2005), while
others overlook survey research entirely (e.g., Hesse-Biber, Gilmartin, &
Lydenberg, 1999; Jaggar, 2008; Naples, 2003). Sociologist Joey Sprague
(2005) aptly describes the situation:
Because feminists and other critical researchers have tended to assume that
quantitative methodology cannot respond to their concerns, there are rela-
tively few analyses of specific procedures that are problematic in mainstream
quantitative methodology and there is even less written on feminist ways of
implementing experiments or surveys. (pp. 8182)
In this book, I hope to offer a new approach for viewing (and doing!)
quantitative feminist research. Rather than asking, Can quantitative
research really be feminist? (as many other feminist methodologists have
already asked and answered), I ask, What do quantitative researchers
risk by continuing to ignore feminist theories? My answer, which I hap-
pily reveal up front, is, A lot! Though a feminist approach will certainly
add more to some branches of quantitative research than to others, a
feminist perspective can inform virtually every aspect of the research
process, from survey design to statistical modeling, to the theoretical
frameworks used to interpret results. Throughout the book, I hope to
show how feminist theory can measurably and significantly improve a
wide range of quantitative social science research. In addition, I want to
suggest that the relationship between quantitative research and feminist
theory is especially fruitful when an interdisciplinary, multiracial feminist
approach is used.
Those who are relatively unfamiliar with both feminist theory and quan-
titative research and those who have already discovered for themselves the
usefulness of integrating feminist theory and quantitative methods may see
the aforementioned goals as relatively straightforward: I hope to show how
a multiracial feminist approach can improve quantitative social science
research in a variety of areas. Readers with a background in the humanities,
feminist philosophies of science, postmodern feminist theories, or queer
theories, however, are likely to see these goals as something else: complex,
perhaps even misguided or naive. As psychologist Carolyn Wood Sherif
(1979/1987, p. 51) wrote some thirty years ago, If the issues of [gender] bias
in psychological research were as simple as turning the methods and instru-
ments prized by psychology into the service of defeating bias, many battles
would have been won long ago. Readers who approach this book with a
background in social science are, perhaps, just as likely to view my aims
as suspect. Science infused explicitly with ideology and activist agendas is
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research3
no longer science, one might argue. As Janet Saltzman Chafetz (2004a),
sociologist and self-described feminist, asserted,
although there is such a thing as feminist theoryeven if I do not think of it as
social scientificI find the very idea of feminist methodology in the social and
behavioral sciences fundamentally untenable. . . . The research design and tools of
data collection and analysis one selects ought to be chosen on the basis that they
are the most appropriate to answering a given research question (pp. 971972)
not on the basis of political or ideological commitments.
My goal in this book, then, is to address both of these concerns head-
on. I argue that feminist theory and survey research can be used together.
In fact, much existing research already points to the advantages of feminist
social science research. At the same time, however, elements of Sherifs
and Chafetzs comments ring true. A feminist approach to social science
research does require something other than redeploying the same old
instruments and methods (recall feminist theorist Audre Lordes similar
assertion that the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house
[1984, pp. 110113]). And while I certainly disagree with Chafetz on the
tenability of feminist methodology, I wholeheartedly agree with her second
point. The research design and tools of data collection and analysis should
be chosen on the basis that they are the most appropriate to answering a
given research question. As I hope to show in this book, however, a multi-
racial feminist approach is oftentimes the most appropriate choice.
In the remainder of this chapter, I provide a brief introduction to femi-
nist theory and research. I begin with the question, What makes research
feminist? and then examine the historically uneasy relationship between
quantitative social science research and feminist research. After exploring
how other scholars have navigated this relationship, I then focus on one
particular branch of feminist theorymultiracial feminismwhich has
been largely ignored in quantitative social science research.
In considering the relationship between multiracial feminist theory and
quantitative social science research, I introduce three themes that together
form the backbone of this book. First, multiracial feminist theories offer
numerous substantive insights into the social world that have been under-
used by social science researchers. Second, multiracial feminist theorizing
offers survey researchers a number of analytic interventions that can bring
increased complexity and nuance to their research. And third, by highlight-
ing difference, inequality, relationality, and the context of discovery, a mul-
tiracial feminist perspective can help survey researchers increase the quality
of social science research. I describe the tenets of multiracial feminism and
conclude this chapter with an overview of what is to come.
4 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
What is Feminist Research?
More than 30 years ago, historian Gerda Lerner called for a feminist trans-
formation in the field of history. She wrote,
[H]istory as traditionally recorded and interpreted by historians has been, in
fact, the history of the activities of men ordered by male valuesone might
properly call it mens History. Women have barely figured in it; the few who
were noticed at all were members of families or relatives of important men
and, very occasionally and exceptionally, women who performed roles gener-
ally reserved for men. In the face of such monumental neglect, the effort to
reconstruct a female past has been called Womens History. The term must
be understood not as being descriptive of a past reality, but as both a concep-
tual model and a strategy by which to focus on and isolate that which tradi-
tional history has obscured. (1979, pp. 168169, italics added for emphasis)
In her approach to womens history, Lerner called for something more than
simply finding women in the historical record. She argued that the devel-
opment of womens history would require challenging traditional sources,
challenging the traditional periodization of history, redefining categories
and values, in short, a complete paradigm shift. Womens history, she
writes, demands a fundamental re-evaluation of the assumptions and meth-
odology of traditional history and traditional thought (1979, p. 180).
Over the course of the next decade, similar arguments were made through-
out the humanities and social sciences. Sociologists Judith Stacey and Barrie
Thorne, for example, called for a feminist revolution that would transform
the basic conceptual frameworks of sociology (1985, p. 301). In addition to
correcting sexist biases in research, and creating new topics that reflect
womens experiences, the feminist revolution they called for would produce a
gendered understanding of all aspects of human culture and relationships
and would as equally attend to race, class, and sexuality as to gender
(1985, p. 311). In the same year, psychologist Michelle Fine published an
article assessing the development of feminist psychology. She concluded that
while some advances had been made, future feminist scholarship would be
strengthened by situating individuals within social and historical contexts,
increasing cross-disciplinary collaboration among researchers, and by docu-
menting the diversity of womens experiences (1985, p. 179). For purposes
of this book, what is most interesting about these accounts is that these schol-
ars see a feminist approach to scholarship as something more than research
about women. For Lerner, Fine, Stacey and Thorne, and others, a feminist
perspective challenges some of the most taken-for-granted conceptual and
methodological assumptions in a given field.
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research5
Feminist research requires a different approach to scholarship, but what
does that approach entail? The answer depends on whom one asks. For
example, feminist philosopher Sandra Harding (1987, p. 1) begins her clas-
sic book, Feminism and Methodology, by explicitly rejecting the idea that
there is a distinctive feminist method of research. She brings a historical
approach to feminist social science, asking, What are the characteristics
that distinguish the most illuminating examples of feminist research?
(p. 6). She identifies three. First, feminist research generates its problemat-
ics from the perspective of womens experiences. Second, it is scholarship
done for womenit seeks to provide women with explanations that they
want and need. And third, feminist research emphasizes the importance
of studying ourselves and studying up, instead of studying down. In other
words, feminist inquiry locates the researcher in the same critical plane as
the overt subject matter (p. 8). In their book, Beyond Methodology , Mary
Margaret Fonow and Judith A. Cook (1991, p. 2) identify four themes in
feminist research, reflexivity; an action orientation; attention to the affec-
tive components of the research; and use of the situation-at-hand. Feminist
approaches to social research, they explain, are often characterized by
an emphasis on creativity, spontaneity, and improvisation in the selection
of both topic and method (1991, p. 11). In her Handbook of Feminist
Research , sociologist Sharlene Hesse-Biber (2007, pp. 1617) describes
feminists research in a similar way: It asks new questions, going beyond
correcting gender bias in dominant research studies; centralizes issues of
power, authority, ethics, and reflexivity in the practice of research; and is
typically conducted at the margins of traditional disciplines.
Common to each of these approaches is the idea that feminist research
involves something more than adding women and stirring or simply con-
trolling for gender by means of a single variable. Feminist research requires
a shift in how we approach research, but it does not require a focus on
women, per se . Feminist research requires a feminist perspective, but femi-
nist research might not focus primarily on gender. And certainly, feminist
research neednt be produced by women. As Harding writes, obviously,
neither the ability nor the willingness to contribute to feminist understand-
ing are sex-linked traits! (1987, p. 11).
Feminist research, then, is not necessarily distinguished by the topic of
research, nor by the sex, gender, or political affiliation of the researchers
involved. Rather, feminist research is distinguished by how the research is
done and, to some extent, by what is done with the research. What theoreti-
cal perspective(s) does the researcher bring to the research, and how does
this inform her or his approach to doing the actual researchformulating
questions, planning research design, interpreting results, disseminating
6 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
information? Because there are multiple approaches to feminism and mul-
tiple varieties of feminism, there are also multiple approaches to feminist
research.
i

Feminist Theory and Survey Research
Despite feminist methodologists broad understanding of what consti-
tutes feminist research, many contemporary scholarsboth feminists and
otherwisecontinue to see quantitative survey research as being at odds
with feminist theory. This is true for a number of reasons. Within the social
sciences, feminist scholars have rightly critiqued survey research for reduc-
ing gender to sexa dichotomous variable
ii
that obscures the relation-
ship between gender (which social scientists and feminist scholars typically
consider to be socially based) and sex (which is typically understood as
something more physiological).
iii
Too often in survey research, gender (which becomes synonymous with
sex) then appears to be a stable property of individuals (She is female.)
rather than a principle of social organization (Stacey & Thorne, 1985,
p. 307). Focusing on gender at the level of the individual, we lose sight of
the processes through which gender is socially constructed and maintained.
We also risk losing sight of how gender operates as a social institution
how gender establishes the patterns of expectations for individuals and
orders the social processes of everyday life (Lorber, 1994, p. 1). A similar
reductive process occurs with measures of race and ethnicity. As sociologist
Tukufu Zuberi (in Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008, Introduction, p. 6) writes,
when we discuss the effect of race, [in statistical models] we are less
mindful of the larger social world in which the path to success or failure is
influenced. Analyzing racial difference and inequality by means of a single
dichotomous variable, we risk losing sight of the institutional dimensions
of racial inequality (Pager & Shepherd, 2008; Zuberi, 2001). We also risk
losing sight of the dynamic social processes that create racial groups and
i
Naples (2003, pp. 34) makes a similar claim: Since there are diverse feminist
perspectives, it follows that there are different ways feminist researchers identify,
analyze, and report data.
ii
Dichotomous, or dummy, variables are those that have two and only two
options, such as male and female, or, in attitudinal research, agree or
disagree. In statistical analyses, these are typically coded 0 and 1, though what
numbers are assigned to what category makes no difference, so long as they are
interpreted properly.
iii
Increasingly, feminist scholars see sex itself as socially constructed. See, for
example, Butler (1990), Kessler (1998), and Fausto-Sterling (2000).
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research7
maintain differences among them. In other words, we risk essentializing
race and racial differences (Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008).
By understanding gender and race as social institutions, rather than as
stable properties of individual people, we can see how culturally and his-
torically specific ideas about gender are built into the [other] major social
organizations of society, such, as the economy, ideology, the family, and poli-
tics (Lorber, 1994, p. 1). We can also see how gender is connected to the
other major systems of inequality such, as race, nation, sexuality, and class.
Feminist scholars in the humanities have been largely critical of quantita-
tive survey research, although their criticisms are often different from those
described above. While feminist social scientists have critiqued quantitative
survey research primarily on the basis of method (i.e., gender as a vari-
able), critiques from the humanities focus more broadly on methodology
and epistemology (the study of knowledgewhat can be known? And who
can know?). In this critique, the very foundations of social science are called
into question. As Harding (1987, p. 182) points out, scientific knowledge-
seeking is supposed to be value-neutral, objective, dispassionate, disinter-
ested, and so forth. It is supposed to be protected from political interests,
goals, and desires (such as feminist ones) by the norms of science. And yet
feminist research, by definition, has interests and values, for example, social
justice and human rights. While Harding herself argues that these differ-
ences are not irreconcilable, others strongly disagree (e.g., Chafetz, 2004a).
In addition to these critiques, feminist standpoint theorists from both
the humanities and social sciences have argued that quantitative research is
limited in so far as it rarely takes into consideration the social and historical
contexts in which it is produced. Quantitative research is often presented as
value-free, objective, and disinterested. Rarely do quantitative scholars cast
a critical eye on the processes through which research is produced and how
the research production process may reflect (and even reproduce) social
inequalities.
Feminist standpoint theorists, in contrast, have argued that knowledge
about the social world is often structured by social inequalities (e.g.,
Hartsock, 1983/2003; Hill Collins, 1990/2000; Smith, 1974; Sprague,
2005; Valadez, 2001). Individuals who share particular social statuses
or social locations often share meaningful experiences, which in turn can
generate shared knowledge about the social world. If, however, in our sci-
entific research, the voices and experiences of privileged groups are consis-
tently represented but those of underprivileged groups are marginalized or
excluded entirely, then the resulting knowledge claims are necessarily lim-
ited. Standpoint theorists emphasize the value in understanding all knowl-
edge claims (whether they be made by privileged or underprivileged groups)
as partial perspectives. For standpoint theorists, social science research is
8 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
never value-free, objective, or disinterestedit is always produced from a
particular perspective and within a particular contextnor should it aspire
to be so. Rather, standpoint theorists embrace the idea that knowledge is
socially situated and seek to produce and value knowledge grounded in
subordinate, social positions.
iv

Although feminist theory offers a number of important critiques of quan-
titative research techniques (and social science more generally), this does
not necessarily mean that the two are fundamentally irreconcilable. In fact,
quantitative research has been an important tool for understanding, docu-
menting, and challenging gender inequalities and social inequalities more
generally. Consider, for example, how quantitative research has helped to
document feminist gainsand lingering inequalitiesin higher education.
Survey research shows us that in 1970, women represented 40% of college
students enrolled in degree-granting institutions in the United States. By
2007, this percentage had increased to more than half (55%).
v
Fifty-seven
percent of bachelors degrees conferred in the 20002001 school year were
awarded to women, up from 43% in 19691970.
vi
But despite these gains,
women still earn only 20% of the bachelors degrees awarded in the field
of engineering and less than a third (28%) of the degrees conferred in com-
puter and information sciences.
vii

iv
See also Hill Collins (2000), Haraway (1988, 1990), Hartsock (1983).
v
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), Fall Enrollment in
Colleges and Universities surveys, 1970 and 1980; 1990 through 2006 Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System, Fall Enrollment Survey (IPEDS-EF:9099),
and Spring 2001 through Spring 2007; and Projections of Education Statistics to
2017. U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Current Population Survey
(CPS), October, selected years, 1970 through 2007. (This table was prepared
August 2008.) Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/
d08/tables/dt08_190.asp
vi
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), Degrees
and Other Formal Awards Conferred Survey; and Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System, Completions Survey (IPEDS-C:01), 200001.
Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/equity/figures
.asp?PopUp=true&FigureNumber=K
vii
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics, Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), Degrees
and Other Formal Awards Conferred Survey; and Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System, Completions Survey (IPEDS-C:01), 200001.
Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/equity/figures
.asp?PopUp=true&FigureNumber=K
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research9
Quantitative analyses of the U.S. Census Bureaus Current Population
Survey (CPS) have similarly helped feminists keep track of gendered eco-
nomic inequalities. In March of 1964, the CPS revealed that the weekly
wages of full-time, year-round women workers, aged 25 to 64, were 58%
of what full-time, year-round men workers of the same age group earned.
viii

More than 4 decades later, the U.S. Census Bureau reported womens earn-
ings had improved relative to mens, but, they noted, a significant wage
gap remains. In 2008, women in the United States who worked full-time,
year-round earned only 77% of what full-time, year-round men workers
earned.
ix
Further, a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
shows that the gender gap in earnings remains at every level of educational
attainment: In the fourth quarter of 2009, the median weekly earning for
men who were working full time but who had earned less than a high-
school education was $686.
x
For women, the corresponding figure was
$477, roughly 70% that of mens earnings. For men and women with
bachelors degree or higher, the weekly earnings for full-time workers were
$1,896 and $1,384, respectivelya gender gap of 73%.
In addition to documenting material inequalities, quantitative survey
research has been a valuable tool for documenting cultural beliefs about
gender and how these beliefs have changed over time. Over the past sev-
eral decades, the U.S.-based General Social Survey (GSS), for example,
has regularly asked respondents whether they believed that most men
are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women. In 1974,
nearly half of men agreed with this statement (47.6%). In 2010, 23.3%
of men surveyed agreed. Attitudes have clearly changed since the 1970s,
but with nearly one in four men still clinging to the belief that women are
ill-suited for politics (and notably, nearly 1 in 5 women are also clinging
to this belief!), women politicians and those aspiring to become politicians
still face a tremendous obstacle. In another example, in 2010, the GSS
also asked respondents about their views about balancing work and fam-
ily. Strikingly, one out of three women surveyed (33.7%) and more than a
third of men (39.1%) indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed with
the statement that it is much better for everyone involved if the man is
viii
Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap. June 1998. A Report by The Council
of Economic Advisers. Retrieved February 21, 2010, from http://clinton4.nara
.gov/textonly/WH/EOP/CEA/html/gendergap.html#2
ix
Retrieved February 20, 2010, from http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/
releases/archives/income_wealth/014227.html
x
This report was based on data collected in the fourth quarter of 2009. Source:
Table 4. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/cps/earnings.htm#education
10 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and
family. Though stories in popular culture tell of womens advances leav-
ing men in the dust, survey research presents an alternative, sobering view:
Gender inequality persists.
Survey research has clearly played an important role in the fight for
gender equality in education, work, and families. But quantitative analy-
ses of survey research have been important tools for understanding other
manifestations of sexism as wellincluding those beyond the realm of
what we might consider liberal articulations of feminism. For exam-
ple, quantitative survey research has been important for understanding
and challenging a culture of violence against women. In particular,
survey research has helped reframe debates about sexual assault so that
stranger rape no longer occupies the forefront in discussions of violence
against women. Survey research has shown us that women in the United
States are more likely to be killed in their homes than in any other
setting. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV)
reports that almost one-third of female homicide victims that are
reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.
xi
In addi-
tion, survey research has shown us that the vast majority (85%90%)
of victims of sexual assault on American college campuses know their
assailantssadly, about half of such incidents occur during a date.
xii

Survey research and quantitative data analysis more generally have
also helped document changes in gender ideology and, relatedly, in cul-
tural representations of men and women. Despite the much discussed
death of feminism in the 1980s and 1990s, survey data analyzed by
Bolzendahl and Myers (2004) and Huddy, Neely, and LaFay (2000)
document increased support for feminist ideals over the past several
decades.
xiii
Analyzing research from dozens of surveys across more than
three decades, Huddy et al. (2000, pp. 316317) conclude that support
for the U.S. womens movement shows no sign of diminishing in the
1990s and that [y]oung people remain staunch movement supporters
(see also Harnois, 2008; Peltola, Milkie, & Presser, 2004).
xi
The NCADV fact sheet cites: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime
Reports, Crime in the United States, 2000. (2001). NCADV fact sheet. Retrieved
March 3, 2010, from http://www.ncadv.org/
xii
Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/crime/rape-
sexual-violence/campus/know-attacker.htm
xiii
Bolzendahl and Myers (2004, p. 760) conclude that feminist attitudes among
women and men, have continued to liberalize . . . with the exception of abortion
attitudes, which have remained stable.
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research11
In brief, quantitative analyses of survey research have played an impor-
tant role in helping to understand and challenge systems of inequality in
many of its varied forms. As sociologist Christine Williams writes,
quantitative analysis is necessary if feminists are to intervene in important
political debates. . . . Sometimes we need numbers to present a compelling
argument, to inspire activism, and to get things changed. . . . [W]e cannot and
should not give up on the quantitative study of gender. (2006, p. 456)
Risman, Sprague, and Howard (1993, p. 608) sum it up nicely: Some
feminist questions demand quantitative answers.
While feminist critiques of quantitative research are numerous, feminist
scholars have offered important critiques of (almost?) every kind of research
in the social sciences as well as in the humanities and biological sciences. For
example, feminist scholars have critiqued ethnography, participant observa-
tion, oral history, content analysis, literary criticism, experimental research,
and medical trials, in addition to quantitative survey research. But rather than
abandoning these approaches, many feminist scholars have sought to improve
these techniquesand in many cases, to use them to different ends. For
example, ethnographic research may, at one time, have been a tool of impe-
rialism, but many anthropologists and sociologists today use ethnographic
research to subvert neocolonialism and other systems of inequality, working
with disempowered groups around the world to help achieve their goals (e.g.,
Booth, 2004; Hewamanne, 2008; Naples & Desai, 2002). Radical method-
ological critiqueswhether they be feminist, postmodern, antiracist, and/or
postcolonialhave not always advocated throwing the proverbial baby out
with the bathwater; rather, they have often worked to transform and reappro-
priate these techniques. They have used these transformed techniques in com-
bination with other approaches and have drawn post-positivistic conclusions
about the social world.
xiv
As Risman (2001, p. 610) writes, feminist [social
science] scholarship expresses a commitment to science with and from a value
position. This is a rejection of the belief in the possibility of value-free singular
context-less scientific Truth, but it is neither a rejection of all science nor an
acceptance of relativism. From a post-positivist perspective, feminist scholars
seek to identify the cultural elements that shape scientific inquiry, and to
figure out which of these cultural elements are at this particular historical
moment advancing and which blocking the growth of knowledge (Harding
1998, p. 145; see also Risman, 1993; Sprague & Zimmerman, 1989, 1993).
xiv
Positivism emphasizes the promise and possibility of objectivity in science.
As Sprague (2005, p. 32) writes, positivism assumes that truth comes from
eliminating the role of subjective judgments and interpretations.
12 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
My approach to feminist survey research builds on the feminist trans-
formations and reappropriations described above. While many variet-
ies of feminism can (and have) informed survey research, in this book,
I highlight the implications of multiracial feminist theory for social sci-
ence survey research. Though it is seldom employed in conjunction with
survey research, multiracial feminist theory offers the grounds for the
transformation, reappropriation, and post-positivist interpretation of
survey research.
What is Multiracial Feminist Theory?
In their article, Theorizing Difference From Multiracial Feminism,
Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill (1996) describe multiracial
feminism as a broad-based theoretical perspective in which race, gen-
der, class, sexuality, and nation are understood as intersecting systems
of inequality. This idea of systems of inequality as intersecting with one
another intersectionality is meant to suggest something beyond addi-
tive models of oppression that came before.
xv
While multiracial feminists
acknowledge that many individuals are simultaneously disadvantaged by
multiple systems of inequality (for example, racial minority women may
face racism and sexism), they argue that additive models of inequality are
insufficient for understanding the complexity of the social world. By exam-
ining systems of inequality as separate and distinct systems, additive models
fail to address ways in which systems of inequality work with and through
each other and influence the lives of all people, privileged and underprivi-
leged alike (Baca Zinn & Thornton Dill, 1996, p. 326).
In contrast to those feminists who seek to understand gender in isolation
from other systems of inequality, multiracial feminists explicitly locate the
xv
As discussed in the preface, I use the language of multiracial feminist theory
because it draws attention to the importance of race and feminism in the
intellectual genealogy of contemporary intersectional scholarship. In addition,
the term multiracial feminist theory draws attention to the importance of theorizing
difference, as opposed to simply highlighting or discovering difference. As
intersectionality becomes more mainstream, there is considerable risk of its
becoming a buzzword (Davis, 2008) and in the process, risk of losing both
its theoretical complexity and radical potential. The phrase multiracial feminist
theory reminds us that differences must be theorized and that historically the most
important intellectual work in this area has been done by women of color, that is,
by multiracial feminists.
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research13
social construction of gender (and other systems of stratification) within a
broader context of intersecting social hierarchies. These intersections take
place at the level of the individual, where people experience race, class,
gender, and sexuality differently depending upon their social location in the
structures of race, class, gender, and sexuality (Baca Zinn & Thornton
Dill, 1996, pp. 326327). They also intersect at the institutional level,
where, for example, systems of race, gender, class, and sexuality reinforce
one another and are each built into our political, economic, and cultural
institutions.
xvi

Multiracial feminist theorists acknowledge that, in particular situa-
tions, any given social status or system of inequality may be more or less
salient (e.g., Jordan, 1982/2003). But they refuse to designate one system
of inequality as universally more significant than others, as the intersec-
tions of systems of inequality are both dynamic as well as organized
through diverse local realities (Hill Collins, 1990/2000, p. 228; but see
also Combahee River Collective, 1981; Jordan, 1982/2003; Weber, 2001).
Multiracial feminists refusal to privilege universally one system of inequal-
ity over others has resulted historically in intersectional politics political
movements and global and community activismthat similarly refuses
a single-oppression framework (e.g., Berger, 2004; Combahee River
Collective, 1981; Roth, 2004).
In addition to emphasizing the intersections of systems of inequality,
multiracial feminists have emphasized the relational nature of dominance
and subordination as well as womens agency. As Baca Zinn and Thornton
Dill explain, intersecting forms of domination produce both oppression
and opportunity. At the same time that structures of race, class, and gender
create disadvantages for women of color, they provide unacknowledged
benefits for those who are at the top of these hierarchieswhites, mem-
bers of the upper classes, and males (Baca Zinn & Thornton Dill, 1996,
p. 327; see also Baca Zinn, Hondagneu-Sotelo, & Messner, 2000/2007;
Barkley Brown, 1992). Multiracial feminist theory focuses not only on
difference and particularity but also on the relationships, inequalities,
and social processes that help create and maintain these differences. This
focus on the relationships that structure difference and inequality stands
in stark contrast to patchwork quilt (Baca Zinn et al., 2000/2007)
and mosaic models (May, 2010) of difference. In these latter
approaches, difference and particularity are highlighted, but the social
structures in which these differences are embedded remain unexplored.
xvi
See Weber (2001) for an excellent discussion of how power relations intersect and
are expressed simultaneously at the macro and micro levels.
14 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
In emphasizing relationality , multiracial feminism highlights the process
through which differences are created and maintained.
For Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill, the final distinguishing features
of multiracial feminism concern issues of methodology and account-
ability. They explain, multiracial feminism encompasses wide-ranging
methodological approaches, and like other branches of feminist thought,
relies on varied theoretical tools as well (1996, p. 328).
xvii
These theo-
retical and methodological approaches come from across the humanities
and social sciences. However, since many of the central works of multi-
racial feminism were neither produced by traditional academics nor
produced in traditional academic spaces, multiracial feminism under-
scores the need to engage with intellectual work outside of academia
as well. Historically, structured inequalities of race, class, gender, and
nation have worked to limit educational and career opportunities for
women of color. These intersecting inequalities have limited womens
ability to acquire prestigious positions within academia, and have also
limited their ability to produce and publish scholarship in those outlets
with the most academic legitimacy. As a result, many women of color
intellectuals turned to nontraditional spaces to create and disseminate
their work (and oftentimes, as in the case of Kitchen Table Press, they
created these spaces in the process). As with feminist standpoint theo-
rists, multiracial feminist theorists have drawn attention to how social
locations help to shape knowledge; they have argued that lived experi-
ences . . . create alternative ways of understanding the social world and
the experience of different groups . . . within it (Baca Zinn & Thornton
Dill, 1996, p. 328; see also Hill Collins, 1990/2000). Multiracial femi-
nist scholarship embraces these alternative understandings, which have
been marginalized within traditional scholarship and in some situations
ignored completely.
Finally, in emphasizing the inequalities built into the knowledge produc-
tion process, multiracial feminism raises the issue of accountability. In her
essay La Gera, Chicana feminist Cherre Moraga writes, so often the
[white] women seem to feel no loss, no lack, no absence when women of
color are not involved; therefore, there is little desire to change the situa-
tion (1981/1983, p. 33). In her speech The Masters Tools Will Never
Dismantle the Masters House, Audre Lorde (1979/1984) makes a similar
point. She calls attention to the dearth of women of Color represented
xvii
See also Hancock (2007), who argues that an intersectional approach must be
both empirical and theoretical and must draw from multiple methods.
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research15
at academic feminist conferences, and she challenges her audience to think
critically about that situation:
Why werent other women of Color found to participate in this conference?
Why were two phone calls to me considered a consultation? Am I the only
possible source of names of Black feminists?
In academic feminist circles, the answer to these questions is often, We
did not know who to ask. But that is the same evasion of responsibility,
the same cop-out, that keeps Black womens art out of womens exhibitions,
Black womens work out of feminist publications except for the occasional
Special Third World Womens Issue, and Black womens texts off your
reading list. But as Adrienne Rich pointed out . . . white feminists have edu-
cated themselves about such an enormous amount over the past ten years,
how come you havent also educated yourselves about Black women and the
differences between uswhite and Blackwhen it is key to our survival as
a movement? (1984, p. 113)
In her essay Age, Race, Class, and Sex, Lorde writes of a similar phenom-
enon at work within the classroom:
The literature of women of Color is seldom included in womens literature
courses and almost never in other literature courses, nor in womens studies
as a whole. All too often, the excuse given is that the literatures of women of
Color can only be taught by Colored women, or that they are too difficult
to understand. . . . I have heard this argument presented by white women of
otherwise quite clear intelligence, women who seem to have no trouble at all
teaching and reviewing work that comes out of the vastly different experiences
of Shakespeare, Molire, Dostoyefsky, and Aristophanes. Surely there must be
some other explanation. (1984, p. 117)
Lorde and Moraga highlight the need for privileged groups to educate
themselves about issues of difference and inequality and about groups
who are different from themselves. They push women to think critically
about what has become routine, normative, and taken for granted. They
push women to take responsibility for the role they play in maintaining
inequality and to hold themselves accountable to something beyond what
is expected.
Multiracial Feminist Theory and Survey Research
The question of accountabilitynot, To whom are we accountable?
but rather, To whom do we choose to hold ourselves accountable?is an
16 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
important one for feminist research, as well as teaching and activism.
xviii

In traditional social science research, scholars are typically held accountable
to discipline-specific expectations: What questions are the most central or
important? Which theorists are important and thus worth reading and citing?
What methods are typically used? How long is a typical article? Is it appro-
priate to use the first person? and so forth. Multiracial feminist theories push
scholars to think critically about these norms. The goal is not to denigrate
research grounded in traditional academic disciplines but rather to understand
how disciplinary norms structure the knowledge production process and the
resulting knowledge claims. Only then can we develop alternative research
strategies that bring into focus what previous research has obscured.
As we will see in greater detail in the next chapter, disciplinary norms
structure the social science research process, rendering some questions,
theories, methods, and interpretations more legitimate and others less so.
In so doing, these norms can perpetuate inequalities already built into the
system. As sociologist Barrie Thorne (2006, p. 477) explains, disciplines
discipline, in the positive sense of providing training, honing methodologi-
cal skills, and sustaining communities of practice. But, they also enforce
conventions, sustain hierarchies and mechanisms of exclusion, and police
boundaries (as in the cursing phrase thats not sociology!). If convention
dictates that class inequality is more central than race or gender, as has
historically been the case in the field of sociology, then critical race and
feminist theories are relegated to the margins and with them the experiences
of racial minorities and women. If convention dictates that samples com-
posed mostly of middle-class, white American college students are sufficient
for making general claims about the social world, then the experiences of
lower- and working-class, racial minority, and international studentsnot
to mention older, nonstudent populationswill similarly remain hidden. In
xviii
In her recent article Be longing: Toward a feminist politics of relation, Aimee
Carrillo Rowe (2005), asks feminists to reconsider the politics of location, as a
way of thinking. She asks, What gets left out when the conditions and effects
of belonging to a location are assumed as a starting point for our theorizing?
(2005, p. 15). She urges the reader to reframe the question, To whom are
we accountable?a question that takes the link between social location and
accountability as a given (e.g., I am a woman, and so I am accountable to
women; I am a sociologist, and so I am accountable to sociologists). Instead,
she suggests, we might ask, To whom do we choose to be accountable?
Accountability need not stem solely from our particular social locations. We
can, she suggests, choose to hold ourselves accountable to a broader political or
intellectual community, and doing so often involves building relationships across
diverse communities.
Chapter 1. Feminist Theory and Survey Research17
emphasizing the value of diverse methodological approaches and theoreti-
cal perspectives, multiracial feminism advocates expanding the intellectual
and political communities to which we choose to hold ourselves account-
able. Doing things as they are typically done is simply not enough.
As Berger and Guidroz write of the intersectional approach, multi-
racial feminism emphasizes border-crossing, and challenges traditional
ways of framing research inquiries, questions, and methods (2009, p. 7).
What I hope to show here, though, is that multiracial feminist theory offers
more than a challenge toand more than a critique ofsurvey research.
Multiracial feminism offers an alternate approach for doing survey research.
It emphasizes difference and inequality, relationality, and the circumstances
under which the research itself is producedas Harding (1987, p. 183)
calls it, the context of discovery. As I show in the following chapters,
multiracial feminism offers the grounds for transformation and reappropria-
tion, interdisciplinary border crossing, and post-positivist interpretations of
survey research.
Organization of the Book
In what follows, I hope to show the promise of a multiracial feminist
approach to survey research. Three themes in particular stand out. First,
multiracial feminist scholarship offers substantive insights into the social
world that have been underused by survey researchers. Second, multiracial
feminist theorizing offers survey researchers a number of analytic inter-
ventions that can bring greater complexity and nuance to social science
research. And third, by highlighting difference, inequality, relationality, and
the context of discovery, a multiracial feminist perspective can help survey
researchers increase the quality of social science research.
The next chapter provides an overview of contemporary feminist survey
research from across the social sciences and within womens and gender
studies. I analyze a sample of more than 50 quantitative articles published
in five feminist journals in the past two decades and investigate the extent
of disciplinary boundaries in scholars theoretical perspectives, as well as in
their survey tools and their analytic techniques. While interdisciplinarity is a
key theme in multiracial feminist theory and feminist theory more generally,
feminist survey research remains largely structured by disciplinary boundar-
ies. And while scholars in each discipline have engaged with some aspects
of multiracial feminist theory, the majority of quantitative survey research
does not. I conclude by considering how disciplinary boundaries might
work to constrain the development of a multiracial feminist approach, and
return to this idea in each of the following chapters.
18 Feminist Measures in Survey Research
What would it mean, in practical terms, to bring a multiracial feminist,
or intersectional framework to survey research? In Chapters 3 to 5, I dem-
onstrate several approaches for bringing a multiracial feminist framework
to social science survey research. I focus on issues of meaning, measure-
ment and modeling, and seek to show how multiracial feminist theorizing
can inform each aspect of survey research. Chapter 3 focuses on sexism,
Chapter 4 on racism, and Chapter 5 on feminism. I begin each chapter by
discussing the contributions of prior survey research in these areas. My
goal is not to denigrate prior research but rather to highlight its impor-
tance for social justice, social change, and social theory. I then guide the
reader through some of the limitations of this research. My focus is on the
hidden assumptions of survey instruments and multivariate models. For
example, what kinds of questions do we ask when we want to gauge wom-
ens experiences with sexism? Do our measures make sense for women of
different ages, racial groups, and socioeconomic classes? Imagine that we
were to design a new survey, focusing just on young womens experiences.
What survey questions would be most relevant? Would any of the mea-
sures be inappropriate? What additional questions would we ask? What
literature would we consult to help us answer these questions? How are
differences represented in our statistical models? And what assumptions
of sameness are challenged when we begin from a multiracial feminist
perspective? Finally, what analytic strategies are available for multiracial
feminist analyses of survey research?
Throughout these chapters, I explore the feminist theories that I have
found most valuable for answering these questions. As we think through
these and other questions, we begin to see how our measures are con-
structed with an eye toward the experiences of particular groups. Often,
our measures work best for groups that are more privileged. Often, our
measures and our models help obscure the experiences of those who are
already marginalized.
In the concluding chapter, I bring together the methodological findings
from the previous chapters and outline six considerations for thinking
about survey research from a multiracial feminist perspective. A multiracial
feminist approach is useful not only for survey research on racism, sexism,
and feminism but also for many kinds of survey research and for social sci-
ence more generally.