Women's Ways Of Knowing Summary

Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule investigated the ways women create meaning of their experiences. Their study focused on 135 women of various ages and backgrounds who were interviewed about their upbringing, relationships, decision-making skills, and personal goals – knowledge acquired throughout their lives. Through their analysis of these interviews, Belenky et al. challenged traditional androcentric knowledge theories (e.g. Perry, 1970). From their life experiences women develop ways they view the world, or epistemologies. These “women’s ways of knowing” have been historically neglected by “the dominant intellectual ethos of our time” (Belenky et al., 1997, p. xxv).
The five epistemologies, or ways of knowing, women have nurtured and …show more content…
Because of this huge oversight, the reader becomes skeptical that Women’s Ways of Knowing applies to all women regardless of race, class, or sexuality. In addition, the authors’ description of how the study was conducted was not explicitly described, and therefore, it could not be easily replicated. Finally, the order in which the authors’ organized the ways of knowing leads the reader to assume it is a progression from silence to constructivist.
Overall, Women’s Ways of Knowing is an insightful qualitative study performed by female researchers who ultimately contributed to the understanding of socially constructed knowledge. Through this work the authors challenged the deficiency of female epistemologies in earlier epistemic studies. Finally, Belenky et al.’s initial groundwork for understanding women’s ways of knowing encourages the elimination of androcentric pedagogy in education and replaces it with connected education benefiting all