10.1177/0192513X04267098JOURNAL OF FAMILY ISSUES / October 2004Chafetz / FEMINIST THEORY AND METHODOLOGY Bridging Feminist Theory and Research Methodology

On and off over the past 25 years I have pondered the question of whether it makes any sense to talk about feminist theory—and relatedly, although mostly outside of my area of expertise, feminist methodology—in sociol-ogy (and by extension the social and behavioral sciences). Any answer to such a question requires one to first define four basic terms, each of which currently has multiple and contested meanings. Of course, I will present what these terms mean to me, recognizing that many of you may not share these definitions. The terms are social/behavioral sciences (specifically as it pertains to my discipline, sociology), theory, methodology, and feminist. When Libby Blume first asked me to participate in the workshop “Feminist Theory Construction and Research Methodology, ” I e-mailed her a paragraph overview of the approach I would take; namely, one that is deeply skeptical about the utility of the notions of feminist theory and methods for doing social science, despite having once published a book entitled Feminist Sociology: An Overview of Contemporary Theories (Chafetz, 1988). I included an offer to Libby to withdraw her invitation to me, but she replied that my approach should provide “many issues to de-bate and discuss, which is the goal of the workshop ” (personal communi-cation). So, here I am. More than 10 years ago (1990) I presented an invited paper at the an-nual meetings of the American Sociological Association entitled “Some Thoughts by an Unrepentant ‘Positivist ’ Who Considers Herself a Femi-nist Nonetheless. ” Ironically, a couple of months before Libby contacted me I was asked for permission to possibly print this unpublished paper in an edited book on feminist approaches to social research. I had no