Standpoint Theory

Sandra Harding

Standpoint theory was introduced by Sandra Harding and Julia Wood. They agreed that both men and women have separate perspectives, and they do not view it as something equivalent. Different locations in the social hierarchy affects what is seen. They assume that women and other minorities who perceive the world differently than those who were in power.

Standpoint is a place where world view, whatever point of view. Synonyms of this term is a perspective, view point, look out, etc.

Julia Wood

Basic philosophy of this theory is the class struggle, the proletariat as the philosophical works of Karl Marx and Friederich Engels. Sandra Harding and Julia Wood suggested there should be a struggle against gender discrimination. They do not characterize gender differences in biological or instinct or intuition, but the difference was as a result of cultural expectations and treatment groups in terms of receiving another group. Culture is not experienced identically, culture is the rules of hierarchy that groups that have tended to offer a position of power, the opportunity to its members. In this case this theory states that women in the hierarchy which positioned lower than the position of men.

Gender is a system of meaning, the point of view through the position where most men and women are separated in the environment, material, symbolic.