Molly Sween
Black Feminist Epistemology
Patricia Hill Collins
Collins’ why question: Why is Black feminist thought viewed as “subjugated knowledge?”(251)
Collins’ motivational mechanism: Elite White males dictate what constitutes knowledge by
controlling the “structures of knowledge validation” (251) and accepting information which
supports their own group interests (253)
Key Ideas:
Epistemology: theory of knowledge which “investigates the standards used to assess knowledge
or why we believe what we believe to be true” (252)
Paradigms: interpretive frameworks used to explain social phenomena (252)
Methodology: principles of how to conduct research and how paradigms are to be applied (252)
Complications to validation:
Collins argues that Black female intellectuals are faced with resistance while attempting to
introduce “new knowledge claims” (253). While she traces this to conflicting epistemologies of
White males and Black feminists (discussed below), she also traces it to structural sources of
power imbalances.
Intersectionality: “Particular forms of intersecting oppressions” (18) 1 (i.e. race and gender,
sexuality and race, class and gender, etc.)
Matrix of Domination: How intersecting oppressions are organized in society (18) 2
 “Gender, racial categories, ethnicity, and social class comprise a complex hierarchical
stratification system in the United States” (Lorber, 200) 3 (i.e White men, White women,
Black men, Black women-dependent upon dominant paradigms and social context)
White Male Epistemology vs. Black Feminist Epistemology
(Example: page 255 Black single mothers)
 WME-based on knowledge validation linked to scientific credibility
o Through methodological rigor (positivism)
o Through knowledge evaluation compared to other White male elite standards
1
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought - Chapter 1.
2
Ibid.
3
Judith Lorber, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics - Chapter 9.
1

BFE-four dimensions which are in stark contrast to White elite male formulations of
knowledge
o Positivism forces the Black female researcher to “decontextualize” themselves from their
research
o If knowledge is gathered through alternate mechanisms, their knowledge may never be
fully validated
Four Dimensions of Black Feminist Epistemology
1.
2.
3.
4.
Lived experience as criterion of meaning
Use of dialogue
Ethic of personal accountability
Ethic of caring
Barriers to Legitimizing a Black Feminist Epistemology
Standpoint feminism: “Our social location shapes our view of the world, but the viewpoints of
marginalized “others,” such as women, transgenders, members of the working-class, people in
disadvantaged racial ethnic groups, and people in developing countries, do not enter the
production of most knowledge” (Lorber, 183)4

Exclusion (of Black women) from the process of knowledge validation
o Literacy and education
o Lack of access to faculty and administrative positions of authority
o Allow a few “safe” African Americans women in…less likely to challenge taken-forgranted assumptions
Validating Knowledge from a Black Feminist Standpoint
Alternative knowledge claims are routinely ignored, discredited, or viewed as marginal (270),
but alternative knowledge claims “challenge all certified knowledge and open up the question of
whether what has been taken to be true can stand the test of alternative ways of validating truth”
(271)
4
Judith Lorber, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics - Chapter 8.
2
Impermeable Knowledge Validation
White male epistemological knowledge is hard to penetrate. Although alternate epistemologies
attempt to introduce new knowledge claims, the mechanisms through which these knowledge
claims are reached are viewed as non-credible by those who control the “structures of knowledge
validation” (251)
Black
Feminist
Epistemology
Alternate
Epist.
K
K
K
White Male
Epistemology
“Truth”
Alternate
Epist.
K
Alternate
Epist.
K
Alternate
Epist.
3
K=Knowledge