The overall approach of the research reflects the vision of feminist research proposed by Liz Kelly, Sheila Burton and Linda Regan (1994:28):
Feminism for us is both a theory and a practice, a framework which informs our lives. Its purpose is to understand women’s oppression in order to end it. Our position as feminist researchers, therefore, is one in which we are part of the process of discovery and understanding and also responsible for attempting to create change. This orientation draws on what we understand as the liberatory intention and method of consciousness-raising (CR) – to use our experiences of living as women as a starting point from which to build explanatory frameworks which would inform activism. Our hope is that the research we do reflects the dynamic and cumulative process of CR, combining personal and social change in a continuing and reflective process ...
Our desire to do, and goal in doing, research is to create useful knowledge, knowledge which can be used by ourselves and others to ‘make a difference’. Feminism as a praxis is not based on the simple fact of women sharing a gender in common, but on a common agenda - the liberation of women.
The research is consistent with this vision of feminist research articulated by Kelly et al. (1994). It explores a particular example of women’s oppression: the exploitation of the unpaid work of mothers of young children. The aims of the research include advancing understanding of the topic, and contributing to change. I used my own experience of living as a woman with children as a starting point and combined that
knowledge with my skills and experience as a female academic to design and carry out a study that is both theoretical and practical. During the research, I have written articles and given presentations to give others access to my work in order to contribute to making a difference in the social conditions I have studied10. This process of communicating my research findings will continue.
Reinharz (1992) states that feminists use many different methods in their research, and there is no one ‘feminist research method’. The identity of this study as feminist research lies in its overall approach, including the utilisation of feminist literature and theory to guide the research, and the attention paid to gender-based disadvantage, the material conditions of women’s lives, and the thoughts and narratives of women experiencing the circumstances under study.
According to Liz Kelly (1988), distinguishing features of feminist research include the questions we ask, the way we locate ourselves within our questions, and the purpose of our work. The questions asked in this research are about change. These questions have guided the research to produce knowledge that can be used to make a difference in women’s lives in the future. My location within the research is as an informed researcher, with personal experience of the subject of the research. One of the criticisms of feminist academic work is that it often generalises from the experience, understanding and analysis of a narrow, privileged segment of the community (Stanley & Wise 1990:28). I have been careful to avoid this over- generalisation. Within this research, my own life experience provides a point of connection. Since my experience is that of only one person it is not central to the research. My own experiences and my feminist agenda contribute to the quality of the research, by providing me with enough first-hand knowledge to utilise grounded concepts and constructs in my analysis of the material. However, I have been careful to maintain a sense of my own experiences as background to the research, rather than using the research as a vehicle for self-exploration.
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My location as an informed researcher provides me with the tools and the willingness to challenge what Mary Maynard, in discussing epistemology and the nature of feminist knowledge, has called ‘men’s power to create the world from their own point of view, which then becomes the truth to be described ... Feminism not only challenges this partiality; it also critiques the purported generality, disinterestedness and universality of male accounts’ (Maynard 1994:18). This research challenges male-centred views of the world, as identified by a number of authors. These male- centred views in relation to care of young children are embedded in:
• the institutions of state, market and family (Bryson 1992)
• the gendered division of paid and unpaid work (Bittman 1995, Probert 1989) • dominant views and definitions of what constitutes economic activity (Waring
1997, Ironmonger 1989)
• ideas about the appropriate responsibilities of motherhood (Cox 1999)
• expectations that women will bear children regardless of the consequences for them (McDonald 2000b)
• the widespread assumption that matters to do with care of young children are women’s business (Bone 2001)
• present avenues for participation in community and public life (Lawrence 2001).
My location in my questions includes my status as an experienced mother with a range of relevant experiences with my own children, with relative poverty and relative affluence, with social work, as an avid reader about and discusser of issues for over 20 years, as someone who has listened extensively to women and men from a whole range of backgrounds, and as a university academic. I am inspired by knowing from my own experience that the taken-for-granted reality at one time can be dramatically overturned by twenty years later. In the research I aim to contribute to a vision for the future by exploring in detail the possibilities as to what this might mean (Maynard 1994).
One of the aims of this study is to engage in an ‘interpretive and synthesising process which connects experience to understanding’ (Maynard 1994:24). The starting point
for the research process was the synthesising and interpreting work already begun in connecting my own experience with the literature and with public policy. The work of connecting experience to understanding continued throughout the research process. This process has involved gathering together ideas for change from eight leading social policy thinkers in Australia, and bringing those ideas to groups of women, who would otherwise have had no opportunity to discuss them, to obtain their reactions and feedback regarding the suggestions for change. The research created the opportunity for interaction between the experience and understanding of high-profile social commentators and researchers and the experience and understanding of women engaged in carrying out the work of caring for young children. Part of the feminist commitment of the research was to give respect and credibility to the expertise and experiences of the focus group participants as well as to that of the high-profile interviewees. As Mary Maynard (1994:20) states, drawing on the work of Ramazanoglu (1989):
The terms ‘feminist’ and ‘women’s’ are often used interchangeably in the literature and, although a feminist approach is almost definitionally one which starts out from women’s experiences, most women are not feminists and would not necessarily agree with accounts of the social world generated from a feminist stance.
The overall approach of the research is feminist, and that commitment includes seeking the views of women who do not identify themselves as feminist.