Biting the Epistemological Hand: Feminist Perspectives on Science and their implications for Accounting Research

• Published in: Critical perspectives on accounting Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 49 - 75
• Main Authors: Oakes, Leslie S., Hammond, Theresa A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.02.1995
• Subjects: Accounting; Epistemology; Feminism; Science
• ISSN: 1045-2354; 1095-9955
• DOI: 10.1006/cpac.1995.1007

The study of science has been a major focus of women's studies and feminists. theorists. There are three trends in these studies: some focus on the comparatively low numbers of women in physical and social sciences, others focus on possible masculine biases injected into science because of the predominance of men in these fields, and a final trend challenges the underlying assumptions of all science. This paper explores all three trends and examines possible implications for accounting research. We find that there is a low rate of female participation in accounting faculties in Great Britain, Canada and the United States. We also find that women are much less likely than men to be listed as author or coauthor in 29 different accounting journals. We also examine theories of gender differences and argue that these theories provided a fulcrum for studying the way science is done and understood. Specifically, the paper explores questions about self and other; assumptions about competition, dominance and hierarchy; and problems of objectivity in the accounting literature. We conclude that many questions about the implications of female participation in accounting research remain unanswered.