Feminist Standpoint Theory
?Certain socio-political positions occupied by women (and by extension other groups who lack social and economic privilege) can become sites of epistemic privilege and thus productive starting points for enquiry into questions about not only those who are socially and politically marginalized, but also those who, by dint of social and political privilege, occupy the positions of oppressors.Dorothy smith: born in 1926 in United Kingdom, her main interest feminist studies and sociology.in her book the everyday world as problematic: a feminist sociology 1989, she argued that sociology has ignored and objectified women making them OTHER.Feminist standpoint theory makes a contribution to epistemology, to methodological debates in the social and natural sciences, to philosophy of science, and to political activism.Feminist standpoint theories emerged in the 1970s, in the first instance from Marxist feminist and feminist critical theoretical approaches within a range of social scientific disciplines.Sandra Harding: born in 1935,  is American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science.Stand point theory is a theory that feminist social science should be practiced from the standpoint of women or some group of women as some scholars ( e.g. Patricia Hill Collins and Dorthy Smith) say that they are better equipped to understand some aspects of the world.Sandra Harding extended and reframed the idea of the standpoint of the proletariat to mark out the logical space for a feminist standpoint.Feminist standpoint theorists make three principal claims:
 (1) Knowledge is socially situated (located or positioned).The perspective denies that traditional science is objective and suggests that research and theory have ignored and marginalized women and feminist ways of thinking.She is a Distinguish university professor of sociology Emeriti at the University of Maryland, she is also head of the department of African American studies.Standpoint theory, a feminist theoretical perspective that argues that knowledge stems from social position.She claimed that women's experiences are fertile grounds for feminist knowledge and that by grounding sociological in work in women's every day experiences.A feminist or women's sand point epistemology proposes to make women's experiences the point of departure in addition to and sometimes instead of men's.It has been one of the most influential and debated theories to emerge from second-wave feminist thinking.Patricia hills: Born in 1948 is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender.(2) Marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalized.Because women and men for example are gendered differently and accordingly have differently, how they know and what they are capable of knowing will differ.and others: Nancy Hart sock and Alison Jaggar, sociologist of science Hilary Rose.Central Themes in Feminist Standpoint Theory
?Standpoint feminists 
?She gained national attention for her book Black Feminist Thought.What is feminist standpoint 
?(3) Research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized.Cont'd 
?Standpoint theory 
?It has place relations between political and social power and knowledge center-stage.The principal claims of FS
???It concerned with the impact of one's location in society on one's ability to know.??????????????