Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives

1. Introduction

Sandra Harding’s Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives is widely regarded as a major statement of feminist philosophy of science and a central articulation of feminist standpoint theory. The book asks how gendered, racialized, and classed power relations shape what counts as scientific knowledge and what alternative accounts of objectivity and rationality might follow from taking women’s lives as starting points for inquiry.

Harding positions the work as a response to what she presents as two unsatisfactory options: on one side, traditional views of a value‑neutral, context‑independent science; on the other, forms of epistemic relativism that seem to dissolve standards of evaluation. She proposes a third path she names strong objectivity, which she characterizes as deepening rather than abandoning objectivity by making the social locations and interests of knowers a systematic topic of investigation.

The book is framed explicitly around the question “Whose science? Whose knowledge?” to signal that scientific practices are, in her account, always “from somewhere”: embedded in institutions, political projects, and historically specific relations of domination. Harding argues that beginning inquiry from women’s lives—understood in their diversity and in relation to other axes of power—can expose these structuring relations more readily than starting from dominant social locations.

At the same time, the text is not limited to women’s issues narrowly construed. Harding situates feminist epistemology within broader debates about Marxism, critical race theory, postcolonial thought, and science and technology studies (STS). The book therefore functions both as a critique of dominant philosophies of science and as a constructive proposal for rethinking how knowledge is produced, justified, and assessed in light of social power.

Throughout, Harding combines conceptual argument with discussion of concrete scientific practices, aiming to show how abstract claims about objectivity, bias, and standpoint are manifested in specific fields and historical episodes.

2. Historical Context and Intellectual Background

Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period marked by intensifying debate about the social character of science and the status of claims to universality in Western knowledge.

Feminist and Science Studies Context

Harding’s work builds on two decades of second‑wave feminism, including campaigns over reproductive rights, labor, and violence against women, which generated questions about how existing social and natural sciences represented (or ignored) women’s experiences. Earlier feminist analyses of science—by authors such as Evelyn Fox Keller, Ruth Hubbard, and Hilary Rose—had already exposed patterns of androcentrism and called for alternative research practices.

In parallel, the emerging field of science and technology studies (STS), associated with scholars like Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Bruno Latour, and others, challenged strictly logical or cumulative accounts of scientific change by emphasizing paradigms, negotiations, and laboratory practices. Harding appropriates and revises this attention to the sociality of science, arguing that gender, race, and colonial power are not incidental but central to these social dimensions.

Philosophical and Political Backgrounds

The book also draws on and reworks:

Politically, the period was marked by decolonization struggles, critiques of development and Eurocentrism, and the rise of women of color and postcolonial feminisms. Harding engages these movements to argue that feminist epistemology must address not only gender but also global and racial power.

Within this confluence, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? positions feminist standpoint theory as both a continuation and a critical revision of these diverse intellectual currents.

3. Author and Composition

Sandra Harding (b. 1939) is an American philosopher and social theorist whose work spans feminist theory, philosophy of science, and STS. Before Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, she had already become known for The Science Question in Feminism (1986), where she surveyed early feminist critiques of science and introduced standpoint theory as a promising direction. The later book deepens and systematizes those themes.

Intellectual Trajectory

Harding’s training in philosophy and social theory positioned her at the intersection of analytic philosophy of science and critical traditions influenced by Marxism and feminism. Her earlier work on epistemology and methodology in the social sciences sensitized her to problems of value‑neutrality, methodological individualism, and the hidden politics of research design. Influenced by both European critical theory and U.S. feminist activism, she pursued the idea that knowledge practices are inseparable from social hierarchies.

Composition and Development

Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? was composed roughly between 1988 and 1990, a period in which Harding was actively participating in debates within feminist theory, STS, and international development circles. Portions of the argument were first aired in journal articles and conference presentations, then reworked into a more unified treatise.

The book is often read as a sequel to The Science Question in Feminism. While the earlier text had mapped three main strands—feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism—the new work concentrates on developing the second strand in greater detail, elaborating concepts such as standpoint, epistemic privilege, and strong objectivity against the backdrop of critiques raised by the other two.

Harding’s engagement with non‑U.S. contexts, including development debates and postcolonial critiques of Western science, also informs the composition. She incorporates examples from global health, agriculture, and population policy to show how feminist standpoint theory might address transnational power relations. Commentators suggest that the book’s structure reflects both her desire to respond to critics of standpoint theory and her aim to provide researchers with a more explicit methodological program.

4. Structure and Organization of the Work

The book is structured to move from critique of dominant conceptions of science to the positive elaboration of feminist standpoint theory and strong objectivity, and finally to their broader implications.

Overall Organization

While chapter titles and internal divisions vary by edition, the work broadly tracks the following progression:

Internal Logic

The organization is cumulative. Critiques of conventional objectivity prepare the ground for standpoint theory by showing, in Harding’s view, that existing frameworks cannot adequately address social asymmetries. Standpoint theory then requires a rethinking of method, leading to the proposal of strong objectivity and detailed methodological suggestions. Concerns about relativism, and the global extension of the analysis, are treated after standpoint theory is developed, enabling Harding to contrast her position with both traditional realism and radical relativism.

This structure allows readers to trace how debates within philosophy of science, feminism, and postcolonial theory are interconnected in Harding’s reconstruction of scientific rationality.

5. Conventional Objectivity and Its Critique

A central section of Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? examines what Harding calls conventional or weak objectivity—dominant accounts of scientific objectivity in positivist and post‑positivist traditions—and develops a feminist critique of these views.

Conventional Conceptions of Objectivity

Harding reconstructs prevailing conceptions as emphasizing:

• Neutral observation: Scientists are presumed capable of bracketing values and interests to describe phenomena “as they are.”
• Methodological rigor: Objectivity is associated with standardized methods (experiments, statistics, peer review) that are thought to filter out subjective biases.
• The “view from nowhere”: Scientific claims aspire to universality by abstracting from particular social locations of knowers.

She notes that post‑positivist accounts (e.g., Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos) acknowledge theory‑ladenness and historical change but often retain an image of rational evaluation that is formally insulated from social power structures.

Feminist Critique

Harding argues that these accounts systematically overlook how gender, race, and class shape:

• Which questions are considered scientifically important.
• What counts as legitimate evidence.
• Which research agendas receive funding and institutional support.

She suggests that an apparently neutral “view from nowhere” is often the standpoint of socially dominant groups, particularly white, Western, middle‑class men, whose experiences and interests are then universalized.

Critics of Harding contend that this characterization oversimplifies traditional objectivity and underestimates mechanisms (replication, critical scrutiny) that already address bias. Some philosophers argue that while social influences affect the context of discovery, the context of justification remains governed by impersonal evidential standards, which they see as sufficient for objectivity.

Harding challenges this separation, claiming that standards of evidence and rationality themselves are historically formed within specific power relations. For her, conventional objectivity is “weak” because it restricts scrutiny largely to individual psychology and methodology, leaving broader institutional and social structures unexamined.

The critique sets up the need, in her view, for an expanded concept of objectivity that incorporates systematic analysis of social location and power—work she undertakes in later sections through standpoint theory and strong objectivity.

6. Feminist Standpoint Theory

Feminist standpoint theory is the conceptual core of Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?. Harding presents it as an epistemological position about how social locations and relations of power shape what can be known.

Basic Claims

Harding draws on earlier formulations by Nancy Hartsock, Dorothy Smith, and others, but revises and systematizes them. She characterizes standpoint theory as holding that:

• Knowledge is always situated; there is no view from nowhere.
• Socially marginalized groups—such as women, especially women of color and working‑class women—occupy positions that can reveal structures of domination less visible from dominant locations.
• A standpoint is not merely an experience but a politically achieved vantage point, developed through collective reflection and struggle.

In this framework, women’s lives, particularly when analyzed intersectionally, are said to offer epistemic privilege for understanding gendered and other forms of power.

Relation to Other Feminist Approaches

Harding distinguishes standpoint theory from:

Some commentators view Harding’s standpoint theory as a mediating position that retains normative evaluation without reverting to traditional universalism.

Debates and Critiques

Supporters argue that standpoint theory explains why marginalized knowers often detect problems (e.g., in medical research or labor statistics) overlooked by dominant groups and that it can guide more inclusive research.

Critics raise several concerns:

• Essentialism: That appealing to “women’s standpoint” risks treating women as a homogeneous group. Harding responds by emphasizing the plurality of intersectional standpoints and the constructed nature of any standpoint.
• Relativism: That if all knowledge is standpoint‑bound, no standpoint can claim greater adequacy. Harding counters by arguing that some standpoints (notably those of the oppressed) can be more critical because they must understand both their own circumstances and those of the powerful.
• Romanticizing the oppressed: Some suggest that oppression does not automatically confer epistemic virtue. Harding agrees, stressing that standpoint is an achievement, not an automatic effect of marginality.

In the book, standpoint theory provides the basis for rethinking objectivity and method, leading to her proposal of strong objectivity.

7. Strong Objectivity and Methodological Innovation

In Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, Harding introduces strong objectivity as an alternative ideal to what she calls weak, conventional objectivity. This concept is both normative and methodological, specifying how inquiry should be organized to produce more reliable knowledge.

Defining Strong Objectivity

Harding characterizes strong objectivity as requiring:

• Systematic reflexivity about the social locations and interests of researchers.
• Critical scrutiny of the institutions, funding structures, and power relations that shape research agendas.
• Deliberate incorporation of marginalized standpoints into all phases of inquiry, from problem selection to interpretation.

In contrast to images of objectivity as the elimination of values, strong objectivity treats values and social interests as objects of analysis. Harding argues that this expanded scrutiny can expose biases that conventional methods overlook.

Methodological Implications

She proposes several methodological shifts:

Harding suggests that research teams including members from marginalized groups, participatory forms of inquiry, and explicit analysis of power relations are examples of practices aligned with strong objectivity.

Reception and Objections

Supporters have seen strong objectivity as:

• A way to retain a robust notion of better and worse knowledge while acknowledging the social nature of science.
• A constructive contribution to methodology in both natural and social sciences.

Critics argue that:

• The term “objectivity” is stretched beyond recognition when loaded with political and social requirements.
• Strong objectivity risks conflating epistemic virtues (truth‑tracking, explanatory power) with moral or political goals.
• Some of its aims might be achieved within existing frameworks by broadening participation and peer review without revising the concept of objectivity itself.

Harding’s formulation nonetheless became a widely cited reference point in debates about feminist and critical approaches to scientific method.

8. Key Concepts and Technical Terms

Harding’s text develops a vocabulary that has become central in feminist epistemology and STS. While some terms are widely shared across theories, she gives them specific inflections.

Core Concepts

Philosophical and Methodological Terms

These concepts function together to articulate Harding’s view that knowledge is socially situated yet still subject to normative assessment, and they provide tools for analyzing concrete scientific practices in later parts of the book.

9. Case Studies and Applications in Science

Although Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? is primarily theoretical, Harding uses a variety of case materials to illustrate how standpoint theory and strong objectivity might operate in practice. These examples come from both natural and social sciences.

Gender and Biomedical Research

Harding discusses feminist critiques of medical and biological research that historically used male bodies as the norm—for instance, in clinical trials and studies of heart disease. Feminist researchers argued that such practices produced partial knowledge, mischaracterizing or ignoring women’s symptoms and health needs. Harding interprets these episodes as showing how androcentric assumptions can shape what counts as standard evidence and how starting from women’s health experiences can reveal previously unnoticed phenomena.

Social Statistics and Labor Studies

She also refers to feminist work on labor statistics and household economies. For example, analyses of unpaid domestic labor and care work by feminist economists are presented as instances where beginning from women’s everyday activities uncovers economic processes invisible in conventional national accounting systems. Harding uses these cases to suggest that marginalized standpoints can transform the definition of research problems and core categories (e.g., “work,” “production”).

Development and Population Policies

In relation to global issues, Harding notes feminist and postcolonial critiques of population control and development projects that treat women in the Global South primarily as targets of demographic management rather than as agents with knowledge about agriculture, health, and community organization. She points to research that, when starting from these women’s perspectives, challenges official development priorities and reveals unintended consequences of technocratic interventions.

Methodological Lessons

From such examples, Harding draws methodological conclusions aligned with strong objectivity: that incorporating the experiences and analyses of those most affected by policies or research outcomes can identify blind spots, correct distorted generalizations, and generate alternative hypotheses.

Some commentators have suggested that the book’s case studies are often schematic rather than detailed empirical investigations, serving mainly illustrative and argumentative purposes. Others see them as important bridges between abstract epistemological claims and concrete scientific and policy domains, indicating possible directions for more fine‑grained feminist and postcolonial STS research.

10. Relativism, Rationality, and Epistemic Evaluation

A major concern Harding addresses is whether standpoint theory and the emphasis on situated knowledge lead to epistemic relativism—the view that all claims are equally valid relative to their standpoints. She also considers how scientific rationality and evaluation work under her proposed framework.

Engagement with Relativism

Harding acknowledges affinities between standpoint theory and some postmodern or poststructuralist critiques of universal reason, particularly their suspicion of grand narratives and disembodied subjects. However, she distances her position from thoroughgoing relativism by arguing that:

• Social location conditions knowledge but does not determine it in a way that precludes cross‑standpoint criticism.
• Some standpoints, particularly those formed in resistance to oppression, can be more critical and comprehensive than others, because they must grasp both their own situation and the dominant order.

Critics argue that such claims risk smuggling universal standards back in through the notion of “more comprehensive” without clearly specifying criteria. Harding replies by appealing to historically grounded judgments of explanatory and emancipatory power, rather than transcendental criteria.

Reconstructing Rationality

Harding proposes a conception of rationality that is:

• Historically and socially situated, recognizing that standards of good argument and evidence emerge within particular practices and can be revised.
• Comparative and critical across standpoints, enabling evaluation of which accounts better explain phenomena, expose power relations, and withstand scrutiny from diverse perspectives.

She suggests that rational evaluation in this sense is strengthened, not weakened, by including multiple standpoints, because it subjects claims to a wider range of critical challenges.

Opponents worry that tying rationality to emancipatory aims conflates epistemic and political criteria. Proponents of Harding’s view respond that all standards of rationality have political histories, and making those explicit allows for more honest evaluation.

Epistemic Evaluation in Practice

Harding maintains that under strong objectivity, evaluation involves:

• Assessing the degree of reflexivity about social location.
• Examining whether research has adequately incorporated or addressed marginalized standpoints.
• Comparing theories for their capacity to account for anomalies exposed by alternative standpoints.

This approach aims to preserve meaningful distinctions between better and worse knowledge claims while rejecting the ideal of neutrality detached from social power.

11. Gender, Race, Class, and Intersectional Standpoints

Harding situates gender within a broader matrix of race, class, and global inequalities, arguing that feminist standpoint theory must be intersectional to avoid reproducing exclusions it seeks to challenge.

Beyond a Single “Women’s Standpoint”

She explicitly distances her account from any notion of a unified, homogeneous “women’s standpoint.” Instead, she emphasizes that:

• Women’s experiences are differentiated by race, class, nationality, and other axes of power.
• These differences produce distinct standpoints, which can sometimes conflict or expose blind spots in each other.
• Building feminist knowledge requires attention to these internal differences, not only contrasts between women and men.

This position aligns her work with contemporaneous women of color feminisms, such as those articulated by Patricia Hill Collins and others, which stress the epistemic significance of Black women’s and other racialized women’s experiences.

Race and Coloniality

Harding incorporates arguments from critical race theory and postcolonial studies to contend that racialized and colonized groups occupy positions that can illuminate how science and knowledge production are implicated in racism and imperialism. For example, she notes how histories of scientific racism and eugenics show that what counts as neutral science can be deeply entwined with racial hierarchies.

Class and Labor

Drawing on Marxist traditions, Harding also highlights the standpoint of working‑class and poor women. She suggests that their positions reveal relations of production, reproduction, and exploitation that middle‑class perspectives may obscure. Feminist analyses of domestic labor, sweatshops, and agricultural work are cited as examples of how classed standpoints reshape research questions and categories.

Intersectional Epistemic Privilege?

Some interpreters read Harding as suggesting that the most marginalized—those at the intersections of multiple oppressions—may possess especially powerful standpoints. Others caution that this risks hierarchizing suffering or assuming that greater oppression automatically grants greater epistemic insight. Harding’s own language stresses that oppression creates potential for critical insight, which must be realized through collective organization and reflection rather than being automatic.

By foregrounding intersecting standpoints, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? attempts to reconfigure feminist epistemology so that gender is always analyzed in relation to race, class, and global power, rather than in isolation.

12. Postcolonial and Global Dimensions of Knowledge

A distinctive feature of Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? is its sustained attention to global power relations and the role of Western science in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

Science and Imperialism

Harding engages historical research on how scientific disciplines—such as anthropology, geography, and tropical medicine—developed in tandem with European colonial expansion. She highlights ways in which:

• Scientific classifications of peoples and environments supported colonial administration.
• Technologies and measurements (e.g., mapping, agricultural science) facilitated extraction and control.
• Racial theories, often presented as objective science, legitimated hierarchies between colonizers and colonized.

She interprets these histories as evidence that claims to value‑free science have frequently been entwined with imperial projects.

Development, Modernization, and Gender

In contemporary settings, Harding examines development and modernization programs in the Global South. She notes feminist and postcolonial critiques that such programs:

• Export Western scientific and technological models without attending to local knowledges.
• Treat women primarily as instruments of demographic or economic policy (e.g., in population control, “women in development” initiatives).
• Marginalize indigenous and community‑based knowledge about agriculture, health, and environment.

From a standpoint perspective, women in rural and urban poor communities are seen as possessing insights into the effects of development policies that are often invisible to planners and international experts.

Global Standpoints and Strong Objectivity

Harding extends strong objectivity to the transnational level by arguing that:

• Western scientific institutions must be subject to critique from standpoints in the Global South.
• Cross‑cultural dialogue among feminist and postcolonial scholars is necessary to uncover Eurocentric assumptions embedded in global knowledge hierarchies.
• Democratizing science requires redistributing not only internal academic authority but also geopolitical epistemic power.

Some commentators see this global extension as an important bridge between feminist epistemology and postcolonial science critique. Others suggest that Harding’s analysis, while attentive to non‑Western perspectives, still centers Western academic debates and could engage more extensively with specific indigenous epistemologies on their own terms.

In the book, the postcolonial and global dimensions serve to show that questions of “whose science?” are not limited to gender or nation but concern worldwide patterns of knowledge production and authority.

13. Philosophical Method and Reflexivity

Harding’s philosophical method in Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? combines conceptual analysis with sociological and historical attention to scientific practice, underpinned by a strong emphasis on reflexivity.

Methodological Pluralism

Rather than adhering strictly to analytic or continental styles, Harding draws on:

• Conceptual distinctions from philosophy of science (e.g., objectivity, rationality, discovery/justification).
• Empirical findings from STS, history of science, and feminist social research.
• Normative concerns from feminist and Marxist theory, such as emancipation and democratization.

This pluralism allows her to move between high‑level epistemological claims and concrete examples, arguing that philosophical accounts of knowledge must be tested against actual scientific and social practices.

Reflexivity as Philosophical Requirement

A key methodological theme is reflexivity: philosophers of science must scrutinize their own social locations, disciplinary assumptions, and political commitments. For Harding, this means:

• Acknowledging that philosophical theories of science are themselves situated within particular institutions and histories.
• Treating the boundaries between philosophy, sociology, and politics as analytically useful but permeable.
• Making the interests and values embedded in philosophical frameworks explicit objects of critique.

She frames reflexivity as an epistemic, not merely ethical, requirement, arguing that unexamined assumptions about neutrality and universality can distort philosophical analyses of science.

Relation to Other Philosophical Methods

Harding’s method is sometimes contrasted with:

Critics have questioned whether her methodological blending blurs distinctions between empirical description and normative prescription. Supporters contend that such hybridity is necessary to capture the complexity of science as a social practice.

Overall, Harding presents reflexive, interdisciplinary inquiry as integral to any adequate philosophy of science, especially one that aims to address questions of gender, race, and global power.

14. Famous Passages and Influential Formulations

Several formulations from Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? have become widely cited in feminist theory and STS, shaping subsequent debates.

“Strong Objectivity”

Harding’s introduction of strong objectivity is one of the book’s most influential contributions. She contrasts it with traditional ideals in passages where she argues that expanding the scope of critical scrutiny to include researchers’ social locations can deepen, rather than undermine, objectivity.

"

Objectivity… requires that the scientific community systematically examine its own values, interests, and power relations, not pretend to a view from nowhere.

— Paraphrasing Harding’s account of strong objectivity

While exact wording varies, commentators frequently quote and rephrase these programmatic statements as defining a new standard for critical inquiry.

The “View from Nowhere” and Situated Knowledge

Harding’s critique of the “view from nowhere” and her insistence that all knowledge is situated echo and complement Donna Haraway’s notion of “situated knowledges.” Harding’s formulation emphasizes how claims to universality can mask dominant standpoints:

"

What appears as a universal perspective is often only the partial vision of those in positions of social privilege, elevated to the status of the norm.

— Paraphrasing Harding’s critique of conventional objectivity

These lines are often cited in discussions of how science and philosophy universalize particular experiences.

“Thinking from Women’s Lives”

The subtitle, “Thinking from Women’s Lives,” encapsulates Harding’s methodological proposal. She repeatedly emphasizes that inquiry should start from, not merely include, the experiences and analyses of women, particularly those most marginalized.

"

Feminist research begins from women’s lives, especially from the lives of women who are most disadvantaged, and asks how the social order must be described if it is to take these lives seriously.

— Paraphrasing Harding’s methodological slogan

This phrase has been adopted broadly to signal research strategies that center marginalized experiences as primary rather than supplemental.

Influence in Subsequent Work

These formulations have been:

• Quoted in anthologies on feminist epistemology and STS.
• Used as touchstones in debates over epistemic privilege, situated knowledge, and democratization of science.
• Critiqued and reworked by later theorists, who either embrace “strong objectivity” or propose alternative notions of “situated objectivity” or “critical realism.”

The phrases “strong objectivity,” “view from nowhere,” and “thinking from women’s lives” thus serve as shorthand for key positions in contemporary discussions of science and power.

15. Reception, Criticisms, and Debates

Upon publication, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? quickly became a central reference point in feminist theory, philosophy of science, and STS. Its reception has been both highly positive and sharply critical, generating extensive debate.

Supportive Reception

Many feminist philosophers and STS scholars praised the book for:

• Systematically articulating feminist standpoint theory.
• Offering a constructive alternative to both traditional objectivism and radical relativism through strong objectivity.
• Integrating gender analysis with concerns about race, class, and global power.

It has been widely adopted in graduate and advanced undergraduate curricula and cited as a foundational text in collections on feminist epistemology.

Key Criticisms

Critiques have come from multiple directions:

Debates Sparked

The book has been a focal point in broader debates over:

• The meaning and viability of standpoint theory (e.g., developed further in Alison Wylie, Patricia Hill Collins, and Harding’s own later edited volume The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader).
• The status of objectivity in social and natural sciences, with some endorsing strong objectivity and others preferring alternative formulations such as “situated objectivity” or “critical contextual empiricism.”
• The relation between epistemic and political values, with disagreements over whether Harding’s approach conflates or productively integrates them.

Over time, many critiques have prompted refinements, clarifications, and extensions of Harding’s ideas, both by her and by other theorists. The ongoing debates attest to the work’s continued influence and contestation rather than consensus around its proposals.

16. Legacy and Historical Significance

Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? is now widely regarded as a classic of feminist epistemology and science studies, with a legacy that spans multiple disciplines and decades.

Influence on Feminist Epistemology and STS

The book helped consolidate feminist standpoint theory as a major epistemological position. Its concepts of standpoint, epistemic privilege, situated knowledge, and especially strong objectivity have become standard reference points in discussions of science and power. Subsequent works by Alison Wylie, Patricia Hill Collins, Donna Haraway, and others engage Harding’s formulations, either building on them or proposing alternatives.

In STS, Harding’s insistence on integrating gender, race, and global power into analyses of scientific practice contributed to a shift from narrower sociological studies toward more explicitly political and normative frameworks.

Broader Academic and Political Impact

Beyond philosophy and STS, the book has informed:

• Feminist methodology in sociology, anthropology, history, and cultural studies, where “starting from women’s lives” has shaped research design.
• Debates about participatory and community‑based research in health, environmental justice, and development studies, often drawing on the idea that those most affected by policies should help define research agendas.
• Discussions about decolonizing knowledge and epistemic justice, where Harding’s attention to imperial and postcolonial dimensions of science is cited as an early contribution.

Ongoing Significance and Reassessment

While some of Harding’s formulations have been revised, nuanced, or criticized, the book remains a key touchstone in contemporary debates about:

• How to conceptualize objectivity in light of social power.
• Whether and how standpoints of the oppressed can claim epistemic advantage.
• What it means to democratize science without abandoning standards of rational evaluation.

Later collections, such as The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader, revisit issues first articulated in Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?, indicating the work’s continuing relevance as a site of controversy and innovation.

Historically, the book is often situated alongside Haraway’s “Situated Knowledges” and Collins’s Black Feminist Thought as part of a pivotal late‑20th‑century reconfiguration of how philosophers and social theorists understand knowledge, objectivity, and the politics of science.