V. SESSION 3: FEMINIST PRACTICE AND RESEARCH: GROUNDING GENDER OMBUD WORK ON THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN PROF. NATHALIE AFRICA-VERCELES Executive Director, UP Center for Women and Gender Studies The presentation covered relevant concepts in the conduct of feminist research: social research and mainstream theorizing; feminist research and the need for it; feminist approaches to epistemology, ontology, and methodology; methodology and methods for feminist research; and feminist research ethics. These will be valuable in understanding the lived experiences of people who will be our sources of data. Social Research and Mainstream Theorizing Social research is collection of methods used systematically to produce knowledge about the social world and studies people’s beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions, structured, organized, and systematic process of knowledge production. It combines assumptions about the nature of world (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology), rules, principles, procedures, techniques, and instruments for gaining knowledge (methodology). The research design is where theory, ontology, epistemology come together in formulating the research question and selecting the research methodology and methods. Theory emphasizes a logically unified framework, generalization, and explanation. Social theory is a system of interconnected ideas that organizes knowledge about how we make sense of the world. The traditional mainstream theorizing process is based on the scientific method which, for instance, puts forth the Assumptions such as: Women’s work is biologically determined. Women’s work should be home-based and a Hypothesis: The waged workforce is predominantly male. However, an investigation of women’s work from a feminist perspective reveals that: • Some women do unpaid work in the home • Some women do both unpaid work in the home and paid work • Some women do only paid work and hire other women to work in their homes • Women are found in a variety of occupations • Women work at all levels in the workplace • Women, both in unpaid and paid work, contribute to the national economy It was emphasized that mainstream theorizing can be problematic because of (1) unrecognized and value-laden assumptions, based on male researcher’s biases; (2) overemphasis on empirical and quantitative data and the denial of qualitative data; (3) lack of involvement of the researcher 20