From Radicalism to Perspectivalism: US Feminist History, 1970–2010, and the Example of Linda Gordon

Abstract

This article examines the scholarship of the women’s historian Linda Gordon and argues that she has developed a sophisticated mode of historical analysis that maintains allegiance to objectivity while supporting her feminist commitment to women’s equality and related democratic goals. Gordon’s perspectivalism can be traced to 1970s socialist feminism and its attempt to mediate criticism of gender relations and criticism of the inequalities of economic class. From dual systems theory came a more deliberate effort in the 1980s to identify and move between several subject positions within the same analytical frame; amid postmodern relativism and poststructuralist linguistic determinism, Gordon stressed the virtues of (a qualified) objectivity, which included an effort to identify one’s own interests and biases while at the same time pursuing instrumental value between historical scholarship and democratic politics. Perspectivalism came into full bloom in Gordon’s two leading books, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (1999) and Dorothea Lange (2010).