conduct or write this. She and other scholars have noted that there is an irresolvable tension between the two components, “feminism” and “ethnography,” because they come from two different sources.

Drawing on feminist critiques of anthropology from earlier decades, Abu Lughod encouraged scholars to reassess the discipline’s contributions, including the prominent contributions of women anthropologists. "By women, for women" applies both to re-reading earlier works and to re-envisioning research from the bottom up, including the gender of practitioners and representation of women within the discipline.

The idea that “ethnography” is a part of “anthropology,” a social science with a particular history, is often considered especially problematic because many of its early practitioners were male and, whether deliberately or unconsciously, imposed Western biases about gender relations into every aspect of their study, beginning with research topic and questions. In contrast, “feminism” involves sustained attention to female situations, including refusal to take for granted preconceived notions about what is “natural.” In the latter regard, anthropology is well suited to feminist investigations because it addresses the cultural aspects of every dimension of human location in the world.

At the heart of the call for feminist ethnography is the recognition of subjectivity and situational perspectives. This includes acknowledging that ethnography does not result in an objective representation of reality and that ethnographers conduct research and write from a particular position: Every view is a view from somewhere. More generally, the kind of knowledge produced by anthropologists is subsumed within a general framework of academic and personal understandings of what constitutes knowledge. This situation means in part that female anthropologists may have different insights into social issues and structures, but it also means that all anthropologists should attend to the ways that gender influences cultural formations within any group among whom they are studying.

Roughly contemporary with Abu Lughod’s article, a number of authors posed similar questions and encouraged further attention to women’s voices. While some of this literature and subsequent critiques support many of her points and expand on their application, other works challenge both underlying premises and the ways they have supported anthropological research. Useful sources to consult include the following:

Behar, Ruth, and Deborah A. Gordon (eds.). 1995. Women Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lewin, Ellen. 2006. Feminist Anthropology: A Reader. Malden: Blackwell.

Moore, Henrietta L. 1988. Feminism and Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Strathern, Marilyn. "An Awkward Relationship: The Case of Feminism and Anthropology." Signs, 12 (2): 276–292. doi:10.1086/494321.

Wolf, Diane L. Wolf (ed.). 1996. Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork. Boulder: Westview Press.

Lila Abu-Lughod is a scholar at the top of her discipline, and she has written on some controversial subjects like veiling. Feminist ethnography tackles the issues of intersectionality and lived experience or insider perspectives. Historically, anthropology and ethnography have been done by outsiders looking in. The very first ethnographers like Jordanes wrote their ethnographic texts without ever having visited the peoples and places they were writing on! As the field of anthropology was really developing in the 19th century, it was common practice for explorers or "natural scientists" to travel to new places and write on the peoples and cultures they encountered. Most of these early ethnographers were upper-class, white, Christian men. A major criticism of early anthropology and ethnography is that the accounts written by these men are framed from an upper-class, white, Christian, and largely colonialist perspective. The values of the ethnographer shaped what they found to be important and chose to write on. This resulted in outsider ethnographies that either left out or misinterpreted entire parts of culture. Early ethnographies also tend to focus on the people the ethnographer found to be most interesting or easy to relate to- that being upper-society men of the culture. The roles and perspectives of women and children are narrow and devalued if mentioned at all.

Anthropology and ethnography have come a long way since the 19th century, with increasing criticisms of earlier works and new perspectives from the very people who were once left out of the picture. Feminism, disability studies, gender and sexuality studies, and ethnic or racial crossovers have really been shaping anthropology over the past fifty years or so. Feminist ethnography is a work of intersectionality that tells the unique perspective of being a woman in a particular culture or cultures. Body politics are a major theme in feminist ethnography, as women are generally oppressed to some degree the world over. Much self-ethnography, especially, deals with the unique struggles of being a woman and a person of color, or being a woman and disabled, or dealing with other life-shaping factors.

What would a white, upper-class, able-bodied, Christian man have to say on the struggles of a disabled, lower-class, Muslim woman of color? Similarly, what would the woman have to say of the man? Very little of value. A persistent trouble in anthropology is how we understand our subject. Self-ethnography is one way of overcoming this trouble. Who understands us and our predicaments better than ourselves? Outsiders often do not have the knowledge and experience to explain every aspect of a culture, especially where oppression is involved.

Lila Abu-Lughod's work on the veil has enlightened many people on the elements of choice and personal security involved in wearing the veil (also called hijab, tichel, burqa, niqaab, or headscarf.) Western culture commonly misinterprets the headscarf as a symbol of possession- that a woman who veils is owned by a man (the husband or father) and is not on display for anyone else's eyes. It is misinterpreted as a symbol of oppression. Abu-Lughod's writing has been pivotal in revealing to the Western world that the veil is not inherently forced and does not symbolize oppression but devotion and personal security. When a woman chooses to cover herself, she is making a statement that she values her relationship with herself, her body, and/or the divine more than she values the opinions of others. Veiling offers personal security in places and cultures where the gaze of others may be sexualizing or consumptive. Many Muslim women describe it as a way of carrying the security and privacy of one's home with them out of doors. 

Feminist ethnography tells the story of these women who veil (and others) in the way that they understand it to be, and not from the perspective of someone who has never and will never live that experience.