Feminist empiricism critiques what it perceives to be inadequacies and biases within mainstream research methods, including positivism.
[2] In international relations rationalist feminism[clarification needed] employs feminist empiricism to explain the political landscape.
[2] Popular perspectives linked to rationalist feminism within international relations include conventional constructivism and quantitative peace research.
[2] Among other criticisms, standpoint feminism also known as anti-rational, argues that feminist empiricism cannot explain the way the political world works because the foundations on which it is built are based on the same gendered assumptions that all mainstream scientific inquiries face.
[1] Feminist empiricism argues that, because of its epistemological outlook, it can tackle this inherent gender bias within scientific inquiry.