The emergence of the women’s movement in the 1960s presents two challenges to sociology. The more obvious task is the analysis of a social movement: How did private problems get transformed into a collective protest at that particular historical moment? This article, however, addresses itself to the contribution of a social movement to the sociology of sociology. Feminist sociologists, in representing a disadvantaged group, claim to look at society from a new angle of vision. What was the impact upon the discipline of sociology of this new perspective? Feminist criticism of mainstream sociology revealed not only vast lacunae in our knowledge but flawed interpretations of social phenomena. Feminist theoreticians have extended their criticism to some epistomelogical positions of contemporary American sociology. The purpose of this article is two-fold. It illustrates some contributions to sociology by feminist scholars (including a few precursors). Secondly, some changing trends in feminist orientations are discerned and analyzed from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge.
