Malestream is a concept developed by feminist theorists to describe the situation when male social scientists, particularly sociologists, carry out research which focuses on a masculine perspective and then assumes that the findings can be applied to women as well. Originally developed as a critique of male dominated sociology, the term has since been applied to
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, a ...
,
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
,
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...
, and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
.
The term was first used by Mary O'Brien in her 1981 book ''The Politics of Reproduction''.Pateman, C. and Grosz, E., (2013). ''Feminist challenges: Social and political theory''. Routledge. As a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsplay on words with the more general term "mainstream" and involves a detournement of the concept of mainstream science. There has been a tendency to identify "good science" with "mainstream science" However what has been termed "
epistemologies of ignorance
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
" have been described as being at work within the social construction of science and the women's health movement which emerged in the 1970s and which provided a context for O'Brien's work.
Whitestream feminism
The comparable term Whitestream was developed by Claude Denis in his 1997 book ''We Are Not You: First Nations and Canadian Modernity'', to describe how contemporary discourses are structured around the basis of White Anglosaxon experience.Grande, S. (2003). Whitestream feminism and the colonialist project: A review of contemporary feminist pedagogy and praxis. Educational Theory, 53(3), 329-346. accessed 7 April 2017