Feminist philosophers find in the philosophical canon that norms like reason and objectivity are defined as a contrast to any notion that the philosopher associates with women and femininity. In this way, philosophy excludes everything related to women. Feminist epistemology seeks to prevent the exclusion of women by studying the ways in which gender influences our conceptions of knowledge, cognition, research and justification practices, and identifies how dominant conceptions of knowledge and justification belittle women and other subordinate groups. Feminist standpoint theory, as one of the most important tools of feminist epistemology, has greatly contributed to understanding the relationship between privileged knowledge and power, critique of scientific knowledge, and valuing previously rejected views. The starting point of feminist standpoint theory is that in societies stratified by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, the activities of those at the top limit what individuals can understand, not realizing that the experiences and lives of the marginalized provide special problems to explain or explore. Although not without criticism, the contribution of feminist epistemology is manifested in the revelation of the patriarchal, phallocentric nature of reason and objectivity.