All empiricists struggle with aspects of methodology at one point or another in their research. Moments of indecision with critical import for a research agenda occur at all stages of the research process, but particularly during the formulation of the research question, conceptualization of the project and its key variables, determination of the research design, selection of data collection methods, deployment of data analysis methods, and the publication of findings. Because feminist scholarship is rooted in a historical relationship between social movements and academe, because feminist empiricists work in concepts (gender, gender equality, state feminism, etc.) that are theoretically and essentially contested, and because data on women and gender norms and gender disaggregated data have not been generally part of public data collection efforts, feminist empiricists have often been methodological pioneers. From 2003 through 2005, Maria Stern, Jacqui True, and I arranged a series of conference panels in which feminist methodologists in international relations analyzed the methodological import of the challenges they faced throughout the research process. This Critical Perspectives section continues such feminist methodological reflections with three quantitative feminist IR scholars reflecting on their methodology. Laura Parisi, Clair Apodaca, and Mary Caprioli have done feminist IR work that uses quantitative analytical tools. Each is differently informed by feminism. In these scholars we see different theoretical feminisms at work, yet the similarities in their struggles, particularly around data and concerns about the reception of their work in the field, are interesting as well. A final essay reflects on the import of feminist empirical work, even work that utilizes a feminist theory that is not the theorist's, in the development of feminist theory and on the role of theory in strengthening empirical work. Together, these essays address the role of feminist theory in informing conventional positivist-oriented research and the role of positivist-oriented research on feminist questions in informing feminist theory, even feminist theory that challenges the epistemological commitments of positivism.