ABSTRACT
Feminism hasn’t sprung into existence fully formed and without origins. At least part of its message is the contemporary expression of a practical and intellectual debate which has occurred in many guises, and over a very long period of time. This has been a debate between ‘science’ and ‘reason’ on the one hand, and ‘emotion’ and ‘intuition’ on the other. But, as we’ve previously suggested, this debate occurs within feminism, as well as between feminism and ‘science’, feminism and ‘reason’ and so on. We have already hinted something of this in our discussion of feminist theory and its variations, and also in our outline of feminism’s differing reactions to ‘the personal’. In doing this we allied ourselves with feminism’s earlier rejection of the terms in which this debate has been conducted, and its insistence that the dichotomies which are at the centre of it-the means by which it is conceptualized-rely on an artificial (an indeed man-made) distinction.
