ABSTRACT
Traditional approaches to gender difference have alternated between exaggeration and denial. On most issues of public policy, denial has been the preferred strategy; women’s special interests have remained unacknowledged and unaddressed. By contrast, policy initiatives that have spoken to gender difference have often overstated its nature and amplified its adverse consequences. Feminist responses have frequently remained entrapped in similar patterns. Many theoretical approaches that have sought to celebrate women’s distinctive attributes have homogenized and essentialized their content, while strategies of denial have ignored women’s particular needs and circumstances.
