ABSTRACT
Feminist Standpoint theorists, who maintain that social realities can best be seen, and analyzed, from the perspective of people who are marginalized by the status quo, have recently argued that the standpoint of women is insufficient to produce adequate social theory (Stanley, 1990; Harding, 1991). What is needed, in Helen Longino s terms, is standpoint pluralism (Longino, 1993).This pluralism, however, has so far generally referred to the argument that it is impossible to understand gender without reference to the other positionalities that gendered people occupy in social hierachies, especially those of race and class. Feminists have usually left analyses of masculinity to male theorists, despite the fact that gender categories, too, are part of this mutually reinforcing system of power and significance. This study lends urgency to theortical calls for pluralism; it is time for feminism to put actual men, rather than straw ones, back in the picture.
