ABSTRACT

The question could be interpreted as factual, one to be answered by pointing to what feminists in the sciences are doing and saying: “Yes, and this is what it is.” Such a response can be perceived as questionbegging, however. Even such a friend of feminism as Stephen Jay Gould dismisses the idea of a distinctively feminist or even female contribution to the sciences. In a generally positive review of Ruth Bleier’s book, Science and Gender, Gould (1984) brushes aside her connection between women’s attitudes and values and the interactionist science she calls for. Scientists (male, of course) are already proceeding with wholist and interactionist research programs. Why, he implied, should women or feminists have any particular, distinctive, contributions to make? There is not masculinist and feminist science, just good and bad science. The question of a feminist science cannot be settled by pointing, but involves a deeper, subtler investigation.