OPINIONSnShotgun Marriage by Carol McMillann”The Shadowy Female absorbingnThe enormous Sciences …”nReflections on Gender and Sciencenby Evelyn Fox Keller, New York:nYale University Press.nMothers and Such: Views ofnAmerican Women and Why TheynChanged by Maxine L. Margolis,nBerkeley: University of CalifornianPress.nMother Care/Other Care by SandranScarr, New York: Basic Books.nReproductive control and geneticnmanipulation have been makingnthe headlines for years. One day newndevelopments in birth control herald anfreer, happier world for women. Thennext day, knowledge also gained fromnthose very same developments foretelln^?i#i-.n161 CHRONICLESn—William Blakena future of horror in which babies willnbe reared in “test tubes” and wombsnput out for renting. An apt picturenindeed for science in the modernnworld, since it has been obvious fornlong enough that we cannot have ourncake and eat it, too. Well, obviousnperhaps only to those who are willingnto concede that the view of science asnan autonomous and progressive bodynof knowledge providing an ever fullerndescription of reality “as it is” needs tonbe debunked in order to show that thenclaims made for science are an expressionnof the concerns and interests ofnthe scientific community, shaped asnthey are by political and economicnfactors.nEvelyn Fox Keller’s Reflections onnGender and Science develops such anview to show how the ideology of thennnscientific mode is wedded to certainnconceptions of masculinity and femininity.nThe assumption on which thenbirth of modern science rested, namelynthat nature was something to bendominated, had as its counterpart anparticular relationship between thensexes. Already in Plato there is a fearnand distrust of all that is associatednwith the feminine, and this culminatesnin Baconian science, in which the usenof sexual metaphors served to demonstratenthat the success of science depended,nas in the conventional relationshipsnof men and women, on annaggressive attitude of subordinationnand domination towards nature.nWhile science was masculine, naturenwas typically regarded as being female.nThe possibility that male and female,nobjectivity and subjectivity, reasonnand emotion were all integral parts ofnthe same reality was lost in the triumphnof science over alchemy and innthe crucial role science played in thenestablishment of industrial capitalism:nan assertive aggressiveness which supportednthose kinds of knowledge thatnwould lead to the mastery, control,nand domination of nature.nOf course, science did not have tondevelop in such a way, and it is certainlynone of Keller’s contentions thatnnot only could science have beennpredicated on a different set of precepts,nbut success in science has actuallynbeen achieved because such rhetoricnis frequently ignored. A careful andnthoughtful analysis, drawing uponnphilosophy, the history of science, andnpsychology, serves to persuade thenreader that science needs to and doesntolerate “a form of knowledge thatngrants to the world around us its independentnintegrity but does so in a waynthat remains cognizant of, indeed reliesnon, our connectivity with thatnCarol McMillan is author ofnWomen, Reason, and Naturen(Princeton University Press).n