ABSTRACT
Historical accounts of the nature and role of the sexes have often seemed to repeat a limited range of alternatives. Either the sexes are represented as crucially like each other in those respects deemed most relevant to their social, political or moral roles, or it will be stressed that the sexes are significantly different. An emphasis on sexual difference has sometimes produced assertions concerning women’s biological, intellectual or spiritual inferiority that have proved decisive in the denial of women’s rights (Tuana 1993; Le Doeuff 1990). For example, Nancy Tuana describes the long impact of the belief that woman was “less developed, less moral, less capable of rational thought, and less divine than man because of her role in reproduction” (Tuana 1993: xi). But the seeming alternative-the “likeness” arguments-have not always been identified as positive by feminist readers.
