SCIENCE, GENDER, AND WOMENS-LIBERATION - AN ARGUMENT AGAINST POSTMODERNISM

In much contemporary feminist discourse, the concepts of ''science'' a nd ''gender'' are discredited as tools for analysing women's situation . Postmodernist debates criticise the whole positivist enterprise that underlies ''the scientific method'' and is reflected in ''quantitativ e'' and ''experimental'' ways of knowing. Gender as a social construct ion conceptually distinct from a ''biological'' division into female a nd male has also been called into question by postmodernist theories. This paper argues the desirability of rehabilitating both the concepts of science and gender within a feminist discourse committed to the pr actical liberation of women. Two current problems in women's health ca re-cervical cancer screening and hormone replacement therapy-are exami ned as a case study. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.