Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-189) and index.

Introduction -- Part 1: Historical couplings of mind and nature. Love and sex in Plato's epistemology ; Baconian science : the arts of mastery and obedience ; Spirit and reason at the birth of modern science -- Part 2: The inner world of subjects and objects. Gender and science ; Dynamic autonomy : objects as subjects ; Dynamic objectivity : love, power, and knowledge -- Part 3: Theory, practice, and ideology in the making of science. Cognitive repression in contemporary physics ; The force of the pacemaker concept in theories of aggregation in cellular slime mold ; A world of difference -- Epilogue. Why are objectivity and reason characterized as male and subjectively and feeling as female? How does this characterization affect the goals and methods of scientific enquiry? This groundbreaking work explores the possibilities of a gender-free science and the conditions that could make such a possibility a reality.