"The essays in this interdisciplinary collection share the conviction that modern western paradigms of knowledge and reality are gender-biased. Some contributors challenge and revise western conceptions of the body as the domain of the biological and 'natural, ' the enemy of reason, typically associated with women. Others develop a conception of the knowing subject which, in contrast to dominant philosophical conceptions, is social, embodied, interested, and emotional as well as rational, and whose emotions and reason are shaped by her historical context. A final group of papers explores the practical application of these feminist insights in a range of contexts."--Back cover.