The scientific model developed by Bacon was based on the distinction between âmaleâ reason and its âfemaleâ oppositesâpassion, lust, and emotion (Keller, 1985). Because women were restricted to the private sphere, they did not have knowledge available in the public realm. When women had knowledge, as in witchcraft, their knowledge was disparaged or repudiated. As Keller points out, women's knowledge was associated with insatiable lust; men's knowledge was assumed to be chaste. In Bacon's model of science, nature was cast in the image of the female, to be subdued, subjected to the penetrating male gaze, and forced to yield up her secrets. Our purpose here is not to provide a critique of gender and science, which has been done elsewhere (cf. Keller, 1985; Merchant, 1980), but to draw attention to the long-standing association of women with nature and emotion, and men with their opposites, reason, technology, and civilization (Ortner, 1974).