Roy's exercise to produce a 'gendered account of rationality' is gendered only because Roy has artificially set it up that way. If I refuse to connect rationality with masculinity or femininity because I think that they have nothing to do with each other, then Roy's demonstration fails. Can anyone show me a recent paper in an A list journal in economics (or any respectable journal, come to that) which identifies rationality with masculinity? I think not. Modern mainstream economics is populated by abstract 'agents' (sex unspecified) whose behaviour is assumed to conform to formal requirements of consistency, etc. Not much scope for gender there. Hence the idea of feminist economics seems odd to most practising economists. Perhaps the real feminist complaint is not that mainstream economics is gendered, but that it isn't. Historically, there have been all sorts of examples of 'gendered' assumptions about behaviour in economics. I suspect they (like much else) got eliminated as formalism took over. Did Becker stir it up because when you discuss the economics of the family it gets difficult to stick to the idea of abstract, sexless agents, or at least to keep a straight face while doing so? Tony Brewer