rack" (Keller, 1985, pp. 33 ff.; Merchant, 1980; Haraway, 1979, pp. 206-237). Objectivity has been constructed, not only in terms of the distance of the knower from nature, but in terms of an aggressive relationship towards it (or rather towards her). And from its very foundations, objectivity in science has been engaged with the language of power, not only over nature, but over people and organizations. Such associations have spread beyond professional scientific communities; aggression has become part of a widespread cultural understanding of what it means to behave in a scientific way. Its hard methods are expected to involve "demolishing" an argument and "knocking it down" to size. Here the object of the blows is not a female nature but a male scientific opponent. If science is first a rape, it is then a duel. In either case, it is not surprising that many women feel uncomfortable both with science and with ways of thinking that have been associated with it. The traditional discourse of computation has not been exempt from these connotations. Programs and operating systems are "crashed" and "killed." We write this chapter on a computer whose operating system asks if it should "abort" an instruction it cannot "execute." This is a style of discourse that few women fail to note. Such observations about language, power, and the genderization of scientific discourse suggest pressures that push women to look for alternative approaches to knowing, and this means pressure to adopt soft approaches. A psychoanalytic perspective might suggest