Nicholson feels that b.f. Nicholson provides a brief discussion of the historical context in which sex identity and differences became seen as natural and universal came about. Women went from being viewed as a lesser version of the male body to being viewed as a qualitatively different form. Nicholson analyzes the work of several feminists using this approach, locating their work on the continuum. She sees approaches of Robin Morgan and Janice Raymond as being not significantly different from biological determinism, despite their explicit dependence on social constructionism and rejection of biological determinism.
Radical feminists are also examples of b.f.
Chodorow's work is identified as b.f. Such approaches make invisible the many ways in which men and women do not fit the generalizations. We need a new way of understanding gender that allows both similarities and differences. Nicholson argues that we should stop making claims about women in general or even women in patriarchal societies and replace such claims with ones about women in particular contexts. She does not want us to stop looking for patterns, but to understand such patterns in different and more complex terms, especially noting the historicity of the patterns.