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"Your fear is justified," she acknowledged. "Fathers have been known to snatch their children from off the streets and hurriedly usher them into the shelter of the home whenever the shadow of feminism has passed by."

"Since I'm not a father," I responded, "this sort of anxiety has not been a part of my experience. My concerns lie elsewhere."

"What's the matter," Jennifer inquired, "don't you do windows?"

"As infrequently as possible," I confessed. "When the panes of glass get too dirty, I figure its easier just to replace them.

"Besides," I added, "I've been told, I forget by whom, that fixing things is more compatible with male sensibilities than cleaning things is. I believe it has something to do with the way in which men are supposed to go about bonding with the universe or vice versa.

"I hear tools... masculine tools, of course... calling out to me all the time. 'David ... David. I am for you; you are for me' Sometimes, this can be quite embarrassing."

I shrugged in my best world-weary fashion: "What can I say? It's part of the price one has to pay for being a man."

"So?" Jennifer queried, "what is it about the f-word that you've always wanted to know but were afraid to ask? Don't be shy, good sir.

"Madam Jennifer sees all and hears all. She will endeavor to answer your most sensitive questions with a wise equanimity."

"If you can see that much," I pointed out, "you must be able to see what I would like to ask."

"Of course, I can," she responded, "but etiquette requires me to permit you to speak of such matters in your own voice. In fact, this issue of voice touches on a theme of much importance to some, and considerable debate to others, in the context of the f-word in which you are interested."

"Oh! Madam Jennifer," I remarked, "your prescience is truly remarkable. In speaking of voice, you have raised an issue of considerable interest to me. Please, say more."

"Sir, you have placed me in a most awkward position. You have requested me to say more about voice, but consistency requires me to restrict myself to my voice only.

"I cannot speak with the voice of feminism in general," Jennifer said, "but only with the voice of feminism in particular. Do you feel you can be satisfied with the voice of but one woman?"

"Because the voice is yours," I replied, "I would be most content."

Jennifer fluttered her eyes and murmured: "Your words, sir, give clear proof that chivalry has not yet passed from our midst. I find your comportment most gallant."

I lowered my head and kicked my foot in an 'aw, shucks, twern't nuthin' manner. With my gesture, the curtain closed on a mixed period piece of female/male interaction.

Roughly twenty or thirty seconds passed before Jennifer spoke again. Finally, she said: "Any discussion of feminism is complicated by the fact that this one word has a multiplicity of referents.

"For instance, among other possibilities, there are: Marxist, lesbian, psychoanalytic, liberal, post-modernist, radical, socialist, existential, and post-structural feminists. Furthermore, even within each of these broad categories of approach, there are considerable differences of hermeneutical perspective as one goes from woman to woman.

"Naturally," Jennifer pointed out, "the existence of such differences does not necessarily indicate an absence of common ground among feminists. In fact, I believe all feminists probably would point to their concrete, personal experiences as being the touchstone that gives expression to the common themes of injustice, abuse, exploitation and oppression which some of them contend has been perpetrated against women across virtually all cultures and periods of history.

"As is true, however, of most systems of critical thought, feminists differ among themselves concerning their various manners of characterizing, investigating, interpreting, evaluating and responding to the common themes that run through their individual experiences. Different feminists identify different causes of, and strategies for dealing with, injustices to women.

"For example, there are many feminists who believe patriarchy, or the systemic oppression of women by men, is the primary source of miseries, problems and difficulties in the lives of women. There are many other feminists who focus on the fundamental role which they believe gender and gendering play in enslaving both women and men to a false ideology concerning human nature and possibility.

"Some women believe feminism is about helping women to become more like men as far as issues of autonomy, equality, freedom, rights, entitlements, and educational, as well as economic, opportunities are concerned. Other women consider feminism to be about coming to acknowledge, understand and protect the ways in which women are different from men, biologically, epistemologically, existentially and socially.

"Among feminists, one finds some women who give primary emphasis to the absolute priority of the rights of individuals over the collective, in a variety of matters, including, but not restricted to, issues such as abortion and reproductive freedom. There are other feminists who give primary emphasis to the absolute priority of the rights of women as a general category over the rights of individuals, especially men, in various matters such as affirmative action.

"There are some women who rally around the values of nurturing, bonding, reciprocity, community and non-authoritarian egalitarianism which they believe are inherent in the idea of sisterhood. On the other hand, there are other women who are critical of the notion of sisterhood because they feel it contains no strategy for redressing current injustices against women.

"Some women consider feminism to provide a wonderful opportunity for analyzing the many different kinds of disadvantageous power relationships existing between women and men, both within as well as without the family. Such analysis is intended to demonstrate how men use these relationships to control, manipulate, silence, exploit, oppress and abuse women.

"Other women are interested in feminism's potential for generating, and exploring, alternative epistemologies. By examining alternative ways of engaging the problem of how human beings come to know about themselves and the world, these feminists are attempting to challenge the assumptions, methods and biases of various male approaches to epistemology which have dominated most societies throughout history.

"There are quite a few feminists who are opposed to pornography. Nonetheless, there also are some feminists who, on various grounds, defend pornography.

"Some feminists insist motherhood is a sign of the biological inequality between women and men and constitutes one of the primary ways through which men control and oppress women. Other feminists argue that all of the current interest in reproductive technology is an attempt by men not only to remove women entirely from the equation, but to divest women of one of the few sources of potential empowerment that they have over men.

"There are some feminists who believe any woman who is willing to enter into a heterosexual relationship cannot be considered a fully committed feminist. There also are some feminists who maintain that biological, as opposed to ex utero, motherhood is a betrayal of the cause of women.

"Some of those who espouse this view argue that pregnancy is an expression of the male colonization of a woman's body. I guess," Jennifer conjectured, "such women consider these kinds of activities to be instances of sororitizing with an imperialist or colonialist enemy."

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