This multi-disciplinary anthology is about hermeneutical issues pertaining to gender ideology in university scholarship. The authors provide, from their own discipline, an extensive examination of the issues raised in the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada pamphlet, "On the Treatment of the Sexes in Research," by Margrit Eichler and Jeanne Lapointe (1985).

Gender bias is described and evaluated in the light of possible alternative perspectives which would alter the content and shape of research, including women as subjects of research and as researchers. The authors underscore the importance of acknowledging underlying gender imagery in the selection, interpretation, and communication of research data. They explore the notion of research as a social construction which is strongly aligned with the socially constructed notion of male and dissociated from the socially constructed notion of female. The focus is on refraining research ideology to include both female- and male-constructed imagery.

Contributors include Marlene Mackie (sociology), Carolyn Larsen (psychology), Estelle Dansereau (literary criticism), Gisele Thibault (education), Alice Mansell (art), Eliane Leslau Silverman (history), Yvonne Lefebvre (biochemistry), Petra von Morstein (philosophy), and Naomi Black (political science).