Similarities and differences are explored within the categories of woman as well as the social construction of woman/man and the consequences of this for the dealings that each have with their environment. In this sense there is a shift towards defining and explaining differences in order to broaden our understanding of the contribution they can make. We could even speak of a move away from a focus on womanhood, towards an understanding of differences in general. This tendency may bring feminist thinking closer to those — both women and men — who have been distanced in the past by a lack of subtlety and nuance; it may even bring it closer to feminists themselves. For even women who have been active in women's movements recognize that in their own lives there are obvious differences between the public stands they take on feminism or gender issues, on the one hand, and shifts or compromises which they make in their own lives as women, friends, lovers and mothers on the other. As so often happens, in many realms of life, we may hesitate to reveal the discrepancies between what we say, do and write, and what we live — but they do exist.