Actually, Ruth, I was referring more to approaches to social sciences (not that I'm overruling the interference of values and stereotypes in natural and exact sciences, but the Feminist claim seems somewhat more dubious there). Mostly, where I'd seen the argument (mostly in the seventies, but sometimes today as part of more fragmented "feminisms") it goes as follows: the patriarchal approach to social science studies things using quantitative methods and hypotheses that are flawed to begin with, because they assume the male as "normal" and the female as "abnormal" or "deviant", and not only that, they are hard to criticize because they wear the mask of scientific objectivity. Feminist methodologies emphasize textual analysis (to find those given flaws within the text) and narrative (to give women a voice within research).

The confusion between sex and gender, to which you refer, is actually one of the weaker points of this argument. On one hand, feminists in the 70s were very vehement in their distinction between sex and gender. Therefore, the differences as far as they related to methodology were really a matter of socialization ("gender" rather than "sex"). However, the rejection of "male metholodogies" and the advocation of alternative methods assume, in themselves, a strong separation that is not only a function of social construction (and if we're socially constructed in a way that bars us from engaging in "male methodology", why should we accept it?).

I might not have fully understood your comment, and if so, please explain.