diff --git a/common.gypi b/common.gypi
index ca0cf9f3e1..8d60414185 100644
--- a/common.gypi
+++ b/common.gypi
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   'variables': {
-    'strict_aliasing%': 'false',     # turn on/off -fstrict-aliasing
+    'node_no_strict_aliasing%': 0,   # turn off -fstrict-aliasing
     'visibility%': 'hidden',         # V8's visibility setting
     'target_arch%': 'ia32',          # set v8's target architecture
     'host_arch%': 'ia32',            # set v8's host architecture
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
             # pull in V8's postmortem metadata
             'ldflags': [ '-Wl,-z,allextract' ]
           }],
-          ['strict_aliasing!="true"', {
+          ['node_no_strict_aliasing==1', {
             'cflags': [ '-fno-strict-aliasing' ],
           }],
         ],
diff --git a/configure b/configure
index 4ad4e48243..d324696f40 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -287,9 +287,9 @@ def configure_node(o):
   # turn off strict aliasing if gcc < 4.6.0 unless it's llvm-gcc
   # see http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=45883
   # see http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=884
-  strict_aliasing = is_clang or cc_version >= (4,6,0)
-  o['variables']['strict_aliasing'] = b(strict_aliasing)
-  o['variables']['v8_no_strict_aliasing'] = b(not strict_aliasing)
+  no_strict_aliasing = int(not(is_clang or cc_version >= (4,6,0)))
+  o['variables']['v8_no_strict_aliasing'] = no_strict_aliasing
+  o['variables']['node_no_strict_aliasing'] = no_strict_aliasing
 
   # clang has always supported -fvisibility=hidden, right?
   if not is_clang and cc_version < (4,0,0):