Summary and Response to Metaphors We Live By:
The Layoff and Johnson piece introduces the idea of metaphors. Metaphors are known for being slightly dramatic to emphasize a point. However, what we do not realize is that metaphorical expressions are used in everyday language. For example, many people say that time is money. Time is not physically money, but conceptually, time is valuable, like money, that is usually wasted. If you spend your time doing something unsuccessfully, it is not possible to get the the time back. In today’s society, there is a monetary value placed on time (hours working), which shows the relationship between the two. Michael Reddy acknowledges that ideas are usually referred to as objects. For example, some people say “show him the idea”, conveying that the item is some type of physical object. I learned that the structure of language is particularly important when talking with other people because some may take your words seriously, like if someone says, “Hit me with your best shot” in an argument. This person may actually hit you if you do not convey yourself correctly. Reading this piece made me realize how often we actually use these conceptual phrases and how we do not always notice it.
Summary and Response to The Egg and the Sperm:
People often stereotype gender roles. Starting from menstruation in females, there is always a negative connotation associated with a woman receiving her period. Words such as “scarred and battered”, “degeneration”, and “old” used to describe a woman’s ovaries compared to the words “remarkable”, “produce”, “breathless” to describe a male’s process in health books to create sperm show that people are taught at a younger age that men are superior to women. The language used to egg and sperm, femininely and masculinely, convey the first idea of gender stereotyping. In many menstruation videos, the eggs are described as “drifting along the fallopian tube”, while the sperm is more active when they are described as “delivering their genes to the egg…with energy and fuel“. Commonly, the egg is portrayed as the damsel in distress and the sperm as the heroic warrior. This is all just conceptional metaphor, going back to the Layoff and Johnson piece. The egg and sperm do not physically represent those traits, but that is how they are perceived by the public. The way that tRecently, the researchers at John Hopkins University found that the egg and the sperm stick together and equally need each other. This has not stopped the papers written by those same researchers stating that the sperm was still the main party that attacks and penetrates the egg. Another recent theory gave the egg more of an active role in the penetration process, but also created a new stereotype: “that the woman’s eggs were a dangerous and aggressive threat”. This puts yet another negative connotation on women even though the eggs are less passive. Overall, I was surprised by the depth of this article. It did not even cross my mind that females were seen as inferior right from the start of menstruation, even after watching all those health videos in middle and high school.