In The Egg And The Sperm: How Science Has Constructed A Romance Based On Stereotypical Male-Female Roles, Emily Martin argues that language, particularly scientific language, reflects our cultural stereotypes of our definitions of male and female; furthermore, by uncovering the “sleeping” metaphors in our studies we will enable ourselves to understand when we are projecting our cultural views and understand biological practices in a more neutral and factual way (485, 501). I found this article to be very captivating as it is written very eloquently and addresses any possible counter-arguments, “One could argue that menstruation and spermatogenesis are not analogous processes… (487),”as well as offer a solution to the problem she states, by “substituting more egalitarian, interactive metaphors to describe the activities of egg and sperm… (501).

This piece ties in a notion that Lakoff and Johnson brought up in that we use metaphors in our basic language without realization. Although scientific textbooks don’t necessarily use basic language, their metaphors of gender stereotypes may be overlooked and gone unnoticed. Martin also furthers the thought that culture affects the language we use. Due to our association of women being passive and weak and expecting to be saved by their strong and active male counterpart, biological texts use language that reflects the feminine eggs as being useless and passive, as well as the masculine sperm being fast and on a conquest to penetrate the egg. In my earlier post regarding the book, Metaphors We Live By, by Lakoff and Johnson, I spoke about gender perception and metaphors in our every day language when we tell people they “run like a girl,” or that men can’t cry and they need to “man up.” Truthfully, this article was eye-opening on the same metaphors, as I had never considered factual texts about biology to be poetic and incorporating these kinds of metaphors.