“The Egg and the Sperm,” a powerful publication on the impact of human culture on scientific research and studies, written by Emily Martin, reveals what she believes to be the inescapable influence of gender stereotypes of women and men on, literally, a microscopic level. Martin makes many strong points outwarding the extent to which gender “norms” can be seen in all aspects of our society and our personal lives, even down to the bare cells that create us. Despite popular belief, “The Egg and the Sperm” shows readers how even science, something apparently so deeply rooted in cold hard fact and evidence, can be affected by the way that women and men are considered and depicted as separate and definite beings or personalities.
At first glance, one may consider Martin’s statements to be “hyper-sensitive;” how can anyone go as far as to say that we use stereotypes, not only on people, but their CELLS, too? I will admit, I was a bit skeptical going into this reading. But the strangeness of the issue is what kept me interested as I was going: I wanted to see what Emily Martin had to say, and was I impressed!
Martin immediately describes what drove her to further investigate this issue of gender stereotypes in science, saying, “in the course of my research I realized that the picture of egg and sperm drawn in popular as well as scientific accounts of reproductive biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female.” She then goes into detail on specific cases, in the many reports and publications of prominent scientists of this field including Gerald Schatten and Helen Schatten, and how they are written in ways in which the sex cells of each gender follow their given stereotype. It is intellectual; stimulating, each paragraph is well-titled (as can be seen in the clever headings such as “Egg and Sperm: A scientific fairy tale”), and she has ample examples to back up her claims. Even if one doesn’t agree with her findings, they must admit she presents them well.
In an overall statement against sexism, Emily Martin makes her final concluding statement a strong one: “waking up such metaphors, by becoming aware of their implications, will rob them of their power to naturalize our social conventions about gender.” I think Martin sparked a political conversation and hopeful movement towards equality between women and men, starting from even the smallest levels of generalizations. At the very least, she reminded us how prevalent these gender issues still are and will be until people make the conscious decision to work against them.
Emily Weiss
02.09.2016
I agree with you- unless people decide to make a point to reject these gender stereotypes, there will be no real change. People like Emily Martin may be able to bring awareness to the cause, but in the end it is up to society to make a difference. Your response is very well-written as well as informative. It was honestly entertaining to read, good work!
I had the same initial response to the reading that you did– thinking that Martin is hypersensitive and thinking it a bit absurd to introduce questions of social justice into a subject as (relatively) obscure as that of the sperm and the egg. I think many people probably had a similar reaction. If you engage with her ideas, however, as we both did, you’ll see some merit in what she’s saying. I think many people probably have a knee-jerk reaction against the initial absurdity of the topic and dismiss her ideas, allowing that initial impression to overshadow the legitimacy of her ideas.
One reaction that we definitely shared going into this paper is skepticism. I also couldn’t imagine how gender stereotypes could have seeped their way into our biology textbooks. Although i personally feel like Martin could’ve taken on some bigger issues that women are facing these days but i’m glad she didn’t. Someone eventually had to spark this conversation that calls for equality in the way we portray male and female gametes, and the anthropologist did just that with nearly 20 pages of solid material. She made many excellent points and hopefully these ridiculous injustices towards ova will be fixed in the near future.
I very much agree that this article originally showed tremendous sexism on stereotyping the different genders. It bothered me that just when conceiving a child, it would be shown that a male should be aggressive and is the stronger sex and a woman just goes with the flow and is inferior. It is not fair to teacher children that a boy for example should be forced to play sports and throw punches to show his strength and a girl needs “to play with her “dollies” to show feminism.