Biology has always fascinated me, and though I am considering majoring in the Zicklin School of Business here at Baruch, I have still decided to take the Biology 2010 class (the course for majors). I’ve taken Biology freshman year in High School, and then again during my senior year. I have never thought about the way gender roles are represented in biology textbooks when it comes to the reproductive systems. While reading, Emily Martin’s article, titled “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles”, I was really surprised to see that “eggs” are described and depicted with feminine descriptions and with female stereotypes, and “sperms” are described and depicted by male stereotypes. I have always thought that Biology textbooks try their best in publishing objective material to the best of their abilities—but this article shed some light… Have Biology textbooks abided to some cultural and stereotypical classifications of females and males when representing their respective reproductive parts, the egg and the sperm?
At first, I felt immediately challenged almost to (respectively) disprove Martin, as I found it truly hard to believe that most textbooks speak in those feminine and masculine tones. But when Martin stated an example in western civilization where she found that sperm was depicted as “weak” and “timid”, she said that it was “the only such representation in western civilization, so far as I know” (491), which made me think that she must have done her research. Obviously, I do not know the scope of her research, but I trust (and hope) that she is publishing this information honestly.
It was pretty shocking to see how subtle the gender stereotypes are represented, for example, when she quotes a Medical Physiology Text, “Whereas the female sheds only a single gamete each month, the seminiferous tubules produce hundreds of millions of sperm each day.” The word choice greatly hints to these gender roles, which I don’t think should exist in “objective” biology textbooks. While I don’t think it is a crime to anyone, I do still think that, since society has matured to the point where equality (gender, color, race, etc) is being achieved, biology textbooks should try their bests to refrain from such wording. At the end of the day, both the sperm and the egg have equal weight in reproduction, so neither could or should be classified as more powerful than the other!
There are billions of people are living on our planet. There are five or six major religious in modern world (I can be wrong). In each religion we can see a different point of view about the woman and her role in her life. Some of them a not consider a woman as an equal part of the society. The same story about some articles and people who wrote down those pages – their thoughts is just their thoughts. If they think that sperm is much more important let them do it and vice versa. I think that they perfectly equal and again, it is just my opinion.
I realize that there are stereotypes about women in our society, or in many different societies in the world. And I realize that there are stereotypes of women and men’s reproductive systems, I was not arguing that either are not present. I was arguing that there is no correlation, and if there is correlation, the first impacted the latter, and not vice versa.
I’m sorry, I thought that this reply was posted on my post and I cannot find how to edit it. I stand by what it says, but realize your post was not related to my original post.
“While I don’t think it is a crime to anyone, I do still think that, since society has matured to the point where equality (gender, color, race, etc) is being achieved, biology textbooks should try their bests to refrain from such wording.”
I couldn’t have said it any better. I agree with you statement completely. Of course this subtle stereotypical lexicon used in the field of biology is offensive and disrespectful, it doesn’t really cause any harm or actually hurt anyone. Textbook companies should be pressured to change their phrasing to something more objective, that doesn’t portray either of the reproductive cells as more than what they are. As long as the information remains accurate and isn’t blurred in the process, it seems as if we are all for it.