This article by Emily Martin really fascinated me. I don’t really have much of an interest in biology, but if I did, I do not think I would have noticed this apparent stereotype towards the male and female reproductive systems. It connects closely with Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By. The words used when referring to the egg, or to the sperm, although at the surface, are just words, create an image, and thereby a mindset, in which to consider the actual egg and sperm. I found the strongest example of this to be that women are considered “wasteful” for the amount of eggs produced considering the potential amount, while men, whose sperm potential is far greater than that of a woman’s egg potential, is not considered wasteful.
However, I differ in opinion in that I do not think that this is connected to the stereotypes of men and women in general. While I do believe that Martin’s argument about the way we view the reproductive processes of women in a negative light, and that of men in a much more positive light, I do not think that these stereotypes lend into the stereotypes of men and women in general. It’s undeniable that such stereotypes are present, but I think that that has another source. If anything, the stereotype of men and women in general has affected and impacted the stereotypes of their reproductive systems, not vice versa.
I thought that Martin’s ending about the “sleeping metaphors” was brilliant. She makes a point that these metaphors are not dead, but sleeping, and we have the power to wake them up. And while I agree that we have that power, and it may impact humanity’s views of the reproductive system, I do not think that it will impact the stereotypes that our society has of men and women in general.
I completely agree with you that reading this kind of articles is not my thing and I prefer to read something much more interesting in my prospective. Over all I found this article educational and that it. Right now I know a little more about how the sperm and egg cooperating in reproduction system of women body. I really didn’t like that I felt a push of importance of the egg and lowering the impotency of the sperm thru the book. My personal opinion that those two constituents of equation are hundred percent equal and can’t exist one without another.
I 100% agree with you when you say the “stereotype of men and women in general has affected and impacted the stereotypes of their reproductive systems, not vice versa”. I don’t think that biology textbooks created, so to say, these stereotypes about men and women (through their descriptions of sperms and eggs). I think the gender-specifc stereotypes have existed long before, and that the textbooks have just (wrongfully) adopted the terminology. I think Martin really makes an interesting point with this article– it was defiantly an eyebrow raiser!