The conception video was a men’s view of how sperm is used to penetrate an egg in a woman’s body. The video used several spacecrafts to show that men have plenty of sperm to go around. They also showed the spacecrafts being fired at as if the egg was very hard to get to and protected very well. Finally, the video showed one spacecraft that was able to enter the egg and made it seem like it was as hard as performing neurosurgery. Overall, the video was giving off the suggestion that women are insufficient in reproducing and men are very adequate.
Emily Martin wrote an article in order to argue against this vision of men being seen as very sufficient in reproduction and women being very insufficient. She makes a good point in saying that the average man can produce over two trillion sperm in his lifetime and that he should be seen as reckless and wasteful. The average woman produces about 500 eggs in her lifetime which should not be seen as unsatisfactory. Martin stated that one clear feminist challenge is to wake up “sleeping metaphors in science,” to describe the egg and the sperm.
It is important to care about ideas about gender because it is not fair to refer to the woman’s reproductive system as “passive” and the man’s reproductive system as “masculine.” This is just another reason for men to feel superior towards women. The language that is used to explain gender should be written in a way that is tasteful for both sexes. As Joan Wallach Scott wrote, gender “offers a way of differentiating sexual practice from the social roles assigned to women and men.” Social construction of gender should be separate but equal in women and men.
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what other messages about gender are in the video-- some of the key points from martin that you are missing:
- Scientific knowledge, believed to be factual and objective, reflects biases against women that are shared by the societies in which this knowledge is produced (10)
- Martin shows how our ideas about gender (social ideas) are part of the framework through which we understand and communicate science. Think about it. It makes sense that we use common metaphors (like the fairy tale rescuing of the princess) to teach something. Metaphors help us learn. However, as Martin notes these metaphors are not harmless – there are side effects.
- The models that biologists use to describe their data can have important social effects…
---> Import cultural ideas about active males and passive females into gametes (implanting social imagery on representations of nature)
---> Then reimport exactly the same imagery as a natural explanation of social phenomenon
-- In the least the imagery keeps alive stereotypes…that these stereotypes are at the level of the cell – a powerful move to make them seem so natural as to be beyond alteration… This process naturalizes our stereotypes about gender. Next time someone questions whether women are supposed to be passive and men active and if this is a social construct or biological reality… the example of the egg and the sperm – because we imported sexist language-- says that gender difference is natural!!! Ouch! A significant side effect…
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