The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles

by Emily Martin

Genres: School

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Isla · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐
SO relevant and SO important - eye opening and the start to such a crucial conversation that is so little had.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's quite interesting how we're so used to the social constructions embedded into our general knowledge of fertilization. I enjoyed how Martin laid everything bare and called out each and every "injustice."

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

“One clear feminist challenge is to wake up sleeping metaphors in science, particularly those involved in descriptions of the egg and the sperm. Although the literary convention is to call such a metaphors “dead,” they are not so much dead as sleeping, hidden within the scientific content of text – and all the more powerful for it. Waking up such metaphors, by becoming aware of when we are projecting cultural imagery onto what we study, will improve our availability to investigate and understand nature. Waking up such metaphor, by becoming aware of their implications, will rob them of their power to naturalise our social convention about gender.”

This was a super interesting article that came up as a recommendation on TikTok! I’d been aware of how science was innately influenced by social convention (e.g it is said there are 7 colours in the rainbow only because Newton thought 7 to be a holier number than the 5 colours he actually observed), despite it being heralded as the most objective thing we have. I really liked this article, and would highly recommend giving it a read! Came out in 1991, so bare in mind it’s quite old now, but in some ways it’s age makes it more poignant - especially in the section where it spoke about how the way we describe fertilisation effects what we perceive as personhood, and how that could result in the stripping of reproductive rights.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an extraordinary piece! I got to know it thanks to the short reference from Martha Kenney's Fables of response-ability to feminist science studies. I intend to read the other referred texts as well. But this one, couldn't be any better. It seems to be extremely relevant, as the concept of "narrative design" expands, and is a fantastic work from Emily Martin. Emily does a major research on how the mating moment, thus the union egg-sperm, is described: not from an historical, archaeological point of view, but from a snapshot of modern narratives. In doing so, she identifies the different ways of telling the facts, the different narratives possible for the very same phenomenon, and how the cultural background of the researchers (forgetting about an intentionality) shapes the way they are finally explained and perpetuate the gender roles. It's a great introduction to the "it matters how tells stories" and how they are told, from Haraway, and also kind of a continuation about how facts are created in the lab, a demystification of the whole process, which is now subject to the researchers themselves, making the scientific story a subjective one.

[Kristina Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and eye opening. Ahead of the times. Excited for science to further grow and break down harmful gender stereotypes.