Emily Martin’s The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles is an article that was written to describe the subliminal imposition of gendered stereotyped that hide behind the material taught and presented by scientists cited from the 1940’s to the 1980’s. This piece was written with a fairly feministic approach to the issue which is important to consider especially at a time in the early 1990’s when feminism was part of a growing trend and any form of signifying male dominance intentionally or abstractly would have been highlighted to have been recognized. Back in the 1980’s and prior, very numerous amounts of textbooks and articles depicted egg and sperm fertilization with assigned gender roles, each respectively to their gender. It’s substantial to understand what some of the analyses were that Emliy Martin made in order to relate them to how they fit in present day context.
Martin’s article was written as a message so that her readers know “one clear feminist challenge is to wake up sleeping metaphors in science” (501). Although the examples that are being analyzed are not quite “sleeping metaphors,” they exhibit the exaggerated reality behind Martin’s proposed analysis behind how fertilization in the course of biology was being taught. One of the common descriptions of the egg that Martin found had to do with the lack of activity.
In this cartoon drawing of the semen and egg, you see several identical figures (the sperm) surrounding the stationed egg in the middle. The sperm are all saying things that a stereotypical male would often use to flatter a female. The egg is thus automatically gendered a female based on being on the receiving end of the remarks by the sperm. You can see it also large curvy lips, a cup with an umbrella, and a cigarette held with the palm out; all feminine features that are assigned to the egg. In this drawing, the sperm seem to be doing “all the work” by trying to impress or “get” the egg, while the egg is simply just (what appears to be) sitting there and doing nothing except drink and smoke. This description could be related to how the egg was illustrated to be almost dormant and lazy, like “Sleeping Beauty: a bride awaiting her mate’s magic kiss, which instills the spirit that brings her to life” (490). The cartoon shows how the egg can be passive and unexciting as the sperm.
Here we see another gendered illustration of the sperm, but not quite so much of the egg. The sperm that is seen ahead of the rest of the pack is labeled as Michael Phelps, who is a male Olympic swimmer with a record number of gold medals. The race for the sperm to meet with the egg is like a competition for the male gametes. In Emily Martin’s chapter, she mentions how authors of other textbooks would label sperm as warriors and constantly fighting through the journey into the fallopian tube with “a velocity that is often remarked upon” (489). She mentions how sperm are designed by authors to have so much power in their tail (or flagellum) to help them swim and navigate their way to the target. By labeling the first sperm as “Michael Phelps,” not only is the sperm being gendered, it is also supporting the notion that sperm are the exciting piece to fertilization and that all the hard work and dependence falls on the sperm its “mission.” The egg in this cartoon isn’t given a role or a label, it just simply sits there as the target for the Michael Phelps sperm.
In this last example, we see a zoomed in cartoon of two groups of sperm battling it out right by the female egg. The sperm are given masculine characteristics with the depiction of anger, teeth bearing, moustaches, and weapons. This illustration, just like the one above is an exaggeration of the competition that goes on between the individual sperm. The sperm are given titles of warriors that are fighting for the chance to fertilize or “rescue the egg.” It seems like a commonality in other cartoons for sperm to be fighting against each other, with the winner being seen as the “hero.” Once again, the egg drawn in this cartoon is not given a label or a relatively exciting role. It’s just a yolk-like circle that is drawn to emphasize the relevance of the fighting sperm. The sperm are featured as the focal point of the picture, with the egg resting far up top. This depiction supports Martin’s that the female gamete receives less of an exciting or valued role in the process of fertilization. It’s very difficult today to find a textbook which shows this type of stereotypical bias, but the humorous representations in forms of cartoons could be the signs of the historical existence of the gendering in fertilization.
Works Cited:
Love, Jason. "Sperm Egg Cartoon Illustration Blowup." CartoonStock - Cartoon Pictures, Political Cartoons, Animations. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?start=2&search=main&catref=jlvn108&MA_Artist=&MA_Category=&ANDkeyword=sperm egg&ORkeyword=&TITLEkeyword=&NEGATIVEkeyword=.
Onorato, Rick. "Cum Ons." Flickr. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. http://www.flickr.com/photos/27648211@N05/2748335526.
Thecoolestimage. Michael Phelps Sperm Egg Cartoon Funny Picture by Thecoolestimages - Photobucket. Digital image. Photobucket. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. <http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/vv98/thecoolestimages/?action=view¤t=michaelphelpsspermegg.jpg&newest=1>.
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