Feb 8th blog

The author’s main goal of “The Egg and the Sperm” was to “shine a bright light on the gender stereotypes hidden within the scientific language of biology”, bringing the misogynistic word choice hidden in science to our attention as the readers. Throughout the reading she highlights ever description of the female egg that has a negative connotation or examples that rely on the male counter part to flourish and then examines how in contrast sperm is described with higher regards and given value. Emily Martin also takes the time to explain how the scientific imagery used to depict the functions of each gender is illustrated in a biased manner, such as with the statement “the imagery keeps alive some of the hoariest oldest stereotypes about weak damsels in distress and their strong male rescuers”. All of the examinations are done to help support her belief that men and women should both want less stereotypical language and gender bias imagery in biological discussion such as of the egg and sperm. A belief that would make science a gender neutral study with less “personality” functions. Martin even begins her counter argument paragraph with the rhetorical question “Can we envision a less stereotypical view?” when disusing an alternate view on the egg and sperm relationship to each other. Throughout her writing, the author is trying to show us how even without our complete knowledge; we as a society manage to create gender stereotypes in multiple aspects of our world, such as in science. In “Twilight vs. Hunger Games” the author takes the time to compare and contrast why we as people are first more attracted to the tomboyish character of Katniss as a protagonist instead of the fragile character of Bella. This being stated, Noah Berlatsky elaborates that though both Bella and Katniss are of opposing feminine character traits that does not mean they are completely separate. He calls for an accepting and understanding of both characters with his statement “Masculinity and femininity isn't a duel to the death”, exhibiting his belief that we should view gender as not a set binaries that one must choose from but instead a scale or spectrum where we may fall between.