Boundaries Of A Dichotomous Gender System

Gender based similarities between “Boys”, “Girls” and “Boys and Girls”. Throughout the history of humans both male and female have different roles to play throughout their lifetime based on influences from elders or ancestral norms. Each gender has a specific role to play throughout their lifetime, even if that role is accepted voluntarily or rejected by based by their own free will. For centuries roles are being selected and influenced on both genders and both as a whole may become dependent on another to fill that specific role in order to be truly male or female.

Martin investigates how cultural stereotypes of the two sexes are subtly incorporated into descriptions of the egg and sperm in scientific papers. She expresses that giving stereotypical roles to the egg and sperm has the “power to naturalize our social conventions about gender” (501). By associating the egg with feminine traits and the sperm with masculine traits, scientists make these

In the 1991 article “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles”, by anthropologist Emily Martin approaches scientific literature from the perspective of an anthropologist. Emily Martin explores cultural gender stereotypes and the effects they had on the diction used to describe egg and sperm interactions in numerous biology books and research reports. She focuses on theories made in fertilization with the roles that the egg and sperm and where the women look weak and less important than men.

Martin, after careful consideration and researching in unique methods, comes to an overall conclusion that there are cultural influences in the way egg and sperm interactions are presented in textbooks. This conclusion has many serious

First of all I am going to begin with defining sex and gender. Sex in a sociological perspective is defined as the biological and physiological differences between men and women which are contrasted in terms of reproductive function(Abercrombie et al 2000 :313). On the other hand gender is sociologically conceived as the social roles allocated to men and women in society that is to say gender is learned not innate. However previously it was believed that sex determined gender thus the differences between men and

The hierarchical aspect of America’s contemporary gender system is reinforced through the use of language. We frequently associate biology and the sciences with objectivity, but in “The egg and the Sperm,” Emily Martin argues that it is not outside the socially constructed idea of gender (485). The association of gender norms at the cellular level suggests that the process of gendering is natural beyond alteration; yet, this is merely a result of the implantations of social imagery on representations of nature. Literary works can subtly emphasize the stereotypical differences between males and females in a way that goes unnoticed, consequently ingraining these concepts into our brain and thought processes. In many biological texts, the egg is described as “drift(ing)” and being “swept” throughout the process (Martin 489). This denotes passiveness—a clearly feminine characteristic that society would deem to be appropriate for women. On the other hand, the sperm “streamlines” and

Although both egg and sperm are “parallel” in the creation of a child the terms of payment and screening, and selection are subject to gender stereotyping. Almeling made some interesting observations surrounding the end to end process of gender in the fertilization market. In advertising to women Creative Beginnings say they “appeal to the idea

Compare how the relationship between genders is presented in any two texts studied this term

In “Becoming Members of Society:Learning the Social Meanings of Gender,” Aaron H. Devor battles the topic of gender identity with an excerpt from his book, Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits. Children grow up being defined by a certain gender. From birth, they learn the language and how to act if you are a male or a female. Boys turn into men and should act masculine. Females turn into women and should act feminine. There is no middle ground for the gender identifications to intertwine. Everyone learns to behave in accordance with their gender identity and it is a lifelong process. And as people move through life, society demands different gender performances.

Recently, scientists have developed a method to detect the gender of chicken embryo inside an egg. The technique need to take a blood sample from egg and then sending it to do chemical analysis. You can go through the details in the following article on the Scientific American website:

When contemplating the topic of gender role and its impact on identity one cannot help but realise that these gender roles have a huge part to play on a person’s identity. As gender is a combination of male and female it gives way for a number of characteristics to accompany each sex making them different from each other. This has an important position to play on identity which Kath Woodward stated in her book “Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation” where she said “Without difference there would not be such thing as identity”. (Woodward, 2000, pp.51) Unfortunately, however, with these differences there are inequalities. In this essay I would like to elaborate on this further by looking at the meaning of gender and how it impacts

Journal Entry 1: “The Egg and The Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles”

Evelyn Fox Keller defines gender metaphors into works of two directions, as they create social expectations of the feminine and masculine characteristics in our lives. The gender metaphors in science revolve around the idea of sex being intersected with gender. The term biologically determinism can be applied here as a child born into the sex of a male is influenced by the culture to act and inherit masculine characteristics as being aggressive, logical and dominant. Whereas born into the female sex is influenced by the culture to act and inherit feminine characteristics as being more emotional, attached and dependant. One example of the gender metaphors is the illustration of the sperm and egg cells.

Some of these gender roles and stereotypes have been created due to the differences in physique, thinking, personality, and behavior that is actually present between men and females. Physical differences are more visible to the eye due to the distinction between primary and secondary sex characteristics for each gender. Males have testes, deeper voices, a bigger body type, and more facial hair, where as women have a smaller body, higher voices, ovaries, and wider hips. (Rathus, 2010, p.448). Cognitive differences have to do with the brain and the way men and women

A woman goes to work and does the same job as a man, she gets paid 77 to 78 cents for every dollar a man makes. A woman can be as emotional as she would like, whereas if a man is, he is presumed gay or ‘girlish.’ A woman can be a nurse, but a man cannot. A man can be a mechanic, but a woman cannot. We all place stereotypes upon gender, even if we don’t intend to.