I feel as if history has always pointed towards males as being the dominant sex; they fight the wars and bring home the bacon, but I have never thought of males being the dominant sex when it came to biology (fertilization and reproduction). However, Schiebinger's Taxonomy for Human Beings and The Importance of Feminist Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology have enlightened me to the fact that this seems to be the case. The excerpts analyzed in these articles are dominated by male perspectives. It is the powerful and aggressive sperm searching for the passive egg to fertilize. This is not the case though. It is the sperm that floats about blindly while the egg is the stabilizing unit. Of all the millions of sperm that is released only one can fertilize. I thought it was very interesting how in the Critique they describe the egg as initially the passive whore, the tease leading on all the sperm, and once she catches one she forbids entrance by any others, turning into a true lady. The male is still seen as the aggressor and the lady a whore and it being the male’s duty to turn the female into a lady.

I also thought interesting one of the first constructs on sex determination by Sir Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson in their The Evolution of Sex published in 1890. Their theory was that sex was determined by the two types of metabolism. In instances where anabolism, the storing of energy, dominated the production of females increased. In instances where katabolism, usage of stored energy, dominated the production of males dominated. And they tested this by examining the adult behavior of males and females. The females lived longer due to their conservative nature and the males were seen to have shorter life spans because of their greater activity. It was an interesting theory but I thought it a bit ridiculous. I believe feminist critique completely necessary now in the sciences in order to shed light on the importance of female contribution to reproduction, “Biology needs it both for itself and for fulfilling its social responsibilities.”