The process of fertilization is incredibly romanticized when previous science suggests that the egg awaits the aggressive/heroic sperm, similar to the journey in the Odyssey and the Aeneid. As theories became more modernized and the egg was characterized as energetic as opposed to passive, scientists showed that the male and female are equally responsible in contributing to the union. These two gametes are equally essential in allowing fertilization to occur since the sperm acts as the activation agent, while the egg supplies the form and structure. Even acknowledging that this is the case, scientists were able to continue showing male dominance saying that the sperm provides the nucleus (the most important part, holding the master molecule: DNA) while the egg donates to the cytoplasm of the cell. As stated in the second article, it is ridiculous that the cell is sexualized as different parts of the cell are "genderized." I am definitely looking forward to see how feminist critique attacks these sort of problems in biomedicine throughout the rest of the class.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Male Dominated Biology (take 2--sorry)
After taking biology both semesters of my freshman year, I never would have thought that what was written in my textbook would have any sort of bias towards male dominance. You could say that I was naive and believed that what was written was the truth. As suggested by the second reading, I never considered biology as the oppressor of women and the victim of male social assumption. Although I understand that personal lives as well as socio/cultural factors influence the scientists (as suggested by the Standpoint Theory), it did not occur to me that this would blind them from the truth of their findings or disregard other suggestions of what the truth could be. After working in different labs I have never found this to be the case, or maybe subconsciously I just avoided it or didn't notice (who knows). I now understand through our class discussion that science is not as objective as I thought it was. Through feminist critique, I think that it is important to show where these assumptions take place concerning gender bias, especially in terms of fertilization.
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2 comments:
I definitely agree with Alice in her thoughts of the "gender separation" of a cell. I feel that by separating one part of the cell as a male and the other as a female, the entire purpose of describing the function of each part of the cell is lost.
As I mentioned in my post earlier, because I have always felt science to be a field of study that was put in an objective view, such a phenomena of assigning gender roles to the parts of the cell is extremely surprising. I would have never guessed that someone would explain biological processes in terms of how he/she feels of the relationship between a male and a female. I agree with Alice in that I too am eager to learn more on this subject matter.
Quite right! More than anything feminist critique challenges our understanding of objectivity by basically saying that our "objectivity" is always influenced by our particular standpoints. Our experiences and position in the world inform how we view it and understand it. A theme that we will come back to again . . .
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