KINE 1000 Lecture Notes - Johns Hopkins University
22 Apr 2014
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Sex and gender: the egg and the sperm. How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles. Sperm: fast, active, many, brave, winner, leader, powerful, adventurous. Immobile: waiting, penetrated, fragile, only has meaning once fertilized by. When it comes to fertilization, biologists have got it all wrong. The egg is no passive lady in waiting . For decades, biologists have been portraying sperm as intrepid warriors battling their way to an ageing, passive egg that can do little but await the sturdy victor"s final, bold plunge . In reality: wastefully huge swarm of sperm weakly flops along its members bumping into walls and flailing aimlessly . Woody allen: an atypical representation of sperm. Male female representation it is clear martin that our biological notions of what eggs and sperms do are more the result of stereotypical ideas of male and female social roles than scientific facts.
