The Egg and the Sperm

     “(The egg’s role is likened to) that of sleeping beauty: ‘a dormant bride awaiting her mate’s magic kiss,” which instills the spirit that brings her life.  Sperm, by contrast, have a ‘mission.’” (Martin p. 490)

     Even in modern biology, language is skewed at the cellular level.  Sperm “swim vigorously” while an egg “passes” from the ovaries into the uterus.  Even religious language is used:

     “The egg coat, its protective barrier, is sometimes called it’s “vestments,” a term usually reserved for sacred, religious dress.  The egg is said to have a “Corona,” a crown, and to be accompanied by “Attendant Cells.” (Martin p.490)

     So deep in our language, the egg appears to be a religious queen, however incapable of movement and mission, while the sperm are the King and “key” and the egg is the “lock.”  Sperm are regularly personified as vigorous progenitors, indeed, the “fertilizers” of the egg.

     The reading struck me as revolutionary – indeed, the personalities we give to the male and female reproductive systems are indeed microscopic representations of the gender stratification in our own society.  When the egg was not being viewed as passive, it was almost described as spiderlike, “capturing” the sperm, “harpooning” it with enzymes.  If women’s bodies aren’t portrayed as passive, they are portrayed as dangerous and aggressive.  Language is such a human endeavor, I think personification is a natural thing we do to the outside world, and see gender stratification in the personification of sex cells is almost overwhelming.  Even science skews data along gender lines.

     It makes me wonder, what does pregnancy look like from the empowered eggs perspective?  Indeed, it makes a wondrous journey down the fallopian tubes, it situates itself in the creative womb, indeed, it and it alone admits the sperm, no penetration can occur without the egg’s cooperation and encouragement.  Indeed, the egg invites the sperm, the sperm, it merely has to seek the egg.  The egg is the source of life, indeed, the egg fertilizes the sperm, and creates the embryo, the zygote, the place where all humanity begins: within a woman’s body, and it is her body’s incredible wisdom that perpetuates humankind.

     It makes me wonder, how do I use gender stratification in my personal language?  I find myself examining my use of words a lot, and I hope that someday if and when I write scholarly papers, I will do so with a mote of consciousness devoted to gender stratification awareness.  The problem of stratification in the language of biology is huge, I have only just examined the tip of the iceberg, and I will always keep my eyes open for those stratified representations that science gives us.  I am especially fed up with social evolution theory that emphasizes women’s physical signs of health and attractiveness as primary goals for women as if those evolved into actual gender stratified roles.  No, those goals are culturally instilled by this sort of science, and the scientific theories are cultural theories that do little to explain evolution.  What they really explain well is the gender stratified state of our society’s body of scientific knowledge.

     All the day’s readings were connected.  We examined women’s health, abortion, and surrogate motherhood to name a few.  In all these cases we come up against gender stratification.  In the story of surrogate motherhood, the judge decided that “surrogate motherhood was not good for her children,” and her husband with his lawyer managed to take away her home and children, while leaving her with half the mortgage payment.  We also came up against Christian values – conservatives who are basically against anything they can’t control.  Empowered women who take their motherhood into their own hands and have faith in themselves are a huge threat to the established government and Christianity, so women’s rights must be marginalized by society, by judges, by lawyers, by everyone to maintain the status quo.

     What kind of world would it be if women were empowered?  The ads would say “Motherhood – your body, your wisdom, your choice,” not “abortion is murder,” not “surrogacy is frowned upon by society.” There are so many negative messages to women about their bodies, it’s epidemic, affecting the entire planet, and it’s endemic to particular cities and countries more than others.  Thailand had a disturbingly high C-section rate, for instance.

     Overall, the picture of gender stratification in society is becoming clear to me.  Empowered women, women who are in touch with their own erotic, are the biggest threat to gender stratified society that there is.  They represent powerful mother goddess energy – transformative energy, energy that doesn’t take shit from nobody.  Think about it ladies, it’s your body, it’s your life, don’t be subjugated by the fictitious cultural knowledge that our scientists spread every day.  I’ll never envision a sperm on a mission by itself again – indeed, the egg is the locus of pregnancy in my honest opinion, and if there is gender stratification at the cellular language level, it ought to be empowering to women – they are the one’s responsible for the miracle of human life on the planet, and if we ever take that away from them, we will have taken the purpose from their lives and the power from their wombs.