Summary on "The Aggressive Egg"

Freedman in The Aggressive Egg invokes his audience to establish an understanding on the adverse debates when it comes to stating something with proper/improper language. Freedman incorporates two researchers, male and female, to expose the idea of subconscious battles that both sexes face when it comes to domination.

            Freedman’s study of choice is the language barrier that most biologists face when accurately passing down recently discovered material; Freedman brings forth this idea through his character Emily Martin. Freedman reveals that Martin observes the way biologists become offended when she explains how she discovered that sperm is pulled by forced into the egg. This image, along with other language, that biologists commonly use in reference to the sperm and egg are the utter opposition of the stereotypes of each sex, which each person expects to hear. What is meant by this is, for example, most biologists state that the sperm is potent and the egg is aggressive like a spider, therefore bolstering males into believing they’re the superior sex and therefore, disappointing women. As Martin evolves more in her study through research and observing other groups findings, she receives a second opinion on language difference when she meets Gilbert. Gilbert refers to the “..egg as engaging in a dialog with the sperm rather than gluing it down..” (Freedman, 1992). This appears to be more accurate because it doesn’t appear to engage is an argument of battle of the sexes.  

Traditional or common portrayals of the fertilization process are inaccurately based on what truly happens because of typical stereotypes and biased information of male and female. Male biologists blow off the idea of the egg “controlling” the sperm by trapping it because they feel that it makes males appear less weak in comparison to women in reality. The limitations of Martin’s study yielded to reader’s wondering why there were small, but vital lies told due to chauvinistic beliefs.

Ultimately, the language that is commonly used to describe egg and sperm has caused many biologists to cease in doing more research on what truly happens in reality because they’re comfortable with the idea of what they think happens. The language used employs a sense of relief and character because it almost feels neutral when the language is appropriate and not disturbing/ harmful to any sex. Martin ultimately comes to the understanding that people can accept new discoveries with neutral languages and images. I agree with Freedman’s idea of the language barriers formed in certain articles and how it has the ability to enrage or uplift someone, which may drastically affect the acceptance of new findings. I can use this idea to expand my audiences’ attentions when I write on topics that may be powerful. This plays a role with what I’m learning in class because we’ve been talking about language barriers and how they affect people when trying to write a paper.

Bibliography

Freedman, D. (1992, June). Aggressive egg. Discover Magazine. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/1992/jun/theaggressiveegg55