Question

Emily Martin (The Sperm and the Egg) says that it is mysterious that

The degradation of women’s eggs is seen as wasteful, while the production of sperm is not seen as wasteful.

Men and women interpret textbook writing very differently.

Sperm are seen as wasteful because there are so many of them that never lead to reproduction, while eggs are seen as life giving and positive.

Women are not able to understand stereotypes about themselves when they read them in textbooks

Answer 1

Answer : The degradation of women’s eggs is seen as wasteful, while the production of sperm is not seen as wasteful.

(.... Medical texts describe menstruation as the "debris" of the uterine lining, the result of necrosis, or death of tissue. The descriptions imply that a system has gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap.... .. Male reproductive physiology is evaluated quite differently. One of the texts that sees menstruation as failed production employs a sort of breathless prose when it describes the maturation of sperm: The mechanisms which guide the remarkable cellular transformation from spermatid to mature sperm remain uncertain ....)