Jayanti Srivastava Week 1

Summary – Week 1

The Egg & The Sperm, and “Glamorous Babies” and “Little Toughies”

When we look around in our society, we see many disparities between the various genders that exist, but especially between the two dominating/majority genders, or rather, sexes, i.e., the male and the female. As was seen in the chapter titled “Glamorous Babies and Little Toughies” in Emily W. Kane’s book The Gender Trap, ever since they are born, the difference between boys and girls, and their respective gender roles have been ingrained in their brains. Girls are always taught to be delicate, fragile, and feminine. They are surrounded with pink, which is apparently the “girls’ colour”, while boys are taught to be “manly”, strong, rough & tough. Masculinity is instilled in their everyday lives since clothes for boys have trucks and sharks on them, calling them “little toughies”, whereas girls, supposedly, inherently, like to “shop with mama”, or would like to rather have a “pool party” than anything else. However, what is shocking is that this distinction and divide between masculine and feminine qualities is made even before a child is born, as was seen in Emily Martin’s article “The Egg and The Sperm”. This article shows how even science has romanticised the weakness and “dependence” of the woman on the man. The Egg, the part of a woman’s body, is portrayed as the fragile, useless element of the reproductive process, just waiting for the strong, brave, active sperm to “soldier” it’s way all the way to the egg and save it from going to waste. All of this talk about how the sperm saves the egg, or even assaults it, and all the blue and pink distinctions between the girls and the boys, since they were children is one of the major causes for the gender disparities that exist today, and make the man think that he is greater than, and can do what he pleases to, a woman.