She states that although textbook gender imagery is being revised, its language is no less damaging. She believes these metaphors simply degrade our society because they "naturalize our social conventions about gender" (Martin, 1999).
Critique and Analysis.
Emily Martin cleverly formulates her thesis and provides evidence to support her arguments. She mainly uses linked structured arguments to express her conductive reasoning behind her viewpoint. An example of the linked structure in her article is when she tries to support that females and males are characterized according to cultural stereotypes of gender roles. This viewpoint is supported collectively using examples of negative terms used to describe female reproductive organs and processes, as well as examples of negative female and male terms used to describe the egg, in addition to cases where positive female and male terms are used to describe sperm and sperm activities. An example that shows all of this is, "Whereas the female sheds only a single gamete each month, the somniferous tubules produce hundreds of millions of sperm each day" (Martin, 1999). In this sentence alone, the female reproductive action is described in a way that sounds wasteful, and the male action is given more praise. The fact that the two are being compared using "whereas" also gives the male action superiority. Thus, the reasoning for her arguments is valid. The egg and sperm have in fact been described in a way that can be viewed as culturally stereotypical, since it is no secret that in many cultures the female has been the inferior figure. She provided the reader with many such strong examples of the negative connotation of the female reproductive system, and so the degree of validity is good. Since a good argument does not only depend on validity, but also on soundness, it is important to assess this criteria as well. Emily Martin is a professor of anthropology at New York University.
