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The Female Body

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The Female Body
In the Canadian culture, which we find ourselves in today, the roles and importance of women are overlooked. Women are seen as objects, and are often undermined in our society. More specifically the roles of the female body have been manipulated and changed to make women feel inferior to men. The essays “The Female Body” by Margaret Atwood and “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Male-Female Roles” by Emily Martin, both portray the female body and the use of the female body in a way that is inferior to that of a man’s body. These essays also both use a persuasive approach to persuade the reader to acknowledge the problem and take action to change it. The use of the female body in reproduction has been overlooked and made to look like a minor part of reproducing. It has been portrayed as being inferior to the roles played by men in this cycle. The female body has also been portrayed with a large variety of stereotypical roles, different uses, and other ways that specifically men view the female body. This essay with identify the issues raised in “The Female Body” and “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Male-Female Roles”. It will also display the persuasive nature of these texts with the intention of sheading light on the subject with the hopes that people will take action against the negative attention the female body gets.

In the essay “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed A Romance Based on Female-Male Roles” by Emily Martin, the idea of women being inferior to men in reproduction is presented in a way that persuades the reader to take action against the discrimination being shown towards women. This essay shows that over recent time people have given males and females stereotypes based on the use of the egg and the sperm. Emily Martin chose to focus on the female body and its use during reproduction in her writing. In this essay she states that, “the picture of egg and sperm


Cited: Ed. Landmarks: A Process Reader. Canada: Pearson, 2004. Print. Atwood, Margaret. Ed. The Female Body. Canada: Pearson, 2004. 211-213. Print. Martin, Emily. Ed. The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles. Canada: Pearson, 2004. 169-180. Print.
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