And yet...

[aesmael]

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

Following a link to an image joke about the next actor to star in Doctor Who, one of the comments I saw provoked some thought.

"not real or .... this little boy? oh my God !! and the 13th doc is a sperm or what??"

It still seems as if people believe on a casual level that sexual reproduction occurs when a man deposits a new life into a woman's incubating chamber, that she is merely a passive nurturer of the child.

It seems a lot of the time when people envision an age regression into absurdity they place the soul of the person in question in the sperm rather than the egg, or concede directly that there's no person for a location to be attributed to.

Comments

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

Huh, very interesting point. I'd never thought about the misogynistic attitudes that go in to that, before.

Sort of amusing how the misogyny used to be expressed instead by blaming the woman for children having the "wrong" gender (i.e. not providing a male heir)

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

Misogyny feels a bit strong, mind. I expect it is more just that the writer's are male, and so the sperm side naturally comes to mind more vividly. I doubt this is any volitional thing. Eventually the meme sticks and thus the influx of females latter doesn't change the balance of thoughts.

Certainly if I was writing a similar comment prior to reading this, I'd have gone with a semen instead of an egg. Although I'd probably go with a fetus, myself, since that's when you actually have the full genetic code.

I find it odd, therefore, that your conclusion is that this suggests people view reproduction that way. You're probably right for a fair chunk of people, I just never would have made that second connection unless you'd pointed it out.

Possibly it is also because the sperm is the more active participant (at least, as I've always seen biology taught)?

(The egg, by contrast, is a lazy do-nothing, like all women, and just SITS there waiting for the sperm ;))

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

I was going to say in reply I believe many or most people who would say something like that, on being questioned directly would have their thinker engaged and answer more in line with how we have found human reproduction to occur. Because what I meant is that there are still pervasive folk-perspectives floating around which get expressed when people are being casual and not thinking about what they say. But I might be mistaken about a lot of things, such as people's awareness generally of how that does work, or what beliefs they might hold.

Wouldn't say misogyny, either, although a lot of what I call misogyny after contemplation seems to be attitudes people express thoughtlessly rather than deliberately.

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

*firm nod* One of the things I find fascinating about humans, is our tendency to hold an inaccurate summary that gets used unless more detail is required. I find it fascinating because we'll often hold this even if we know better - in 5 years there will be a good chance I've forgotten this entirely and gone back to making the same jokes myself! :)