how to woo a lady.

Source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/sperm.asp

Imagine yourself as an attractive young woman who walks into a bar full of men. As soon as your heels click onto the tiled floors, 30+ pairs of male eyes are drawn to you and the only thought running through their minds is how they can win your affection tonight. At once, six men come at you ready to bombard you with pathetic pick-up lines while two more men lag behind, plotting out their form of attack. As you reject each of the eight men, one more comes up to you. You mentally take out that list of characteristics you want in a man and you see that this man matches up right to the detail. To top it off, he hands you a drink and this little act of kindness seals the deal. You have a date tonight.

Now turn your attention to the image above. This comic portrays the pre-fertilization process in which the newly-released population of sperm race to their final destination, the egg. In this image, the viewer gets a glance at how competitive the process truly is by displaying sperm all around this central sperm, who is equipped with flowers and bottle of wine. His buddy even makes the comment, "Hmm... clever" and clearly knows that this sperm knows how to woo a potential partner.

Unfortunately, the mechanism of fertilization is not so romantic. The inside of the vagina is not equipped with shops of wine and flowers where sperm can stop by and pick up a few things to win the affection of the egg. It's a very scientific process in which 300 million sperm try all at once to penetrate the egg and produce a zygote.

Emily Martin's article, "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles" addresses this idea of romanticizing the scientific process of fertilization. She first opens this statement by saying, "It is remarkable how 'femininely' the egg behaves and how 'masculinely' the sperm behaves" (Martin, pg. 489)and continues to describe the egg as being passive while the sperm is pro-active. This relates back to the story above where the female is essentially passive and is hounded by men who all want her affection. The man that wins the female's affection is considered to be the hero and the winner of the game while the female is just a prize to be won. Even on the biological level, the same case goes: the sperm that is able to penetrate the egg and induce fertilization holds a great deal of significance.

Taking on these gender roles and romanticizing the science of fertilization leads to what Gerald and Helen Schatten mention in Martin's article as, "the egg's role to that of Sleeping Beauty..." (Martin, pg. 490) where the egg plays the role of the sleeping princess who can only be awoken by her true love's kiss. However, Martin's purpose of this article is to debunk the significance of the sperm as being the sole inducer of fertilization. This lies mostly in the common perception that it is the sperm that has to trek through "the caves" on a dangerous journey and it is the sperm that needs to rescue the egg before it dies within hours. Once again, the notion of the egg as the "damsel in distress" is used to place greater significance on the "heroic" sperm, indicating that the egg is helpless and dependent on the sperm.

Perhaps it is just in our nature to idealize this process of procreation and to make it more than just a biological occurrence. What more could be more romantic than to say that this specific sperm "wooed" the egg and together they formed the first cell made in creating a living organism? As Martin continues with the article, she explains that while not all of biology may be used in regards to culture, this particular segment of fertilization is. Assigning these two distinct gametes with genders is almost universal solely because it is based on biology; sperm comes from males and eggs come from females so it is natural to assign them the respective gender roles. However, in Western culture, it has become popular to glamorize the mechanism of fertilization to be one that correlates to humans on a macro-scale.

Like the aforementioned example story of the men competing for the woman at the bar or the comic image of the competing sperm, it all dwindles down to our cultural portrayals of the male-female gender roles in biology. Whether it is on a micro-scale or on a macro-scale, as humans, it is sometimes difficult for some to understand processes without giving it a reason as to why it's happening. Therefore, giving the story of the "damsel in distress" and the "heroic sperm" can just be viewed as a reason as to why this all happens in the first place.