Campbell's "Egg and Sperm"

Campbell's Biology (Custom Ninth Ed. for USC)
     One of the facilitated discussion questions in class this past week was if we could recall how exactly the egg and the sperm were referred to in our previous biology books and if the two were gendered in any way. Curiosity overtook me and I had to see for myself if interactions between egg and sperm in my biology textbook, for BISC 120 and BISC 220, reflected gender stereotypes in any way.
     At first, the interaction between the two seemed completely non-gendered. In fact, the process of fertilization reflected more like a UPS shipping process than anything remotely close to gender stereotypes. The process "typically requires cooperative behavior that leads to copulation, as well as sophisticated and compatible reproductive systems," and is further described as followed: "The male copulatory organ delivers sperm, and the female reproductive tract often has  receptacles for storage and delivery of sperm to mature eggs" (1000). Stressed in this textbook is the importance for both male and female reproductive organs, both being equally important for reproduction. Within this UPS process, the sperm ships off and delivers its contents to the egg, a place of storage.
     Unlike the many descriptions of egg and sperm in Emily Martin's work, the sperm by no means is described as the strong, forceful, all-powerful aggressor within reproduction, nor the egg as the passive, dormant bride awaiting the kiss from her prince charming. Emily Martin stressed how the way in which the egg and sperm are described greatly depends on the societal outlooks on gender at the time, and vise versa. With this in mind, Campbell distinctly notes of the many differences in anatomy between male and female that directly reflect function of egg and sperm: "Sperm are small and motile and must past from the male to the female, In contrast, eggs, which provide the initial food stores for the embryo, are typically much larger and carry out their function within the female reproductive system" (1005). In contrast to many of the egg-sperm gendered descriptions in Martin's work, the egg is more than just a passive contributor to reproduction, but as the "much larger" counterpart of which the "small and motile" sperm must go to the egg for fertilization to occur. Here, fertilization is more than just a UPS delivering/receiving mechanism. In addition, "if the egg cell is not fertilized, the corpus luteum degenerates, and a new follicle matures during the next cycle" (1003). While many scientists quoted in Martin's work expressed the inferiority of the egg to the continuous stockpile of sperm, the Campbell textbook gives a more hopeful outlook on the process. If the egg is not fertilized at one point, that's not a problem because there is always next time to try again.
    Perhaps the differences and interactions between sperm and egg parallel the gender stereotypes today, or at least reflect the more hopeful, modern outlook on male-female equality in today's society.