I agree with Cynthia’s analysis and also like how she chose the examples. She talks about how Martin’s main argument here is that scientific language is embedded with stereotypical culturally constructed information regarding men and women and their supposed behaviors. Two example of scientific language she had come across that exemplified what she meant by this, was how certain scientific writings had described menstruation as ‘getting rid of debris’ (486). The second example was a larger example in that many scientific writings all alluded to the productivity and activity of the male’s sperm, essentially it was the male’s continuous production versus the female’s degeneration of eggs (487). This is absolutely an example of bad articulation. When hard science describes such phenomena with this biased language and is unable to quantify this phenomena, it makes a very good example of bad articulation.
She further mentioned how Martin’s research concluded that biology in itself, is very susceptible to culturally constructed stereotypes of male and females too, and it is unfortunately, evident in how it describes both male and female reproductive systems and the process of conception. Language is a science in itself i believe. It has the power to limit your thinking, to shape your mind and construct your reality for you. If such language is used to describe natural phenomena then we are almost brainwashing the generation to swallow culturally contructed ideas of what it means to be a man and a woman and who is more worthy.
She further says that Overall, what author noted was that female processes were generally depicted in a negative light, and usually depended on the man to fulfill the duty of conception and basically illustrated the female reproductive system as :futile, dingy, and generally speaking lacking of any real productive performance especially in comparison to its male counterpart. I completely agree with the reason she gave for such explanation. Men have always dominated the world of hard science till now. back in the day it was very hard for a man to take a woman in science field seriously. This thus in language is translated and women are depicted as damsels in distress even in the world of science. Thankfully now the whole idea is changing for the better but the speed is not as fast as it should be.
sabmunir 