The Importance of Feminist Critique - Cell Biology

The title of this article should be “Who’s on Top?” the battle for dominance.

Page six, paragraph 4 reads, “A feminist critique of cellular and molecular biology does not necessarily mean a more intuitivistic approach. Rather, it involves being open to different interpretations of one’s data and having the ability to ask questions that would not have occurred within the traditional context.” The five preceding pages took the legitimacy of this statement away. The six pages that followed only continued to deconstruct the statement’s legitimate point. The point being that a feminist critique allows different interpretations of data and asks non traditional questions.

The first statement of deconstruction occurred on page 1, paragraph 1. The article states that "when gender biases are controlled, new perspectives emerge." However, when the masculine perspective is countered with a feminist perspective the only new perspective that emerges is that the dominant cellular construct is female instead of male. For example, the Aristotle sex determination model, where the “active” sperm is the hero and “passive” egg is the victim waiting to be rescued is countered with the feminist prospective of Gerald and Heidi Schatten. The article states that the Schattens describe the egg and sperm as “mutually active partners.” However, further reading reveals that the Schatten's viewpoint only reversed the roles. They placed the egg in the central and more valued role of determining sex. Equality is not introduced.

The second deconstruction statement occurred on page 1, paragraph 4. The article states that “ masculinist assumptions have led us to make particular interpretations when equally valid alternative were available.” The only alternative produced in this article is that feminist critique simply takes the masculine point of view and converts it into the feminist point of view. For example, pages 9, last paragraph and page 10 1st paragraph, the alternative to Small's "Sperm War" story is Emily Martin's "Sperm War" story. His version depicts the sperm as the agressive foot soldier while her version depict the egg as the forceful attractant. This is not the creation of a better standpoint it is only reversing the role of the traditional standpoint of dominance.

Feminist critique is a development of feminist research. Feminist research is constructed to liberate the paradigms of research from the oppression of dominant male interpretations of what is authentic knowledge. Feminist critique dismantles the tools of exclusion by questioning authority, not switching roles with the authorities. This article did not provide me with information to dismantle the male dominated knowledge of “cell biology.” Instead it marginalized the effectiveness of the feminist critique of traditional data for “cell biology.”