Homework answers / question archive / Cory: I remember, in high school, being amazed at how quickly MOMENTUM I n the preceding two chapters, we developed a mathematical framework for describing motion along a straight line

Cory: I remember, in high school, being amazed at how quickly MOMENTUM I n the preceding two chapters, we developed a mathematical framework for describing motion along a straight line

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Cory: I remember, in high school, being amazed at how quickly MOMENTUM I n the preceding two chapters, we developed a mathematical framework for describing motion along a straight line. In this chapter, we continue our study of motion by investigating inertia, a property of objects that a ects their motion. e experiments we carry out in studying inertia lead us to discover one of the most fundamental laws in physics—conservation of momentum. Figure 4.2 Low-friction track and carts used in the experiments described in this chapter. Alison: Although there is no way to create frictionless surfaces, I find it interesting that we consider experiments "in the absence of friction." In a way, this relates back to Chapter 1.5 where we talked about the importance of having too little or too much information in our representations. In some cases, the friction is so insignificant that we ignore it (simplifying our representation). 4.1 Friction Picture a block of wood sitting motionless on a smooth wooden surface. If you give the block a shove, it slides some distance but eventually comes to rest. Depending on the smoothness of the block and the smoothness of the wooden surface, this stopping may happen sooner or it may happen later. If the two surfaces in contact are very smooth and slippery, the block slides for a longer time interval than if the surfaces are rough or sticky. is you know from everyday experience: A hockey puck slides easily on ice but not on a rough road. Figure 4.1 shows how the velocity of a wooden block decreases on three di erent surfaces. e slowing down is due to friction—the resistance to motion that one surface or object encounters when moving over another. Notice that, during the interval covered by the velocity-versus-time graph, the velocity decrease as the block slides over ice is hardly observable. e block slides easily over ice because there is very little friction between the two surfaces. e e ect of friction is to bring two objects to rest with respect to each other—in this case the wooden block and the surface it is sliding on. e less friction there is, the longer it takes for the block to come to rest. You may wonder whether it is possible to make surfaces that have no friction at all, such that an object, once given a shove, continues to glide forever. ere is no totally frictionless surface over which objects slide forever, but there are ways to minimize friction. You can, for instance, oat an object on a cushion of air. is is most easily accomplished with a low-friction track—a track whose surface is dotted with little holes through which pressurized air blows. e air serves as a cushion on which a conveniently shaped object can oat, with friction between the object and the track all but eliminated. Alternatively, one can use wheeled carts with low-friction bearings on an ordinary track. Figure 4.2 shows low-friction carts you may have encountered in your lab or class. Although there is still some friction both for low-friction tracks and for the track shown in Figure 4.2, this friction is so small that it can be ignored during an experiment. For example, if the track in Figure 4.2 is horizontal, carts move along its length without slowing down appreciably. In other words: Figure 4.1 Velocity-versus-time graph for a wooden block sliding on three di erent surfaces. e rougher the surface, the more quickly the velocity decreases. x Another advantage of using such carts is that the track constrains the motion to being along a straight line. We can then use a high-speed camera to record the cart’s position at various instants, and from that information determine its speed and acceleration. x 4.1 (a) Are the accelerations of the motions shown in Figure 4.1 constant? (b) For which surface is the acceleration largest in magnitude? vi → → vf I n the absence of friction, objects moving along a hori zontal track keep moving without slowing down. CONCEPTS ice vi → vf → carts could travel on these tracks - air would blow up through these tiny holes evenly distributed along the length of the track and the cart would essentially float on the air and consequently the cart would move very quickly with the slightest push. Beth: Does this only apply to solid surfaces? I feel as if a sub stance that floats on water either has negligible or very little friction. Cory: Why is this? I don't get it. Alison: I believe this applies to almost every surface, although I'm not sure if water would count more as resistance than friction. Anyways, the best example I could think of would be a surf board. If people who were paddling in the same direction as the waves experienced no resistance, they would continually speed up, and eventually reach very high speeds. However, in reality if they were two stop paddling they'd slow down and only the waves would slowly push them to shore. Beth: Is it possible to have a surface, in real life, that inflicts NO friction at all? Beth : Doesn't air resistance factor into this at all? Alison :The key word is "appreciably". In the absense of friction, the cart does not slow down appreciably but still would a little -due to air resistance Cory :a) yes b) concrete has the acceleration of greatest magnitude Beth: I would think that they are not constant because if we think of the formula F=ma, the force of friction is different in every case. polished wood vi → vf → x concrete vx ice polished wood concrete t 4.2 Inertia We can discover one of the most fundamental principles of physics by studying how the velocities of two low-friction carts change when the carts collide. Let’s rst see what happens with two identical carts. We call these standard carts because we’ll use them as a standard against which to compare the motion of other carts. First we put one standard cart on the low-friction track and make sure it doesn’t move. Next we place the second cart on the track some distance from the rst one and give the second cart a shove toward the rst. e two carts collide, and the collision alters the velocities of both. Alison: :As a theoretical question about inertia, if an object in motion will stay in motion, but is being affected by friction, will it slow down perpetually but remain in motion, or will it eventually stop completely due to the friction? Just curious. Beth: With friction everything slows down to a half at one point or another. It is only if an outside force acts on the object if that object will maintain motion after the effects of inertia. Cory : Standard carts: identical carts in mass, shape, etc. I like this notion of standard carts, it provides a good baseline to compare other motion and to understand the concepts before building on it. Cory : Great visual representation of friction! It is interesting how this compares the velocity of things on different surfaces Alison : : The rougher the surface, the more friction between the surface and the wooden block, and thus acceleration will be greater. Assuming these annotations are representative of these students’ annotations for this assignment (and also that their annotations are distributed throughout the entire assignment and submitted on time), they would obtain the following evaluations for their body of annotations: Meets expectations: Alison’s annotations reveal interpretation of the text and demonstrate his understanding of concepts through analogy and synthesis of multiple concepts. His responses are thoughtful explanations with substantiated claims and/or concrete examples. He also poses a profound question that goes beyond the material covered in the text. Finally, he applies understanding of graphical representation to explain the relationship between concepts. Improvement needed: While Beth asks possibly insightful questions, she does not elaborate on thought process. She demonstrates superficial reading, but no thoughtful reading or interpretation of the text. When responding to other students’ questions, she demonstrates some thought but does not really address the question posed. Deficient: Cory’s annotations have no real substance and do not demonstrate any thoughtful reading or interpretation of the text. His questions do not explicitly identify points of confusion. Moreover, his annotations are not backed up by any reasoning or assumptions. The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical MaleFemale Roles Author(s): Emily Martin Source: Signs, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1991), pp. 485-501 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174586 Accessed: 26/02/2009 16:44 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs. http://www.jstor.org THE EGG AND THE SPERM:HOW HASCONSTRUCTED SCIENCE A BASEDON STEREOTYPICAL ROMANCE ROLES MALE-FEMALE EMILYMARTIN The theory of the human body is always a part of a worldpicture.... The theory of the human body is always a part of a fantasy. [JAMESHILLMAN, The Myth of Analysis]' As an anthropologist, I am intrigued by the possibility that culture shapes how biological scientists describe what they discover about the naturalworld. If this were so, we would be learning about more than the natural world in high school biology class; we would be learning about cultural beliefs and practices as if they were part of nature. In the course of my research I realized that the picture of egg and sperm drawn in popular as well as scientific accounts of reproductive biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female. The stereotypes imply not only that Portions of this article were presented as the 1987 Becker Lecture, Cornell University. I am grateful for the many suggestions and ideas I received on this occasion. For especially pertinent help with my arguments and data I thank Richard Cone, Kevin Whaley, Sharon Stephens, Barbara Duden, Susanne Kuechler, Lorna Rhodes, and Scott Gilbert. The article was strengthened and clarified by the comments of the anonymous Signs reviewers as well as the superb editorial skills of Amy Gage. 'James Hillman, The Myth of Analysis (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1972), 220. [Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1991, vol. 16, no. 3] ? 1991 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0097-9740/91/1603-0003$01.00 485 Martin / EGGAND THESPERM female biological processes are less worthy than their male counterpartsbut also that women are less worthythan men. Partof my goal in writing this article is to shine a bright light on the gender stereotypes hidden within the scientific language of biology. Exposed in such a light, I hope they will lose much of their power to harm us. Egg and sperm: A scientific fairy tale At a fundamental level, all major scientific textbooks depict male and female reproductive organs as systems for the production of valuable substances, such as eggs and sperm.2 In the case of women, the monthly cycle is described as being designed to produce eggs and prepare a suitable place for them to be. fertilized and grown-all to the end of making babies. But the enthusiasm ends there. By extolling the female cycle as a productive enterprise, menstruation must necessarily be viewed as a failure. Medical texts describe menstruation as the "debris" of the uterine lining, the result of necrosis, or death of tissue. The descriptions imply that a system has gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap. An illustration in a widely used medical text shows menstruation as a chaotic disintegration of form, complementing the many texts that describe it as "ceasing," "dying', "losing," "denuding," "expelling."3 Male reproductive physiology is evaluated quite differently. One of the texts that sees menstruation as failed production employs a sort of breathless prose when it describes the maturation of sperm: "The mechanisms which guide the remarkablecellular transformation from spermatid to mature sperm remain uncertain .... Perhaps the most amazing characteristicof spermatogenesis is its sheer magnitude: the normal human male may manufacture several hundred million sperm per day."4In the classic text Medical Physiology, edited by Vernon Mountcastle, the male/female, productive/destructive comparison is more explicit: "Whereas the female sheds only a single gamete each month, the seminiferous tubules produce hundreds of millions of sperm each day" (emphasis mine).5 The The textbooks I consulted are the main ones used in classes for undergraduate premedical students or medical students (or those held on reserve in the library for these classes) during the past few years at Johns Hopkins University. These texts are widely used at other universities in the country as well. 3 Arthur C. Guyton, Physiology of the Human Body, 6th ed. (Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing, 1984), 624. 4 Arthur J. Vander, James H. Sherman, and Dorothy S. Luciano, Human Physiology: The Mechanisms of Body Function, 3d ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1980), 483-84. Vernon B. Mountcastle, Medical Physiology, 14th ed. (London: Mosby, 1980), 2:1624. 2 486 Spring1991 / SIGNS female authorof anothertext marvels at the length of the microscopic seminiferous tubules, which, if uncoiled and placed end to end, "would span almost one-third of a mile!" She writes, "In an adult male these structures produce millions of sperm cells each day." Latershe asks, "How is this feat accomplished?"6None of these texts expresses such intense enthusiasm for any female processes. It is surely no accident that the "remarkable"process of making sperm involves precisely what, in the medical view, menstruationdoes not: production of something deemed valuable.7 One could argue that menstruation and spermatogenesis are not analogous processes and, therefore, should not be expected to elicit the same kind of response. The proper female analogy to spermatogenesis, biologically, is ovulation. Yet ovulation does not merit enthusiasm in these texts either. Textbook descriptions stress that all of the ovarian follicles containing ova are already present at birth. Far from being produced, as sperm are, they merely sit on the shelf, slowly degenerating and aging like overstocked inventory: "Atbirth, normal human ovaries contain an estimated one million follicles [each], and no new ones appear after birth. Thus, in markedcontrastto the male, the newborn female already has all the germ cells she will ever have. Only a few, perhaps 400, are destined to reach full maturity during her active productive life. All the others degenerate at some point in their development so that few, if any, remain by the time she reaches menopause at approximately 50 years of age."8Note the "marked contrast" that this description sets up between male and female: the male, who continuously produces fresh germ cells, and the female, who has stockpiled germ cells by birth and is faced with their degeneration. Nor are the female organs spared such vivid descriptions. One scientist writes in a newspaper article that a woman's ovaries become old and worn out from ripening eggs every month, even though the woman herself is still relatively young: "When you look through a laparoscope ... at an ovary that has been through hundreds of cycles, even in a superbly healthy American female, you see a scarred, battered organ."9 To avoid the negative connotations that some people associate with the female reproductive system, scientists could begin to describe male and female processes as homologous. They might 6 Eldra Pearl Solomon, Human Anatomy and Physiology (New York: CBS College Publishing, 1983), 678. 7 For elaboration, see Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction (Boston: Beacon, 1987), 27-53. 8 Vander, Sherman, and Luciano, 568. 9 Melvin Konner, "Childbearing and Age," New York Times Magazine (December 27, 1987), 22-23, esp. 22. 487 Martin / EGGAND THESPERM credit females with "producing" mature ova one at a time, as they're needed each month, and describe males as having to face problems of degenerating germ cells. This degeneration would occur throughout life among spermatogonia, the undifferentiated germ cells in the testes that are the long-lived, dormant precursors of sperm. But the texts have an almost dogged insistence on casting female processes in a negative light. The texts celebrate sperm production because it is continuous from puberty to senescence, while they portray egg production as inferior because it is finished at birth. This makes the female seem unproductive, but some texts will also insist that it is she who is wasteful.'? In a section heading for Molecular Biology of the Cell, a best-selling text, we are told that "Oogenesis is wasteful." The text goes on to emphasize that of the seven million oogonia, or egg germ cells, in the female embryo, most degenerate in the ovary. Of those that do go on to become oocytes, or eggs, many also degenerate, so that at birth only two million eggs remain in the ovaries. Degeneration continues throughout a woman's life: by puberty 300,000 eggs remain, and only a few are present by menopause. "During the 40 or so years of a woman's reproductive life, only 400 to 500 eggs will have been released," the authors write. "All the rest will have degenerated. It is still a mystery why so many eggs are formed only to die in the ovaries."'1 The real mystery is why the male's vast production of sperm is not seen as wasteful.12 Assuming that a man "produces" 100 million (108) sperm per day (a conservative estimate) during an average reproductive life of sixty years, he would produce well over two 10I have found but one exception to the opinion that the female is wasteful: "Smallpox being the nasty disease it is, one might expect nature to have designed antibody molecules with combining sites that specifically recognize the epitopes on smallpox virus. Nature differs from technology, however: it thinks nothing of wastefulness. (For example, rather than improving the chance that a spermatozoon will meet an egg cell, nature finds it easier to produce millions of spermatozoa.)" (Niels Kaj Jerne, "The Immune System," Scientific American 229, no. 1 [July 1973]: 53). Thanks to a Signs reviewer for bringing this reference to my attention. " Bruce Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell (New York: Garland, 1983), 795. 12 In her essay "Have Only Men Evolved?" (in Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983], 45-69, esp. 60-61), Ruth Hubbard points out that sociobiologists have said the female invests more energy than the male in the production of her large gametes, claiming that this explains why the female provides parental care. Hubbard questions whether it "really takes more 'energy' to generate the one or relatively few eggs than the large excess of sperms required to achieve fertilization." For further critique of how the greater size of eggs is interpreted in sociobiology, see Donna Haraway, "Investment Strategies for the Evolving Portfolio of Primate Females," in Body/Politics, ed. Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Sally Shuttleworth (New York: Routledge, 1990), 155-56. 488 Spring1991 / SIGNS trillion sperm in his lifetime. Assuming that a woman "ripens" one egg per lunar month, or thirteen per year, over the course of her forty-year reproductive life, she would total five hundred eggs in her lifetime. But the word "waste" implies an excess, too much produced. Assuming two or three offspring, for every baby a woman produces, she wastes only around two hundred eggs. For every baby a man produces, he wastes more than one trillion (1012)sperm. How is it that positive images are denied to the bodies of women? A look at language-in this case, scientific language-provides the first clue. Takethe egg and the sperm.13It is remarkablehow "femininely" the egg behaves and how "masculinely"the sperm.'4The egg is seen as large and passive.15It does not move orjourney, but passively "is transported,""is swept,"'6or even "drifts"'7 along the fallopiantube. In uttercontrast,sperm are small, "streamlined,"18and invariablyactive. They "deliver" their genes to the egg, "activate the developmental programof the egg,"19and have a "velocity" that is often remarked upon.2 Their tails are "strong"and efficiently powered.21 Together with the forces of ejaculation, they can "propel the semen into the Forthis they need "energy,""fuel,"3 deepest recesses of the vagina."22 so that with a "whiplashlike motion and strong lurches"24they can "burrowthroughthe egg coat"5and "penetrate"it.26 13 The sources I used for this article provide compelling informationon interactions among sperm. Lack of space prevents me from taking up this theme here, but the elements include competition, hierarchy,and sacrifice. For a newspaper report, see Malcolm W. Browne, "Some Thoughts on Self Sacrifice,"New YorkTimes (July 5, 1988), C6. For a literary rendition, see John Barth, "Night-Sea Journey,"in his Lost in the Funhouse (Garden City, N.Y.:Doubleday, 1968), 3-13. 14See Carol Delaney, "The Meaning of Paternityand the Virgin Birth Debate," Man 21, no. 3 (September 1986): 494-513. She discusses the difference between this scientific view that women contribute genetic materialto the fetus and the claim of long-standingWesternfolk theories that the origin and identity of the fetus comes from the male, as in the metaphor of planting a seed in soil. "5For a suggested direct link between human behavior and purportedly passive eggs and active sperm, see Erik H. Erikson, "Inner and Outer Space: Reflections on Womanhood,"Daedalus 93, no. 2 (Spring 1964): 582-606, esp. 591. 16 Guyton (n. 3 above), 619; and Mountcastle (n. 5 above), 1609. '7 Jonathan Miller and David Pelham, The Facts of Life (New York: Viking Penguin, 1984), 5. 18 Alberts et al., 796. 19 Ibid., 796. 20 See, e.g., William F. Ganong, Review of Medical Physiology, 7th ed. (Los Altos, Calif.: Lange Medical Publications, 1975), 322. 21 Alberts et al. (n. 11 above), 796. 22 Guyton, 615. 23 Solomon (n. 6 above), 683. 24Vander,Sherman, and Luciano (n. 4 above), 4th ed. (1985), 580. 25 Alberts et al., 796. 26All biology texts quoted above use the word "penetrate." 489 Martin / EGGAND THE SPERM At its extreme, the age-old relationship of the egg and the sperm takes on a royal or religious patina. The egg coat, its protective barrier, is sometimes called its "vestments," a term usually reserved for sacred, religious dress. The egg is said to have a "corona,"27a crown, and to be accompanied by "attendant cells."28 It is holy, set apart and above, the queen to the sperm's king. The egg is also passive, which means it must depend on sperm for rescue. Gerald Schatten and Helen Schatten liken the egg's role to that of Sleeping Beauty: "a dormant bride awaiting her mate's magic kiss, which instills the spirit that brings her to life."29Sperm, by contrast, have a "mission,"30 which is to "move through the female genital tract in quest of the ovum."31 One popular account has it that the sperm carry out a "perilous journey" into the "warm darkness," where some fall away "exhausted." "Survivors" "assault" the egg, the successful candidates "surrounding the prize."32Part of the urgency of this journey, in more scientific terms, is that "once released from the supportive environment of the ovary, an egg will die within hours unless rescued by a sperm."33 The wording stresses the fragility and dependency of the egg, even though the same text acknowledges elsewhere that sperm also live for only a few hours.34 In 1948, in a book remarkable for its early insights into these matters, Ruth Herschberger argued that female reproductive organs are seen as biologically interdependent, while male organs are viewed as autonomous, operating independently and in isolation: At present the functional is stressed only in connection with women: it is in them that ovaries, tubes, uterus, and vagina have endless interdependence. In the male, reproduction would seem to involve "organs" only. Yet the sperm, just as much as the egg, is dependent on a great many related processes. There are secretions which mitigate the urine in the urethra before ejaculation, to protect the sperm. There is the reflex shutting off of the bladder connection, the provision of prostatic secretions, and various types of muscular propulsion. The sperm is no more inde27 Solomon, 700. A. Beldecos et al., "The Importance of Feminist Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology," Hypatia 3, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 61-76. 29Gerald Schatten and Helen Schatten, "The Energetic Egg," Medical World News 23 (January 23, 1984): 51-53, esp. 51. 30Alberts et al., 796. 31Guyton (n. 3 above), 613. 32 Miller and Pelham (n. 17 above), 7. 33 Alberts et al. (n. 11 above), 804. 34Ibid., 801. 28 490 Spring1991 / SIGNS pendent of its milieu than the egg, and yet from a wish that it were, biologists have lent their support to the notion that the human female, beginning with the egg, is congenitally more dependent than the male.35 Bringing out another aspect of the sperm's autonomy, an article in the journal Cell has the sperm making an "existential decision" to penetrate the egg: "Sperm are cells with a limited behavioral repertoire, one that is directed toward fertilizing eggs. To execute the decision to abandon the haploid state, sperm swim to an egg and there acquire the ability to effect membrane fusion."36Is this a corporate manager's version of the sperm's activities-"executing decisions" while fraught with dismay over difficult options that bring with them very high risk? There is another way that sperm, despite their small size, can be made to loom in importance over the egg. In a collection of scientific papers, an electron micrograph of an enormous egg and tiny sperm is titled "A Portraitof the Sperm."37This is a little like showing a photo of a dog and calling it a picture of the fleas. Granted, microscopic sperm are harder to photograph than eggs, which are just large enough to see with the naked eye. But surely the use of the term "portrait,"a word associated with the powerful and wealthy, is significant. Eggs have only micrographs or pictures, not portraits. One depiction of sperm as weak and timid, instead of strong and powerful-the only such representation in western civilization, so far as I know-occurs in Woody Allen's movie Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex* *But Were Afraid to Ask. Allen, playing the part of an apprehensive sperm inside a man's testicles, is scared of the man's approaching orgasm. He is reluctant to launch himself into the darkness, afraidof contraceptive devices, afraid of winding up on the ceiling if the man masturbates. The more common picture-egg as damsel in distress, shielded only by her sacred garments; sperm as heroic warrior to the rescue-cannot be proved to be dictated by the biology of these events. While the "facts"of biology may not always be constructed in cultural terms, I would argue that in this case they are. The 35 Ruth Herschberger, Adam's Rib (New York: Pelligrini & Cudaby, 1948), esp. 84. I am indebted to Ruth Hubbard for telling me about Herschberger's work, although at a point when this paper was already in draft form. 36 Bennett M. Shapiro. "The Existential Decision of a Sperm," Cell 49, no. 3 (May 1987): 293-94, esp. 293. 37 Lennart Nilsson, "A Portrait of the Sperm," in The Functional Anatomy of the Spermatozoan, ed. Bjorn A. Afzelius (New York: Pergamon, 1975), 79-82. 491 Martin / EGGAND THE SPERM degree of metaphorical content in these descriptions, the extent to which differences between egg and sperm are emphasized, and the parallels between cultural stereotypes of male and female behavior and the character of egg and sperm all point to this conclusion. New research, old imagery As new understandings of egg and sperm emerge, textbook gender imagery is being revised. But the new research, far from escaping the stereotypical representations of egg and sperm, simply replicates elements of textbook gender imagery in a different form. The persistence of this imagery calls to mind what Ludwik Fleck termed "the self-contained" nature of scientific thought. As he described it, "the interaction between what is already known, what remains to be learned, and those who are to apprehend it, go to ensure harmony within the system. But at the same time they also preserve the harmony of illusions, which is quite secure within the confines of a given thought style."38We need to understand the way in which the cultural content in scientific descriptions changes as biological discoveries unfold, and whether that cultural content is solidly entrenched or easily changed. In all of the texts quoted above, sperm are described as penetrating the egg, and specific substances on a sperm's head are described as binding to the egg. Recently, this description of events was rewritten in a biophysics lab at Johns Hopkins Universitytransforming the egg from the passive to the active party.39 Prior to this research, it was thought that the zona, the inner vestments of the egg, formed an impenetrable barrier. Sperm overcame the barrier by mechanically burrowing through, thrashing their tails and slowly working their way along. Later research showed that the sperm released digestive enzymes that chemically broke down the zona; thus, scientists presumed that the sperm used mechanical and chemical means to get through to the egg. In this recent investigation, the researchers began to ask questions about the mechanical force of the sperm's tail. (The lab's goal was to develop a contraceptive that worked topically on sperm.) They discovered, to their great surprise, that the forward thrust of sperm is extremely weak, which contradicts the assumption that 38 Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, ed. Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 38. 39Jay M. Baltz carried out the research I describe when he was a graduate student in the Thomas C. Jenkins Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University. 492 Spring1991 / SIGNS sperm are forceful penetrators.40Rather than thrusting forward, the sperm's head was now seen to move mostly back and forth. The sideways motion of the sperm's tail makes the head move sideways with a force that is ten times strongerthan its forwardmovement. So even if the overall force of the sperm were strong enough to mechanically break the zona, most of its force would be directed sideways rather than forward. In fact, its strongest tendency, by tenfold, is to escape by attempting to pry itself off the egg. Sperm, then, must be exceptionally efficient at escaping from any cell surface they contact. And the surface of the egg must be designed to trap the sperm and prevent their escape. Otherwise, few if any sperm would reach the egg. The researchers at Johns Hopkins concluded that the sperm and egg stick together because of adhesive molecules on the surfaces of each. The egg traps the sperm and adheres to it so tightly that the sperm's head is forced to lie flat against the surface of the zona, a little bit, they told me, "like Br'er Rabbit getting more and more stuck to tar baby the more he wriggles." The trapped sperm continues to wiggle ineffectually side to side. The mechanical force of its tail is so weak that a sperm cannot break even one chemical bond. This is where the digestive enzymes released by the sperm come in. If they start to soften the zona just at the tip of the sperm and the sides remain stuck, then the weak, flailing sperm can get oriented in the right direction and make it through the zonaprovided that its bonds to the zona dissolve as it moves in. Although this new version of the saga of the egg and the sperm broke through cultural expectations, the researchers who made the discovery continued to write papers and abstracts as if the sperm were the active party who attacks, binds, penetrates, and enters the egg. The only difference was that sperm were now seen as performing these actions weakly.4' Not until August 1987, more than three years after the findings described above, did these researchers reconceptualize the process to give the egg a more active role. They began to describe the zona as an aggressive sperm catcher, covered 40Far less is known about the physiology of sperm than comparable female substances, which some feminists claim is no accident. Greater scientific scrutiny of female reproduction has long enabled the burden of birth control to be placed on women. In this case, the researchers' discovery did not depend on development of any new technology. The experiments made use of glass pipettes, a manometer, and a simple microscope, all of which have been available for more than one hundred years. 41 Jay Baltz and Richard A. Cone, "What Force Is Needed to Tether a Sperm?" (abstract for Society for the Study of Reproduction, 1985), and "Flagellar Torque on the Head Determines the Force Needed to Tether a Sperm" (abstract for Biophysical Society, 1986). 493 Martin / EGGAND THE SPERM with adhesive molecules that can capture a sperm with a single bond and clasp it to the zona's surface.42 In the words of their published account: "The innermost vestment, the zona pellucida, is a glycoprotein shell, which captures and tethers the sperm before they penetrate it. ... The sperm is captured at the initial contact between the sperm tip and the zona .... Since the thrust [of the sperm] is much smaller than the force needed to break a single affinity bond, the first bond made upon the tip-first meeting of the sperm and zona can result in the capture of the sperm."43 Experiments in another lab reveal similar patterns of data interpretation. Gerald Schatten and Helen Schatten set out to show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the "egg is not merely a large, yolk-filled sphere into which the sperm burrows to endow new life. Rather, recent research suggests the almost heretical view that sperm and egg are mutually active partners."44This sounds like a departure from the stereotypical textbook view, but further reading reveals Schatten and Schatten's conformity to the aggressive-sperm metaphor. They describe how "the sperm and egg first touch when, from the tip of the sperm's triangular head, a long, thin filament shoots out and harpoons the egg." Then we learn that "remarkably, the harpoon is not so much fired as assembled at great speed, molecule by molecule, from a pool of protein stored in a specialized region called the acrosome. The filament may grow as much as twenty times longer than the sperm head itself before its tip reaches the egg and sticks."45 Why not call this "making a bridge" or "throwing out a line" rather than firing a harpoon? Harpoons pierce prey and injure or kill them, while this filament only sticks. And why not focus, as the Hopkins lab did, on the stickiness of the egg, rather than the stickiness of the sperm?46Later 42 Jay M. Baltz, David F. Katz, and Richard A. Cone, "The Mechanics of the Sperm-Egg Interaction at the Zona Pellucida," Biophysical Journal 54, no. 4 (October 1988): 643-54. Lab members were somewhat familiar with work on metaphors in the biology of female reproduction. Richard Cone, who runs the lab, is my husband, and he talked with them about my earlier research on the subject from time to time. Even though my current research focuses on biological imagery and I heard about the lab's work from my husband every day, I myself did not recognize the role of imagery in the sperm research until many weeks after the period of research and writing I describe. Therefore, I assume that any awareness the lab members may have had about how underlying metaphor might be guiding this particular research was fairly inchoate. 43 Ibid., 643, 650. 44 Schatten and Schatten (n. 29 above), 51. 45 Ibid., 52. 46 Surprisingly, in an article intended for a general audience, the authors do not point out that these are sea urchin sperm and note that human sperm do not shoot out filaments at all. 494 Spring 1991 / SIGNS in the article, the Schattens replicate the common view of the sperm's perilous journey into the warm darkness of the vagina, this time for the purpose of explaining its journey into the egg itself: "[The sperm] still has an arduousjourney ahead. It must penetrate fartherinto the egg's huge sphere of cytoplasm and somehow locate the nucleus, so that the two cells' chromosomes can fuse. The sperm dives down into the cytoplasm, its tail beating. But it is soon interrupted by the sudden and swift migration of the egg nucleus, which rushes toward the sperm with a velocity triple that of the movement of chromosomes during cell division, crossing the entire egg in about a minute."47 Like Schatten and Schatten and the biophysicists at Johns Hopkins, another researcher has recently made discoveries that seem to point to a more interactive view of the relationship of egg and sperm. This work, which Paul Wassarmanconducted on the sperm and eggs of mice, focuses on identifying the specific molecules in the egg coat (the zona pellucida) that are involved in egg-sperm interaction. At first glance, his descriptions seem to fit the model of an egalitarian relationship. Male and female gametes "recognize one another,"and "interactions ... take place between sperm and egg."48But the article in Scientific American in which those descriptions appear begins with a vignette that presages the dominant motif of their presentation: "It has been more than a century since Hermann Fol, a Swiss zoologist, peered into his microscope and became the first person to see a sperm penetrate an egg, fertilize it and form the first cell of a new embryo."49This portrayalof the sperm as the active party-the one that penetrates and fertilizes the egg and produces the embryo-is not cited as an example of an earlier, now outmoded view. In fact, the author reiterates the point later in the article: "Many sperm can bind to and penetrate the zona pellucida, or outer coat, of an unfertilized mouse egg, but only one sperm will eventually fuse with the thin plasma membrane surrounding the egg proper (inner sphere), fertilizing the egg and giving rise to a new embryo."50 The imagery of sperm as aggressor is particularlystartling in this case: the main discovery being reported is isolation of a particular molecule on the egg coat that plays an important role in fertilization! Wassarman'schoice of language sustains the picture. He calls the molecule that has been isolated, ZP3, a "sperm receptor." By 7 Schatten and Schatten, 53. Paul M. Wassarman, "Fertilization in Mammals," Scientific American 259, no. 6 (December 1988): 78-84, esp. 78, 84. 49 Ibid., 78. 50 Ibid., 79. 8 49s Martin / EGGAND THE SPERM allocating the passive, waiting role to the egg, Wassarman can continue to describe the sperm as the actor, the one that makes it all happen: "The basic process begins when many sperm first attach loosely and then bind tenaciously to receptors on the surface of the egg's thick outer coat, the zona pellucida. Each sperm, which has a large number of egg-binding proteins on its surface, binds to many sperm receptors on the egg. More specifically, a site on each of the egg-binding proteins fits a complementary site on a sperm receptor, much as a key fits a lock."51With the sperm designated as the "key" and the egg the "lock," it is obvious which one acts and which one is acted upon. Could this imagery not be reversed, letting the sperm (the lock) wait until the egg produces the key? Or could we speak of two halves of a locket matching, and regard the matching itself as the action that initiates the fertilization? It is as if Wassarman were determined to make the egg the receiving partner. Usually in biological research, the protein member of the pair of binding molecules is called the receptor, and physically it has a pocket in it rather like a lock. As the diagrams that illustrate Wassarman's article show, the molecules on the sperm are proteins and have "pockets." The small, mobile molecules that fit into these pockets are called ligands. As shown in the diagrams, ZP3 on the egg is a polymer of"keys"; many small knobs stick out. Typically, molecules on the sperm would be called receptors and molecules on the egg would be called ligands. But Wassarman chose to name ZP3 on the egg the receptor and to create a new term, "the egg-binding protein," for the molecule on the sperm that otherwise would have been called the receptor.52 Wassarman does credit the egg coat with having more functions than those of a sperm receptor. While he notes that "the zona pellucida has at times been viewed by investigators as a nuisance, a barrier to sperm and hence an impediment to fertilization," his new research reveals that the egg coat "serves as a sophisticated biological security system that screens incoming sperm, selects only those compatible with fertilization and development, prepares sperm for fusion with the egg and later protects the resulting embryo from polyspermy [a lethal condition caused by fusion of more than one sperm with a single egg]."53 Although this description gives the egg an active role, that role is drawn in stereotypically 51 Ibid., 78. Since receptor molecules are relatively immotile and the ligands that bind to them relatively motile, one might imagine the egg being called the receptor and the sperm the ligand. But the molecules in question on egg and sperm are immotile molecules. It is the sperm as a cell that has motility, and the egg as a cell that has relative immotility. 53Wassarman, 78-79. 52 496 Spring 1991 / SIGNS feminine terms. The egg selects an appropriatemate, prepares him for fusion, and then protects the resulting offspring from harm. This is courtship and mating behavior as seen through the eyes of a sociobiologist: woman as the hard-to-get prize, who, following union with the chosen one, becomes woman as servant and mother. And Wassarman does not quit there. In a review article for Science, he outlines the "chronology of fertilization."54Near the end of the article are two subject headings. One is "Sperm Penetration," in which Wassarmandescribes how the chemical dissolving of the zona pellucida combines with the "substantial propulsive force generated by sperm." The next heading is "Sperm-Egg Fusion." This section details what happens inside the zona after a sperm "penetrates" it. Sperm "can make contact with, adhere to, and fuse with (that is, fertilize) an egg."55Wassarman'sword choice, again, is astonishingly skewed in favorof the sperm's activity, for in the next breath he says that sperm lose all motility upon fusion with the egg's surface. In mouse and sea urchin eggs, the sperm enters at the egg's volition, according to Wassarman'sdescription: "Once fused with egg plasma membrane [the surface of the egg], how does a sperm enter the egg? The surface of both mouse and sea urchin eggs is covered with thousands of plasma membrane-bound projections, called microvilli [tiny "hairs"]. Evidence in sea urchins suggests that, after membrane fusion, a group of elongated microvilli cluster tightly around and interdigitate over the sperm head. As these microvilli are resorbed, the sperm is drawn into the egg. Therefore, sperm motility, which ceases at the time of fusion in both sea urchins and mice, is not required for sperm entry."5The section called "Sperm Penetration" more logically would be followed by a section called "The Egg Envelops," ratherthan "SpermEgg Fusion." This would give a parallel-and more accuratesense that both the egg and the sperm initiate action. Another way that Wassarmanmakes less of the egg's activity is by describing components of the egg but referring to the sperm as a whole entity. Deborah Gordon has described such an approach as "atomism" ("the part is independent of and primordial to the whole") and identified it as one of the "tenacious assumptions" of Western science and medicine.57Wassarmanemploys atomism to 4 Paul M. Wassarman, "The Biology and Chemistry of Fertilization," Science 235, no. 4788 (January 30, 1987): 553-60, esp. 554. 55Ibid., 557. 56Ibid., 557-58. This finding throws into question Schatten and Schatten's description (n. 29 above) of the sperm, its tail beating, diving down into the egg. 57Deborah R. Gordon, "Tenacious Assumptions in Western Medicine," in Biomedicine Examined, ed. Margaret Lock and Deborah Gordon (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 19-56, esp. 26. 497 Martin / EGGAND THE SPERM his advantage. When he refers to processes going on within sperm, he consistently returns to descriptions that remind us from whence these activities came: they are part of sperm that penetrate an egg or generate propulsive force. When he refers to processes going on within eggs, he stops there. As a result, any active role he grants them appears to be assigned to the parts of the egg, and not to the egg itself. In the quote above, it is the microvilli that actively cluster around the sperm. In another example, "the driving force for engulfment of a fused sperm comes from a region of cytoplasm just beneath an egg's plasma membrane."58 Social implications:Thinking beyond All three of these revisionist accounts of egg and sperm cannot seem to escape the hierarchical imagery of older accounts. Even though each new account gives the egg a larger and more active role, taken together they bring into play another cultural stereotype: woman as a dangerous and aggressive threat. In the Johns Hopkins lab's revised model, the egg ends up as the female aggressor who "captures and tethers" the sperm with her sticky zona, rather like a spider lying in wait in her web.59The Schatten lab has the egg's nucleus "interrupt" the sperm's dive with a "sudden and swift" rush by which she "clasps the sperm and guides its nucleus to the center."60Wassarman'sdescription of the surface of the egg "covered with thousands of plasma membranebound projections, called microvilli" that reach out and clasp the sperm adds to the spiderlike imagery.61 These images grant the egg an active role but at the cost of appearing disturbingly aggressive. Images of woman as dangerous and aggressive, the femme fatale who victimizes men, are widespread in Western literature and culture.62More specific is the connection of spider imagery with the idea of an engulfing, devouring mother.63New data did not lead scientists to eliminate gender stereotypes in their descriptions of egg and sperm. Instead, scien5 Wassarman, "The Biology and Chemistry of Fertilization," 558. 59 Baltz, Katz, and Cone (n. 42 above), 643, 650. 60Schatten and Schatten, 53. 61 Wassarman, "The Biology and Chemistry of Fertilization," 557. 62 Mary Ellman, Thinking about Women (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), 140; Nina Auerbach, Woman and the Demon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), esp. 186. 63 Kenneth Alan Adams, "Arachnophobia: Love American Style," Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology 4, no. 2 (1981): 157-97. 498 Spring 1991 / SIGNS tists simply began to describe egg and sperm in different, but no less damaging, terms. Can we envision a less stereotypical view? Biology itself provides another model that could be applied to the egg and the sperm. The cybernetic model-with its feedback loops, flexible adaptation to change, coordination of the parts within a whole, evolution over time, and changing response to the environment-is common in genetics, endocrinology, and ecology and has a growing influence in medicine in general.4 This model has the potential to shift our imagery from the negative, in which the female reproductive system is castigated both for not producing eggs after birth and for producing (and thus wasting) too many eggs overall, to something more positive. The female reproductive system could be seen as responding to the environment (pregnancy or menopause), adjusting to monthly changes (menstruation), and flexibly changing from reproductivity after puberty to nonreproductivity later in life. The sperm and egg's interaction could also be described in cybernetic terms. J. F. Hartman's research in reproductive biology demonstrated fifteen years ago that if an egg is killed by being pricked with a needle, live sperm cannot get through the zona.65Clearly, this evidence shows that the egg and sperm do interact on more mutual terms, making biology's refusal to portraythem that way all the more disturbing. We would do well to be aware, however, that cybernetic imagery is hardly neutral. In the past, cybernetic models have played an important part in the imposition of social control. These models inherently provide a way of thinking about a "field" of interacting components. Once the field can be seen, it can become the object of new forms of knowledge, which in turn can allow new forms of social control to be exerted over the components of the field. During the 1950s, for example, medicine began to recognize the psychosocial environment of the patient: the patient's family and its psychodynamics. Professions such as social work began to focus on this new environment, and the resulting knowledge became one way to further control the patient. Patients began to be seen not as isolated, individual bodies, but as psychosocial entities located in an "ecological" system: management of "the patient's psychology was a new entree to patient control."66 64William Ray Arney and Bernard Bergen, Medicine and the Management of Living (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 65 J. F. Hartman, R. B. Gwatkin, and C. F. Hutchison, "Early Contact Interactions between Mammalian Gametes In Vitro," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) 69, no. 10 (1972): 2767-69. 6 Arney and Bergen, 68. 499 Martin / EGGAND THE SPERM The models that biologists use to describe their data can have importantsocial effects. During the nineteenth century,the social and natural sciences strongly influenced each other: the social ideas of Malthus about how to avoid the naturalincrease of the poor inspired Darwin's Origin of Species.67Once the Origin stood as a description of the naturalworld, complete with competition and marketstruggles, it could be reimportedinto social science as social Darwinism, in order tojustify the social orderof the time. Whatwe are seeing now is similar: the importation of cultural ideas about passive females and heroic males into the "personalities"of gametes. This amounts to the "implantingof social imageryon representationsof natureso as to lay a firm basis forreimportingexactly thatsame imageryas naturalexplanations of social phenomena."6 Further research would show us exactly what social effects are being wrought from the biological imagery of egg and sperm. At the very least, the imagery keeps alive some of the hoariest old stereotypes about weak damsels in distress and their strong male rescuers. That these stereotypes are now being written in at the level of the cell constitutes a powerful move to make them seem so natural as to be beyond alteration. The stereotypical imagery might also encourage people to imagine that what results from the interaction of egg and sperm-a fertilized egg-is the result of deliberate "human" action at the cellular level. Whatever the intentions of the human couple, in this microscopic "culture" a cellular "bride" (or femme fatale) and a cellular "groom" (her victim) make a cellular baby. Rosalind Petchesky points out that through visual representations such as sonograms, we are given "images of younger and younger, and tinier and tinier, fetuses being 'saved.' " This leads to "the point of visibility being 'pushed back' indefinitely."69Endowing egg and sperm with intentional action, a key aspect of personhood in our culture, lays the foundation for the point of viability being pushed back to the moment of fertilization. This will likely lead to greater acceptance of technological developments and new forms of scrutiny and manipulation, for the benefit of these inner "persons": court-orderedrestrictions on a pregnant woman's activities in order to protect her fetus, fetal surgery, amniocentesis, and rescinding of abortion rights, to name but a few examples.70 67 Ruth Hubbard, "Have Only Men Evolved?" (n. 12 above), 51-52. 8 David Harvey, personal communication, November 1989. 69 Rosalind Petchesky, "Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction," Feminist Studies 13, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 263-92, esp. 272. 70Rita Arditti, Renate Klein, and Shelley Minden, Test-Tube Women (London: Pandora, 1984); Ellen Goodman, "Whose Right to Life?" Baltimore Sun (November 500 Spring 1991 / SIGNS Even if we succeed in substituting more egalitarian, interactive metaphors to describe the activities of egg and sperm, and manage to avoid the pitfalls of cybernetic models, we would still be guilty of endowing cellular entities with personhood. More crucial, then, than what kinds of personalities we bestow on cells is the very fact that we are doing it at all. This process could ultimately have the most disturbing social consequences. One clear feminist challenge is to wake up sleeping metaphors in science, particularly those involved in descriptions of the egg and the sperm. Although the literary convention is to call such metaphors "dead," they are not so much dead as sleeping, hidden within the scientific content of texts-and all the more powerful for it.71Wakingup such metaphors, by becoming aware of when we are projecting cultural imagery onto what we study, will improve our ability to investigate and understand nature. Waking up such metaphors, by becoming aware of their implications, will rob them of their power to naturalize our social conventions about gender. Department of Anthropology Johns Hopkins University 17, 1987); Tamar Lewin, "Courts Acting to Force Care of the Unborn," New York Times (November 23, 1987), Al and B10; Susan Irwin and Brigitte Jordan, "Knowledge, Practice, and Power: Court Ordered Cesarean Sections," Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1, no. 3 (September 1987): 319-34. 71 Thanks to Elizabeth Fee and David Spain, who in February 1989 and April 1989, respectively, made points related to this. 501 64 FATHERS AND MATRILINEALITY to marriage and how each person must learn to play out her or his own desires to attract someone against the often conflicting influences and plans of others. Among young people, their decorations and beauty are not only political statements about their parents' matrilineages but also symbols of their personal sexual powers in the seduction of others. .. : ·t./ : . .,. ··.·-,.·, . \ ...... , ', ... : 4/Youth and sexuality 1 .\ I' The system of boy-girl relationships is well defined and regulated here. Everyone knows everything about everyone. Girls, as I already said, start sleeping with boys when they are about thirteen, but the stipulation is she may only sleep with boys from her village and the same is true with boys. A boy from our village had a girlfriend in Diagila village, and he was continually harassed by two girls from our village. I don't even know if harassed is strong enough. The other day they beat him up and cut him with a knife in three places. But the real reason was jealousy. Linda Weiner WAITING AND WATCHING I I I Bulapapa was the first person to tell me about his father. "When I was small," he said, "my father brought me food. He found fish for me and he collected firewood. Now I make a garden for him. I take care of him, because he always took care of me. ·That man is very good." When villagers talk about giving, they are talking about caring and generosity. Giving also implies planning for the future; that is, giving expresses not only caring but also intention. Giving things communicates a person's desires and plans, but it also may be an attempt to control others by establishing a debt. A villager who brings yams to someone, in my informants' words, wants "to sweeten his thoughts" or "to tum her mind." Each act of giving is at once a pledge of caring and an act of obligating another person. A villager who presents someone with a basket of yams cannot ask for something in return. He must give and then wait. Perhaps later he gives something else and waits again, hoping that eventually he will receive mote than he gave. Yet one villager's plans may not be what another villager desires. The recipient's mind may not be "sweetened" by the giving; he or she may not be persuaded to repay the debt. A degree of chance exists in even the closest kiQ relationships. How one feels about someone else should not be expressed publicly with ~ 65 . ,. I 66 YOUTH AND SEXUAL[J'Y words. To maintain one's autonomy, a villager keeps her or his thoughts about others private, but iD-tbe form and style of one's giving are messages ~bout the giver's intention. Ruth told me that if her brother gave her yams that were small and soft, she would know that he did not truly want her to have them. Therefore, her brother spends a great deal of time cleaning each yam and arranging them according to size so that the presentation looks impressive. Ruth then recognizes his intentions and not only tells her husband "what a good man" her brother is but also remembers his efforts for the future. If a villager is angry, annoyed, or distrusts another person, it is poor strategy to express such feelings aloud, for as we saw in the fight between Michael and Vincent in the last chapter, hard words lead to dangerous confrontations. When a person receives a basket of yams, she or he may be thinking, "Perhaps that person is hiding something from me and did not bring me the best of what he had" or "That man gives me so much, I know he must want me for his friend" or "When that woman brought me food her face looked angry. Maybe she did not want to give me anything." These thoughts remain private, but they provide the basis for waiting and watching. To influence or even to try to control another person is difficult, yet such efforts are a major preoccupation throughout each Trobriander's life. , With young people, the strategies for influencing others are sharply developed during adolescence. For them, however, the means of persuasion are not with yams and other kinds of material wealth because these are controlled by adults. Instead, ad.2,lescentslearn to deal with the wills and plans of others through their own sexuality. Therr abilities to negotiate their sexual desires and seductive intentions are backed by their youthful physical and social beauty, made even more potent with love and beauty mwc. Clothes, decorations, even the flowers and herbs thrust into armbands and hair heighten the aura of seduction. For young people, intention is written on their bodies, in their walk, and in their eyes. The shell decorations that are worn point to a young person's social status, and the flowers and the coconut oil enhanced with ,magic spells, as Bomapota and other women and men said, "make somebody want you." < ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY By the time children are seven or eight years old, they begin playing erotic games with each other and imitating adult seductive attitudes. £our or jive years later, they begin to pursue sexual partners in earnest. Young people change partners often, experimenting first with one person and then another. A rendezvous may be arranged at the beach or in a secluded place away from the gardens and the village, but these are usually brief meetings without any YOUTH AND SEXUALITY 67 commitment to further encounters. 1 During this time, young people usually do not sleep in their parents' houses. They move to a small house next door or a few doors away, the young boys of the hamlet living in one house and young girls living in another. In this way, they have the freedom of their own sleeping quarters to which they can bring their lovers. During adolescence, young people are watched by older villagers, who evaluate their potential as productive adults. Is a young woman capable of making fine skirts? Does a young man demonstrate his increasing knowledge of yam cultivation ?2 While older villagers watch and wait for young people to come of age, they also give them great scope for participating in their own activities. Little pressure is put on them to engage full time in adult productive pursuits. Although they help with household tasks, their responsibilities are limited and they have much freedom to pursue their own adventures. Young people are called '~smallboys" or "small girls" until they are in their thirties. Only when villagers are married, have children, and are fully committed to economic and political endeavors will they be considered adults. Even while involved in the daily village routine, young people are preoccupied with their own plans and negotiations. Throughout the day, lovers send messages back and forth to arrange evening meeting places. Conversations between young people are filled with sexual metaphors that express a person's intention. Questions such as "Can I have a aoconut to drink" or "Can I ride your bicycle?" are Trobriand ways to say, "Will you sleep with me?" Dabweyowa once told me, "Women's eyes are different than men's. When I talk to a girl I watch her eyes. If she looks straight at me, I know she wants me." Young women are just as assertive and dominant as men in their pursuit or refusal of a lover. On Saturdays it is difficult to find a young person in the village because everyone is either watching a basketball game in Losuia or visiting other villages. The harvest season provides an arena for all-night village dancing, cricket matches, and large feasts, where young people gather and seek new lovers. Even at the distributions of food following a person's death, young people who are not related to the deceased congregate together, wearing their brightest clothes and flowers, joking and teasing each other. Their beauty and excitement stand in sharp relief to the blackened bodies and shaven heads of the mourners. 1 Homosexual practices between men seem to have occurred only rarely in the Trobriands. Malinowski wrote that such a prohibition "js well entrenched," but he also noted that colonialism "creates a setting favorable to homosexuality" (1929:472-473). During World War II, some of the Allied soldiers stationed on Kiriwina paid young Trobrianders to perform hoQ1osexualacts. Even more recently, there have been several cases in which European men engaged young Kiriwina men in homosexual encounters for payments of money and European food. I could find little information about homosexual relations between women. Men never commented on it and women were very vague about specific cases. But young women may willingly engage in prostitution with white male visitors, as they have done for over ,a hundred years, usually without reproach or disgrace. 2 Although this is the most common division of labor, there are no taboos on women engaging in yam cultivation. Sometimes a woman even makes a large yam garden for a man. / -,_ ·':. ...'.);..: .. . "',•:.... ,..- .... ' .. ~-: )'" , ' •• • ...· c-""I,· - _....:; .. ·::.',~ ~-' : . ~ .. t . ... ·: • ., . ,, , I 68 YOUTH AND SEXUALITY Both young women and men spend much time in adorning themselves in preparation for walking about. It is important to look attractive and to act in a manner that conveys independence and fearlessness. Often this attitude is carried to an extreme. Several times when I admired the beauty of a young woman from another village, Bomapota shook her head and told me that her beauty was marred because she acted "too proud." Disdain in one's walk and a look in one's eyes that conveys dominance carry the ideal of autonomy too far. Individual arrogance gives a message_of overt competitive behavior. A person must learn to be strong without appearing to be competitive. Rather, a person's jntentioos are carried out covertly through magic spells that exP.licitly define the intensity of rivalry and the power of seduction, as in the following: My flashing decoration, my white skin. I will take the faces of my companions and rivals And I will win out over them. I will show my face, th~ face of Todarosi I will get a compliment tied around my arm For my beautiful shining, full-moop. face.~ Even when a young woman (or a man) is complimented, for example, for her beauty, the compliment must be repaid so that the favored person does !!9t become "too proud." At a darice, Weteli tied a string around Boiyagwa'~ arm, symbolizing her beauty and talent. Later, Boiyagwa had to give Weteli tobacco and betel nuts as payment for tying the string and publicly drawing attention to success. Even in village events that are obviously rival encounters, winners pretend that they lost. In cricket matches, regardless of the actual score, the host team must always win. In yam competitions, young men are given prizes of money or traditional stone wealth for growing the largest yams. Each winner usually makes a self-deprecatory comment such as "I did not really work hard in the garden" or "I am only a small boy and I do not know much about yams" when he receives his payment. · Even with such controlled attempts to submerge antagonistic and boastful behavior, yam exchanges exacerbate rivalry between villages. Sometimes dur·ing the ha,rvest season fights break out because a few young men boasted too much about their big yam gardens. So on the one hand, an adolescent's days are free and much adult energy is invested in creating an eas milieu for s.exua exp orat10ns; ut on the other ban , e ee om accorded young P.eople still has limits set by their peers, which-sometimes are severe. Even at an individual level, to tum an 1mt1alattract10n mto a sexual liaison demands more than jokes and glances. Youp.g men must give betel nuts and tobacco to the women they want, expressing their ability to continue to give presents as long as the relationship lasts. Yet a woman may tease a man, accepting these things and flirting but refusing to sleep with him. In seduction, giving is not enough; finally love magic must be used to overcome strong opposition. 3 See Malinowski(1929:368)for a discussionof the same spell. • YOUTH AND SEXUALITY 69 ,,1 SEDUCTION WITH MAGIC : I I 'I,: I Ii! Just as young people cannot become "truly" beautiful without the help of older people, so too, their access to magic spells is limited. Although Kiriwinans believe that no one can make up a new magic spell, many traditional spells circulate widely. The most common way for young people to obtain magic spells is to learn them from their older kin by giving food, tobacco, and money. This giving must be generous and must last for many years if the younger person hopes to learn all his or her mentor's spells. Older people teach the spells by giving away only a few lines at a time. When they die, they may not have taught the full spell or all the magic they knew.4 Therefore, spells are often lost in part or fully. Many villagers complained to me that a particular magic spell they had was weak because a mother, for example, only taught them part of it and when she died, the rest was lost. A married woman sometimes may learn very important spells from a lover who is visiting from another island. The man gives the spells because he loves her very much and wants to give her more than betel nuts or tobacco. Magic spells may also be bought from others. When men travel to other islands, especially on kula voyages or to work in Port Moresby, they often return with magic spells they have purchased while away. Today, those villagers who are literate write their coveted magic spells in copy books, which they hide in the house's rafters or in a locked trunk. 5 The words for beauty magic are chanted into coconut oil, which is then rubbed on the skin or into flowers and herbs that decorate armbands and hair. The spells are directed toward heightening the visual and oliactory effects of a person's body to create erotic feelings on the part of a lover. Certain spells are thought to make a person become so beautiful that even those recognized as physically ugly appear handsome in the eyes of the woman or man who wants them. This special beauty magic is recited while a pearl shell is passed over the person's face so that the face will take on the white, shiny qualities of the shell, making the person strikingly enticing. These spells, however, are not the property of young people but are practiced by women who use them only on their brothers' children. The performance of ·such magic links each young person to his or her father's sister in an important way: "Truly, Bogunuba is very good to me, because she made magic with a pearl shell for me when I was small." 4 When a person who was known to have many magic spells dies, a ritual takes place after the burial. Each person who formerly received a spell from the dead person now publicly recites part of it, thereby showing which of the spells in the dead person's repertoire have been given to others (see Weiner 1976:7~72) for details). 5 The rate of literacy varies within each village. The Methodist Mission, the Sacred Heart Catholic Mission (established in 1936), and the government each have small elementary schools on Kiriwina. Many young people have bad at least a few years of primary schooling, although education is not compulsory; in 1981, only four Kwaibwaga children attended elementary school. Until a government high school was opened in 1982, all children wanting to go beyond sixth grade were sent to boarding schools in other areas. r ., ' I I '1• l J :.•'I -~ . i;_· . . -· •" ·.' • I • ·,·,, • ·. ·:- ~ . 1· ' i \ ·: ,•· . .. .. j .. ., :# . ., :. I 70 YOUTH AND SEXUALITY Photo 19. No dancer would perform without first rubbing his body with sweet-smelling coconut oil prepared with mag,ical chants to make his body glisten in a seductive way. When young people reach their mid-teens, their lovers' meetings take up most of the night, and a new affair may last for several months or longer. About this time, some seriousness may enter into these meetings, for within a few years, marriage will be the next important step. To find someone for a long-term relationship is much more difficult than having a brief liaison at the beach. Small gifts and beauty magic will not be forceful enough to seduce the ersori one wants. As discussed earlier, Trobrianders believe that each l)erson's mind is inviolat . N s to know what anot er per on is thinkin or wh someone makes a decision in a particular way. Even po 11cally, a person cannot demand that ot ers ollow one's desires or pans-If> proJect one's own willover someone else necessitates exercising contml.over another person's feeUogs Ear these reasons, young people may find it expedient to resort to the most powerful kinds of magic spells, known and practiced by only a few adults, who must be paid for their skills. So potent are these spells that villagers warn, ''Be careful; it will destroy your mind." When the spell takes effect, the person will refuse to eat or listen to the advice of other~ and will do nothing but long for her or his lover. The words of the strong love spells are chanted into betel or tobacco, the very things that continually are given back and forth among everyone. 6 In 6 When a man decides that he wants a woman for his "good friend," he begins to send her small presents such as betel nuts and tobacco, using other young people as intermediaries. When my daughter Linda lived with me in Kwaibwaga, without my knowledge she acted as a messenger, relaying betel nuts and information between Ruth and Sylvester about their secret meeting plans. YOUTH AND SEXUALITY t [ I j ! 71 order to "destroy someone's mind" this agent, that is, the betel or tobacco, must transmit the words to the person. Therefore, to take effect, the agent must be ingested or inhaled. The force of the words is thought to enter a person's body so that the spell controls his or her thoughts. In this way, a person's· autonomous behavior is interfered with by the will of another. Of course, the spell may fail. The words may not have been strong enough, and the lover may seek another expert who has access to spells thought to be even more powerful. In some cases, because the expert was not paid enough, he or she deliberately may not have chanted the words for the necessary length of time. Trobrianders believe that the agent carrying the magic only becomes effective when the words are chanted again and again throughout the nighl or for several days so that the betel nut or tobacco absorbs its power from the act of speech itself.7 Therefore, additional payments finally may produce success. Yet counters to this magic exist: For example, when a woman (or a man) finds herself totally lost in her longings for the man who wants her, a relative who knows an equally powerful magic spell may be able to remove the debilitating effects of the original spell~n under the best circumstances, however, a suspecting woman sim 1 ma refuse ~th~e~b~e~te~n~u~a!!n~~re~m~1mnt;!f~:ffi~Liio~::SO:iiie:aii~;Isi;;J[ajf!iJ1i~=aiiai;~, ,eyenthe most formidable love magic cao be averted, making love relationships as full of chance as any other relationship. Attracting lovers is not a frivolous, adolescent pastime. It is the first step toward entering the adult world of strategies, where the line between influencing others while not allowing others to gain control of oneself must be carefully learned. The procurement of magic spells "that destroy someone's mind" leads to dangerous actions because effective spells collapse a person's autonomy and establish control over the other person's thoughts. Sexual liaisons give adolescents the time and occasion to expenment with all the possibilities and problems that adults face in creating relationships with those who are not relatives. Individual wills may clash, and the achievement of one's desires takes patience, hard work, and determination. The adolescent world of lovemaking has its own dangers and disillusionments. Young people, to the degree they are capable, must learn to be both careful and fearless. I I I :,_. . .. ...., CHOOSING ONE LOVER When a young woman begins to meet the same lover again and again and rejects the advances of others, the affair takes on a measure of seriousness and everyone believes that strong love magic has been used. She spends the night with her "good friend" in his house. She must enter the house after dark and leave before other villagers awake and begin to congregate on their verandas. The first cock's crow, just before daybreak, is a signal to all lovers ~ . "'·-: . .' . . . ....... . . ' .. /'. '-,> . ·"' ·, . ' ', • f: • ' . ~ ~ ~ ~... . .. ' .· ··~ ,.. ·- 'I- 7 For a more extended discussion of magic spells and their power see Weiner (1983a); see also Malinowski (1922; 1929; 1931; 1954) and Tambiah's analysis (1968; 1973). .,•, ··~ i.,,_: ,i' •• ... 72 YOUTH AND SEXUALITY that they must part. It is imperative that no one see lovers entering or leaving each others' houses. Several times I noticed that Mary was missing in the morning. She told me later how she slept too late in her lover's house and then had to wait until midday, when everyone was working in the gardens, before she could slip out of the house unnoticed and return to Kwaibwaga. Yet most Kwaibwaga villagers knew where Mary was spending the night. A sensuous part of lovemaking is to bite off a lover's eyelashes or put scratches on each others' backs. Villagers watch for these signs, and then the news that Mary or her lover "lost their eyelashes" spreads rapidly. News such as this is gossip; no public statements about Mary's "good friend" can be made until they decide to marry. If Mary and her friend happened to be at the same village feast, they cannot share their food. Although there are no taboos on chewing betel or smoking together, lovers must never eat food in the company of one another. When Mary was trapped in her lover's house because she overslept, she had nothing to eat until late that day. Although lovers must hide the fact of their lovemaking and follow certain prohibitions, their liaison is being discussed discreetly by many interested parties. Peer constraints, however, may upset the privacy of the relationship. Jealousy is the most common problem. A confrontation suddenly may flare up because two young girls want to sleep with the same young man or vice versa. On one occasion, Esther began .sleeping with the young man that Ruth had been meeting each night. The problem was exacerbated because Ruth and Esther called each other "sister. " 8 One late afternoon, the controversy escalated into a public dispute when Ruth's anger got out of control: She screamed abuse at Esther and hit her for sleeping with her friend. That night a hamlet meeting took place, bringing great shame to Ruth's and Esther's matrilineal kin. Esther was accused by her mother's brother of acting like "a dog," an animal who cannot tell the difference between good food and rubbish because she sleeps with anyone, regardless of her kin relations. The meeting went on for about an hour, with many relatives making speeches about how the two should work hard learning to make women's wealth like their mothers instead of fighting over boys. On another occasion, Claire's lover began sleeping with a young woman from another village. Early one morning, Claire and a few of her girlfriends hid along the bush path before sunrise and attacked him as he hurried back to Kwaibwaga. They cut him with their knives in several places on his arm and shoulder. Because the woman he slept with had no relatives in Kwaibwaga, the incident passed without public notice. He, however, stopped seeing his distant friend and continued his relationship with Claire. In another case, Lily, a young Kwaibwaga woman, was visiting Omarakana village every night to sleep with her new friend. Her former K waibwaga lover got angry that she was sleeping with someone from another village. He and some other 8 Although they were not "true" sisters, their mothers were sisters, which in anthropological terminology made them "parallel cousins." When two villagers call each other "sister," even if one of them is adopted or is a parallel cousin twice or three times removed, they both assume a sibling role with each other. This is a characteristic feature of Crow Kinship terms. YOUTH AND SEXUALITY 73 Kwaibwaga boys talked about fighting with her, but finally they did nothing. Her lover was Chief Vanoi's relative, and the Kwaibwaga boys were intimidated by Vanoi's power. The choice of a lover can be difficult, and at times, one's freedom to have the erson on~ wants is curtailed by public re rimanos and eer retaliation. Certain limits are llllpose on adolescent sexual behavior even thoug 1t may appear that boundaries and rules do not exist. High status and rank provide added support for exerting one's will, but even young people who are members of chiefly lineages face rejection. Magic remains the strongest support and also the most deadly obstacle. As young people get older, however, and their interests tum to marriage, their independence becomes more restricted. Not only pe~r pressure but also adult interference is more prominent because marriage is about adult productive concerns. LOOKING FOR A SPOUSE Whenever a man thinks that his son is becoming serious about a particular woman, he decides whether ot not the woman is an appropriate choice. When Mark wanted to marry Mary, his father warned him that she was not a good worker, that she was lazy, and that he did not want Mark to marry her. He had another woman in mind for his son, so Mark followed his father's decision. A few years after his marriage, Mark told me, "Anna, I will always remember Mary. Whenever I see her on the Main Road, I always ~top and give her betel nuts or some tobacco." Mark is a talented guitar player and he composed a beautiful, sad song about unrequited love. In most cases men like Mark follow their fathers' advice and d~ not marry a first or even a second love. Despite all the emphasis on beauty and love magic during adolescent years, marria e is rarely considered only as a love match. It is an important political step that invo ves · s e two young people but many other villagers as well. Through each marriage new affinal alliances are formed or old ones are reestablished between the members of the new husband's and new wife's mat~eages. Q men as fathers who :Q_rovide the critical link in these alliances since the marriage oh man's children has iropactant political consequences for him. To understand the kin and affinal connertions that are linked through each marriage, it is important first to understand the kumila, a niatrilineal clan composed of many matrilineages. In the Trobriands, as discussed in Chapter 2, each person born is a member of his or her mother's matrilineage (dala), tracing descent through women to named ancestors. Each person at birth is similarly a member of his or her mother's clan (kumila), but unlike matrilineages, there are no clan ancestors. Clans and lineages have different functions; a clan is not, as Malinowski reported, 9 merely a larger representation of a 9 Malinowski(1922:71-72)glossed dala as "sub-clan" and kumila as "clan," and conflated the important differencesbetween the two by assumingthat the subclanwas a local divisionof the clan. ..•. : • '.,.. .. 1 : ._ ••• ;._..• ( • I : ~ l ", . ,j ~ I ,•: \ :--~ . ... \ ,. 74 YOUTH AND SEXUALITY lineage. Unlike matrilineages, of which there are hundreds, there are only four Trobriand clans: Malasi, Lukuba, Lukwasisiga, and Lukulabuta. Each clan has its own set of identifying totems, such as a particular animal, bird, tree, or flower, but it owns no property in common-for example, shell decorations, land, magic spells, or other valuables-nor does it have a specific place of origi:t;t,as a matrilineage does. Consequently Trobriand matriclans are of,little overt economic importance to their members, who never unite for a specific cause or event. When discussions occur about clan membership, no one uses the expression "same blood, ~' for this refers to lineage membership. \ Yet so unchangeable is a person's clan identity that villagers believe the lines on a person's palms can show the clan to which one belongs. In the beginning of my fieldwork, whenever I visited a village that was new to me, someone always_asked to see my hand to check my clan membership. At first, I thought curiosity made villagers want to identify me in this way. Later I learned that when a person travels to a village where he or she has no matrilineal kin or affines, the only villagers that can be asked for food are those who belong to the same clan. Clans are also important in helping to distinguish whom a person can and cannot marry. Clans are exogamous; that is, a mate must be a member of anotheulan. Occasionally, two people do m~rry who belong to different lineages within the same clan. No one mentions this fact because marriage within the same clan is considered· incestuous; public mention of such a case not only is considered shameful but may lead to fighting. When I was collecting genealogies, I was warned by my close friends not to question certain villagers about their clan membership because of their endogamous marriages within a clan. Clan membership, however, plays a more far-reaching role than the establishment of exogamous marriages rules. The best marriage for any villager to make is to marry someone who is a member of her or his father's clan. 10 For example, Dabweyowa, a member of matrilineage A and the Lukwasisiga cla~, married a woman who belongs tQ matrilineage C in the Mala~i IVISC>N VVADSVVORTH Australia • Canada • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States ' / / Cover photo: About to· leave the house for the first time after giving birth, a young Trobriand woman wears a long cape and covers her head. Libraryof CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data Weiner, Annette B., 1933The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea/ Annette B. Weiner. p. cm.-(Case studies in cultural anthropology) Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-03-011919-7 1. Ethnology-Papua New Guinea-Trobriand Island~ 2. Trobriand Islands (Papua New Guinea)-Social life and customs. I. Title. II. Series. GN671.NSW43 1987 306' .0995'3-dc19 ISBN: 0-03-011919-7 COPYRIGHT© 1988 Wadsworth,a divisionof ThomsonLeaming, Inc. Thomson LearningTM is a trademarkused herein under license. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.No part of this work coveredby the copyrighthereon may be reproducedor used in any form or by any means - graphic,electronic,or mechanical,includingphotocopying, recording,taping, Web distribution,or informationstorageor retrieval systems- without the written permissionof the publisher. WadsworthGroup/ThomsonLearning 10 Davis Drive Belmont CA 94002-3098 USA For informationabout our products, contact us: Thomson Learning Academic Resource Center 1-800-423-0563 http://www.wadsworth.com For permissionto use material from this text, contact us by Web: http://www.thomsonrights.com Fax: 1-800-730-2215 Phone: 1-800-730-2214 Printed in the United States of America 25 24 23 87-18614 CIP To the chiefs Kwaibwaga, work of this of them, ag guyau. 3/Fathers and matrilineality The only thing I know for sure is death is a very special thing-more so than birth. When you die you go to another island, Tuma, and join your relatives. Babies also come from here .... There also is no big ceremony for birth. The woman must stay in her house for several weeks and the baby is placed high up in a wooden type crate above a fire which never dies. After this short period the child sleeps with his mother and the children a few years old sleep with their father. Linda Weiner INTERRUPTED SLEEP I was awakened just before daybreak by an insistent scratching noise on the thin, coconut-frond wall of my house. I whispered, "Who?" in the usual Kiriwina way. Bomapota replied, "Get some tobacco and come to Naseluma's house." I knew what the message meant, for Naseluma was in the last days of her pregnancy. I hurried out into the darkness across the empty.