Choose Your Words Wisely
By: Emanuel L. Lusca
Tags: Feminism, Existentialism, Biology, Culture, Anthropology

When I think about how I think, I realize that I am using words to think. When I think about the words I am using, certain thoughts or better impressions show up in my understanding. There is no exact word that I can think of to capture this experience of impressions I am having. My use of the word impressions, rather than thoughts, is an attempt to point out the way words have an impact not only on our understanding but on our senses also. I have also chosen to use the word understanding rather than mind because words do not just affect our minds in some enigmatical way. Words affect our understanding, our bodies, the way we feel, the way we see, the way we smell, and ultimately who we are.

For example, when one thinks the word “rose” a flower that smells good in their understanding may show up, perhaps a person they once knew, or the letters r o s e . So in a way, my words in making things show up are like impressions, and in being so, I think. Language and impressions in this way are interwoven. Words and impressions cannot be separated. I can only think through using words, and I must use words to convey what I am thinking.

My understanding made possible through my use of words is like a reflection of an image in a pool of water. It’s obscured and only partially reflective of what I think is real.

Words and sentences are metaphors for things we understand. When I use a metaphor by saying something or writing something down that points something out (be it in the world or only in our understanding), certain impressions show up to me and to those who are listening (or reading). When we modify the metaphor by changing the words (i.e. partially changing the meaning of a word, or the word itself entirely), our understanding of the objects (be they in the world or only in our understanding) which the words refer to, also changes. Accordingly, changing the way we think about things, by changing the way we talk about them (i.e. the metaphors we use), changes the way we understand our world. Furthermore, changing the way we understand our world, changes the way we exist in it.

The Egg and The Sperm: A Case Study

Emily Martin in her work titled The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles gives several examples of how narratives about the interaction between sperm and egg are gendered in the biological sciences. She discusses how gendered narratives use words such as streamlined, active, strong, penetrating, energy, etc. to describe the sperm, whereas words such as passive, swept away, etc. are used to describe the egg. Martin argues that in using gendered narratives in the biological sciences such that they become dominant, they reinforce and naturalize the stereotypical male-female roles that are implicit in gendered narratives. She suggests that in using such narratives, the biological sciences are shaped by culture, which provided the narratives.

In the same work by Martin, she also discusses recent research that suggests that the dominant narratives about reproductive biology were wrong. The research of Schatten and Schatten, the biophysicist at John’s Hopkins, and Paul Wassermann suggests that the narrative of “torpedo” like sperm penetrating the “passive” helpless egg would have to be scrapped, and a new narrative put in place of the already existing narratives. Nonetheless, as Martin points out, even though the new narrative suggested by such researchers “seem[s] to fit the model of an egalitarian relationship”, they are introduced on the background of the already existing narratives. Martin suggests that every revision to a narrative cannot escape the previous narratives that prelude it. Already existing narratives do not disappear once new narratives are introduced. Martin suggests, that instead they are hierarchically organized, with the new narratives at the top, and the previous narratives below.

Metaphors Shape Our Understanding

Metaphors shape the direction of scientific inquiry, and as a result our understanding of the accounts provided by science. One thing we can learn from Martin‘s analysis (but in some ways moves away from her view as well) is that metaphors and our understanding mutually affect each other. If we think in general terms, all the things that may show up in our understanding (i.e. the various impressions we may have) are always in some way affected by metaphors, and our metaphors always in some way are affected by our understanding. We cannot understand something without using some kind of metaphor, and we cannot use metaphors without something already being understood. In this way, our understanding of the accounts scientist gives of reproductive biology rely on our understanding of the metaphors they use. The metaphors they employ make what seems to be abstract and invisible more concrete. Furthermore, the direction of scientific inquiry regarding reproductive biology, in some way relies on the scientists’ understanding of already existing metaphors. In Martin’s work, the “social imagery” (or in my analysis already existing metaphors) that shapes the direction of scientific inquiry regarding reproductive biology is the stereotypical male-female roles. Such already existing metaphors may be found by scientists in the textbooks they studied in order to prepare for their profession, other scientific accounts, or perhaps the historical context in which scientists find themselves. However they may have been found by scientists, already existing metaphors shape the way the phenomenon inquired about is understood and perceived.

The idea that the language we use changes the way we see and understand something in the world was most clearly articulated by Sapir and Whorf in their famous hypothesis. In line with their view, the language (or in my analysis the already existing metaphors) used by scientists in their inquiries affect the way the phenomenon itself is approached as an object of inquiry. Perhaps because of the stereotypical female-male roles already being in the understanding of the scientists, their understanding of the egg and sperm interaction was shaped, or confined along the same lines. Maybe if scientists had different conceptions of male-female roles, the understanding of the sperm-egg interaction would have been different. As Martin suggests, perhaps they would have had a better understanding of the interaction.

One implication of the mutually affective relationship of the understanding and metaphors is that even the things we understand most concretely may only be derivatively concrete. Ultimately, our understanding of concrete things (be they atoms, numbers, cells, the sky, etc…) may rely on our previous understanding of already existing metaphors. Martin suggests something similar when she says that even “if we succeed in substituting more egalitarian [metaphors in place of the ones that already exist]… we would still be guilty of endowing cellular entities with personhood”. The view that not even our most concrete understanding of things cannot avoid using metaphors, is contentious. In support of it, let us look at our understanding of numbers.

Our understanding of numbers seems to be concrete. We all know what 1, 2, 3, 40, etc.. is. Yet, when we keenly ask “what is a number”, such numbers seem to lose the concreteness they once had. The reason why is because the concreteness we seem to have is a derivative of the metaphors we employed when we first began learning how to count. When we first began to learn how to count, our teacher may have put out three apples, and said “three apples”. After a long arduous process of repeatedly being shown three apples and saying three, we began to understand three, but only in relation to the metaphor of “three apples“. With more training, we began to understand the 3 (as a symbol, or in complex mathematical proof), but only in relation to our prior understanding of the previous metaphors. Until finally, we seem to concretely understand numbers. Hence, our understanding of even the most apparently concrete things, at the least in a derivative way, relies on the use of metaphors and other things as part of a referential whole.

Martin says that a scientific account of reproductive biology “relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female”. Our analysis of metaphors, which are implicit in the narratives Martin discusses, exposes one of the limitations of such reliance on scientific inquiry (and possibly all inquiries) on metaphors. Scientific inquires attempt to produce some kind of understanding of something in the world. They attempt to take something that is unfamiliar (or not known) and make it familiar. In doing so they employ metaphors. Metaphors are found throughout science. Martin’s research on biological reproduction is but one example. If we look at the history of our understanding of the atomic structure, we see the metaphors of a “cloud surrounding” the nucleus, or atoms “losing electrons”. Today, we know that these metaphors do not accurately capture what an atom is. There really is no cloud, and atoms don’t really lose electrons. The metaphors change. So, as in the case of reproductive biology, scientists devise new metaphors. The question is whether these new metaphors are better than the already existing metaphors at producing an understanding. Martin thinks that we can diminish the power of “the social imagery” that is projected in what one studies by becoming aware of it. She claims that doing so “will improve our ability to investigate and understand nature”. On the other hand, she also suggests that we cannot stop using metaphors. If she is right, which I believe she is, it is difficult to say whether one account is better or more accurate than another because all that is accomplished is the replacement of already existing metaphors with other metaphors. It seems that the validity of a scientific account is relative to its place in history or context.

In any case, only a partial understanding of any scientific inquiry can be grasped because metaphors seem to be double-edged. They allow us to think and understand the world, yet they limit us in how we think and understand it. Metaphors attempt to point out something significant about something else. They do this by putting something we don’t understand (or do not see, or are unaware of, etc.) into language that is familiar to us. In doing so, they allow us to understand something new (or something in a new way). Nonetheless, metaphors confine our understanding to the significance that is captured by the metaphor. To illustrate this in a simple way, imagine a foreigner asking you to explain something new he doesn’t understand. You begin by saying a bunch of words that he understands, and then you come to a word that he doesn’t understand. Perhaps he may not understand this word because he doesn’t understand this new thing. Most likely you say, “well a burrito is like an egg roll with beans”. With the metaphor in hand, the foreigner partially understands a burrito but does not fully understand it because his understanding is confined to his understanding of an egg roll.

The use of gendered language in science operates in a similar way, only the metaphor implicit in gendered narratives is not explicit. The word like is not used, and hence the metaphor is not pointed out. In addition to this, the scientists themselves are unaware of the metaphors implicit in their narratives. Furthermore, what is unfamiliar and put into a familiar language is the phenomenon (or concept, or whatever it may be), which oftentimes cannot be seen. The metaphor in this way becomes invisible but makes the phenomenon visible. A foreigner can see and eat a burrito, and come to an understanding of it on his own. He cannot see the minute details involved in the interaction between sperm and egg (unless of course, he has the proper equipment and training). In scientific narratives of reproductive biology, a metaphor is used to make visible the interaction between sperm and egg. The interaction is made visible to our understanding, and to the scientist who looks through a microscope at it.

Martin’s analysis is not just about discrimination. It also tells us something about the way our understanding works. It suggests that metaphors affect the way we understand the world. Our understanding operates through the use of metaphors that enable us to understand, but also confine our understanding. When we devise new metaphors, the way we understand the world is altered. One’s understanding of the new metaphors, however, can only be understood on a background of their previous understanding of the already existing metaphors. Accordingly, Martin’s analysis of gendered narratives (or metaphors generally) shows us how our understanding and metaphors are mutually affective, and how metaphors are double-edged.

My argument has focused on how our understanding in general works. The understanding science attempts to provide is no different from the understanding that we have discussed so far. The same limitations must also apply to the understanding science attempts to provide. For that reason, the notion that science is historical, objective, and based solely on reason is contentious. Science is always in some historical context, and would not make sense without its use of metaphors, which are by their nature subjective. An account provided by science can only make sense if one understands the metaphors embedded in it. The validity of an account or a narrative then is contingent on the historical context in which it is found because only within certain contexts do certain metaphors make sense. Science accordingly, has to be historically contextualized in order to make sense. The knowledge science produces is only partial because it is bound up in the metaphors it uses, which are always double-edged. The notion that science can somehow have an objective god-like perspective, as Donna Haraway captures in her notion of the god-trick, is impossible. The understanding provided by science in order to make sense must have some kind of perspective from which the metaphors make sense. This perspective is always subjective and contextualized.

The use of metaphors implicit in gendered narratives in science affects the way science operates. Metaphors help shape the direction of scientific inquiry and shape how we understand the accounts given by science. As a result, only a partial understanding can be grasped through scientific inquiry.

Despite the limitations produced by science’s use of metaphors, it seems that there is no escaping them. However, we can make the metaphors employed less problematic. In changing the metaphors used in scientific accounts of reproductive biology (perhaps other scientific accounts as well), we will change the way we understand our world. Specifically, in the case of reproductive biology, the stereotypes will no longer be reinforced, and will no longer be justified by gendered narratives. As a result, our relationship with one another will be altered, and our existence in the world will be changed.

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God-Trick — See “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question In Feminism and Privilege of Partial Perspective” in Donna Haraway’s Simians, Cyborgs, and Women.