The Sex of Metaphors
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2011.747n1011Keywords:
Metaphor, gender and science, contextual valuesAbstract
The hypothesis that states metaphors are structurally determinant in our social relations, routines, and experience has been accepted broadly in the last decades. Moreover, metaphors are to be found in many different levels of scientific practices, and have a diverse set of functions in science. Therefore, they impregnate all scientific enterprise. In this work we examine selected gender metaphors used in biology. We show metaphors are effective precisely because its effectiveness depends on shared social conventions, kinship relations and, authority that, by convention, is given to those that use them.
Downloads
References
Alberts, Bruce, et al. (1994): Molecular Biology of the Cell, Nueva York: Garland.
Bustos, Eduardo (2000): La metáfora. Ensayos transdisciplinares, Madrid: FCE.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne (2000): Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, Nueva York: Basics Books.
Herschberger, Ruth (1948): Adam’s Rib, Nueva York: Pellegrini & Cudahy. Reimpreso por: Harper and Row, 1970.
Hesse, Mary (1966): Models and Analogies in Science, Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.
Keller, Evelyn Fox (1985): Reflexiones sobre género y ciencia, Valencia: Alfons el Magnànim, 1991.
Keller, Evelyn Fox (1995): Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieyh-Century Biology, Nueva York: Columbia Univ. Press.
Keller, Evelyn Fox (2000): The Century of the Gene, Harvard Univ. Press, trad. esp. de Juan
Pedro Campos, El siglo del gen, Barcelona: Ed. Península, 2002.
Lakoff, George y Mark Johnson (1980): Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press; trad. cast. 1986. Metáforas de la vida cotidiana, Madrid: Cátedra.
Lakoff, George y Mark Johnson (1999): Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, New York: Basic Books.
Martin, Emily (1987): The Woman in the Body. A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction, Boston: Beacon Press.
Martin, Emily (1991): “Egg and Sperm”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 16, 3.
Merchant, Carolyn (1980): The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, San Francisco: Harper.
Merton, Robert K. (1938): Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England. OSIRIS: Studies on the History and Philosophy of Science and on the History of Learning and Culture, Bruges, Belgium: St. Catherine Press [New York: Harper & Row, 1980; New York: Howard Fertig, Inc., 1980, 2002].
Mountcastle, Verenon (1980): Medical Physiology, 14th ed., Londres: Mosby.
Pérez Sanz, Pilar (1998): La quinta libertad. Guía de métodos anticonceptivos, Madrid: Ed. Pirámide.
Pérez Sedeño, Eulalia (2006): “Sexos, Géneros y Otras Especies: Diferencias Sin Desgualdades”, en Catalina Lara (ed.), El segundo escalón. Desequilibrios de Género en Ciencia y Tecnología, Sevilla: Arcibel Eds.
Pérez Sedeño, Eulalia (2008): “Mitos, creencias, valores: cómo hacer más ‘científica’ la ciencia; cómo hacer la realidad más ‘real’”, Isegoría, 38 (enero-junio).
Rayner, Carl (1985): El Cuerpo Humano, 2 vols., Barcelona: Orbis.
Rose, Hilary (1994): Love, Power, and Knowledge:Towards a Feminist Transformation of the Sciences, Indiana: Indiana Univ. Press.
Tomlinson, Barbara (1995): “Phallic Fables and Spermatic Romance: Disciplinary Crossing and Textual Ridicule”, Configurations, 3.2, pp. 105-134. doi:10.1353/con.1995.0017
Tuana, Nancy (1993): The Less Noble Sex. Scientific, Religious and Philosophical conceptions of Woman’s Nature, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.
Wassarman, Paul M. (1988): “Fertilization in mammals”. Scientific American, 259 (6): 78-84. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1288-78 PMid :2849808
Watson, James et al. (1987): Molecular Biology of the Gene, Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park, California (1.ª edición, 1965, W.A. Benjamin, New York).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2011 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the printed and online versions of this Journal are the property of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International” (CC BY 4.0) License. You may read here the basic information and the legal text of the license. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 License must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the published by the Editor, is not allowed.
