Although I found Emily Martin's article interesting, from personal experience--with biology teachers, class, textbooks, etc.--I feel as though this idea of pushing the stereotypes purposely into the discussion and language of the egg and sperm is going a bit far.  Although Martin argues that one textbook "sees menstruation as failed production" yet "employs a sort of breathless prose when it describes the maturation of sperm," I had a teacher and textbook that called the production of sperm a "matter of quantity, not quality" and the production of the egg all about quality (486).  Was this textbook implying that because sperm often lack quality that men do as well?  I don't think so.