Plant Sex: A Cultural Analysis of the Gendering of Plant Reproduction Processes

Scholarship from feminist science, knowledge, and technology (FSTS) studies consistently demonstrates how the production of knowledge about biological processes depends upon gender stereotypes. For example, anthropologist Emily Martin’s now-classic work offered a cultural analysis of how biology textbooks foreground reproductive cycles in stereotypical ways—eggs depicted as passive and demure, and sperm depicted as active and competitive. Following a similar line of inquiry, we completed a content analysis of biology textbooks to examine how cultural ideas about gender shape the scientific community’s understanding of plant reproduction processes. We find that depictions of plant reproduction perpetuate erroneous representations that rely on gender stereotypes. “Male” plants are depicted as active, dominant saviors and “female” plants as passive, devious, or reluctant. We contribute to the scholarship on feminist science and technology studies and plant studies by demonstrating how the scientific community is so entrenched in gender norms and stereotypes that the stories that are often told about human reproduction have been extrapolated to make sense of, and depict, plant reproduction. Despite the accumulation of scientific knowledge about plants over centuries, sexing plant parts and processes continues to rely on mapping gender stereotypes onto plants and naturalizing differences between women and men.