![\"Hartsoeker's](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Preformation.gif\")
<\/a>Hartsoeker's drawings of 'homunculi', or 'little humans' inside sperm. (1695)<\/p><\/div>\n
Well no, but there was an evolution in what Scientists considered “Woman” to be. For hundreds of thousands of years previous, the established thinking had been that they were simply men ‘turned outside-in’: female genitals were held ‘up there’ by a colder body temperature than their male counterparts,\u00a0and, thus,\u00a0sex differences were a matter of degree. Women were men who hadn’t quite unfurled properly.<\/p>\n
Oh My God<\/h3>\n
With this thinking, the\u00a0vagina<\/em> became an inverted penis, the\u00a0labia<\/em> a foreskin, the\u00a0uterus <\/em>a scrotum, and the\u00a0ovaries<\/em> testicles \u2013 and all these
now-familiar\u00a0gynecological\u00a0terms date from
the same period: the\u00a0oft-maligned<\/span>
vagina<\/em> (= ‘sheath’)\u00a0is
faux-Latin from 1680,
labia<\/em> (= ‘lip’) slightly
earlier (1630s) and\u00a0uterus<\/em> the earliest, from 1610
(although,\u00a0as
already mentioned in these pixellated
pages<\/a><\/span>, it was conflated with the
gender-neutral ‘womb’ or
‘belly’, its original Latinate
meaning). Pre-seventeenth century\u00a0ovaries <\/em>were consequently referred to
as ‘female testicles’ or
‘stones’, and the synonymity was
so literal as to accept the possibility that
if a girl got too hot through strenuous
exercise, her entire reproductive system
could accidentally
pop out and turn her into a boy<\/a>.<\/p>\n
So if sex was a false distinction to make,
how did male and female manage to breed?
Seventeenth-century scientists approached
this question firstly through\u00a0Aristotle<\/a>
and his theory of epigenesis (=
‘origin through growth’).
Aristotle reckoned male semen gave the
embryo its form, and female menstrual
blood supplied the raw materials.1<\/a><\/sup> The
‘soul’ enters the embryo at
the moment the mother first feels the
baby kick.<\/p>\n
However, by suggesting new people can
spring into being organically,
epigenesis risks dispensing with
divine involvement. Not cool. So a
much\u00a0more palatable alternative,
for seventeenth-century scientists,
was\u00a0preformation<\/a>
(the idea that the parents’ seed
already contained a miniature adult,
so\u00a0all
the embryo has to do is increase in
size<\/a>). Bit creepy, right?\u00a0Nicolaas
Hartsoeker<\/a> (1656-1725) was well
into this idea and\u00a0even claimed
he could see these
‘homunculi’ through the
microscope (above,
right).<\/span><\/p>\n
But once this had been agreed, there
came the inevitable Swiftian debate
about\u00a0how
you like your eggs<\/a>, with
scientists divided into
‘aminalculists’ and
‘ovists’: those who were
with Hartsoeker in believing the
‘germ’ of life to be in
the sperm, and those who preferred the
‘egg’ (= ‘the
female’). Arguing in favour of
the latter was the (understandable)
confusion about why God would be so
wasteful as to create thousands of
Hartsoekerean\u00a0sperm-germs to be
lost on every egg-ward excursion for
the sake of one single fertilization:
from the outside, the female looked a
bit more efficient.<\/p>\n
Oh! You Pretty
Things<\/strong><\/p>\n
But clearly, all this Knowledge
was better on the subject of males
than females (and even the women
themselves were hard pressed to
explain menstruation or recognise
pregnancy):\u00a0ova <\/em>were still shrouded
in mystery, and
ovulation <\/em>a\u00a0great
unknown \u2013 it was not even
certain whether human females
could conceive without orgasm,
or if they were more like
cats, rabbits, llamas (now
known as ‘induced
ovulators’) and, er,
men. Official advice erred on
the side of caution and
recommended that both man
and\u00a0wife reach orgasm
during procreation \u2013 as a
side-effect, a rapist could
get off scott-free if his
victim fell pregnant, since,
until the nineteenth century,
the law worked backwards and
considered conception to imply
enjoyment and, therefore,
consent.<\/span><\/p>\n
It is\u00a0William Harvey
(1578-1657), most famous for
‘discovering’
the circulation of the
blood, who is commonly
credited with realising the
importance of an
ovary<\/em>-thing, and
the frontispiece to his
treatise on the subject
blazons the tag ‘ex ovo
omnia<\/em>‘
(‘everything from
the egg’). But he
was thinking less of a
modern day ‘egg
cell<\/a>‘ and
more of a
‘spirit’: an
egg<\/em> was the
mother’s
‘idea’ of
a\u00a0fetus which was
‘ignited’
in her womb during
sex. It was a general
generative catalyst,
not technical anatomy
\u2013 as is clear
from the image (below,
left).<\/span><\/p>\n Can
of worms... The
frontispiece to
Harvey's Treatise
on Generation
(detail). Image from
http:\/\/www.hps.cam.ac.uk\/visibleembryos\/<\/p><\/div>\n
After kicking
around for just
over a century,
ovary<\/em>
suddenly
became
enshrined in
anatomy books
as an
independent
organ that
somehow
encapsulated
‘woman’:
in 1844
Achille
Chereau
declared that
‘it is
only because
of the ovary
that woman is
what she
is’ (oh
dear). In
part, this was
to do with a
retreat from
the previous
centuries’
idea that
women and men
were
anatomically
the same and
an advance
towards the
notion that
sex equalled
gender (a
surprisingly
modern
invention, if
you listen to
Thomas
Laqueur<\/a>).
With this came
an\u00a0increasing
focus on
specifically
‘women’s’
problems via
hysteria
<\/em>(= ‘womb
trouble’<\/a>),
and, neatly
(if
disturbingly)
a favourite
cure for
this
pre-Freud
was the
bilateral
ovariotomy<\/em>,
also
dubbed
‘female
castration’:
removing a
patient’s
healthy
ovaries
<\/em>to
man them
up a bit
(just as
men
become
‘feminized’
through
removal
of the
testicles).
The
ovariotomy
<\/em>would
thus,
it was
believed,
act
not
just
as a
cure
for
hysteria,
but
also
for
behavioural
pathologies
including
nymphomania,
and
even
general
aches
and
pains.
Of
course,
it
also
stopped
menstruation,
rendered
women
infertile
and
carried
risks
endemic
to
c19th
surgery
methods.
WE
DON’T
KNOW
WHAT
THIS
DOES,
SO
LET’S
JUST
TAKE
IT
OUT.<\/p>\n
It
was
not
until
the
1930s
that
scientists
got
near
a
hormonal
understanding
of
ovulation<\/em>,
how
it
worked
and
how
it
could
be
controlled.
Here
we
really
should
give
a
nod
to
that
symbol
of
1960s
sexual
liberation:
the
combined
oral
contraceptive
pill<\/a>,
a
great
source
of
division
between
parents
and
children,
as
epitomised
in
the
backstory<\/a>
to
the
seminal
Beatles
song
She’s
Leaving
Home<\/a>
<\/strong>(1967).\u00a0See,
children
of
the
1920s
and
30s
must
have
found
the
idea
of
their
daughters
silently
and
imperceptibly
controlling
their
ovulation<\/em>
terrifying,
whereas
the
children
of
the
1960s
saw
such
control
as
simple
empowerment.
In
miniature,
this
gives
us
the
whole
history
of
ovary
<\/em>and
its
linguistic
cognates:
what
cannot
be
seen
is
inevitably
free
for
appropriation
by
a
host
of
meanings.
Meaningarium.<\/p>\n<\/a>
Oh My
Gosh<\/strong><\/h3>\n