In actuality, each month the ovum undertakes an extraordinary expedition from the ovary through the Fallopian tubes to the uterus, an unseen equivalent of going down the Mississippi on a raft or over Niagara Falls in a barrel.... One might say that the activity of ova involves a daring and independence absent, in fact, from the activity of spermatozoa, which move in jostling masses, swarming out on signal like a crowd of commuters from the 5:15.
Mary Ellmann, Thinking about Women (1968)
This is a sadly fairly little known work of early 'second-wave' feminist literary criticism, extremely witty and incisive, even if I don't concur with some of Ellmann's literary judgements.
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