A Feminist's Take on the Chicken or the Egg Dilemma:
Ok, so some philosophers, biologists and a chicken farmer have lately been pondering a life changing question: Why did the chicken cross the road, er, . . . no , no wait, it was the other vital question, which came first the chicken or the egg. Well, they claim to have finally cracked it! Yup, the egg question has finally been layed to rest, and the verdict?
Drum roll please . . . .
The egg came first! Now, I thought, my mind can finally be at peace and I can sleep easier knowing that the great minds of our age have finally reached a conclusive answer to this dilemma. But then in the middle of the night last night I woke up in a cold sweat knowing something was terribly wrong with the story. The great chicken came to me in a dream, warning me of false philosophers and telling me that the truth was out there. Or maybe it was David Duchovny in a chicken suit ? -- I'm still not sure.
Now I must warn others of the fallacies of following this scrambled egg story. The argument for the egg coming first is essentially this: the genetics of the creature in the egg stay the same throughout its life. The first creature that could be said to be a chicken would have been a chicken from creation of the zygote, which would have been in the egg. Thus the egg wins the day. Or does it?
There are two ways to understand this question. First you could read the question as asking which came first, the adult chicken or a fetal chicken inside an egg. The answer to this question seems quite obvious, and is quite uninteresting. To put it another way, it is the mind-numbingly easy question of whether a child comes before an adult. Good job biologist, philosopher and chicken farmer, you just solved a question that has been baffling two-year-olds for several minutes. If you go around asking a question this inane, most people will be embarrassed for you and will start pretending you aren't present. I don't recommend it, unless you are two or younger.
I think it is our job to assume that the author of this question had a little more grey matter between the ears than the former question would imply. I believe that the real question is whether a chicken came first, or if a chicken's egg came first. What is the difference? It is a question of ownership of the egg. I think that as a feminist I must argue for the position that the egg belongs to the mother.
Everyone claiming that the egg came first is making the huge assumption that the egg belongs to the creature in the egg rather than to the creature that layed the egg. It is clearly false to claim that just because a creature is inhabiting an object that the object belongs to it. My dog is laying in my bed, but it is still my bed, darn it! . . . I think. . .yes, yes it is! Hey, give me a little more room puppy! Ok, take your time.
First of all, what is an egg? It seems very similar to a womb, does it not? Do we claim that the womb a baby grows in belongs to the mother or to the fetus? I think everyone would agree with me when I say that a womb belongs to the mother.
It may be claimed that an egg is different, however, because it is removed from the body of the mother. Does removing it from her body make it no longer hers? The removal process alone can't justify this. If I plucked a feather from the mother, isn't it still her feather? What about a toe? Or one of those juicy legs smeared in barbecue sauce. No wait, that's my barbecue chicken leg, get your hands off it!
Ok, so the chicken legs are mine, but I still think the eggs are hers. Imagine I work for an agency monitoring the amount of radiation in chicken eggs. Now, suppose that as I was monitoring Obedia's uranium enhanced chickens I found a glowing egg. I dramatically hold up this strangely glowing egg to Obedia and ask the farmer to point out the chicken to whom the egg belongs. I would be forced to stare at the farmer with my best are-you-daft look if the farmer said "weeeell, I reckon, it's the egg of the itty-biddy bird inside that there shell.
Still not enough proof, you say?
Ok, I would like to ask you who owns an unfertilized egg. If the owner of an egg is the inhabitant of the egg, then an unfertilized egg is an unowned egg. It shouldn't be called a chicken egg, 'cause there isn't a chicken inside! And I dare say that after all the pain and anguish of that poor chicken, it should be hers. She earned it!
As my final point I would like you all to consider the case of Chicken vs Wade. In this case the state wanted to prevent Ms. Chicken (name changed to protect the chickens involved) from leaving her egg to get cold while she went out and got a snack. The argument was that the zygotic chicken had the right to be sat upon for as long as it took to hatch. However, it was decided that zygotes just don't have the same kind of rights as full blown chickens. (This case may even throw some doubt upon the afore-mentioned daft-argument). Now if this zygote doesn't even have the right to a warm mother's bum, why does it have ownership rights over the shell? At some point the chicken fetus does gain warm-bum-rights, but when and why does it gain shell-ownership rights? Ownership rights just aren't the kind of things you gain over time, just by hanging out long enough.
So there you have it, I think the egg belongs to the mother. If I am right, then the first pre-chicken layed a pre-chicken egg from which a chicken emerged. Hence the chicken came first, and not the chicken egg!
Ok, so now, why did it cross the road!!
