Female Supremacy Articles - Page 26

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If the status of males in evolutionary terms is an equivocal one, the consequences of sexual dimorphism are not reassuring for males either. In a review of the evidence relating to human males, my colleague and mentor Sebastian Kraemer has set out the scale of the problem.6 Throughout life, men are more vulnerable than women on most measures. This starts with the biological fragility of the male foetus, leading to ‘a greater risk of death or damage from almost all the obstetric catastrophes that can happen before birth’. If they survive these catastrophes, boys then have a far greater susceptibility to developmental disorders than girls. These are magnified in turn by our cultural assumptions about masculinity, and by our low expectations of males. The toxic interaction of biological and social ingredients shows itself in far higher rates of suicide and deaths through violent crime. Males also do worse in (among other things) scholastic achievement, emotional literacy, alcoholism, substance abuse, circulatory disorders, diabetes, and of course in longevity. Kraemer looks at how male disadvantage is ‘wired in’ from infancy and persists to the grave, but he suggests that we shouldn't necessarily conclude that maleness is a genetic disorder. Instead, he argues, we should show more curiosity about the reasons for boys and men being so vulnerable, and should pay more attention to redressing this in child-rearing and in medicine.