The phrase "genetic superiority" sounds awful, even when you're saying the female is superior. But Moalem — who, though named Sharon, is "an XY male" — really is talking about genetics:
The cells of genetic females have two X chromosomes — one from their mothers, and one from their fathers — while those of genetic males have only the one X chromosome, from their mothers, and one Y chromosome. This is crucial, because X chromosomes come in handy for vital functions like building and maintaining the human brain and the immune system....
It’s not just that women have a spare X chromosome to swap in. Rather, the more than 2,000 genes that, combined, make up two X chromosomes, are used by cells that actually interact and cooperate within a woman’s body. Each cell predominantly uses one X chromosome over the other — so if one X chromosome has genes that are better at recognizing invading viruses like Covid-19, for instance, immune cells using that X can focus on that task, while immune cells using the other X chromosome focus on, say, killing cells infected with Covid-19 instead, making the fight against the virus more efficient.
Typical males, by contrast, are forced to get by in life with just the one X chromosome. What if a male’s particular genes aren’t able to competently recognize or kill off cells infected with a coronavirus? In that case, his ability to fight the infection will be limited; his solitary X is the only one he’s got.
The bottom line is when it comes to dealing with the trauma and stressors of life — whether it’s avoiding a serious congenital malformation, a developmental disability, or fighting off an infection — females have genetic options. And genetic males don’t....
And our sex chromosomes by and large determine our sex hormones — which also give her an advantage: Higher levels of testosterone appear to suppress the immune system; conversely, estrogens have been found to stimulate a more vigorous immunological response....
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60 comments:
Reparations for millennia of dying sooner!
What bullshit.
So much.
Women better than men.
An "XY male."
I'm out.
so, the fact that XYmales are far Far FAR more likely to be smokers than XXfemales isn't relevant?
Eh. Sperm is cheap and eggs are expensive. You can understand a lot of things by remembering that. But does it really have anything to do with women having moar genez?
Remember, NYT is pro-science.
You know, one of the greatest risk factors to one's health is reading the New York Times and/or the Washington Post.
don't forget the LAtimes and the ChicagoTrib too! Those are Also potential death sentences
(eaglebeak)
Who remembers Ashley Montague's book The Natural Superiority of Women? Women are genetically set up to do their functions well and men are genetically set up to do their functions well.
All this twaddle about the natural superiority (or genetic superiority) of one gender over another was stupid in the '60s and it's stupid now.
Women are programmed for longevity and sturdiness, but by God, if you need a saber-toothed tiger killed, you'd better find a man.
As one wag pointed out, only the male and female genders are vulnerable to the virus. All the other genders are immune based on the statistics.
Old Joke:
Why do men usually die before their wives?
Because they want to.
THEOLDMAN
You can insert your favorite ethnic group before the word "men" if you wish
All that yapping. You made your point. My God I thought they'd never shut up.
I was reliably promised everything women do is better than men (including the stuff they do worse), so why is this even news?
Men put the XY in sexy.
Somehow, if it was women who lived shorter lives, I don't think the response from experts would be, "eh, what can you do?"
Viruses are notorious diversitists. However...
NYC Health: COVID-19 Daily Data Summary: Deaths
1397 deaths. 1046 underlying conditions. 333 conditions pending.
635 age 75 and over
574 female sex
872 male sex
While there is disparate impact between the sexes, SARS-CoV-2 is biased, not prejudiced. That said, a correlation does not preclude qualifying factors.
Yabut we have a penis.
Assuming you live to 75 years old, under equal conditions, like never smoker, non diabetic, in shape, a male should live to 93 and a female would live to 94. The average person has no experience with life survival tables. Males that actually live to be old do pretty well.
Women are genetically set up to do their functions well and men are genetically set up to do their functions well.
Equal and complementary. That said it is a well established social practice to position women and children first. Perhaps men are running defense for the team, and are at higher risk. Well worth it? Traditionally, organically, evolutionary, yes.
"On the Genetic Superiority of Women."
Which showed itself once men figured out how to make childbirth safe.
Yabut we have a penis.
Men are advised to wear codpieces. Women are advised to wear chastity belts.
Which showed itself once men figured out how to make childbirth safe.
You can keep your wife and child, too.
And what if future scientific inquiry discovers benefits of a Y chromosome that are unknown today? Science is always a tentative endeavor; it never proves anything once and for all. I would wager there was scientific literature in the 19th century proving the superiority of males over females.
The purity of the master gender must be preserved .
Women are programmed for longevity and sturdiness, but by God, if you need a saber-toothed tiger killed, you'd better find a man.
Both the code of chivalry and evolutionary code demand us, male and female, respectively and jointly, to be prudent and bold in our turn. That said, whether God or Gaia, life is an exercise in risk management.
Science is always a tentative endeavor
A philosophy and practice in the near-frame, a logical domain, observable and reproducible, where accuracy is inversely proportional to offset from an established frame of reference.
Men tend not to wash their hands. :-(
Men have been out in the public more so than females. We have taken such risks, in military and civilian service, much more than females.
Men tend not to wash their hands. :-(
That may be it. That is probably it.
That said, follow the lessons of karate. Wash on, wash off. Wash on, wash...
"genetic females", as opposed to...? Is this a nod to transgenderism?
Oregon may be an outlier. So far we've had 22 deaths, 12 male. Currently infected: 486 F, 403 M. We also are experiencing a pretty low rate of positivity- about 5% of those tested are positive. In another 3 weeks, I hope to breath a sigh of relief and get the lockdown lifted.
IANA geneticist, but I do have an X and Y . . . Anyway, I thought it was settled (no, really) that women and men exhibit different responses to different stresses, and that women are hardier in some senses.
You know, kind of like the descent-group differences that are important in proper medical care, or so I gather.
It may be PC (or anti-PC, paradoxically) to deny that sexes and descent-groups differ in any important ways, but I'd hate to be in the care of a medical person who didn't bother to ask my sex and rac sorry descent-groups.
Narr
Uniquely me
In the comments section of the article (apparently moderated by the author, who responds a lot.):
Mark [in] Baltimore April 2
Coronavirus is an obligate intracellular virus that would be fought off by cytotoxic T cells ( CD8 ). These are not coded on any X or Y chromosomes. No HLA molecules or NK cells are coded on these either. T cell receptors or immunoglobulin variability are not x linked either.
The author has not provided any evidence other than speculation that the X chromosome provides a better immunological basis of fighting viruses or any infection
In fact, the author hasn’t presented any evidence at all that there is, in fact, a skew towards men when it comes to covid19.
Sharon Moalem [the author of the article]
The New York Times April 2
@Mark
CD8+ T cells are in fact stimulated by TLR7, whose gene is on the X chromosome. TLR7 is a specialized protein that recognizes single-stranded RNA viruses, like COVID-19. Since it is on the X chromosome, females typically inherit two different versions of the TLR7 gene, while males inherit only one. This is just one illustration as there are numerous examples of genes found on the X chromosome and even the Y, that alter the immune response between the sexes.
Mark Baltimore April 2
True that TLR7 is x linked, but TLRs signal the innate immune system, not cytotoxic T cells. Cytotoxic T cells will be alerted to the presence of viral RNA or DNA in the cytoplasm, not endoscopes, regardless of TLRs, and attempt to lyse the infected cell.
My point is, you took data from China that showed men having a higher rate of infection than women. That hasn’t been shown to be true in America as far as I know. Also remember that the population of men massively outnumber women in China in general, at a ratio of 1.15:1, far higher than anywhere else.
It really did seem like you came up with the idea of women better surviving infections on your own, then tried to cherry-pick random facts to suit your theory.
---
I'm totally with Mark on this. According to various reports, mortality to COVID-19 infection seems to be associated with either age [mainly > 60, > 70 is worse] and metabolic syndrome obesity/diabetes.
In a Chinese paper (preprint -- may have been published by now) serious cases (older patients) had a diminished Treg Cell CD8+ response, moderate cases (younger patients) had a robust response.
Diminished immune system competence is associated with both age and obesity:
J Comparative Pathology. 2010
Fading Immune Protection in Old Age: Vaccination in the Elderly
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19959180
Proc Nutr Soc. 2012
Micronutrients, immunology and inflammation The impact of obesity on the immune response to infection
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4791086/
"The phrase "genetic superiority" sounds awful, even when you're saying the female is superior."
even when
" Women have genetic options..."
Men have genetic responsibilities.
"A NYT piece by Sharon Moalem — "a scientist, physician, and the author of the forthcoming 'The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women.'""
Sharon Moalem is a bigoted ignoramus.
The reality is that men are the more diverse sex. There are more male geniuses than female geniuses, and there's more male morons than female morons. The reason why women whine about needed "affirmative action" to "break the glass ceiling" is because, pretty much no matter what it is, there are more men who are better at it than women.
Now, there's also more men who are worse at it. So with disease, which takes out the weak, yo would expect more men to die than women.
It's not because women are "superior", it's because being in the top 1% for coronavirus response doesn't get you anything more than being in the top 50%, whereas being in the bottom 1% makes you a lot worse off than just being in the bottom 10%.
So, I take it back. She's not a bigoted ignoramus. She's a bigoted ignoramus and moron.
The NYT will never gain immunity from running stories on the superiority of women, its immune system is simply incapable of detecting bull when it comes to XX genes.
Exit question - is the NYT seriously pushing the idea of estrogen as a potential cure to illness the way others push Vitamin C and D? Do we get wall to wall coverage when some less intelligent man follows this bad advice and self-medicates with estrogen and ends up with unwanted man boobs?
The reason so many men are dying of coronavirus is because they are throwing themselves in front of it to protect the women and children. Duh.
"Genetic superiority."
Every single human being now alive is descended from two human beings who survived all childhood diseases.
CORONAVIRUS TARGETS OLD WHITE MALES
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit
apologies to any that posted this already - I haven’t looked yet
Credit should go to James Taranto, who rode that theme to death
throwing themselves in front of it to protect the women and children.
Hunting, gathering, paying taxes. Yeah, that still happens. Men and women aren't children anymore, they reconcile they're interests and priorities.
The NYT will never gain immunity from running stories
NYT et al exhibit a progressive condition. However, people can socially distance themselves and mitigate progress of the contagion. 16 trimesters... enough.
The purity of the master gender must be preserved.
Masculine and feminine chauvinist pigs. Fortunately, men and women are not nearly so obsessed with their physical and mental attributes. Or are we? No, it would never work. There is a time and place for everything. Context matters. Principles matter.
"A NYT piece by Sharon Moalem — "a scientist, physician, and the author of the forthcoming 'The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women.'"
Irrelevant if that is all the credentials she has to prove expertise on the topic of genetics. She has identified what likely is a spurious relationship. As others above have noted, there are plenty of other behaviors men exhibit that could explain the difference in death rates.
SMMFH. The sh*t the NY Times ours out, and that you choose to blog about ... Jeez, what a waste.
Specially ze Arian Women!
The phrase "genetic superiority" sounds awful,
Only if you hate Science™.
But there is no genetic superiority of one sex over the other since each person has one male and one female parent: both sexes are equally successful, genetically.
>>574 female sex
872 male sex
I demand equality! NYC needs to kill 298 women to make sure women are equally represented.
We need death that looks like America!
White men die
Women and minorities hardest hit
Smoking rates:
China 53% of Men 3% of Women
Italy 29% of Men 20% of women
Spain 31% of Men 27% of Women
US 20% of Men 15% of Women
Women better at making healthy choices or genetically superior?
This sounds an awful lot like, "When women do better than men, it's because they're genetically superior. When women do worse than men, it's because they're oppressed."
I like to think that eventually, logical contradictions are recognized and dealt with.
I would wager there was scientific literature in the 19th century proving the superiority of males over females.
Oh, yes indeed. It even figures in one of the watershed moments in American law. Back in the early 1900s was the first "Brandeis brief", a submission to the court that purported to give it the benefit of science, rather than being limited to sterile old cases. This brief, in favor of laws that limited the hours of women more than men, assured the court that they were more fragile and delicate than men. It is somewhat of an embarrassment to the present day legal establishment.
I demand equality! NYC needs to kill 298 women to make sure women are equally represented.
You're right, it not fair that women only get 66% of men's death for equal disease.
Might it have something to do with women, on average, preferring warmer temperatures in the home than men. There is evidence the virus persists longer in cool dry air. Although Althouse famously prefers cooler sleeping temperatures, she might consider turning the thermostat and humidifier up.
really is talking about genetics
I just saw that...what do you think the phrase "genetic superiority" refers to if not genetics?
That second X chromosome is largely duplicative. The Y increases the variety of genes in men. Diversity!
Well, there's this, in 30 years my mother, then my mother-in-law, my wife, finally my eldest daughter all died of cancer. My father-in-law out lived his wife by 20 years, living long enough to blow through a second marriage. My father eventually died at 98, outliving two wives. When I look at my formal wedding photograph circa 1978, with both happy sets of parents standing behind their young progeny, I see that, despite being a man, I'm the only one left living.
"The reason why women whine about needed "affirmative action" to "break the glass ceiling" is because, pretty much no matter what it is, there are more men who are better at it than women."
Except having babies, of course. It's almost like women are biologically specialized to produce children.
I'd guess there are behavioral differences that account for this, such as men's willingness to take greater risks and their willingness to just tough it out rather than seek medical condition.
Nonetheless, we surely shouldn't be blind to the viewpoint that surviving can be a greater burden than dying. At least, that seems to be Hillary Clinton's opinion:
"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands,
their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only
homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and
sometimes, more frequently in today's warfare, victims. Women are often left
with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children." -- Hillary Clinton
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