Scienctific American does it again: "Are Men the Weaker Sex?"

Submitted by DutchO on Sat, 2014-02-22 02:09

Here another female writer for Scientific American divulges her "scientific" proof that men are "inferior". Her conclusion? "While not forgoing the push for fairness and equality, it seems wise to accept the scientific reality of male weaknesses." Excerpt:

'We can, thankfully, remove one threat to the future existence of the human male from our worry list: The male Y chromosome, after dwindling from its original robust size over millions of years, apparently has halted its disappearing act.

But don’t start cheering yet. Contrary to cultural assumptions that boys are stronger and sturdier, basic biological weaknesses are built into the male of our species. These frailties leave them more vulnerable than girls to life’s hazards, including environmental pollutants such as insecticides, lead and plasticizers that target their brains or hormones. Several studies suggest that boys are harmed in some ways by these chemical exposures that girls are not. It’s man’s fate, so to speak.

First of all, human males are disappearing. Mother Nature has always acknowledged and compensated for the fragility and loss of boys by arranging for more of them: 106 male births to 100 female newborns over the course of human history. (Humans are not unique in this setup: Male piglets, as an example, are conceived in greater proportion to compensate for being more likely than female piglets to die before birth.) But in recent decades, from the United States to Japan, from Canada to northern Europe, wherever researchers have looked, the rate of male newborns has declined. Examining U. S. records of births for the years between 1970 and 1990, they found 1.7 fewer boys per 1,000 than in decades and centuries past; Japan’s loss in the same decades was 3.7 boys.'

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I read this start to finish, and didn't find any wording that is typical of the gleeful misandrist Feminist Hooey Machine-inspired babblings of the "ten-percenter"*. In fact the author seems to be raising an alarm that policy-makers, industrialists, and any one else with two brain cells to rub together ought to be paying attention to. Facts are facts. But her claim that males are "disappearing" is a bit dramatic. It's not as if 8 in 10 newborns are all female or 80% of newborn males have serious birth defects, etc. Higher rates of autism among boys, for example, may be tracable to endocrine-disrupting (ED) chemicals and males may disproportionately be affected by autism, but the rate of autism as a %age of the recent pop'n additions is still very low compared to the total number of recent additions. (If there is .0001% incidence of X one year and .0003% of it next year, one can claim X increased by 300% from last year to this year, and holy cow, something must be done, etc., but .003% is still pretty small compared to 100%. Also, it depends what X is. If you're talking about scooter accidents, for example, maybe it's just b/c scooter sales also surged last year. "Liars, damned liars, ...", and you know the rest.)

But don't get me wrong, her overall point is well-made and really, I don't see any misandry here. I wouldn't say misogyny is at work if an obstetrician or researcher of some kind published an article raising concerns for females' well-being based on recent noticable changes in newborn females' birth conditions, %age of new births, etc. In fact she ends the article with:

"While not forgoing the push for fairness and equality, it seems wise to accept the scientific reality of male weaknesses. This likely won’t mean the end of men, but their vulnerability to environmental contaminants and diseases could have serious ramifications for the future of the entire human race unless we find ways to protect them from harm."

These are much less the words of a feminist but more those of an anthropologist seeing a critical factor in the equation of population thriving/dwindling being added right before our eyes. Her opening sentence seems to be a defensive sop meant to fend off feminists, who are known for attacking authors who write anything that shows concerns for the status or condition of males for any reason. [These are the same feminists who stay utterly indifferent to things such as the conscription of boys into armed gangs or other groups which pretty much precludes their education too *and* places them in mortal jeopardy as well as slavery, but scream bloody murder if a girl can't go to school past grade 6. That also is wrong, but what's worse? Forced membership in an armed gang or military system at age 10 or just not moving on to grade 7?] And also notice how the article opened: "We can, thankfully, remove one threat to the future existence of the human male from our worry list..." Feminists don't open such articles as this one with a sentence like that.

All in all I'd say this article, like ones raising the alarm on boys' performance in schools/college attendance rates, are needed. A lot of the comments on the SA site are critical of it and accuse the author of misandry, but really, I can't say I concur with that opinion.

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* A "ten-percenter" is a particularly virulent kind of feminist who longingly awaits the day the Grand Male Reduction Plan can be implemented (how? birth attrition and selective abortion/insemination), leaving males only 10% of the human pop'n specifically and only for reproduction purposes. By this I mean as sperm donors; actual physical sex wouldn't be part of it. As an analogy for where men'd fit into this Great Feminist Society, think of a bear bile farm where the bears are hooked up to bile collectors and have tubes permanently stuck into their livers. Wouldn't take this analogy as a 1:1 image, but you get the idea.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2014-02-22 15:10

Apart from the deliberately provocative title (which probably wasn't written by the author), I didn't see anything misandrist about this article. It's just highlighting some of the ways in which males are uniquely vulnerable, and this is important to keep in mind to recognize that men and boys, like girls and women, have important issues that need to be addressed. Obviously females are more vulnerable in other ways. There is absolutely no way in which this article implies "inferiority" or "superiority". An article talking about how females get breast cancer and are mentally weaker (more prone to mental illness, etc), would not be "misogynist," just highlighting some important differences. The sexes face different evolutionary pressures and so are adapted in slightly different ways, obviously there are going to be tradeoffs.

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Submitted by PatriciaR on Sat, 2014-02-22 22:06