2150: Death of the Last Living Man

In a confusing yet fascinating reversal of...everything I have come to understand about gender and research since my university days (which wasn't that long ago, really...harrrumph), this researcher of gender-specific medicine is proposing that we are hyper-focusing on women's health to the detriment of men's health, and we're being really sexist against men, and men need us to focus more on them. The researcher's a woman.

But it doesn't end there.

The reason this matters, she says, is because males are actually a much weaker and more vulnerable class of humans than females. (Trying...to...stifle... snicker...Sorry, it's a reflex born in my women's studies class, circa 1992.)

Yes, that's right. Even from the safe confines of the womb itself, males' chance of survival is much lower than females'.

I think many of us have heard hints of this in the news, on science shows, etc., over the last few years. You know, like how females are more resistant to disease. Females are miscarried less often. Females don't drag-race drunk and naked down a two-lane highway at 3:00 in the morning. Females are less likely to develop autism and dyslexia. Females don't blow in dogs' faces until said dogs inevitably bite off said blowers' faces. Females have heart attacks a decade later than men. The list goes on and on.

My point isn't to say that females are superior. My point is that the researcher's editorial draws some really interesting conclusions.

Like the idea that the reason so many cultures value males so much more than females is that they're actually trying to ensure male survival, which is much less likely than female survival. Er, well...okay...I guess. Doesn't really explain the whole 'burning widows at the stake' craze of 1602 (or whenever) or that whole Chinese foot-binding racket. On second thought, maybe scientists aren't so good at the 'social theory' thing...

And she also suggests that we're seeing a big decline in the birth of males in industrialized society--and nobody knows why. But they think it's because we're waiting longer to have kids and your chances of conceiving a boy go down as you get older. Fascinating.

And then there's the issue of mental illness, like depression. She touches on the possibility that our stats, which suggest women are much more likely to suffer from these afflictions, are totally inaccurate and skewed by social norms preventing men from 'fessin up to feelin' down.

None of this is really news, but what's most interesting is the whole reversal of what has become status quo, seemingly back to what was status quo 40 years ago, and which led to the revolution which led to the new status quo, which focuses (apparently excessively) on women.

Let me confuse you more.

See, I think changes in social 'paradigms', or patterns of thinking, work like one of those old-fashioned scales--you know, the ones 'Justice' carries around with her all the time. You have an imbalance--like the fate of women in most cultures for, oh, the last 10,000 years. Something happens to address it--like the 20th century, with Suffragettes, women's lib--and extra weight gets thrown on the side of the underdog. But of course, when you throw something on a scale, it's going to over-balance before it corrects itself and perfect balance is achieved.

Wouldn't it be cool if this person's article reflects, right before our very eyes, the moment when that balance started to be corrected--the balance between men and women...or at least between our rights when it comes to health research? Because she doesn't say 'stop focusing on women and focus on men instead.' She says 'lets not exclude either gender from research...lets..treat the genders equally.' It's the first time I can remember reading something that tempered in a while.

Maybe articles like this one are the tipping point, and we're seeing it unfold. That would be pretty cool. Because then we could move beyond the battle of the sexes to whatever wonderful thing awaits us when we finally wake up and realize we're only fighting with ourselves.