What do you think of "The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women" written by Sharon Moalem? What are the arguments against the idea that "women's biology is superior and better than men's because women live longer, and have a stronger immune system against diseases because of their genes"?

blue-gumball · 2020-09-24T02:54:31+00:00

This is so stupid. Superior how/why? This just seems like a stupid pissing contest initiated by a bitter insecure woman. With that being said...

Men have stronger muscles, naturally burn fat better and quicker, have better athletic capability, have drastic better tolerance to pain, quicker reflexes and much more than woman. Wouldn’t that make them genetically superior?

Men can also repopulate the world by impregnating more women without having to wait. Women have to wait 9 months. In the case of evolution and a races ability to thrive and not go extinct, this is extremely important.

Men are also braver in the face of danger. Once again, this was important when humans had to hunt and defend themselves.

So really, men are superior too in some ways.

Evolutionary and biologically speaking, both Men and Women compliment one another. Trying to determine which is genetically superior is really stupid.

By the way, the woman failed to take into consideration social/environmental factors. For example, perhaps men live less because they take more risks or work more dangerous jobs.

The funny thing is I initially wanted to comment about how neither is superior but if you look at everything from an unbiased view, it’s obvious men are in fact genetically superior. But once again, that doesn’t matter. Being genetically superior in some/many ways doesn’t mean that they are better. It’s just biology and evolution.

So, to the author. Congratulations, you played yourself. Men - 1. Typical Dumb feminist - 0

iainmf · 2020-09-24T02:33:54+00:00

Sounds like an argument that we need more support for men to me!

Cryptolexicon · 2020-09-24T01:32:41+00:00

These are really dangerous claims, for a number of reasons, and I'm afraid that people who aren't trained to detect formal fallacies and to understand what is good and bad research will fall for them.

The tone and expressions alone (Superior and Better for example) should put anyone on their guard. Inherently better and superior biologically: this drags us right back into substantialism. Substantialism goes hand in hand with Female Supremacism, and the very often expressed belief that anyone who doesn't have these genes is disabled and subhuman.

The important thing here would be to look at how the arguments are constructed and how inferences are designed... which data points have been excluded and why... if you read the summary of the book already you can spot multiple flaws.

There is so much to say about this book (my specialty is epistemology and Philosophy of Sciences) and I'm afraid something like this will be used to radicalize women even more.

Aarya1324 · 2020-09-24T00:54:13+00:00

Hmm, looks like the data is cherry picked and the author forgets to account for mordern medical interventions and the fact that most women do not work risky jobs which causes their mortality rate to be higher.

Also, the author conveniently forgets how humans are social animals and man and woman have always lived together and have been dependent on each other for survival.

spamtheant · 2020-09-24T10:24:09+00:00

This is childish nonsense. Men and women make up a single species it makes no sense to talk about one or the other as being genetically superior.

aussietoads · 2020-09-24T02:57:04+00:00

Meh, throw a mouse into the room and see whose survival response is superior.

ptr1492 · 2020-09-24T20:40:06+00:00

It’s rank nonsense. Seems to be a shameless and sensationalist way to sell books. He’s basically just shoehorning his own pet definition of “superiority” and applying it generally. As someone else mentioned, the findings are not necessarily invalid but are cherry-picked to fit a narrative.

For instance, we know that being the heterogametic sex (males, being XY, in the mammalian case) comes with some costs in terms of mortality and morbidity. That’s basic biology that everyone usually gets from grade-school genetics and comes from the fact that males are statistically more likely to express deleterious variants on their “unguarded” X chromosome. Seems like the author just expands this concept using some new findings about patterns of X-inactivation and mosaic expression across cell types (which aren’t really “new” findings, but may not be known to the general public). They are very interesting findings, to be sure, but differences in mortality and morbidity are also caused by a host of other factors, such as behaviors, exposure, and environment, which he kind of blows off. There’s an interesting study that looked at longevity between cloistered monks and nuns in similar conditions, and found only about a 1 year difference in favor of women. Quite a bit different than the ~5 or so years difference in the general population. Also, women do fare worse in many aspects, such as being more likely to die from influenza, get UTIs, autoimmune disorders, etc. So that’s one issue. Many of these differences result from an interaction between genes and environment, and we don’t know enough yet to tease out the relative contributions for all of them. What's interesting is that if we take the author at face value and accept his conclusions, then this would mean that we have a moral obligation to invest many more resources into men's health than into women's health, and I never see these people advocating for that.

Moreover, there are other facts to consider that are left out here, because we also know that being male (and the genes that are expressed to make one male) comes with several advantages, such as being bigger, stronger, and faster, as well as having higher pain tolerance (contrary to common belief), higher cardiac index, better lung capacity, less likely to get several mood disorders, higher reaction times, etc. Additionally, because males are heterogametic and more likely to express X-linked mutations, including "beneficial" ones, this could potentially explain why there is more variation in a lot of traits in males, including why there are more male geniuses (although I'll admit that this is a tentative hypothesis that needs more data, it's as least as plausible as some of the speculation the author engages in). Therefore, men could be said to be “genetically superior” if we define these as our criteria.

So clearly the entire argument rests on what is meant by “genetic superiority”. Superiority caused by genes? Superiority in what? The author is clearly talking in a medical context, but presents the information out of that context to talk about a general description of overall male and female biology. It's a dirty trick using language where he has forced his preferred conclusion. If we try to take a more “technical” approach in an attempt to be objective, we could take the overall evolutionary perspective. But this approach makes the whole enterprise completely nonsensical because “superior genes” refer to genes that increase an organism’s fitness (which has to do with reproductive output). In a bisexual species, every individual has a mother and a father, so the comparison is meaningless. The sexes do things differently because they are adapted to different problems. These adaptations result in trade-offs (size, strength, longevity, etc), so it’s better to be male if you’re a male organism, and vice-versa if you’re female. Talking about one sex’s biology as “better” than the other is completely asinine and misleading, because it’s not a valid comparison.

The second book review OP linked to by G. Vince raises numerous issues with the author's presentation. Additionally, this review of the book by a researcher echos many of these same concerns.

quietlurk10 · 2020-09-24T21:55:11+00:00

Didn’t take girl boss Feminists much to embrace eugenics.

Wonder if they’d be so gung ho about this if it said “white women are genetically superior because they live longer” which I’m guessing if broken down would be the result, as they are more likely to be affluent, access to medical care, and working safe jobs.

And like all race science, doesn’t take into account environment or a whole host of other factors. Break it down by income, then let’s see what the results are, my guess is that poor women don’t achieve the same success rates as their rich counterparts.

And then again if all this is true, wouldn’t that make men in definite need of protection? If you’re going to insist that the patriarchy really exists, and women are truly dominated by weaker creatures, are they really that superior?

mhandanna · 2020-09-24T03:33:24+00:00

If this was factual content it would be good to discuss and interesting. The issue is the language and nature and of course it is hugely one sided arguement that is delibrityly biased and provocative (the blurb above is fine, but other portions and his interviews and articles in general are far supremacy type language). Of course this is on purpose to generate controversy and get book sales and media and also, I am pretty sure this dude likely has a sexual fetish for female supermacy (by looking at his interviews it seems like it) so hes in the dream job.

With regards to the science of the claims. Some are true others are false and mostly they are one sided. For example mentioning women and colour but not mentioning men track objects better and aim better etc is one of a hundred examples.

Then it depends on your perspective. He is wording it in a way that suggest supremacy of XX etc. (which is fine if he isn;t also claiming this is a scientfic book it is pop culture book instead). You could just as easily argue XX gives you biological vulnerability, childbirth, pregnancy and an army of conditions and just normal symptoms related to that, periods, breast feeding, peeing sitting down and so on. They would also completely trump any so called benifit in any dieases or immune system. Clearly periods are not a medical health condition, but the effect is the exact same, if a man had what was a period, it would be classifed as a serious medical condition probably as burdensome as something such as low level Crohn's disease of something.

The problem with discussion on sex and gender is it turns to trash like this. Its an interesting topic but we have idiots like this discussing it.

Ody_ssey · 2020-09-24T03:38:38+00:00

World doesn't want conclusion. World wants results.

RockmanXX · 2020-09-24T07:21:47+00:00

The greater complexity of women’s biology, he claims, is the secret of their success.

I'm no expert biologist but isn't Women's biology literally burdened with procreation? Women's hardware is dedicated to incubate babies, on a personal level this taxes resources and weighs them down..

Her hyperefficient immune system shrugging off infection and maximising the benefits of vaccination

I seriously doubt that... If Women had better immunity then we would've already noticed it by now.

Statistics going back as far as 1662 show women living longer than men,

Pretty sure it has less to do with biology and more to do with how Society treats Men. Americans live longer than Africans, that doesn't have jack shit to do with genetics, does it?

user_miki · 2020-09-25T07:48:19+00:00

"Superior" invokes a subordination relationship a comparison of values in this case gender and/or race.This is another word stemmed from national socialism ideology( Aryan race superiority) and newer the postmodernist-marxism. The duality oppressor-oppressed translate to superior -inferior.This is a failed ideology ,stupid( but nevertheless dangerous) and will delay the advancement of human race knowledge if spreading.It reminds me the christian obscurantism that led to 1000 years of so called the "Dark Age".

tenchineuro · 2020-09-25T15:08:39+00:00

A woman has two X-chromosomes. Moalem believes that the X-chromosome has always received a poor press

When has the X-chromosome ever received bad press?

Years ago there were claims that 'males' were doomed because the Y chromosome was disappearing fast as well as claims that women were the source of human intelligence.

Statistics going back as far as 1662 show women living longer than men

And I'm pretty sure this is false, before the advent of modern medicine women tended to die younger do to complications of childbirth. It wasn't till the mid 1800s that the idea of doctors washing their hands came about, and the doctor who came up with idea paid a heavy price for it.

andejoh · 2020-09-26T02:48:34+00:00

It's a twist on Darwin or perhaps the "poor man's Darwin". Darwin touted the survival of the fittest, but she's not even talking actual survival because everyone dies. That's why Darwin looked at survival as having the ability to pass on your genes. It still takes an egg and a sperm, but we'll see in the future.

newhopefortarget · 2020-09-30T11:47:47+00:00

What purpose do women serve?

jukutt · 2020-09-24T09:32:41+00:00

Why would it make a difference? Why would I care? Even if women are smarter, stronger, better or whatever: The things that should matter at the end are morality, a world which reduces each's experience of pain and is able to live in harmony. I am aware that this sub is more like an echo chamber where biased people outrage about outlier situations amongst yes sayers, and have no interest in actually solving the problem or making a difference. Similar to how all these "female" subreddits work. But from time to time I want to try to bring some reason into it to see if I reach someone.

Jonhirsch202 · 2022-05-30T20:39:01+00:00

while it was very interesting and well written, there is scientific literature to suggest otherwise, case in point, Dr. Moalem's claim that females are more likely to make a faster recovery after sustaining a traumatic injury, Estrogen not only impediments injury healing, but from a statistically significant standpoint, men recover from various injuries, including head injuries and inflammation,fractues and swelling, in less time than females and are less likely to die after getting shot or sustaining extensive burns

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28173921/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110726093146.htm

https://www.biausa.org/public-affairs/media/sex-gender-and-traumatic-brain-injury-implications-for-better-science-and-practice

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222499/

While Dr. Moalem's book does contain ground-breaking information, it also bears several scientifically inaccuracies, case in point, his didn't heal faster from the accident 'because she's a woman', as males scientifically recover faster from injuries, including head injuries,lacerations,contusions,fractures, burns,swelling and also colds, flu, ecoli and inflammation. He did not conduct a case study or extrapolate statistics;that was merely an isolated event.

And what really constitutes the "genetic superiority" phenomenon?

Others also have a similar take on his publishing: https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_149000

Also, it is arguable that fathers contribute 52% genetically.

And scientifically, females and males have the same number of genes.

Lung cancer, heart disease and even septic shock fatalities are even higher among women in the US.

Autoimmune diseases and dementia kills more women than men every year.

And until the mid 1800s, women and men had very similar lifespans.

He also refuses to acknowledge the statistically accurate male variability.

It is somewhat arguable that males, on average, have slightly higher IQs,even in recent years, although it's safe to say that IQ among the sexes is pretty much on par.

Men also do not feel pain as intensely as their female counterparts.

His publishings can be very opinionated and anecdotal at times, lacking total support.

This is not about me as a male attempting to bash women, I assure you that I am very objective and impartial and simply have a pointing out certain aspects which haven't always received the necessary scrutiny which they require.

Comments