[net.misc] Male vs. Female

dvk (12/13/82)

In response to Mark Hallet(sp?):

	Foo! Any article that claims that being male is equivalent to having a
birth defect, and that female-ness is the normal state of affairs is GROSSLY
oversimplifying things.

	1) A parthenogenetic egg cell will become a haploid female. No big
surprise, since it has only 1 sex chromosome, and that is an X.

	2) Testicular feminization (genetic males with female bodies, including
"plumbing" (for those silly people who are offended by medical terms)) is
a more commonplace occurance than what I assume would be called ovarian
masculinization. So?

	3) A male is harder to make, and more things are likely to go wrong
(one reason, I suppose that more males are stillborn than females). However,
a female is much harded to maintain. (Consider: nourishing a parasite in your
own body, not rejecting it, not having an immune response to it, and (wonder
of wonders!) not screwing up *it's* immunse system, and delivering it intact!)
Damn! Nature is incredible!

	4) Testes have to descend - ovaries (hopefully) stay where they are.
If you (or your magazine) wants to consider that a defect in workmanship, I
say "pish-tush"!

	5) I am not making a personal attack - please don't misconstrue. It
is just that the field of human sexual development is so INCREDIBLY intricate,
(and relatively unknown, even considering what we DO know), that any statement
as simple as "sex-1 is better than sex-2 because..." should be rejected out
of hand. It just ain't that simple. (To even say "a fetus is male/female" is
a big mistake, because FIRST you have to define what "Male" or "Female" is.
Do you mean "zygotically" (and here you have the problem of sexual vs.
parthenogenetic reproduction), "genetically" (what do you call an XXY zygote?),
"physically" (is that internal, external, or both?), "endocrinologically"
(before or after puberty?), "socially" (yes, this makes a difference too, and
not just the obvious homo/heterosexual differentiations. There are MANY cases
of children being raised as girls, only to discover that what was thought to
be a clitoris was really a penis, and that testes descended following puberty,
along with the insurgence of beard growth. And I am NOT saying this only
happens in those countries with "savages". It is on clinical record in the US!)
Sex is just TOO COMPLICATED to be simplified by supermarket-checkout-line
rags that oversimplify!

	-Dan Klein, Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh

djb (12/15/82)

I'm fairly certain the magazine in question is the September issue of 
Science '82.  It's cover article is "She & He - Different Brains?" which 
discusses the current theories about differences in male and female brains, 
how these differences come about and how they account for behavioral 
differences.  It is an excellent article, and I can heartily recommend it to 
all of you that are interested in this topic.  I'd urge all those who insist 
on raving about this issue get the magazine and read the article first.

						David Bryant
						 cbosg!djb


ps: Science '82 is hardly a checkout-stand rag.

plw (12/16/82)

	Also see the Jan 83 issue of Science 83 - an article entitled
'The Evolution of Sex - Symons Says: Sex is something that women have and
men want.' It is about Donald Symons latest book 'The Evolution of Human
Sexuality'. (Semi-interesting)

					...we13!plw

mathon (12/21/82)

	Anybody who thinks that "sex is something females have and 
men want" has a little enjoyable learning to do about females.  I am not the
expert on this subject, however, my experience has been that there are
many females who would put this statement to rest quickly.