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INFORMER BIG IDEAS FOR A RICHER LIFE

would actually believe an operating manual could help.

It’s a tough one.  )) 
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But maybe a million dewey-eyed pop psychology addicts aren’t
wrong – or at least, not entirely wrong. Maybe there’s something 
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tangible at the root of all this.
Author Matt Ridley certainly thought so when he wrote Ge-
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nome, his modern classic of genetic lay-science. In it he dedicates  

 

It’s more than a little disheartening to walk
through a bookstore and be confronted with
the nearly endless rows of books proselytiz-
ing one or another system of redressing the
gender gap. As if male-female relations weren’t
muddled enough, we go and confuse things
further by dedicating an entire literary subgenre
to the problem. By Dylan Young
The Rules, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,
He’s Just Not That Into You, you name it, these glib
pamphlets claim to have the answers. Is your wife being
peevish? Does she disapprove of your favourite shirt?
Well, don’t read too much into it. She’s from Venus after
all. She may just want to snuggle. Or maybe you’re just
not that into her.
Forgetting for a moment the rude exhortations and
veiled threats of such literary gems as Why Men Marry
Bitches: A Woman’s Guide to Winning Her Man’s Heart and
Men Who Can’t Love: How to Recognize a Commitmentpho-
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an entire chapter to the rather dismaying sparring between the X
and Y chromosomes.
For those who have, quite reasonably, forgotten their high
school biology – a quick review. The X and Y chromosomes are
known as the sex chromosomes because, with a fair degree of cer-
tainty, they determine the sex of the body. Everybody inherits an
X from their mother. If you inherit a Y from your father, you are a
man. If you inherit an X from your father, you’re a woman. Pretty
basic, right?
When we inherit these chromosomes from our parents we in-
herit a whole set of determining genes. Certain traits, like colour-
blindness and hemophilia, are more likely to be inherited by men
because those disorders are on the X chromosome. And since men
have no spare X to fill in the gaps on the one they do have, men are
more susceptible to recessive traits. Are you still with me? Because
this is where it gets interesting.
Recent research concerning the X and Y chromosomes has
yielded some very unusual results – namely, that they don’t like
each other very much.
One of the first proofs that something funny was going on
between X and Y was when a scientist noticed that the sex
determining gene – the Y – was in Ridley’s words, attracting “to
its side other genes that benefitted males,” things like big muscles
and aggressiveness. These genes, while advantageous to one sex,
disadvantaged the other. As it would be if there were a gene that
made men leave the toilet seat up (there isn’t) and another that
allowed women to train them not to. These are known as sexually
antagonist genes.
Genes on the X or Y can also develop proficiencies for eliciting
desired responses from genes on the opposite chromosome. This is
illustrated by a study done with two different species of wolf spider.
In one group, males had evolved tufts on their forelegs that they
used in courtship. When female spiders were shown videos of male
spiders with no tufts, they would occasionally show their arousal
(yes, we are talking about spider porn). When the same female
spiders were shown videos of the males with tufts, they were ten
times more likely to get sexy. The females had evolved gradually to
be turned off, not on, by the males, and the males were gradually
evolving to increase their appeal. This perpetual game of genetic
tug-o-war is called antagonistic seduction.
So, maybe you aren’t having trouble communicating with your
girlfriend because you tried to “solve” the problem she only wanted )*)
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bic Man Before He Breaks Your Heart, let’s address what is to “share” with you. Maybe it’s just that 50,000 years of biological ())$)"

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not being said here. evolution has made you just about the perfect organisms for really *)#$#)
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I’m really not sure which is more galling: the notion getting at each other.
that, by virtue of maleness, my behaviour could be so ab- If the lessons of genetics and chromosomal conflict have any-
horrent to the opposite sex as to require a manual to give thing to teach us it’s that when men and women do manage to get )

it context or that my manly behaviour could be deemed together, we should definitely not take it for granted – because it’s
so basic, unreasoned and Pavlovian that the opposite sex a goddamn miracle of science.

82 Sharp September 2008 SHARPFORMEN.COM ILLUSTRATION: ROCCO COMMISSO