For as long as Susan and I have been together, we have attributed various male behaviors to the Y Chromosome. You will recall from your biology classes that human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes – the biological hard-drives which record and pass on to subsequent generations all that is needed to build a living human being itself capable of reproducing (unless it watches FOX News and wears a MAGA hat – in which case a sexual lubricant like alcohol may be a required adjuvant).
The one pair of human chromosomes that are not like the other 22 are the sex chromosomes – X and Y. Human males have one of each; females have two X chromosomes. The non-sex chromosomes, autosomes (not to be confused with Autobots from the Transformer Sci-Fi franchise), have hundreds to a couple of thousand genes. The X chromosome has another 1500 beyond that, I have read. The Y chromosome, has a paltry 78-200, depending on who you read.
There’s a lot of information on the X chromosome, and most of it has nothing to do with female genitalia. Disorders of X chromosome genes include: the hemophilias, blue-red color blindness, fragile X syndrome associated with Trump-like mental deficiencies, several forms of muscular dystrophy, and many other genetic disorders. The Y chromosome, thankfully, carries so little information that it cannot be blamed for much human suffering. Well, unless you want to count a predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease, total body hairiness, and perhaps a few other maladies not yet named or explained.
Susan and I kid one another about gender stereotypical behaviors and the Y chromosome. For instance, I think that asking for directions is encoded on the X chromosome. Women are more than twice as likely to ask for directions than men because they have two X chromosomes. I have postulated something similar for reading manuals (a new electronic device, a microwave-ready meal, etc.)
A case in point: At Susan’s request, I bought her a smart watch for her birthday. I already have one, and hers is more capable than the one I acquired a couple of years ago. She set it up after reading the directions, and soon discovered that whenever she played an audio book or some other audio source on her phone, the audio played on her watch. Damn!
I suggested that she look at the settings on her watch’s phone app or on the watch itself to control this blue-tooth broadcasting behavior. She tinkered with it but was unable to resolve the issue. She went online to various sites in search of a solution. No joy. Sigh!
I asked her to let me look at her phone and then her watch, and after a short while of tinkering with the watch, I found its settings and silenced the unwanted blue tooth transmission of audio from phone to watch.
“You know how I figured it out?” I asked. Susan replied, “That information was on the Y chromosome.”
Well actually, I think that it takes two X chromosomes to ask for directions, to read the manual, and to do other things that women do so well and that we males do so poorly. Still, the drives to explore and to learn from experience, are unlocked by having only one X chromosome rather than two.
Well, it is all in jest, of course. We can’t reduce our gender-based stereotypes to X and Y chromosomes, but it gives the two of us a basis for a chuckle now and then.