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Girls who share a womb with boys tend to make less money than those with twin sisters
Female twins who shared a womb with a brother tend to get less education, earn less money, and have fewer children than girls who shared a womb with another girl, according to an analysis of hundreds of thousands of births over more than a decade. Researchers suspect the cause is testosterone exposure during fetal development, though the exact mechanism remains a mystery.
"I think it's a really interesting look at how this really complicated system might impact females," says Talia Melber, a biological anthropologist at the University of Illinois in Urbana who wasn't involved in the study. Still, she cautions, a lot more work needs to be done to establish a causal link.
Fraternal twins, in which each of two eggs is fertilized by a different sperm cell, occur in about four of every 1000 births. About half of those result in male-female twin pairs. Typically, about 8 to 9 weeks into gestation, a male fetus begins to produce massive amounts of testosterone, which helps jump-start the development of male reproductive organs and brain architecture; female fetuses receive only modest amounts of the sex hormone. In male-female twins, though, small amounts of the male fetus's testosterone can seep into the female twin's separate amniotic sac. Scientists have known about this phenomenon for decades, and have been arguing for just as long over what effects, if any, it has on women later in life.
[...] Controlling for factors such as birth weight and maternal education, women who had a male twin were 15.2% less likely to graduate from high school, 3.9% less likely to finish college, and 11.7% less likely to be married—compared with women with a twin sister. They also had 5.8% fewer children and earned 8.6% less money, the team reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Evidence that prenatal testosterone transfer from male twins reduces the fertility and socioeconomic success of their female co-twins (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1812786116) (DX)
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday March 20 2019, @09:22AM (2 children)
Yet in almost every case you refer to them as men. Not 'the sexists', or 'the racists', or 'the patriarchy', or 'the upper class', or 'the 1%' or even 'evil sociopathic bastards'.
The group 'men' includes many people who are not responsible for the problems, but by using by the group name you include them.
Some Mexicans are drug dealers. Is it acceptable to say 'all Mexicans are drug dealers'?
Some African-americans are violent muggers. Is it acceptable to say 'all African-americans are violent criminals'?
Some men are sexist, racist pigs. Is it acceptable to say 'all men are sexist, racist pigs'?
I think the first part is overly simplistic, but I agree with the bit I italicized. But you are contributing to the very problem you are complaining about by then referring to them as 'men' every time you have a problem with someone's behaviour.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 20 2019, @09:56AM (1 child)
This must be that "fragile masculinity" I keep hearing about so often recently...
Try it like this: "in the set of [people who do $BAD_STUFF], it is observed that most of the members of the set are men." Does that help any? I'm not backing off this, because I'm not wrong.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 20 2019, @06:40PM
My wife made me do it.