It's Official: Men really are the weaker sex

[agentS]

Source: The Independent (UK)

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects.

It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.
---
Indeed, new research at the University of Rochester in New York state shows that boys born to mothers with raised levels of phthalates were more likely to have smaller penises and undescended testicles. They also had a shorter distance between their anus and genitalia, a classic sign of feminisation. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/its-official-men-really-are-the-weaker-sex-1055688.html

---

Any wonder why Viagra and penile "enhancement" drugs are so popular? Now we know why...

This is yet another serious problem that was made worse by lax Bush Administration oversight.

Men; we must take action. Our dicks are on the line here.

[xchrom]

1. your dick might be.

i'll remind everyone who reads this -- gay men and women do reproduce.

and without turkey basters too.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Someone better start studying parthenogenesis if the human race is going to survive.

All kidding aside folks, this is a serious problem. I wonder if all those debunkers of global climate change will be so willing to toss this finding aside and ignore it.

[Cleita]

4. Women have the babies. I guarantee you that no man would have the

fortitude to do it once, let alone several times. We are tougher.

[Orrex]

7. If we'd spent as much time evolving into that role, I'm sure that we feeble males would do just fine

It's not as though you modern-day tough females are the prototype, after all. You're the current model in a long-running production series.


As are the males with the alarming anus/genital proximity, of course...

[defendandprotect]

16. More males are lost in miscarriages -- more males die up to 2 years old --

[Cleita]

21. And this has what to do with "if men gave birth"?

[defendandprotect]

23. It has to do with main subject of male fragility ... misplaced ...

thanks for your help --

[Cleita]

24. Men are frailer. That's the point. n/t

[defendandprotect]

26. Thought I just said that --

???!!!

[Cleita]

50. You did and I agreed with you!

:shrug:

[jaysunb]

25. Having witnessed the birth of 3 of my

4 children, I agree wholedheartedly. LOL !

[Deja Q]

37. Except Thomas Beatie...

:yoiks:

[Leftist Agitator]

58. That is OUTRAGEOUSLY sexist!

You should be ashamed.

[MindPilot]

71. I have exactly zero tolerance for comments like that.

Another sexist alerted and ignored...

[Orrex]

5. I heard that phthalate-exposed boys were more likely to ride side-saddle and smoke Virginia Slims

[MercutioATC]

6. FINALLY! A reason to be glad that my mother was a health-food nut.

Lots of fresh organic produce and filtered water...way before organic and filtered were trendy.

It was a pain in the ass growing up, but at least my genitalia work correctly...

[Speck Tater]

8. Every species goes extinct eventually. So maybe it's just our turn. nt

[nolabels]

10. Okay, but you go first

:-)

[Mari333]

15. lolol

[pitohui]

33. every species DOESN'T go extinct eventually

the palmetto bug (a large cockroach) is still around as is the american alligator

that's 2 just from my neighborhood, i'm sure you can think of many more

[PittPoliSci]

88. man i'd hate to live where you do...

:) :hi:

[Radical Activist]

9. Fuck the spotted owl

This is what will make working class red staters finally become tree huggers. Tell them their penis is smaller and their son's will be too because of all the pollution.

[silverojo]

12. Now you're talking in terms a Freeper will understand

Muh dick! Muh dick! Oh-nooooooooo!!

[Radical Activist]

13. lol yep

I'm not kidding either. This is the kind of issue environmental groups need to latch onto.

[Alcibiades]

29. It's also the key to ending the war in Iraq

IEDs inflict terrible genital injuries. 18 year old kids will join up and take a chance at death, but there's no way they'd join if they realized the extent to which their dicks were on the line.

[Radical Activist]

47. lol

Sounds like a great new brochure for counter-recruitment efforts.

[Alcibiades]

48. There's a public statement out there

From the head urological surgeon in the Army in Iraq, who said he did one to two genital amputations a day there. There are a lot of boys coming home as dickless as G.I. Joe. For a kid, dying is something to which they think they are immune anyway, but to be condemned to a life of complete and utter dicklessness, well, it suddenly makes minimum wage at Hardees looks pretty good.

[Radical Activist]

49. especially considering

that recruiters use the implied promise of constant sex on return since soldiers are given an exalted status in society. I think you just figured out how to end the war in Iraq.

[NBachers]

60. And living in all that depleted uranium don't help much, either

[qwlauren35]

68. Good point!

I would bet that if more Republican men knew that weakened genitalia was the result of pollution and chemicals, then we would quickly become a greener nation.

By any means necessary...

[meow2u3]

30. This gives PSP a whole new meaning

Pollution Shrinks Penises :evilgrin:

[KT2000]

11. This is the tip of the iceberg

Tons of chemicals we are exposed to - and I mean tons! - are neurotoxic.
We call it learning disabilities, personality disorders, dementia, Parkinson's and many more.

Most of the illnesses caused by chemicals are not immediately fatal. They exist as chronic, debilitating illnesses for decades. Humanity will go out with a whimper.
I am sad to say even most people on DU do not take this very seriously.

We are all participating in a huge experiment with safeguards dictated by the corporations that make money on the products. Bush made matters worse but there are very few politicians, Democratic or Republican, who have the guts to face down the industries.

[defendandprotect]

17. Truth that rarely gets heard ....

[tom_paine]

35. Our politicians would wither and die before being forced to use scientific method

in their deliberations.

Most of them wouldn't even know how to do so, I am sure, sadly mirroring the majority-scientifically-illiterate nation we have created (or had created) for ourselves.

Let alone taking on the farsighted perspective is that everything they do, every law they pass, is in itself an experiment. (kudos to Kurt Vonnegut and Carl Sagan for that concept)

They are too odiously self-absorbed and most of them too scientifically-illiterate, to do so, even IF they wanted to (which they DON'T)

[IndianaGreen]

14. I thought that "gender-bending" effects were a lifestyle choice.

Pray to Jesus and it will all go away!

[defendandprotect]

18. When you base an economy on polluting nature, you're polluting yourself ---

Americans are really smart about really stupid things

[mrreowwr_kittty]

19. Quick! Get this to the freepers right away! nt

[MilesColtrane]

20. Better headline: Things Taint What They Used To Be.

[tom_paine]

40. Oh Lord, not another "there's nothing new under the sun" comment.

Before we get off on the wrong foot, Miles, let me step back and say I strongly and respectfully DISAGREE with such a commonplace and pedestrian "argument" (if a simple declarative statement leaving ZERO room for debate could even be considered as such) as that.

Why? What is different now than all those many millennia when that trite and hackneyed statement was actually true? (although the counter-argument, the equally hackneyed "even a broken clock is right twice a day", certainly rings true, as well)

But, what is different about our current situation that is absolutely without precedent in the million years of human history, both recorded and unrecorded?

The reason why your sentiment, which has been at least partially true for 999,930 years, has become less and less true this past 70 years is.............................

....................science and technology.

You see, basically everybody from 1930 on back, and at the very least from the 1850s on back, were basically scientifically illiterate, too. It wasn't their fault. Things just hadn't been discovered yet. But it was a form of scientific illiteracy nonetheless. People are by nature (and I include myself here) shortsighted fools led around by our hormones and reptile brains far more than we have EVER been guided by our reason. It is what it is to be human, one of the things anyway.

And if you don't believe me, consult any of the hundreds of publicly available scientific studies that prove just that. Most of the best ones depicting what shortsighted, gullible, easily manipulated fools we are (I include myself in that group, too) are not available for public scrutiny, as they were performed by the odious merger of psychology and advertising and thus cannot be seen by the public lest we become a little less foolish, gullible and easy to manipulate.

But I digress. We now have satellites that can give us accurate measurements not only of the area of ice extent but of the very sum total weight of ice mass that covers the Earth. We can now do what NONE of those "things 'taint what they used to be" people could EVER do, which is make long-term scientific studies of virtually any aspect of human existence.

Does this mean that scientists can't make mistakes, or self-servingly lie? Of course not. Scientists are human beings too, and we are just as shortsighted, gullible, easily manipulated fools as anyone else, in our own way.

It is only the Scientific Method that allows us to rise above our foolishness, even momentarily, and it certainly is no guarantee we will.

The Scientific Method, among other things, is all about constantly questioning one's self and others. Not to be a dick like Sean Hannity or serve an agenda, but (most of the time) to get to the scientific truth, no matter where it leads.

I have sat in rooms where men and women have presented their experimental data and conclusions, then the rest of the table went around and tried to tear the data and conclusions apart as hard as we could.

Why? Because if you can't defend the validity of your data and conclusions in a group of friendly, yet skeptical faces, you can't do it in front of actual skeptics. More importantly, though, if a true weakness in the data or conclusions is exposed in this extended brainstorming session, then the presenting scientist now has an idea of what experiments need to be perform to shore up this weakness, if it can be shored up.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Time once again for the Roundtable of Skeptical Friends, which does nothing but constantly make the mind stronger.

Sometimes, the data unfortunately leads to the opposite conclusion of what one's "personally held beliefs" are. Being a scientist means admitting that we were wrong and further pursuing the truth once that data conclusively shows it.

My lifetime observations in real life show me that a mere 1 in 10, perhaps 1 in 5 human beings are capable of admitting they are wrong in any way shape or form, no matter how conclusive the data. In scientists, this might be as high as 1 in 2 or 2 in 3 people.

Once again, it has little to with the scientists ourselves as it does the Scientific Method, which many of us have taken into our hearts and minds, and few outside science have (sadly).

I am sorry if I started off this post harshly. Sentiments like yours, so glibly tossed out as if it was the wisdom of the ages (when, if fact it is quite the opposite: old wisdom rendered mostly invalid by social and technological changes - note I said MOSTLY) piss me off.

But I have tried to calm down and speak to you with respect and understanding. If I failed, I apologize. But please try to hear and absorb what I am saying. Think back to your schooling, and remember the scientific method.

What does the Scientific Method tell us about sentiments like your last post?

[MilesColtrane]

42. Taint- def. a vulgar word for the perineum

The taint "taint" what it used to be.

Get it?

[msanthrope]

61. I got it, on the first read....some people need their snark meters

adjusted....

[tom_paine]

64. Sorry, Miles. Yes, sometimes I am one of the humor-impaired DUers and it looks like I was one here.

Mea culpa. (beats breast)

Actually, LOL. Big fan of taint jokes, myself. never even heard of the damned thing until an old HBO show called Mr. Show, which was a fucking laff riot, did a comedy bit about a sort of "mock Larry Flynt" but his magazine was called "Taint".

My God, I don't think I caught my breath for a WEEK from laughing so hard at that skit...for a WEEK.

People at work thought I'd gone nuts, laughing to myself at the lab bench like a nutsy.

Still, even if I was totally wrong about your post, I am glad you posted your joke, even if I misunderstood it. Why? Because it got me to finally sit down and write this thought out cogently after it's been rattling 'round 'mongst the cobwebs in my skull for months.

So, please disregard the last post in it's entirety, if it was all just a joke, as it relates to you personally.

See you 'round the boards, Miles :hi:

P.S. Next time, maybe a :sarcasm: smiley for those of us DUers who are a bit humor-impaired. (I can tell the damned jokes, it's just that I so thick when they are being told to ME...go figure)

[MilesColtrane]

66. No problemo.

(I happen to agree with your rant. I'm actually a subscriber to "Skeptic" magazine.)

[defendandprotect]

22. More males are lost in miscarriages -- more males die up to 2 years old --

[LiberalEsto]

27. We need to feed the chemicals to the rich

Let THEM walk around with the weentsy weenies, unable to reproduce.

[FlaGranny]

28. This reminds me

of a sci-fi story I read many years ago. If I remember correctly, all the male population became sterile, save for one. He was captured by women, who were now in control, and forced to "perform" constantly and it turned out NOT to be how men might fantasize it to be.

[NashVegas]

31. Sounds Like 'A Boy and His Dog'

Don Johnson was in the movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072730/

[FlaGranny]

38. Thanks, that must be it.

Funny thing, I never saw the movie, and didn't realize it was the same story.

[TahitiNut]

45. I loved that movie. The ending is hilarious.

:rofl:

[lumberjack_jeff]

54. Don't try to get between a man and his talking dog. nt

"Well, I'd certainly say she had marvelous judgment, Albert, if not particularly good taste."

[MattBaggins]

83. Electroejaculation

It's all the ladies would need us for.

[pitohui]

32. "the male gender is in danger?" pul-lease

exaggerate much? we are destroying the planet w. too many people and women ain't making all these babies on their own

the hormones/chemicals don't just affect men, look at the out of control breast cancer rates in women w. no known risk factors -- so we need to get a handle on the pollution -- but to say the male gender is in danger is just to make people laugh and figure it's all a tall tale -- get out on the hwy and you can see that we're not exactly in a shortage of young males -- our enormous crime problem is, to a very large part, kept so high because of all the young males to no purpose -- there are too many people and this would, i'm sorry to say, include too many young males

by all means, make an argument for getting the nasty chemicals out of our environment, but make it an argument that's believable

whoa, it's gonna make your balls shrink and your babies be mutants -- more believable if more people weren't breeding and more babies actually were mutants

see what's happening to the frogs to see a REAL instead of an imaginary problem

also don't get me wrong but is there a whiff of anti-transgender bias in this article? scary, scary, your kid might be one of THEM but don't worry, it was caused not by your genetics but by the chemical plant down the way???

guys needing viagra after a certain age isn't caused by chemicals, it's caused by reality of aging, which is something people are in so much denial about in the western world

don't get me wrong, we need to clean up our crap, but i don't know if articles like this help anything

[NashVegas]

44. On the Bright Side ...

Men who blame their emasculation on women's lib ...

[JAbuchan08]

53. Sorry, it comes off kind of sexist to me

[pattmarty]

34. We all have to make sure Worldnut daily, Drudge and all the.............

.......other rightie sights see this. This will set off their paranoia alarms of the Socialist takeover to feminize and gayize (????) our society by the Obama Socialists.

[Deja Q]

36. So they whipped out the red flag AFTER whipping out the tape measure?

Size queens.

:party:

[ensho]

39. men are getting breasts too, girls start bleeding at 9 and 10!

more babies are double sexed or have various combinations.

male fish in the Potomac River (by D.C.) have been found to contain roe.

the Barons have put man made hormones in food and now those hormones are in water found everywhere, be it river, lake, well, or city water.

blame the Barons

bring home all our military, train them in the was of HAZMAT, and start cleaning up this mess. make the Barons stop producing the toxins, and save us all.

[mopinko]

41. not disrupting evolution- accelerating it, which is how evolution works

just thought i would point that out. evolution isn't a gradual, incremental process. it happens when there are "disasters" like this.

and viagra was invented to keep men who were having sexual side effects from necessary medications from making a choice between sex and normal blood pressure, or glucose levels.

[Barrett808]

51. Or de-evolution

It's quite possible this pressure could select against sexual reproduction, and return the biosphere to the days of asexual reproduction. Just as we're regressing the oceans back to their primordial state, which was euxinic and dominated by microbes.

[progressoid]

43. Uh yeah.

There's only over 3 billion men left so...

[SKKY]

46. I for one welcome our new female overlords!!!!

[Generator]

52. Ciao Hombres!

It was (kinda) nice knowing yah. Bwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[windoe]

55. Save the Earth now that penises are endangered!! Emergency!

I do agree without those precious goodies life would be a lot less interesting... hey whatever it takes to clean up the planet.

[Jambalaya]

56. Male Phallacy

Well, now. I suppose there are those who can put the fallacy(!) of you have to be twice the woman to be half the man to rest,no?

[annabanana]

57. no no no.. they are faster, they just can't run as long....

different kind of strength..

[llmart]

59. This is about as much of a newsflash.....

as Bush saying we really ARE in a recession:)

Just kidding guys:)

[Barrett808]

62. My headline: "Pervasive chemicals damaging viability of all vertebrates"

Better conveys the immense scale of the doom more.

[Chan790]

63. +1

It's almost as if the article were written to ignite a debate so that people would miss the real message. Kind of insideous, write an article about something serious and fill it with things likely to trip people's sexism and homophobia triggers distracting people from the important topic.

[ensho]

65. exactly!

nt

[JerseygirlCT]

67. You know, I was willing to read until the tripe about tea sets and dolls

That's garbage.

WTF is a traditionally male toy? Something that hurts someone?

I've raised my boys to think nurturing is a good thing - and they've modeled their father in that, as well. If they wanted a doll, they got a doll. OTOH, they don't play with weapons, and we don't think hurting people or things is entertainment.

Sheesh.

[HillWilliam]

69. The only truly traditional one

is the one the nuns make us quit playing with lest we go blind.

It sorta worked. I only need glasses. :rofl:

[JerseygirlCT]

70. We called that a "play station"

And yes, it's terribly convenient, isn't it? Always ready to play with - or so they seem(ed) to think!

[HillWilliam]

73. Oh, if only (sigh)

in *-world, between work and worry, who has time? Methinks the nuns had WAY too much time and imagination. Not that we didn't have imagination :evilgrin: You can't beat nuns or Lutheran parochial teachers for all-out "zOMG, that never occurred to me" imagination.

The things I learned in school...

[MindPilot]

72. "WTF is a traditionally male toy? Something that hurts someone?"

Apparently your favorite toy is a very broad brush.

[JerseygirlCT]

74. Well, what did they mean?

Why is a doll or a tea set only appropriate for a girl and inappropriate for a boy?

Don't you think that sounds a bit like something out of a 1950s parenting manual? That's what I meant.

I didn't think many people seriously raised their kids like that anymore.

[Art_from_Ark]

75. Traditional toys for boys

(at least, this is how it was for me and my friends in the '60s)

Model cars, airplanes
Baseball, bat, glove, uniform
Football, uniform
GI Joe, toy soldiers
Toy guns, BB guns
Construction sets
Tonka trucks
Strategy games (Stratego, Battleship, Chess, etc.)

[JerseygirlCT]

76. Ok, so

the models, cars, construction, airplanes and sports stuff is all unisex so far as I can see. Same with the games.

And personally, I'd never give a kid a gun, even a toy gun (thus the "hurting things" remark).

That's what I mean. I see nothing intrinsically male about your list - but the study just plays on stereotypes that do no good for any kids. The idea that playing with toys someone thinks are "girl" toys will feminize boys is just nonsensical.

[Art_from_Ark]

77. Nothing intrinsically male?

Really?

Do you think the vast majority of girls care one whit about getting stuff related to football? Toy guns? GI Joe?
Do you think that an equal number of girls get into making model airplanes as boys? Or racing cars?

[JerseygirlCT]

79. These days?

I don't know that many kid play with GI Joe, period. Football? Sure - in my neighborhood, it's as likely to be the girls as the boys! Models,cars etc, absolutely.

Back in the 60s - no. That's my point, though. I think even the idea that they'd be looking at such things and testing for them is sort of a throw-back to when you and I were growing up - not to what kids are like today. I'd think we'd have learned a thing or two since then about forcing kids into artificial gender roles.

I would hope we've learned that teaching young boys to be good parents by encouraging their urge to play with dolls is a good thing, and that girls who want to go play football should be encouraged to do so, as well.

None of those toys is intrinsically male or female, IOW. They'd only been assigned those roles by a society that was pretty strictly divided on gender lines.

[One_Life_To_Give]

81. Boys with Make-up Sets?

We still do it to kids, even though more of us try not to. Particularly with Boys we as a society push them away from anything not concidered masculine. Look at how upset parents become when they observe their 4yr old boy wating to go out dressed as Princess Ariel, or Snow White, etc. How old are they when even 1 bully in there school can single them out for effeminate behavior. Just one child with an old school dad can push that view out to tens of students.

We may like to think that we treat boys and girls the same. But as a society we are very intolerant of Boys being anything but Masculine.

[JerseygirlCT]

84. Well, I guess I've got a higher tolerance than most...

but I take your point. I do think it's improved however.

But "studies" like the one cited in the OP - about how - horror! boys are being feminized by being allowed to play with dolls! - don't help any. Honestly, I can't think of anything I'd want my sons to aspire to more than to be good, loving, nurturing parents. Most important thing either my husband or I have done with our lives...

[davidthegnome]

78. Absurdly sexist, misleading title.

Welcome to ignore.

[DemBones DemBones]

80. You're putting the OP on Ignore for obeying LBN rules of using the actual title

of a newspaper article? Check the link -- it is the actual title. It is misleading but the OP didn't write it.

[specimenfred1984]

82. Time to suit up ladies, put on your football uniforms and start hitting each other

Drink lots of beer, inject lots of steroids and gamble like maniacs so you can lower yourselves to the chemically inferior level of men!

[OxQQme]

85. The Gate To Women's Country

by Sheri Tepper, speaks of this paradigm.

[onlyadream]

86. And being gay is a choice...

yeah, right. :eyes:

[onlyadream]

87. Don't use Splenda...

its chemical makeup is similiar to DDT - a pesticide and it mimicks estrogen. I found this out when I got hot flashes from drinking sucralose laced water (unknowingly).