Mary Kenny
Even the grimmest times – as this Holy Week will be for many – bring revelations. And one of the aspects of the coronavirus (Covid-19) that most puzzles experts and scientists is – why are men much more likely to fall victim to the pandemic than women?
Men in their 40s and 50s are more than two-and-a-half times more likely to be victims than women in similar age-brackets. According to one study in The Lancet, 80% fatalities were men and 20% women.
This trend was first noticed in China, at the outbreak of the pandemic. But the WHO ascribed it to the fact that men smoke more than women, are more likely to have cardio-vascular disease, and have more unhealthy lifestyles.
However, the same social conditions do not apply in Italy, which, as we all know, has been horribly hit by the coronavirus. In Italy, as in most parts of Europe, there is a much smaller difference between male and female smoking habits. But men are still the majority Covid victims.
Difference
The boffins are now turning to an entirely new idea – or perhaps I should say an entirely old idea which has been dismissed by modern thinking: they are suggesting that men and women are biologically different. Who’d have thought it!
Females are born with two ‘xx’ chromosomes – males with an ‘x’ and a ‘y’ – and it is the ‘x’ chromosomes, it is now suggested, that gives women a more robust immune system.
Moreover, the more testosterone a male has – that’s the male hormone – the more vulnerable his immune system will be. Testosterone is associated with both virility and aggression, and yet, the paradox is that these tough, strong guys may well have weaker immunology.
Nature gave males bigger physiques and greater strength, but compensated women with superior powers in other areas – women can also have greater powers of endurance.
This throws into question the accepted wisdom of our times: that men and women are not only equal, but any differences perceived are merely ‘social constructs’ – that is, created by society. The American academic and influential feminist Judith Butler is the main source of this orthodoxy.
Politics
It has led, among other things, to a whole new field of ‘transgender’ politics, whereby males and females may ‘choose’ their sex. Damagingly, quite young children have been being instructed in this idea.
But now this pesky virus comes along, creating havoc, illness and death: but turning the boffins minds to question of fundamental male and female difference in basic biology.
A new avenue of research is opening up. The affirmation in Genesis that “male and female created he them” may well turn out to be a predictive pointer!
Many Colums to celebrate
There are several Irish saints called Colum – according to Pádraig Ó Riain’s lengthy Dictionary of Irish Saints which situates ancient Irish saints within their locality – including a female Colum, daughter of Neas.
There are saintly Colums in Offaly, Kinsale and Longfordpass. But the April Colum is he of Inishkeen in the barony of Rosclogher in Co. Leitrim, although he may have had some links with Moycullen in Co. Galway. This Colum may also have been known Mochamóg, and his feast day is April 13.
April 14 marks the feast day of St Cilléan. He was an abbot at Birr, Co. Offaly, and a signatory of the cáin, a significant ‘Law’ of the year 697. His name is sometimes rendered into English as Killian.
The loss of social conservatism
My son Ed West has written what I think is a very amusing book (‘a Mammy writes’!) about the way in which social conservativism has lost ground over the past 40 years.
He describes growing up with somewhat Bohemian parents (an understatement) in the Notting Hill Gate area [pictured above] of London where there were two choices of schools: a highly-disciplined Catholic comprehensive school and a trendy progressive school where pupils were allowed do as they pleased. Guess which one was over-subscribed by local parents desperate to get their kids in?
The book is called Small Men on the Wrong Side of History – that was a phrase used by President Obama to describe the unfashionability of conservative thinkers.