Bob CollinsAll those men who’ve chosen to ignore science in recent years have suddenly decided it’s not such a bad thing now that it’s declared that they’re suffering more than women when it comes to the flu.
The drama is real. It’s right there in a British medical journal which declared that men are immunologically inferior to women.
But we’ll be fine; don’t worry about us. Nothing perks us up like a little affirmation.
Researchers speculated that that sex dependent hormones influence the severity of influenza. Cells cultured from premenopausal women had a stronger immune response to the flu virus than those of men of the same age, but this was not the case with postmenopausal women.
In theory, we would see either less drama in older men with the flu, or more drama in older women with the flu, but — you may noticed — we don’t. But who are we to question science?
Not surprisingly, perhaps, is the lead researcher was a man in Newfoundland who was tired of being accused of exaggerating his flu symptoms.
Many women are are man flu deniers.
“God help the man trying to get through ‘man flu’ with a wife who’s been through chemo,” Katie Tuthill, a cancer survivor and former Boston TV anchor, tells the Boston Globe.
She described a familiar scenario: the kids get sick; then mom gets sick (but, importantly, still does the dishes and laundry and makes sure everyone gets to their sports games); then dad comes down with the illness, and his needs are so much greater than everyone else’s.
“When the ‘man flu’ comes,” Tuthill said, “you are at compassion fatigue.”
That’s the sort of thing that leads some men not to tell their significant others that they’re sick at all.
“Some men called me their heroes. Some women called me sexist/misogynist. Likewise, there were men who thought I made the entire male gender look weak, and also called me sexist,” Kyle Sue, the researcher on the study, said.
For the sickly man, the same issue of the medical journal has some fascinating reading to pass the time. Another study it published compares the sex advice of Siri and Google Assistant.
Science is awesome.
