IS MAN THE WEAKER SEX?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 138, 13 February 1942, Page 19

IS MAN THE WEAKER

SEX?

A Japanese Journal Thinks So

FEW weeks ago we published in The Listener an_ article. on "Women of Japan" which drew what is from their point of view a gloomy picture of political and econemic thraldom. But apparently the women of Japan have the advantage over the men in one important particular. They are, if we are to believe an article in the Kobe Japan Weekly Chronicle, physically stronger than the men. Is our Pacific problem therefore to be complicated by the fact that even if we conquer Japan’s invading army we have still to overcome the stronger force: of Japan’s women at home? The answer is fortunately "no," for the facts cited in this extract refer not merely to the women of Japan but to the women of the world as a whole. In which case our own female population should prove more than a match for either the men or women of Japan. Here is the-article from the abovementioned Japanese newspaper: "Man, we are being told again, is the weaker sex. The war in Europe is proving it. I was astonished to see. how quickly the younger men collapsed," said a young girl the other day to reporters who sought her opinion on open boat voyaging in mid-Atlantic in midwinter. This young woman’s discovery was, however, confirmation «: what the —

scientists have been telling us all along. Man ‘has always been known as the weaker sex.

tie 18 more prone to die at every stage from birth to old age. He is also more likely to suffer severely from influenza, and is more susceptible to almost every disease which is not, for

physical reasons, confined to one or other of the sexes. Whatever approach is taken, the record is a sorry one. The ophthalmologist brings the taunt of colour-blind-ness. Not one woman in a _ thousand, it is.said, is so afflicted. Among males, although different figures’ are quoted, a reasonable estimate appears to be about ten per cent, Physiologists point out that women have better hearing on the average, and a keener sense of touch. Of memory the psychologists speak with absolute certainty; the average girl or woman is better than the avcr-

age man-and, indeed the average huse band is painfully aware. of the superior memory of his wife. Nor is this the worst testimony the psychologist can offer. There are fewer women who are left-handed, stammer or suffer from a squint-the first two being notoriously associated with nervous troubles, the last more doubtfully so. So clearly, however, has Nature recognised the weakness, that at birth there is a preponderance of boy babies, common to all countries and races, and common, also, though in various degrees, to almost every form of life."