Before you crack open the champagne…
A new book Adam’s Curse: A Future without Men says that the Y chromosome is, as the elder Bush might have put it, in deep doo doo.
According to author Bryan Sykes, the Y chromosome, that very chromosome that determines maleness, inhabits “a graveyard of rotting genes,” and is headed for extinction.
This could be just a tad alarmist.
We hate to be party poopers, but, before the guy bashers throw a party, they should read a saner assessment from Washington Times columnist Suzanne Fields.
Sez Suzanne:
“The destiny of the diminishing male gene is not a new discovery, but Dr. Sykes sets the extinction date considerably sooner than other geneticists have, estimating that men will be infertile in only 5,000 generations, or 125,000 years. He puts men on notice. (There’s not a minute to waste.)
“But, fortunately, there’s time. Accommodations can be made. The vole, a mouse-like rodent, lost its Y chromosome a while back and it continues to supply male pests to the ecosystem. Dr. Sykes thinks it would be a good idea to dispense with the male, anyway. Women could fuse eggs in a lab and produce a race of women who would radically reduce aggression and brutality, criminal and war characteristics of dominant males. Dr. Sykes has been so busy in the lab that he obviously has no time to read the newspapers.”
While Fields isn’t alarmist about the Y chromosome, she does have some sobering thoughts on the state of manhood:
“You don’t have to be a degenerating gene to recognize that man is increasingly at a disadvantage. The generic postmodern male has become the nervous patient in the skit in which Rodney Dangerfield plays the shrink who tells his receptionist, “I’ll take all calls.”
“This is a state of (non) affairs that men have brought on themselves.
“They have tried on more outfits to define manliness than the emperor who ordered new clothes. We know what happened to him. Sensitive man proved he was merely too sensitive to reach for the check for dinner. The guy who went into the woods to beat the drums returned to the table with the same uncouth manners. Earth tones didn’t make either Al Gore or the alpha man more natural, and the metrosexual looks like a man seeking the approval of other men. (Those queer eyes for the straight guys don’t help matters either.)
“My mother always said that boys stopped growing into men when they began wearing cut-offs and flip-flops. I’ve heard other women speculate that real men disappeared when baggy pants two sizes too big (’prison pants,’ as they’re known in some neighborhoods) became the fashion for boys and young men who want to be boys. On the other hand, if such men have something to hide they might as well hide it.”
Suzanne goes on to praise Brad Miner’s new book on chivalry and the art of being a gentleman. Inkwell has just bought Mr. Miner’s book and plans to report on it within the next few weeks.
Poor Inkwell has been so glued to Mr. Miner’s book that she’d read it on buses and the subway–if some nice young man would offer her his seat so that she didn’t spend her time being jostled by crowds.