Filthy Men Deserve to Die

This may seem an inappropriate image, but read on…

I have been paying scant attention to the statistics on Covid-19. For one thing, it seems that everyone else is obsessing over them. But more importantly, it’s a couple of years premature yet. I suspect that lockdown will ultimately prove responsible for increasing the number of deaths, by inhibiting herd immunity and as a result of its economic impact – but time will tell. For now, and because I know readers will be disappointed if I give you no stats at all, here’s my take on the UK position regarding excess male mortality,

Figure 1: Based on data from ONS Deaths Registered Weekly in England & Wales, Provisional: week ending 15 May 2020

Do please note that you cannot deduce the effect of sex on mortality by taking the ratio of the total deaths. The dominant effect of age means that most people (60%) are dying of Covid-19 in an age range (>79) such that most men are already dead of other causes, and hence women outnumber men substantially in that population. When the final stats for 2020 are in, I’m sure lots of people will be doing multivariate regressions to isolate the different effects. For now the above graph suggests the gender effect is about a factor of 2.

One thing was predictable: when times are hard, people double-down on their prejudices. Inevitably the virus merely presents another opportunity for a spot of man-bashing. One of the more disgusting tendencies of feminists is using their access to media outlets, newspaper columns (and even Parliament) to dis their own husbands. The Prime Minister’s beloved sister, Rachael, did just that recently. Apparently men are enjoying being at home and don’t much want to get back to work. Women, on the other hand – at least those who agree with Rachael Johnson – want their men to bugger off back to work asap. What does that tell us about how much the two sexes enjoy their usual lifestyles? With all the tact and self-awareness one usually associates with feminists, Johnson concluded her piece with “Women of Britain say GO!”. Very revealing. Riff on that one, readers.

The ever-lovely Janet Street-Porter has usefully summed up the thrust of the narrative on Covid-and-gender claiming that it’s women who bear the brunt of the misery whilst being ignored. (We know that women’s voices are silenced because they tell us so daily on a hundred mainstream news and media outlets). Here’s what Street-Porter wrote,

The vast majority (60%) of coronavirus victims are male – probably because men are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease and chronic lung conditions.

To be blunt, more men than women have chosen risky behaviour – booze, fags and drugs, all of which makes them vulnerable. 

Plus, there’s plenty of evidence that men aren’t so bothered about hand washing and general cleanliness and up to 50% of young males are now flouting social distancing and meeting their mates. In this crisis, women have toed the line, done everything we’ve been asked – and yet we’ve been treated appallingly.

This crisis continues to be navigated by men and on current evidence, they haven’t a clue. Our macho Prime Minister continues to use the language of war to ‘fight’ this disease, when what we need is emotional intelligence – empathy, soothing words to build community support through exhausting and trying times.”

Did you spot all the empirical sources which underpin those claims? No?

The “more men die, women suffer most” narrative is everywhere. Actually, it can be worse than that: the first part of that statement is often omitted entirely and we just get “women suffer most”. This is the variant most common in the corridors of power. I refer you to GlassBlindSpot’s summary of two hours of Women and Equalities Committee meeting which included just 51 seconds on men. (Incidentally, given that the two fairly clear correlates with mortality to emerge so far are (i) men, and, (ii) ethnic minorities, the fact that 9 of the 11 members of the WEC are white women rather raises the question: why do the WEC think they are the appropriate body to discuss the impact of C-19? This is rhetorical – the purpose of the WEC is to spin the issue into a woman’s issue).

Another example of an official body which ignores the “more men die” part of the story is the EHRC Wales in their recent Parliamentary briefing paper. Their depiction of the unequal impact of Covid-19 is that it applies to, “older and disabled people, some ethnic minorities, some women and people living in socio-economic disadvantage”. Obviously there’s lots in their paper about VAWG, and space to give Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities their obligatory mention – but men? No. Nada.

Here’s another example of the genre “women most affected” coming from people in positions of authority. This one is Debora Price, Professor of Social Gerontology, University of Manchester and President of the British Gerontology Society. She speaks in this video, at 40:00 minutes, or you can see her slides here. It’s worth listening to the video (or a glance at the slides). Pay gap and other financial disadvantages figure large. One of my favourites is the claim that older women are particularly impacted, and care home deaths “are a gendered issue”. Well, bloody obviously – anyone who’s visited a care home knows that they are overwhelmingly dominated by women. Those cunning men manage to wangle their way out of being disadvantaged by Covid-19 by sneakily being already dead. Male privilege again, see.

But the part of Price’s talk I’d like to draw to your attention is,

Covid-19 seems to be making men sicker and leading to greater male mortality at all ages. Focus so far in the public domain has been very much on men – Including some discussion of exaggerated masculine behaviours in the face of catastrophic threats, e.g., less hand washing, less social distancing (war metaphors = a real man can fight and defeat the virus).”

See how “more men die” is immediately followed by “it’s men’s own fault”. It always is. Male suicide, male failure in education, male victims of domestic abuse, men’s mental illnesses, men’s health disadvantages, men’s alienation from their own children…they are all men’s own fault. (Unlike women’s disadvantages, of course, which only a hateful sexist bigot would suggest was their own fault).

The psychology of this came home to me forcibly when street-campaigning against male genital mutilation. Feminist types are wont to react to you, not merely by disagreeing, but with passionate anger. I was quite baffled. Whilst I can understand some people may have a different opinion, where does that anger come from? I could understand anger if I were campaigning in favour of cutting body parts of babies – but why should anyone be so cross about campaigning against it? The answer, I believe, is that such people – feminists – cannot bear the spotlight of concern being turned on males – even male babies. The spotlight of concern must always be upon females. It’s more than just the empathy gap; women must be granted the monopoly of concern, not merely most of it.

But I want to focus on the hand washing thing.

As soon as hand washing became the cause du jour I knew where this would go. Janet Street-Porter has informed us that “men aren’t so bothered about hand washing and general cleanliness” and Debora Price confidently asserts that there is “less hand washing” by men because of their “exaggerated masculine behaviours”. Sources, at all? The “men are filthy beasts” narrative is just another part of “it’s men’s own fault”. It’s the only reaction to male disadvantages that is possible within feminist psychology.  

Dr Sara Kayat, a UK GP, shared here some of her theories as to why Corvid-19 appears deadlier for men. Top of her list is hand-washing habits. She writes,

The World Health Organisation has continually advised to frequently wash your hands with soap as the best and most cost-effective method to control the spread of Covid-19. However, studies suggest that men tend to wash their hands with soap less often than women. While a recent study concluded that on average, most countries’ hand-washing habits increased, there was still a noted difference as 57% of women were more likely to adopt increased hand-washing and hand-sanitising behaviour, compared to just 51% of men.”

Not all that much difference, I note.

Here’s another from the USAPP (American Politics and Policy) whose central mission is, they tell us, “to increase the public understanding of social science”. In a piece titled, “How men’s misplaced sense of masculinity in the face of Covid-19 may be killing them” we read,

 The evidence and messaging are clear – one of the most important ways that people can protect themselves and others from the spread of Covid-19 is to frequently wash their hands. And yet, according to survey data, men are still washing their hands less often than women. Using survey data, Dan Cassino finds that men who feel that they have the same chance of dying from Covid-19 as women are less likely to wash their hands, potentially because they are doubling down on their masculine identities in the face of a threat that they can’t control.”

“potentially because”, eh? So, that bit was just made up, then. They continue,

In survey after survey, we see that American men just aren’t washing their hands at the same rates as American women. At a moment when health experts are begging Americans to wash their hands frequently in order to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, why are American men lagging? In recent data – collected between March 10th and 16th by USC’s Understanding America Survey – 91 percent of women say that they’re washing their hands more frequently because of the Covid-19 pandemic, compared with only 85 percent of men.”

(The same source goes on to state: “Democrats are more likely to report washing their hands frequently than Republicans” – absolutely no bias there, I’m sure).

Again, the difference is not that marked. But anything will do to motivate man-bashing. And all these sources depend upon the accuracy of self-reporting. Could there be a gender effect in that accuracy? Might one sex be more keen than the other to appear to be a clean person? Wash my mouth out for even suggesting it!

Here’s another.

But even if the identified 6% difference between the sexes in hand washing is correct, it hardly contributes much to a roughly 100% greater male death rate. And, of course, it’s not men’s infection rate which is greater – it’s their mortality. This obvious point is conveniently ignored by all those commentators desperate to neutralise male disadvantage and turn it into “women most affected” as quickly as possible.

The reason why I alighted on the hand-washing topic is that I had a distant memory of reading a paper on bacteria assays carried out on hand swabs, disaggregated by sex – and a finding that ran counter to the “filthy men” narrative. I’ll get to that shortly. But the reason why, many years ago now, I had an interest in the topic bears a short digression.

I used to work in a large office. The management were very safety conscious and kept meticulous records of accidents and near-misses. Like virtually everywhere else, the overwhelming majority of accidents were due to slips, trips and falls – especially on staircases. The company instituted a policy of making holding the handrail on stairs obligatory. One woman complained on the grounds that at the bottom of the staircase was the gents’ toilet. She did not elaborate, but the implication was clear. She did not want to touch a handrail which some filthy man emerging from the toilet had touched before her. The women’s toilet was in the same place, by the way, but obviously no one made an objection on those grounds (because that would be the most hateful misogyny – yes, it would).

So, that’s when I initially researched the facts on bacteria-on-hands-by-sex. (Incidentally, urine is virtually sterile – but I find no one is ever very impressed by that observation). I empasise that the sources below refer to bacteria, not viruses. How indicative they may be for viruses I leave to your judgment.  

Consider firstly, “The influence of sex, handedness, and washing on the diversity of hand surface bacteria” by Noah Fierer et al (PNAS 2008). Extracts as follows,

The diversity of skin-associated bacterial communities was surprisingly high; a typical hand surface harbored >150 unique species-level bacterial phylotypes, and we identified a total of 4,742 unique phylotypes across all of the hands examined.” (27 men, 24 women).

Men and women harbor significantly different bacterial communities on their hand surfaces…. Interestingly, the palms of women were also found to harbor significantly greater bacterial diversity than those of men, whether diversity was assessed by examining the overall phylogenetic structure on each hand (Fig. 2A) or the average number of phylotypes per hand (Fig. 2B).

We do not know what drives these differences in overall diversity, but differences in skin pH may be influential. Men generally have more acidic skin than women and work from other microbial habitats has shown that microbial diversity is often lower in more acidic environments. Other explanations for why men and women appear to harbor distinct hand bacterial communities may include differences in sweat or sebum production, frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics application, skin thickness, or hormone production.”

Personally I find it entirely unsurprising that women’s hands tend to have a greater range of bacteria. Women’s hands tend to be warmer and more moist than men’s hands, and these are the conditions which promote bacterial growth. It has little to do with hygiene.

Figure 2: From Fierer et al (PNAS 2008)

The 2010 paper, “Dirty hands: bacteria of faecal origin on commuters’ hands” by Judah et al took hand swabs from members of the public using public transport (buses and trains), N = 404. Data was gathered at five major cities and concentrated upon bacteria of faecal origin. Bus users were more contaminated than train users. Data from three cities (London, Cardiff, Birmingham) indicated that a greater percentage of women than men had contaminated hands. Data from two cities (Liverpool, Newcastle) indicated that a greater percentage of men than women had contaminated hands. Overall there was no significant difference, see Table 1.

Table 1. Prevalence of faecal organisms by city and gender, from Judah et al, 2010. Percentages with contaminated hands.

CityMenWomen
London6%20%
Cardiff15%29%
Birmingham23%26%
Liverpool36%31%
Newcastle57%31%
Overall28%27%

Covid-19 being worldwide, this one may also be relevant: “Bacterial and Parasitic Assessment from Fingernails in Debre Markos, Northwest Ethiopia”, by Abeba Mengis et al (2018). This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of bacteria and intestinal parasites among food handlers in Ethiopia. Table 4 of the paper indicates that 27% of men and 31% of women were found to test positive.

Conclusions

  • Covid-19 is yet another opportunity for the man-bashers to indulge their prejudice.
  • Claiming that men’s greater mortality may be related to their less frequent hand washing is illogical as the gender effect of Covid-19 is on mortality, not infection.
  • In any case, the extent of the sex difference in hand washing (6%) is slight compared with the substantial difference in mortality (100%).
  • Men do not appear to have higher levels of hand-borne pathogens than women, at least as judged from bacterial assays.  
  • In short, the narrative is – as usual – bollocks.

16 thoughts on “Filthy Men Deserve to Die

  1. Noel

    I have noticed throughout my life that in fact women DO wash their hands more often. They dip their fingers in water and dry them with a towel, thereby transferring any dirt to said towel. All the men I have known wash their hands thoroughly and use a nail brush. I am a man but spent years working with, mainly female, nurses..

    Reply
  2. Philip Griffiths

    Some handwashing studies are based on soap disappearance in public toilets. The problem here is that women are more likely to take children into the toilet and wash their hands as well as their own. In at least one study those children were not counted giving a higher rate of soap use per adult woman. The main message of these studies is that very few of us wash our hands as often and thoroughly as we should.
    One study showed a greater increase in handwashing among men in response to the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic ie they were more not less responsive to public health messages
    I was involved with an unpublished audit based on covert observation in a hospital setting, that actually showed young women were less likely to wash their hands.
    As always the picture is much more nuanced than feminist journalists will have you believe.

    Reply
    1. William Collins Post author

      Thanks for that – it’s useful to have a comment from someone who has actually conducted observations.

      Reply
      1. Philip Griffiths

        Thank you,
        It was predictable that when the results were presented they were met with head shaking and ‘it must have done by a man’ (as if that of itself invalidated the data). In fact, the covert observations were made by a female medical student. In general, very few people, male or female, were ‘without sin’ when it came to hand hygiene.
        It was interesting that at the same audit meeting we presented our results, the Judah et al 2010 paper was cited but the data from Newcastle alone was ‘cherry-picked’ to support a preconceived notion and the remaining data were excluded – how typical.

        Reply
  3. Partridge

    I hesitate to suggest that women wash their hands more frequently because they.. er.. have more time on their hands.. :o)

    Reply
  4. Appius Solanus

    Thanks, William, for another great piece.
    It’s interesting that Ms Street-Porter should intimate that men are more likely to have underlying health conditions which render an individual at greater risk of a serious outcome from COVID-19 infection. According to the Statista website, a higher proportion of women were recorded as obese in 12 of the 19 years from 2000 to 2018. Proportions for the genders were even in 6 years and the prevalence was greater in men in one year (2013). The proportions are in the range of 20-30 %, showing a steady increase over the period. Obesity is classed as beginning at a BMI of 30 kg/m2. We often hear from fat activists (usually female) that it isn’t possible to assess whether a person is healthy simply by looking at them. Unfortunately, the latest science tells us, that if a person is obese then they are probably already ill. Obesity is a product of the illness not the factor which causes a person to become ill. A waist to height ratio of >0.5 is an extremely strong predictor of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinaemia (high blood insulin). High blood insulin is being seen as a very serious threat to health and is a major factor in the development of metabolic syndrome (high blood trigycerides, high blood sugar, large waist measurement, low HDL cholesterol and high blood pressure) which is associated with serious chronic disease. A paper published in 2012 by Beigh and Jain (Bioinformation 8(13) 613-616) found that, ‘Metabolic syndrome was present both in women and men corresponding to 29% and 23% of the women’s and men’s sample, respectively. The prevalence was higher in women than in men.’ Given the above one might rationally expect that women might be more severely affected by COVID-19 infection given their higher rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome and the positive impact of co-morbidities on COVID-19 adverse outcomes. However, as we all know there are a myriad of factors affecting the expression of this awful disease and one of them is the power of the female immune system. Caitlin Williams writes on the website ‘labroots’ in August 2018,
    ‘Previous research on the immune response variation between sexes has highlighted notable differences. Females are parasitized less often than men, with male immune systems having a lesser ability to fight off pathogens (my emphasis). While females often have a stronger immune response, this is not always beneficial, making them more susceptible to immunopathology such as autoimmunity compared to males.’
    Perhaps there is something to the stereotype of ‘man-flu’, with men being rendered incapacitated by bugs which the female immune system simply shrugs off. The price they pay for this, however, is that their immune systems are seemingly more likely to turn on themselves and start attacking their own health tissue.

    Reply
    1. William Collins Post author

      The mechanisms of lower male resilience to disease is one thing, but why it arose in evolution is another. It may be that the male genetic filter mechanism is the correct explanation of why anisogamous sexual reproduction arose, despite its two-fold cost in terms of reproduction rate. This posits that males (of all species) are “deliberately” made more susceptible to disease as a means of, or as a side-effect of, preferentially filtering out adverse mutations via men and hence protecting the critical path in reproduction, women. Discuss!

      Reply
  5. Nick Langford

    Does Janet Street Porter think that the reason Covid disproportionately affects BAME people is also down to poor hygiene? If not, how does she explain the inconsistency in her thinking?

    Reply
    1. William Collins Post author

      Oh, Nick. I know you’re just testing me. Consistency is a requirement only under reason, which is an aspect of patriarchal control. Black people are dying of C-19 more often because of oppression by white people. You knew that, I know.

      Reply
  6. Chaffers

    Don’t forget fingernails…

    My missus assures me that it is nigh on impossible to wipe your arse properly, or really at all, with long or synthetic nails. Hence she has short nails.

    Course feminists are more likely to have jobs that require no physical work, and this correlates to finger nail length. Indeed long nails are believed originally to denote someone above doing manual labour.

    Reply
  7. Labour_is_bunk

    “and up to 50% of young males are now flouting social distancing and meeting their mates.”

    From my personal observations, young women are far worse offenders.
    JSP needs to get out more. However, her response would probably be “I can’t – I’m being a good girl and cocooning myself”. That sort have an answer for everything.

    Reply
    1. Tim Eldridge

      In Australia, women in their 20s have the most confirmed COVID-19 cases of any demographic group and over 20% more than males in the same age group (currently 823 cases versus 679 cases). Australia’s high rate of testing and tracing, which is close to eliminating the virus in the community, means that there are almost certainly very few undetected cases. You can have a high degree of confidence in the figures, but one can only speculate on the reasons for the disparity.

      Reply
  8. Mr David Eggins

    Factual as ever. How about the statistics of “women” being an additional risk to men’s lives – would that be on a par with booze, drugs and cigs?

    Reply
  9. Nigel Johnson

    As always a very clear explanation of the facts. And an examination of attitudes that stem from the Victorian era and the notion of women (then this meant middle class women) as paragons of virtue, usually Christian virtue. With a mission to civilise nasty men.

    Reply

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