February 27, 2012--The Incredibly Shrinking Man

Rona asked, "Do you remember that 1957 science fiction movie, The Incredibly Shrinking Man?"

"I think I do, but remind me about it."

"In it, there is this businessman who is on vacation on a boat with his much taller wife when he suddenly is contaminated by a radioactive cloud. She avoids it because she was below deck getting drinks. The husband ignores the incident and at first doesn't appear to have been affected by it.

"However, one morning, about six months later, he notices that his shirt seems too big. He blames it on the cleaners. But then his wedding ring falls off his finger. As these physical symptoms continue, he thinks he's shrinking. At first his wife dismisses his fears as silly, but he continues to lose weight and height. This shrinking is dramatically shown when he, previously five or six inches shorter than she, has to look up when he wants to looks in his wife's eyes."

"Wow," I said, "This is coming back to me. But I forgot, what happens next?"

"He visits a government research laboratory and, after numerous tests, learns that exposure to the radioactivity and various pesticides caused his cells to shrink".

I then recalled that this deep-in-the-Cold-War movie became a cult classic, scaring Americans about the dangers of radioactivity and chemical warfare.

"And?" I asked. "Why are you remembering it now?"

"Because we are witnessing a contemporary version that could be called, The Incredibly Shrinking Y Chromosome."

"I think I know where you're going with this."

"Did you see the article about it in last Thursday's paper?"

"I did. It was the New York Times piece about what has been happening to the chromosome that determines maleness."

"Exactly!"

"It reported that the Y chromosome, which used to have about the same number of genes as the X, or female chromosome has dramatically withered. It had about 800 genes but so much DNA has been lost that it now has only 780 left."

"Correct. And if it continues on this trajectory, over time, the Y chromosome may lose the part of its structure that determines maleness."

"Which could mean . . . ?"

"The end of males."

"Among the many ironies," I said, "is that this shrinkage began as a way of protecting femaleness. In order to keep the Y chromosome from overwhelming the X chromosome and producing too many males, evolution carved out a so-called 'no-swapping' zone around the male-determining gene as a way to assure that there would be at least as many females produced as males. In fact, more."

"So what's going on now," Rona winked, "in response to these biological changes? A hint--for example, in Virginia."

"I doubt that the governor there much less members of the state legislature know much if anything about this--after all, most ultra-conservatives don't believe in science much less evolution--but on some level, since they are almost all men, they must be feeling a version of this withering away of maleness. Including, very much, their own."

"Which is the point," Rona said. "I'll bet they're not all that happy, among other things, about all the women in the workplace, especially those who become supervisors, and I feel certain that many of their daughters are not staying true to their fathers' chauvinist, religion-driven ideology. So when they do their legislative thing, in a version of a men's club, they get to act out their frustrations about all the changes happening around them and come up with outrageous ideas like compelling women to have transvaginal sonograms and look at the images of the fetuses before they are permitted to have abortions."

"Just like in the movie, they are shrinking before our eyes. More important, before their own eyes."

"Which is the real issue--how they are seeing themselves diminished."

"In this case they are shrinking not from radiation but because of their own insecurity and fears."