Throughout this global pandemic, there have been multiple reports released that say men face a greater risk of dying from COVID-19 than women.

I remember a classmate previously addressing this topic for an “In the News” discussion in class, back when the virus was primarily still concentrated in China. But while scrolling through social media a couple of days ago, I saw a very similar article from the Washington Post that discussed some parallel statistics regarding cases in Italy right now. 

“Men make up nearly 60 percent of people with confirmed cases of the virus and more than 70 percent of those who have died of COVID-19 [in Italy]”

– Washington Post

Italy currently has the highest number of fatalities of any country facing the COVID-19 outbreak: 4,825 registered deaths as of March 21, according to the New York Post. They officially passed China’s reported total death toll on Thursday, March 19. Because of these alarming numbers, many are paying close attention to the circumstances in Italy, especially countries like the U.S. who are facing a growing spread themselves.

Though many are looking right now at the large number of deaths overall, there is also a lot of focus being given to figuring out what can make someone more or less vulnerable to the disease. One of these discovered differences so far: gender, or more accurately, sex.

According to China’s Center for Disease Control, recent numbers show that 64 percent of deaths from coronavirus were men. In South Korea, women actually make up approximately 61 percent of confirmed cases, but the gender divide in fatalities remains closer to the global trend, with men making up about 54 percent of all deaths.

But why does this difference exist?

The Washington Post looked at other circumstances that can increase a person’s risk of death when they have COVID-19, including old age (Italy is the fifth-oldest population in the world according to the CIA World Factbook) and underlying health issues, especially respiratory diseases. For both of these conditions, scientists have a good understanding of why they would make someone more vulnerable to COVID-19 or other viruses. But according to this article and many others, experts do not have a similarly clear or definitive answer as to why the gap between gender exists.  

Even if the causes are still unknown, though, it’s an interesting division to think about and discuss, both in the gap itself and this ongoing search by different experts for answers. How does this search reflect the relationship between the gender binary and science, specifically in this case epidemiology? And how does this reported divide also reflect broader trends in associations between disease and masculinity?

To begin with, it’s interesting to see how research into different health issues both supports and draws on the idea of a clear separation between male and female. For example, it’s commonly thought that women will often outlive their male counterparts. (This was even turned into a joke in a country song “Waitin’ on a Woman” by Brad Paisley, where he says “the man’s always the first to go / and that makes sense ’cause I know she won’t be ready.”) But just as scientists are still trying to figure out why the coronavirus seems to kill more men than women, they have for a long period of time been looking for answers as to why exactly men are favored to die first. And in both searches, science usually looks to biological differences, often at the genetic or hormonal level.

From their research, they have drawn conclusions that the male body has a greater chance of facing health risks than the female sex, and that the female body has what they call a naturally stronger immune system. The Washington Post article, for instance, specifically attributes the disparity to “underlying biological differences between men and women,” notably the immune-related genes associated with the X chromosome as well as alleged protective benefits found in estrogen.  The article is suggesting that these perceived life expectancy trends parallel the current outcomes of COVID-19, and certainly this is true at least in the way that people are looking for the causes behind both of these issues.

“In China, Italy and South Korea, women tend to live longer than men, according to the WHO … Men in these countries also tend to die more frequently from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and respiratory diseases between ages 30 and 70”

– Washington Post

It’s also important to note that according to the Washington Post, a discrepancy in fatality rates between genders was also noticed during the outbreaks of SARS and MERS. Data from these outbreak periods are additionally used in research on biological sex and disease.

Another point, which actually came up in our previous class discussion as well, are the different stereotypes in society associated with how different genders experience illness. For instance, there is a large assumption that feminine bodies are naturally designed to experience and live with pain. Whereas for masculine bodies, there are stereotypes like the “man flu” that suggest men will have a worse experience with sickness or discomfort, and that it is then perfectly normal for them to take a break to heal (often under the care of a woman in their life). These expectations and stereotypes are both derived from and the drivers behind the research into sex and disease; they equally feed into and shape one another. 

The topic of COVID-19 and its effects on different genders brings up a slew of related issues, beyond the few just mentioned in this blog. It reflects the bigger and messier relationship between science and social norms, in this case the way in which both are used to uphold the idea of a gender binary.

– Savannah Kuchar

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/19/coronavirus-kills-more-men-than-women/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14742282

https://nypost.com/2020/03/21/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-spikes-by-nearly-800-in-one-day/