It’s Ten Times Worse for Him

February 11, 2019

It’s a pretty widely-accepted stereotype that when a man and a woman are sick with the same illness, the man’s illness is perceived (by him) to be ten times worse than the woman’s. Some people say that it’s because women are used to powering through because they have to take care of things, or because they’re conditioned by society to be nurturers.

I used to think that it was just whininess.

But what if it’s a real condition? What if men really do have physiological differences that make illnesses like colds (and everything else) seem worse?

Don’t sneer. People used to think that PMS was a made-up condition, too. And the consensus is that the pain of childbirth would do a man in, that he could never handle the stressors on the body.

So, who knows? Maybe Ten Times Worse Syndrome is a real thing.

If scientists discover that it is, maybe we can stop rolling our eyes when our guys are deathly ill from the common cold. 

But while the jury’s still out—no promises.