A friend of mine, a postdoctoral researcher, was organizing her project on mealworms. Exhausted after hours of reading, she sent me a message asking for help:
— Can you read this passage and see if there’s anything wrong with it?
I read it carefully. The text was clear and coherent. And it sparked an idea in my head. I said:
— Did you notice something curious about this chromosomal structure?
— What detail? She asked.
I explained: in chickens, the system for determining sex is the opposite of humans. Female chickens are ZW, and males are ZZ. In our case, humans, it’s the reverse: females are XX, and males are XY.
Pause. A curious silence. And then I continued:
— Look how interesting: the human female has two X chromosomes, a complete, symmetrical, autonomous structure. But the male is defined by the Y chromosome, a “reduced” version of the X, which lost most of its genetic material over the course of evolution. In other words, man is born with an absence. A lack.
She widened her eyes. I smiled and teased:
— Maybe, metaphorically, that says something. Man, from his chromosomal structure, carries a void, a deficiency, a fragility. Perhaps this helps explain, even symbolically, the patriarchal obsession with control, power, domination. Machismo might just be a symptom of a deeper imbalance: the attempt to compensate, with force and oppression, for what’s missing at the core of his own being.
From that casual conversation, other minds were invited to reflect on the topic, and from many hands came the article that inspired this text.
That “Y” in the male chromosome stands for “Why?”
Did you know that the famous Y chromosome, the one biology says is exclusive to cis men, is smaller, has fewer genes, and depends on the X chromosome to function properly? Yeah. What if we used that as a metaphor to think about masculinity?
Let’s go: the “traditional model” of a man is strong, tough, doesn’t cry, doesn’t ask for help, and ideally pretends he was born ready. But what if all of that is just one big performance to hide the fear of seeming… incomplete?
Is man, in truth, just a poorly written script?
According to scholars, hegemonic masculinity works like a constant performance. A man has to prove all the time that he’s a “real man,” which of course includes not appearing weak, sensitive or — worst of all — feminine. As if fragility were shameful and femininity a threat.
The result? A life lived under constant surveillance and fear. As if every man walked around with an invisible audience judging every gesture, outfit, or emotion. And this audience doesn’t forgive anyone who strays from the script.
The Y Chromosome Doesn’t Perform Miracles.
Back to the chromosome: the Y, poor thing, is small, quiet, and relies on the X for almost everything. Biologically, as far as we know, there’s nothing inferior about that. But symbolically… what a metaphor!
What if toxic masculinity is, at its core, a desperate attempt to compensate for a symbolic “void”? Like: “since I don’t have everything, I’ll act like I have too much.” The result? Lots of shouting, lots of control, lots of posing. But very little listening, little affection, and almost no crying (even when it’s needed).
This standard masculinity has become a prepackaged product: leadership, strength, virility, domination, and zero vulnerability. It’s like men are supposed to be superheroes, but without the right to take off the cape or say “help.”
And those who deviate from this model? They suffer. Cis straight men, Nordic or Aryan men, effeminate men, gay, trans, poor, Black, Indigenous, or disabled men, all are pressured by a model that doesn’t see them. All kinds of men, to some extent, no longer recognize themselves in this package. But they keep pretending.
Slap in the Holy Face
This act of pretending isn’t just sustained by red pill nonsense, nor just by pop culture or locker-room jokes. Religious institutions, legal systems, and political speeches play along too. There are Bible verses saying women must obey their husbands, Quranic surahs comparing wives to farmland, and Hindu texts stating that a woman must always be under a man’s guardianship. All stamped with the label of “tradition.”
The problem?
These ideas legitimize control over female bodies by giving “the male” a false sense of authority to make up for the absence that is intrinsic to him, an absence clearly revealed in the Y chromosome.
The heteronormative man, ashamed of the “mollusk” he carries between his legs, feels that his virility is finally redeemed the moment he manages to lift his discreet “sword”, as if that were the ultimate certificate of active masculinity. But nothing is crueler to men than being reduced to this “mollusk,” as if all their worth were crammed into a membrane that, honestly, spends most of its time in a gelatinous resting state.
This toxic masculinity also harms men themselves. They lead the statistics for suicide, suffer more from addiction, depression, emotional isolation… but they don’t talk about it. Not because they don’t feel, but because they were taught that men don’t feel, don’t cry, don’t need help. They were taught wrong.
Even the shape of the letter “Y”, with its two branches, perfectly symbolizes the tensions of masculinity: a path split between what one feels and what one can show; between desire and the norm; between identity and performance.
This contradiction is evident, for example, in cis men who, even identifying as heterosexual, engage in sexual activity with other men in settings like prisons or religious environments (priests, pastors, monks). In these spaces, desire exists, but the norm demands silence.
Even in traditionally “masculine” spaces, like football, Freemasonry, or male university rituals, there are subtle forms of affection among men, with strong bonds and symbolic practices that, while denying any homoeroticism, reveal its latent presence.
So, the “Y” is not just a metaphor for fragility. It’s the symbol of a collective fork in the road: desire goes one way, while fear and social pressure pull the other.
If you’re a man and you’re tired of having to prove your masculinity 24/7… relax. You don’t need to be a rock. You can be a human being. With affection, with doubt, with fear – and with a desire to do things differently.
Want to talk about it?
Download or Read more here:
BATISTA, D. J., WARZECHA, P., OLIVEIRA, F. M. D., SANTOS, A. C. F. D., & ROCHA, C. (2025). The Y Chromosome Dilemma: Masculinity as a Disguise for Its Own Structural Fragility. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15973133