The empress by default

There was no coronation ceremony for this empress. She simply lodged herself in each of the trillions of our most intimate spaces — effectively ruling over a network kingdom of small worlds. She is intricately cloaked with codes for pleasures and dangers, richly charged with biological starting points for a life plan. If you were a girl, you get two versions of her personality. If you were a boy, you get one version of her, joined but unmatched in her substance, by a small General with only one mission — to change the sexual anatomical landscape.

She is the ubiquitous "X" — present inside you in the trillions whether you are a man or a woman. If you are a woman, each of your trillions of cells gets one of your Xs from your mother and the other X from your father. If you were a boy, you still get one X from your mother and the sex-determining Y from your father. While it may seem that the boys have an "option" other than what their mothers bestowed on them through their X, I am afraid that window offers very little hope. The Y chromosome (named such according to geneticists because it was discovered after the "X") is a very small General, containing from last count only about 50 genes while the X has over a thousand genes. The Y’s genes are focused on winning the battle to have male body parts and hormones, which it cannot even do unilaterally since it has to secure clearance from the X to complete the mission. As Pulitzer writer Natalie Angier said about men in her last NY Times article — " you are all mama’s boys." But that is another column for another day. For this one, we have to all acquiesce to the fact that even if the experience of motherhood has not happened to you, even if your own experiences with your mother confuse you, or even if you say the Village People or even asexual elves raised you, there is no escaping Mother’s Day. Every Homo sapiens carries at least one X from the mother and Mother’s Day hails the empress X — the empress by default.

So how does the empress run her kingdom in each and every cell of ours? In terms of diseases, the two Xs in every female cell means she could always count on the other empress to balance her judgments. But with a boy, the empress could not count on the Y codes to help her fix her stitches since they come in different attires. The X could break a heel in one of her genetic shoes but the Y, having differently shaped toes, could not give his own to fix her. Geneticists suspect that this influences the differences between the way males and females express genetic diseases. Which X version rules in females? Inside a woman, in some of her cells, Dad’s X genetic speech reigns and in some, it is mother’s X talk. All daughters are living links to an unbroken chain of Xs from the first XX who walked out of Africa. I will over-extend my literary license over this scientific matter by saying that I really feel like every woman is born inheriting that shadow exhaustion from that unbroken chromosomal overwork. It is probably why an exhausted woman is revealed behind every chest-thumping successful man.

But you have to give it to this empress for her tenacious hold over her reign. In each male cell is a chromosomal identity split since it has both the X and Y. The Y does not overpower the X but throws some options to the X to which the X should respond to in order to make male bodies or XYs. The Y has largely mastered this option-throwing mission but has not at all changed the biological identity of the X chromosome. The Y has never yet elevated his art and science into a biological coup d’etat. It takes more than a General to change a genetic landscape that nature has designed. The empress X has managed to retain her place in each and every cell of a male body. This means that for wives who think that they have finally freed themselves from their mothers-in-law, you may want to keep a mental post-it note that your husbands carry their Xs from their moms in almost every cell in their bodies, just like your own mom’s is present in your cells.

Female eggs are as old as the female bodies that carry them and the eggs are all Xs. Sperms, however, carry both Xs and Ys — empress versions and generals’ and they make them from scratch from the time boys hand over their "innocence" to the time they forget that they even had it once. That is why for all children, your X from your mother is older than the X or Y which you get from your father — a child, regardless of parents’ ages, is genetically a "December-May affair."

Female bodies, powered by the fountains of estrogen and other female internal potions, are largely celebrated in their seasons of youth. Beyond which, more often than not, womanhood, becomes largely an affair that occurs sub rosa — behind struggles to keep the skin supple, from natural forces like gravity and sun exposure, keeping the stage of life ready and working for her children and other members of her clan, cleaning up every after stage performance by those she has nurtured and cared for. Once in a while, some unexpected gift from medical science surprises her and it is not a discount for an eat-all-you-can buffet special in a family restaurant.

Over a week ago, news on the BBC last April 30 announced that scientists think that the pill that they have been giving to female monkeys in experiments may just get women excited. The team from the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproduction Unit in Edinburgh has been looking at the dual effect of properties of a hormone called Type 2 Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone. One effect was, when given to female monkeys, they reportedly did all sorts of shows that would have sent the MTRCB to emergency meetings had it been humans doing these acts on public shows. The other effect is that the female monkeys ate less. So the scientists think that this will be such a hit since they assumed that increased sexual desire and slimming are the two fundamental desires that sit right at the heart of XXs. I do not know about you but try giving your mother that news as a Mother’s Day gift while she enjoys her lunch and watch her hand go from her side to your head.

Maybe it would be good for these scientists to let the monkeys in the lab rest for a while and talk to the women in their lives. If science thinks that decrease in sexual desire and weight gain are the most pressing problems in women who already carry two versions of the historically indefatigable X chromosome, maybe science should think it through some more. Maybe a break, instead of a pill is the answer. Even empresses need a break. Happy Mother’s Day.

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