Color Vision Gender Differences

There are many differences between men and women, but you realize that there are color vision gender differences?

Light is electromagnetic radiation that stimulates our eyes. There are only specific frequencies of the electromagnetic frequency spectrum that we can see. Frequencies below the range of visible light are called infrared. We can sometimes feel infrared radiation as heat, but we can’t see it, although some animals can. Frequencies higher than visible light are ultraviolet which we can’t see, but it affects our skin and can cause sunburn. Some animals can see infrared light.

Within the visible spectrum of light that humans can see, different bands of frequencies affect our eyes differently. Most of us have receptors in our eyes for the wavelengths which we call red, green, and blue. When light stimulates those receptors, they send a signal to our brain which combines the signals to allow us to see many variations in colors.

People with colorblindness (mostly men) have one of those color receptor categories missing. The missing color may be either red or green. Why are men colorblind more often than women? The genes that encode the red and green receptors are located in the X-chromosome. Men have one X- and one Y-chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes. That means that if a man has a defective X-chromosome, he is out of luck. A woman would need to have two defective X-chromosomes to be colorblind.

It’s interesting that the chromosome pair that creates the sex differences also explains the color vision gender differences. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” and He took something out of the man to create a woman. Then He put them together to complete each other. In many ways, men and women really do need each other to be complete.
–Roland Earnst © 2018