Sublime

data. One was the fact that the female curve hits its peak about seven years earlier than the male’s does (at age twenty-three versus age thirty). The other was that it remains at this peak for much longer (until age forty-five versus age thirty-five in males).

A female body plan and brain is the default in mammals. The switch over to the male phenotype is triggered by the Y chromosome stimulating the production of testosterone part way through foetal development.

Together, the microbes living on the human body contain 4.4 million genes – this is the microbiome: the collective genomes of the microbiota. These genes collaborate in running our bodies alongside our 21,000 human genes. By that count, you are just half a per cent human.

One was the fact that our father’s neocortex genes seem to be suppressed during development so that the neocortex we have is determined by our mother’s genes;

In 2019 the Emilia Report (named after England’s first published female poet, Emilia Bassano) analysed coverage of male and female writers and found that women were twice as likely to have their ages referenced – or, in the case of Sally Rooney, her appearance, ‘like a startled deer with sensuous lips’, according to one Swiss critic.