My favorite news story this week: Gender equality aside, it turns out that baby boys and girls have very distinct responses to stress in the womb, much like grown men and women respond so very differently to stress, out here in the cold, cruel world.

According to Health Day News, Australian researchers studied fetal response to maternal stressors such as poor health and psychological struggle. Vicki Clifton, an associate professor in the pregnancy and development group of the Robinson Institute at the University of Adelaide, said in a news release:

"The male, when mum is stressed, pretends it's not happening and keeps growing, so he can be as big as he possibly can be. The female, in response to mum's stress, will reduce her growth rate a little bit; not too much so she becomes growth restricted, but just dropping a bit below average."

So let me get this straight — the male pretends he doesn’t know what is going on while he continues to consume all available resources without regard to future scarcity or danger. The female plans ahead, scales back, prepares herself for survival no matter what may be in store. Sounds about right. I know I sound flip, but it’s just so spot-on. Maybe this biological strategy is one of the reasons there are so many more boys conceived than girls, and yet the live birth rate remains relatively even. Pulling back on resource consumption pays off. Clifton goes on to explain why:

"When there is another complication in the pregnancy — either a different stress or the same one again — the female will continue to grow on that same pathway and do OK, but the male baby doesn't do so well and is at greater risk of pre-term delivery, stopping growing or dying in the uterus."

This male vulnerability doesn’t end at birth. After announcing the results of a 2009 study on pregnancy complications with a male fetus, Professor Marek Glezerman, obstetrician, gynecologist, and expert in gender-based medicine at the TAU School of Medicine, called men biologically weak:

"In general, boys are more vulnerable in their life in utero, and this vulnerability continues to exist throughout their lives. It is a known fact that men have a shorter lifespan, compared to women; they are also more susceptible to different kinds of infections, and do not have such a good chance to withstand disease as women do.

Does that mean we have to cut them some slack for whining over a head cold?