• Question: why are men more prone to colour blindness?

    Asked by princesscadance to Del, Catherine, John, Mo Rassul on 19 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Catherine Mansfield

      Catherine Mansfield answered on 19 Mar 2014:

      Excellent question!
      The gene that causes colour blindness is found on the female chromosome. Women have 2 copies of this chromosome and men only have one, so to get colour blindness women would need to inherit 2 copies of this gene whereas men only need to inherit one copy.

    • Photo: Adelle Thrower

      Adelle Thrower answered on 19 Mar 2014:

      Male chromosomes are XY and females are XX. If the colour blindness gene is found on the X chromosome then women have more chance of not getting it as it’s a recessive gene so the dominant non colour blindness gene from one of our parents would mean we weren’t colour blind. But if a male receives the recessive gene from the X from our mums and has a Y from their dads then there’s no dominant X gene to take over. So they will be colour blind.

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