# Males/Females & Seeing red... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 28, 2001, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644 "2001-04-28T15:07:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2001, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644/21 "2001-05-01T14:53:11Z")
I have a tough time distinguishing between hair colours. Here’s my palette. blond dirty blond brown black red white grey Every woman I know has about 5 more shades between each colour, which I can’t see at all. If they recently had their hair dyed, they claim an extra 5 or 6. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644/22 "2001-05-02T12:36:50Z")
If you showed me two different colour chips and asked me to tell you which one was mauve and which one was chartreuse, I’d have to guess. Not because I couldn’t tell them apart, but because I can’t be bothered to learn all the different foo-foo makes for colours. ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644/23 "2001-05-02T13:23:46Z")
I don’t know of any physiological reason why men & women would see colors any differently. IMHO, women, in general, just pay more attention to it. I (male) can certainly see the different shades but I have no interest in memorizing all the color names. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644/24 "2001-05-02T14:27:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phobos \* > \*\*I don’t know of any physiological reason why men & women would see colors any differently. IMHO, women, in general, just pay more attention to it. I (male) can certainly see the different shades but I have no interest in memorizing all the color names. \*\* Well, the physiological basis I can think of is that men are much more likely than women to be color-blind. It’s an X-chromosome linked disorder, generally passing from maternal grandfather to grandson. My grandfather’s color-blind, but fortunately I’m not (and I have no sibs or first cousins). Color blindness also comes in [degrees](http://www.vischeck.com/showme.shtml). My grandfather, for example, has the most common variety, which is red-green color blindness. He can perceive yellow and, to a lesser extent, blue, but red and green are interchangeable. He knows traffic lights not by red-green but by top-bottom (actually, he lives in Texas so it’s left-right). Several of the sites I looked at said that about 8% of men have some kind of color deficiency, but most of them don’t entirely lack color perception. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2001, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644/25 "2001-05-02T15:17:06Z")
Aha! Now that color blindness has been brought up, I recall reading about [tetrachromaticity](http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a24199b1ef8.htm). Most people have three types of color receptors - red, green, and blue; tetrachromats have _four_. Because of the way the genetics works, only women have this gift. So, the answer is, yes, some women really do see different colors than the rest of us. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/males-females-seeing-red/63644.md?page=1)