During the last days I was contacted by colorblind women seeking other colorblind women to share thoughts, ask questions and just to talk. I was looking for a way to make it possible to meet and discuss. Finally I set up an own forum about color blindness here at Colblindor, where everybody can join and talk about color blindness viewed through colorblind eyes.
Color blindness in women is very rare. Only about 0.5% of all women have some kind of color vision deficiency and often this isn’t even recognized. Most people think color blindness is only man’s business – but that is wrong.
Because the biology behind red-green color blindness tells us, that much more men are colorblind (approximately 8%) this doesn’t mean that women can not be colorblind. Specially very uncommon cases like tritanopia (blue-yellow color blindness) and monochromacy (complete color blindness) are equally distributed among men and women.
Update: Because the forum was mostly a huge spam trap I removed it again. Sorry if any inconveniences arise through this.
hello,
I am not color blind or color deficient. However, my comment is for women who are. I have a grandmother and 2 uncles who are red/green color deficient and a mother-in-law who is blue/green deficient. I have 2 boys and 1 girl and never thought much about the deficiency until 2 years ago. My then 5 yr old son and 4 yr old dauhter were fighting over what color my daughters nail polish was. She said purple and he said blue. I listened for a bit and then broke in to resolve the matter. The nail polish was very purple and made me then concerned with my son’s vision. I took him to a doctor and he confirmed he was color deficient-Tritanomoly. I guess the 2 types of deficiencies merged to create his tritan deficiency, which is extremely rare.
The doctor then informed me that I could have 5 daughters and none of them would be color deficient. However, they would all be carriers. And if I have 2 boys then chances are that one would be color deficient but not the other. And that is really all the help he offered.
So, I guess my point in all of this blabbering is that if any woman is color deficient please be aware of your children. I was completely clueless, but, well aware of the other deficiencies in my family. Again, I will say I admire any man or woman who is color deficient. They must over come obstacles that most of us take for granted.
Best of luck
jennifer
Hi there!
I am a color blind woman and I wanted to ease your mind a little. There are times that I want to scream (matching outfits at stores) but for the most part it is comical that I can’t tell the diff between blue and black, green and brown, etc. All of my girlfriends and husband help me out and we often get a good laugh out of the situation. I am 38 years old and can’t say that I’ve done much suffering over my color deficiency. Actually it’s kind of cool to be different. People always say “women can’t be colorblind”. I just smile and say “oh yes they can”.
Hi,
I became aware of my color deficiency at age 19. I am now 39. I always knew my brother and male cousin were red/green deficient, but also heard that females could not be. I discovered it through a physical exam to enter into working with electronics. It was a no go. For several years, as a housewife and mother, it didn’t effect me too much. More recently however, as I work w/ small children, I come across many problem areas. I am not always able to identify when a child’s cheeks are rosie due to fever or sunburn. I am not able to see a slight rash developing, etc. As I have made a conscious effort to become more aware, I notice that turn signals in traffic can be a challenge. Computer screens confuse me at times when, for example, items will change color showing you have clicked on something before and so on. Anyway, just thought I would share.
Hello,
I’m an artist/jewelry designer that sometimes struggles with this issue, and so it’s nice to know there are other women out there who understand.
Best,
Laura Young
http://adornment.blogspot.com/search?q=i+see+color
I am 16 years old and color blind when i tell people i am, they are a fan of saying Women cant be colorblind. I wish people were more educated on that they can be..its just rare
hey i’m 18 and i feel the same way. all my friends always pick up things when we are in the store and be like what color is this.
I’m 15 and female and im almost sure im colorblind. My dad has the red-green defiency, and im wondering if it is possible to have a less severe version. I mix up green and black, and orange and red. I was also wondering if anyone know if being colorblind could affect my career choice. I will graduate highschool in two years and im extremely nervous that I can’t pursue the career of a surgeon.
Jena, if you are colorblind it can be different than the color vision deficiency of your father. Because as a woman you have to inherit it from both of your parents.
I think there is one thing which I can’t judge and which you should be able to do if you want to study medicine: Can you judge about someones health by his skin color? I definitely can’t because I can’t differentiate it. So if you can, you are on the good side.
a woman can be a carrier of color-blindness without it affecting her if she has a good color gene. ask your mother if she has any history of color-blindness in her family.
My mother (now deseased), one of my sisters, and myself seem to have problems distinguishing between dark colors. (Deep blue, brown, black, and green.) For instance, we think that my dog is black, while everyone else says that she is chocolate. Not that it’s a problem, it just seems odd. I am really baffled trying to sort socks. I just lay them out according to manufacturerer and let others figure it out.
best regards!
im 22 male n i have green-red color blindness… i dun feel bad hving des prob but some times i lose in snooker cuz i can’t differentiate between d red color ball n d brown i guess hehe… so ma frinds will start make fun of me hehe
i already used to it
bye
so i am color blind and i have known since like second grade.
i get blue and purple mixed up and red and greens and yellows
i dont know i can see some colors but like it depends on the shade.. i dont know if that sounds stupid .
but the one thing I HATE about it is my friends asking me what color somehing is !! that makes me more frustrated and annoyed than anything!! and its quite embarrassing. well thats all my time
peace
Iam color blind but never knew it until my son went to the eye doctor and they did the color blind test, he was diagnosed red/green deficient and was told that his dad is probably color blind but surprise not dad but mom. The thing is he does not have problems distinguishing reds and greens but put them in the dot test and forget it, I am the same way. My younger son hasn’t shown signs yet but he cant distinguish oranges and browns.
Hi there,
I am a colourblind woman and feel frustrated almost daily at simple things like make-up and wardrobe choices. I have never honestly seen a rainbow in full and get so annoyed when people first find out i’m colourblind.
They all seem to think that because I am colourblind, that they should test it themselves. They are not opticians and I am not a performing monkey. If someone told you they were asthmatic, you wouldn’t ask them to prove it by running on the spot!
What I find most difficult is knowing that when I come to have children, ALL my daughters WILL BE carriers, and ALL my sons WILL BE colourblind. This saddens me as I know how complicated it can make everyday, and this irritating condition will be passed down to even more generations.
However, especially because I’m female as well as colourblind, I feel apart of a select group that less than 2% of the world’s population can be apart of. This makes me special and so I try to embrace that as much as possible. Most people forget almost straight away once you tell them, so being teased hardly happens.
Hopefully by sharing my own thoughts about how I cope, they may help someone who really needs it.
I am a 17 year old girl, and today I was working a booth at a benefit selling candy for cancer. A little boy and his grandmother came and he asked her which suckers were the red ones. She looked at me and in a hushed tone said “he’s colorblind.” I smiled and said, “me too.” she quickly snapped at me that girls couldn’t be colorblind, and that she was right because she was a school nurse for 35 years. I know I shouldn’t have been but I was a little upset. I realize that she was obviously uneducated on the subject but I didn’t like the way she made me feel. Why would I be lying about being colorblind?