Color Blindness in Women

Color blindness is a hereditary disorder where a person cannot differentiate between different colors. It is also a genetic disorder that occurs when there is a mutation in the X chromosome of the person. Apart from the inheritance factor, damage to the retina due to any reasons can also result in color blindness. There are four types of color blindness. The classification is made according to the person's inability to distinguish between specific colors.

Color blindness is not a serious eye problem and most of the times, it is observed that the color blind person is unaware of the presence of the disease. Only when the person undergo eye check-up, he/she is found to be color blind. Moreover, the number of partially color blind people is more than that of fully color blind people. Read more on color blindness and test for color blindness.

Color Blindness in Women
The most common type of color blindness is the first type in which a person cannot differentiate between red and green colors. According to color blindness facts, nearly 8% of men all over the world suffer from color blindness. But the percentage of color blindness in women is very less. We can safely say that color blindness in women is an extremely rare case. Read more on color blindness facts.

Only a woman having both color blind parents has high chances of inheriting the disease. But this case is very rare. Therefore, we find the number of color blind woman to be very less. It is very essential to understand color blindness genetics to know the reason why color blindness in women is rare.

Color Blindness Genetics
Color blindness is an X chromosome linked recessive disease. Most of the times, it is inherited by males from their mothers who are carriers. There is a specific pattern of inheritance of color blindness known as the crisscross inheritance. Let us have a look at it in detail. The following are the different cases of how color blindness can be inherited.

Father to Son: There are 0% chances of color blindness to pass from a color blind father to his son. As this disease is X linked, it cannot be passed from father to son as the son gets only the Y chromosome from his father.

Mother to Son: If the mother is the carrier, there are 50% chances for the son to inherit color blindness. There are also 50% chances of the son to be disease free. As the son receives X chromosome from his mother, there are chances of him inheriting this disease.

Father to Daughter: There are no chances of the disease to pass from father to daughter. Although the daughter gets one X chromosome from her father, color blindness is recessive and hence, it is suppressed. But, the daughter remains a carrier of the disease.

Mother to Daughter: Color blindness in not inherited from mother to daughter, i.e, there are 0% chances of disease inheritance. But there are 50% chances of the daughter being a carrier and 50% chances of not being a carrier.

As color blindness chromosome is recessive, women are not affected by it. If a woman inherits one affected X chromosome, there is another normal chromosome that makes up for the affected recessive chromosome. Hence, color blindness is rarely seen in women. On the other hand, men have only one X chromosome and if they inherit the affected chromosome, they acquire color blindness.

Therefore, from the above color blindness genetics, we observe that color blindness in women is a rarity. The readers should also note that color blindness is not a serious condition and color blind people can definitely live a normal life!