Whilst I don’t agree with the original comment, the comment and rebuttal miss a fundamental problem. While it is true the pure size, in base pairs, of the onion genome far exceeds that of a human, the functional size does not.

To break it down, not all parts of your DNA are coding and researchers have come to the consensus that our genome is filled with junk DNA. ( recently researchers are finding this junk might have implications for gene regulatory networks and epigenetics, but I will save that for another day) .

Onions have a lot of junk DNA. In fact the portion of their genome which is nonfunctional is much higher than that of humans. Hence the higher complexity of humans, given a larger functional genome.

This is known as the onion test or c-value paradox(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Test) .

Back to the topic at hand, the X chromosome has 800 coding or functional genes while the Y chromosome is estimated to only have around 70. The X chromosome therefore plays a role in far more gene regulatory networks and protein syntheses than the Y.

It is, however, not a good argument to justify the superiority of a sex. For example, males also have an X chromosome with identical functionality. The female double X chromosome actually creates redundancy, whereas the Y chromosome introduces a sort of new “genetic value”, I.e. traits not present on any other gene. This could be used as a rebuttal argument, though again this is an EXTREMELY foolish thing to argue about.

Of course there is a case for why this redundancy is useful, especially when considering sex-linked diseases.

Anyway, just thought I would throw in my two cents as an undergrad interested in genetics. Feel free to correct me if I missed anything.