Imagine if the reverse were true, imagine if most men lived longer than most women do. Don’t you think there would be many writers and TV personalities and academics and people of all stripes theorizing about the political, social and economic forces that keep women down? It would be a big stink, it would be a national problem, there would be a lot of consciousness raising about it. There would be scrutiny about our sexist health care industry. I’m sure people could come up with all kinds of theories about sexism and discrimination at all levels of society.
In any area where women enjoy an advantage, it’s accepted as natural and even good. Maybe it is. I don’t know. Where is the challenge?
I’m reminded of the way that the (Rupert Murdoch-owned) Daily Telegraph in Australia made a huge issue of breast cancer in the mid-90s.
Over the course of a month or two they sold a whole lot of extra papers by publishing articles railing against the way that only “X” amount of money was spent on female-specific cancers.
They even made a graphic to put above the articles. You know that female icon “O+”? They overlapped two of those so it looked like a more bosomy “O)!+”. It was all the rage.
Then one day they published an article on around page 15 which pointed out that less money was spent on male-specific cancers and men generally die at a younger age. And the issue was never, ever mentioned again.
Oh, another “We poor men have it so rough” thread. Yawn.
This little data point isn’t interesting at all without information about the relative frequency and mortality of female-specific vs. male-specific cancers. An equal allocation of resources to each might be a gross misallocation if the latter is much rarer.
This is because prostate cancer, far and away the most prevalent male-specific cancer, is not particularly acute or deadly. It occurs largely in the aged population and is slow enough to progress that most men with untreated prostatic cancers die of unrelated ailments long before the cancer becomes fatal. Breast cancer is very, very different.
Just FYI, it is not like medical research has neglected men. If anything, it has been stacked in their favor.
There are all kinds of known gender health gaps. Everything from OCD to osteoarthritis. Is it more important for researchers to narrow the gap or simply eliminate the diseases?
…and all along I’ve been living under the false assumption that it was because men are more apt than women to do the “Here. Hold my beer and watch this!” kind of thing.
Actually, I feel quite the opposite. Having intact mental faculties and appropriate metacognition would only make me feel worse about my situation because I could deeply ponder my lack of purpose, poor driving, creaky hips, and the knowledge I could drop dead at any second. Though I should mention I’m only projected to live 82 years anyway, so I’m not giving up a whole lot of hypothetical life here.
Or, y’know, pull in 95% of work-related deaths and have a far higher suicide rate. But I agree, let’s not start talking about the possibility that men might not be the over-privileged lords of creation. :rolleyes:
Work-related injury rates correlate with the fact that jobs involving physical labor are staffed overwhelmingly by male workers.
Successful suicide rates correlate with the fact that men are more likely to use more lethal means in their suicide attempts–women typically attempt suicide significantly more often than men.
Please feel free to explain what bearing either of these things has on “privilege”, a word which you have insightfully inserted into this heretofore dreadfully buzzword-free discussion. Thank you in advance!
If you’re that age and still have your mind and don’t have any purpose at all, it’s your own fault. Poor driving isn’t limited to elderly people. I’m in my 20’s, btw.
As a man, who is getting older, I can’t find any reason to get outraged. If I wish to live longer, there is plenty of information available to advise me of healthier options. I assume men die sooner because they drink more, eat worse, smoke more, drive faster, and exercise too little. I don’t care at what age the “average” man dies, nor do I care at what age the average woman dies. Where’s the outrage, you ask? Outrage is wherever you seek it. I choose not to.
