Women live longer than men, why is this life expectancy gap not scandalous? Why is it not a big deal

Rachellelgram,

I think you have a big brush. There are a lot of people who choose euthanasia when its an option rather than fight to live. There are lots of elderly who kill themselves rather than live. There are lots of people who choose not to treat chronic or terminal illness rather than live in reduced capacity or pain.

My family is full of them. We just apparently don’t value life in the same manner as other people. My husband’s family, they fight to the bitter end. I’ve seen both sides up close and personal.

Not everyone makes the same choices regarding their life, or their death.

Wow, blindboyard, All those activities must really cut into your busy schedule of trying to eliminate Captain Planet and those pesky Planeteers once and for all!

I’m guessing you’re talking about “commit sideways,” and I’m betting that isn’t an autocorrect. My mom used to use that expression when I was a kid.

As for the earlier comments about not wanting to live past 75 due to diminished mental and physical capacities…I’d say it depends on a lot of things for me. My dad is 80. He just got back a couple of months ago from a 3 month trip driving his 38’ motorhome to Alaska and back with a 75-year old friend, including investigating some pretty off-the-beaten-track areas in the Jeep they . He’s still mentally as sharp as ever, and physically in damned good shape for a guy his age. If I could be like that, I’d be fine with living that long.

There sure are! Raising men’s life expectancy is a laudable goal!

Well, no. The days of one income families are pretty much at an end. But it is absolutely true that barriers need to be broken down in the workplace for both genders. Women who are interested in pursuing more dangerous, traditionally male dominated jobs need to be encouraged, as an all-men’s environment can be very hostile to women. And men absolutely need to be encouraged to join female-dominated workplaces! This is something feminists have been working on for years, with much success.

Women need to be sent into combat in addition to men. Equality, remember? That’s the goal, or ought to be. It’s certainly the goal of feminism,who, if you haven’t heard, has recently found success on this subject after years of effort. Yay, feminism!

Well, this is just silly. Hitting is wrong, no matter who you’re hitting. Unfortunately, there is a stereotype that says fighting is “masculine” and that is a major contributor to man-on-man violence. Thankfully, feminists reject gender based stereotyping, and are working hard to change the cultural expectations for men. But we can use help! Why not join the feminist movement, and work with us to dismantle the concept of “Traditional Masculinity” which is so destructive to men?

Again, silly. Closing down clinics is a very foolish idea; they’ve been shown to help. The goal here is (ought to be) raising men’s life expectancy, not lowering women’s! To that end, I think it would be wonderful to open “Well Men” clinics (perhaps with a catchier name!) to emulate the successes of the women’s clinics. Obviously, men would be the best people to spearhead such an effort, knowing, as they do, the issues that men are concerned with and the reasons men do not seek medical care at the same rate as women. I’ve heard there is some kind of group, Men’s Rights Activists (perhaps you’ve heard of them?) who don’t ever seem to engage in much…well, activism. This would be a lovely project for them to work on, finding funding (or providing it themselves) to open Men’s Clinics.

All these silly ideas, based more on harming women than on helping men. Hm, one might think you a misogynist. It does make it hard to take you seriously, I’ll say that.
Anyway, again, since helping men and raising their life expectancy is the goal, not just hurting women (that is your goal, right? It’s hard to tell from these suggestions), what ought to be done is to raise funding and awareness for these cancers, just as women (feminists) did when they felt there was an unfair discrepancy in breast cancer research.
Have you heard of something called “Movember”? It’s a campaign, started by men, that raises awareness and funding for male-specific cancers. Since this is a subject that concerns you, I’ve given you a link so you can join the cause! It’s an absolutely wonderful example of the good male-led activism can do. This is the type of thing that needs to be emulated. Because it isn’t about tearing down women, it’s about raising everyone to a better place.

When feminists began fighting for equality, it wasn’t easy. They didn’t have a lot of support. Their causes were dismissed; they were dismissed. They fought long and hard, giving up a lot, to secure the rights women enjoy today. It was a hard battle, but it’s been successful in many many ways (even though we have a long way to go!).
Fighting inequality isn’t easy. I don’t understand why you think it would be; historically that’s never the case. I don’t think you should let a few internet nay-sayers upset you to this degree. If men want to change their circumstances, they need to fight, just as women did. Posting on here, or on Reddit, or The Spearhead isn’t activism. If this is a subject that concerns you, get out there! Start a campaign! Volunteer for one that someone else started! But complaining will get you nowhere. In the meantime, I’ll be standing with my feminist sisters, fighting to end ALL gender discrimination. It’s what we do.

Well, yeah - plans to live to 100 can be derailed by accident or illness. On the other hand, in my family those who don’t succumb to heart disease tend to live well into their 90’s. I’m pushing 50 with good health and no signs of heart disease, so if I take care of myself I stand a better than average chance of making it to 100 with mind and body reasonably intact.

While some things can’t be helped it’s no secret that behavior contributes a lot to poor health in later years. If you don’t want to become decrepit the first step is to start taking care of yourself and change bad habits to good ones.

Hey RS, you better re-read that chart, because it does almost nothing for your ridiculous case.

In fact the “Male-All Ages” category has a higher rate than the Highest age group (85+)–so by your logic, all males are so miserable we shouldn’t have any more willingness to live than the oldest people.

You’d realize how less dramatic these stats are if you’d read carefully enough to see that it’s based on every 100,000 people. Careful examination of the chart would also clue you in on the fact that the suicide rate has fallen DRAMATICALLY in the OLDEST brackets (much more so than in the younger ones).

Don’t worry, in 20-30 years, you’ll wise up.

snip:

Quite right, and I support the right to choose euthanasia. I don’t, however, support the right to choose euthanasia 50 years in advance. Because “old age” in itself is NOT a debilitatingly painful condition. Young people who start bawwing about how they’re going to kill themselves on their 80th birthday have no idea whether they’ll be in relatively decent health or knocking on death’s door by that point (or, let’s face it, whether they’ll even still be alive).

The presumption that aging is guaranteed to be an objectively terrible experience is where I take issue. There’s too much deification of youth and discrimination against the elderly already. Assuming that someone’s life sucks just because they’re past a certain age is ludicrous.

+1

FFS, I already said I was exaggerating. I’m not going to want to be around people like you in 20-30 years either.

Assuming that they will all be thankful for the gift of life or whatever other cliche you used is just as destructive, because instead of thinking about how we can make old people suffer less or lay down a mass transit infrastructure or something, we just assume they should just be SO THANKFUL to rot in their homes that we don’t do shit for them. Plus, what the fuck do you know about me anyway? How do you know I don’t have locked-in syndrome?

We actually do have a poster here with locked in system. I don’t think he’s ever posted anything near as long as what you have do to the time involved in composing posts.

It’s not conclusive proof, but it does weigh against you being locked in.

End of hijack, you may now resume your [del]argument[/del] discussion.

It’s good to see people discussing factors like seeking health care, preventive medicine, and lifestyle factors (i.e,. risk taking, substance using, diet and exercise). In other discussions of relative average lifespans (e.g., among different countries), some people would have you believe that the difference is due entirely to the quality of the health care systems used by the different populations.

Well, I blink fast.

Joking aside, the apparent certainty of people who don’t know me from Adam that at age 75 I’m going to be laughing and rolling around in poppies perplexes me. If you’re okay with being largely dependent on others to live your daily life, then good for you, enjoy it as long as you can. I don’t ever want to be that way, I don’t want my family to see me like that, and it’s incredibly patronizing to suggest that that attitude is a folly of youth or stupidity.

Well, yeah, having to depend on others for your existence sucks, but I don’t understand your expectation that that will be the case when you hit 75 (or some other arbitrary number).

My paternal grandfather lived to be 98 and was mentally alert and physically able to live on his own all that time (died in his sleep) (Admittedly, my maternal grandfather was dead by 44 - not everyone survives into old age.)

My father is 84 and while he chooses to live with family he is still mentally and physically capable of taking care of himself, and in fact does all the grocery shopping, much of the cooking, many other household chores, and the gardening where he lives with my sister and her husband, he’s certainly not “dependent” on them in the sense you mean. If anything, his presence relieves them of some of the household work and allowing them more leisure time. (This is also becoming relevant as my sister is suffering from heart problems - her health is actually worse than dad’s, even if she’s “only” in her 50’s)

I had a friend who passed away last May at the age of 102. She had continued working full time until she was 100, was mentally alert right up until the end, and physically able to care for herself although, admittedly, she no longer saw well enough to drive safely at that point.

One of my co-workers is 85 and still working 30 hours a week by choice and is still mentally alert and entirely able to care for herself. She does avoid long driving trips because, admittedly, she does fatigue quicker than she used to.

And I could list more examples. True, some people are complete wrecks by 75 but in my own life I’ve had numerous people still mentally and physically OK into their 80’s and 90’s. If I can hold onto my health and brains I very much want to live into the triple digits.

On the other hand, if I had some nasty, chronic, and deteriorating condition I might not want to live past 50 or whatever age it occurred.

The difference comes down to assumptions. You assume that “decrepit by 75” is so much the norm that almost no one will be an exception. I look at the 80+ people I know and go “hmmm… that’s more possible than I thought it was when I was 20” so I’m much more optimistic about aging well.

Well, I do have chronic knee problems and post-traumatic arthritis in my hand at 32, so I assume I’ll be pretty decrepit by that point. And that’s only if my liver doesn’t give out first.

I’m guessing you are less than 40 years old

I safely assumed you were young and healthy because you speak with the indignation and conviction of a young person who’s never suffered. Forgive me if I’m incorrect (although whether or not I am, I doubt you’d agree).

Moreover, I never claimed with certainty that your life would be poppies and lavender or whatever the fuck in 50ish years. What I can claim with certainty is you are literally incapable of knowing whether it will be poppies and lavender or black bile and burnt bacon. Do you see the difference?

You say A.
I say not A.
You think I’m saying Z. I never said Z. I said not A.

Instead of wasting time worrying about the ravages of an age that you may never see, just chillax and see what happens. By the time you’re 75, maybe 90 will be the new 60.

I got the impression that a healthy lifestyle wasn’t really your thing. Did I get that wrong and you’re a sort of health fan? It’s been disconcerting to read your pollyanna you’ll take that all back when you’re 75! posts, because my mental picture of you has a life expectancy lower than that.

Wouldn’t be the first time my mental picture of somebody was way off, but usually it veers to the side of optimism. Maybe it’s just how have no end of time to weigh in with your opinion. Something about your posts have led me to think of you as gravely sick in the soul and body. I guess you’re not. Good for you, glad to hear.

Really?!:rolleyes:

This is a seriously jerky post.

This kind of character assassination belongs in the BBQ Pit, if at all. Back off please.

I may have missed someone else mentioning this, but one factor in shorter lives for men is that themost dangerous jobs tend to be held by men - and those jobs were even more male-dominated in the past!