To be interested in why women generally live longer than men?

[JFDIYOLO]

Quite a few articles doing the rounds this week.

The XX chromosome combo seems more robust - if there's something wrong with one X, a woman's other X will compensate (eg I probably carry my father's colour blindness but my mother's healthy X patched that). But male embryos/men, with only the one X, may be more vulnerable.

Female embryos are more engaged with building the immune system very early on than male.

Men are more likely to do risky behaviour like motorbikes, driving dangerous, drinking, fighting - testosterone is a dangerous drug?

Men are more likely to be doing dangerous professions - building sites, deep sea diving, the military etc, and to die at work.

Men are more likely to murder and be murdered.

Men are less likely to consult a doctor for health issues - I once came home to find my partner googling 'What should I do about this pain in my chest' (yes, heart attack) whereas I'm on the phone if it doesn't look right, feel right, act right and to take every routine test on offer - because I've been socialised to know my entire female anatomy is trying to kill me.

Men are less likely to talk about and ask for help with mental and emotional issues which can descend into depression, and higher male suicides.

Even though women still die in childbirth, suffer PND, are way more likely to be murdered by their intimate partners and are prescribed drugs that were habitually not developed using female test cohorts.

www.sciencenewstoday.org/why-do-women-live-longer-than-men-scientists-say-the-answer-lies-in-evolution

Because we are better than men obviously... and what @MrsTerryPratchett said, we should be in charge tbh.

My mum lived to be 98, my dad just 66. I like the idea that women live longer to pass on their wisdom. My mum used to always say that baby girls were stronger than boys and more likely to survive premature childbirth or illnesses because they had an extra x. She never studied science and knew nothing about genetics but it seems she was right. God I miss her.

Did you know premature baby girls have a higher survival rate than premature baby boys?

So while environmental factors play a part for adults there is something stronger in females than males from birth.

Until the mid 1840s women worked down mines in large numbers. The did the carrying up of coal often carrying over 290 stone of coal up in a day. They were paid a pittance.

The law changed in the 1840 so women no longer worked down the mines but still did back breaking work at surface level.

Female whales are also one of the few mammals with the menopause, and the long lived female whales guide their groups to hunting/feeding grounds which they remember through their long lives.
I'm not sure what the explanation of the link between menopause and longer life but its interesting. Also worth noting that a lot of human history and folk tales have older woman in the role of mystics, oracles or wise women tropes, perhaps feeding in to idea that long lived women carried tribal knowledge from one generation to the next, and would make sense when thinking of humans in the times of hunter gatherers, where knowledge passed down about food sources could mean life or death for a tribe or extended family.

I was thinking that too. It sounds a bit 'determinism'

Articles I’ve read in the past have argued it’s down to the xx chromosomes and their role in building the immune system. This role may exist because women have to build the immune system of their baby. It may also explain why women are more prone to autoimmune illness and are more likely to have an overactive immune system generally. But I don’t think it’s proven and I’m sure there are other theories.

We’ve got too much to do, need to live a bit longer just to get it all done!

Is it true that smaller people live longer, on average?

Also more baby boys are born but more baby girls survive.
The ratio of boys born to girls born is between approx 104:100 and 106:100
After infant deaths it’s approx 100:100

Yes, they tend to cope with G-force better as well, so I imagine many jet pilots are smaller than average.

@PrizedPickledPopcorn Men can continue to reproduce, so they don't really shift gears (in reproductive terms) as women do. Also, women are definitely capable of living communally in harmony.

Males are more driven to ensure their genetic legacy. Other males and their offspring are a threat to that legacy. You may think that only applies in nature, but look at the fuss men make about contraception and vasectomy. More chillingly, the number of children killed or abused by a woman's new partner.

In evolutionary terms, men and women are hardwired to have very different roles. Then you also have a societal overlay.

It is. It's a terrible testament to how obsessed people are with being attractive that we still all want our sons to be tall.

XX chromosomes is why more men died of COVID than women, or so it was reported.

So many genetic conditions are Y chromosome specific. More boys are born but more girls live through childhood.

Wouldn't it have been more even in the past as quite a large number of women would have died during child birth.

When it comes to neonates, boys are known to be lazy when it comes to breathing. Higher chance of a prem or unwell baby needing to be intubated if it is a boy.

Quite simply - testosterone.

Castrated males live as long as females.

The heart attack reason, BTW, is wrong. Women are MORE likely to die of a first heart attack for many reasons, one of which is that men’s symptoms are the ones we’ve all been taught. Women’s aren’t taught and therefore not recognised.

On the ‘why women, why not men’ of evolution’ it’s a lot of things. Women gather, we know where the water is, where the berries in times of famine are. Men hunt. In almost all hunter-gatherer societies hunting is a ‘nice to have’ which supplies far fewer (and less reliable) calories. Men eat more and use more resources. They die first in famines. In wars. Women can help with children better (without killing them or abusing them - sorry but it’s true). Menopause means we’re awake at night to guard the camp and tend the fire. Typically women protect the genes of their children, but also the related children (nieces, cousins, grandchildren) conferring advantage. Men don’t typically.

Women tend to have lots of other skills. Sewing, cooking, mashing tubers, tending fires, making fish hooks… All the things that you can still do when you’re 80 leaving the youngsters to hunt and gather.

If you’ve ever spent time in places which are slightly closer to how our ancestors lived, and I have, the men do the BIG TASK (hunting, herding, farming) then they sit down. Women are always moving, carrying, caring, cooking, cleaning, making cheese, storing pickles, cleaning vegetables to store, fermenting stuff, doing doing doing. So as they age, men can’t do the BIG TASK and just consume resources. Women are consuming less and contributing more to the survival of the genes.

I had premature twins 30 years ago. They were ten weeks early, delivered by C section, because I had severe pre eclampsia. Doctors said it was a miracle all three of us survived. It really was touch and go up until delivery for the babies and me. I then had a post delivery eclamptic fit, and was in HDU for forty eight hours. The babies were in SCBU. They didn’t even need oxygen, just tube feeding and warmth and monitoring. After I pulled round, my consultant told me that we all survived because we are females! “Be very grateful you delivered girls, they are so much stronger than premature males.” What I then witnessed visiting the baby unit in the weeks following confirmed his words, the majority of the incubators had baby boys in them. My girls, despite their low birth weight, were discharged and home with us six weeks before their due date. They are now beautiful young women, I am blessed.

Women CAN breastfeed in old age.

It makes sense in evolutionary terms for women to be hardier. The ongoing survival of nomadic people covering great distances, during the ice age with very limited food, depends very much more on the survival of a significant number of women than it does on a significant number of men.

look at the fuss men make about contraception and vasectomy

What do you mean?

Diet too. Men generally have higher salt, fat diets

Yup it's like the Darwin Awards isn't it 🤣

DP made more of a song and dance of his insignificant little incision for a vasectomy than I did for an emergency C section. SIL said the same about her emergency section and BIL's vasectomy.

Anecdote doesn't = data, I know. But they aren't exactly stoic in the face of illness or pain. That's why they call it Manflu.