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

It's a gift from the universe for having to put up with men all their lives. They get a few peaceful years at the end.

It’s because men are often not good at looking after themselves or their environment.

DM died a couple of years ago and my DF is pretty useless at keeping up with the household chores and efficient shopping and cooking. He’s getting better but it is obvious that he went straight from living with his mum to his wife.

because I've been socialised to know my entire female anatomy is trying to kill me.

This made me laugh.

Unfortunately for this insane theory however, women have absolutely always worked for pay, around their kids, with their kids, leaving their kids at home, prostituting themselves and pretty much any other job they could get for when he left them, whored the money away, drank the money away, gambled the money away or just didn't give it to them.

The tiniest percentage of women in history ever stayed home dependent on a man's wages, because they couldn't.

And of course, being the sex that gets pregnant and does nearly all the nurturing and care giving puts enormous strain on women and takes time off their lives because it is so physically exhausting - as well as them working for money, like they always have.

Not to mention the many, many, many women who never got married at all.

So, this is utter bunkum and you really need to stop relying on Bewitched and American sitcoms for historical facts.

My brother mashed his lip up age 3, smashed his leg and pelvis age 16, cut the end of his thumb off age 20 and broke his back age 21 (it healed he's not paralysed) he also seems to cut certain car journeys by hours. Despite having in one of the most dangerous careers about I seem a lot less accident prone. There must be something in his Y chromosome.

It was just an opinion based on my own relatives and colleagues.
Many women in the 40's, 50's didn't work - they stayed home and are alive and well in their 90's with long dead husbands.
Can you give an opinion without including a put down or is that beyond you?

Your opinion is completely and totally incorrect. No, most women ALWAYS WORKED FOR MONEY.

Now you know. You're wrong. Read a book, this is utterly embarrassing.

Oh give over.
Why are you getting your knickers in a twist.
In my cohort it's fact - in yours maybe not.
What's embarrassing is your inability to engage without being so rude

Here are a few to start you off:

PS, I asked Grok to give me a list and it took about five minutes. I didn't add all the books it offered.

Can't add links but to help you I have given the full titles and authors. Even you should be able to manage a quick AI search, or Google search.

Women in Industry: A Study in Economic History, Edith Abbott
Woman's Role in Economic Development, Ester Boserup
The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family, Claudia Goldin
Women in the Work Force during World War II, National Archives and Records Administration (various historians)
The History of Women's Work and Wages and How It Has Created Success for Us All, Janet L. Yellen
Women at Work in the United States since 1860: An Analysis of Unreported Family Workers, Joydeep Roy and Sayeh Bayat
A Historical View of Studies of Women's Work, Lucy Suchman and Brigitte Jordan
Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States, Angel Kwolek-Folland
Women, Work, and the Family Economy in Historical Perspective, Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott
Working Women in Renaissance Italy, Samuel K. Cohn Jr.
Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States, Alice Kessler-Harris
Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, Barbara A. Hanawalt
Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain, Joyce Burnette
Women’s Work in the Ancient Near East, Saana Svärd
The Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, Alice Clark
Women and Paid Work in Early Modern England, Amy Louise Erickson and Jane Whittle
To the City: Urban Women and the Industrial Revolution, Deborah Simonton
Women, Work, and Wages in England, 1600–1850, Penelope Lane, Neil Raven, and K. D. M. Snell

You sound really, genuinely thick.

Here's something to get you started. Educate yourself.

PS, I asked Grok to give me a list and it took about five minutes. I didn't add all the books it offered.

Can't add links but to help you I have given the full titles and authors. Even you should be able to manage a quick AI search, or Google search.

Women in Industry: A Study in Economic History, Edith Abbott
Woman's Role in Economic Development, Ester Boserup
The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family, Claudia Goldin
Women in the Work Force during World War II, National Archives and Records Administration (various historians)
The History of Women's Work and Wages and How It Has Created Success for Us All, Janet L. Yellen
Women at Work in the United States since 1860: An Analysis of Unreported Family Workers, Joydeep Roy and Sayeh Bayat
A Historical View of Studies of Women's Work, Lucy Suchman and Brigitte Jordan
Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States, Angel Kwolek-Folland
Women, Work, and the Family Economy in Historical Perspective, Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott
Working Women in Renaissance Italy, Samuel K. Cohn Jr.
Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States, Alice Kessler-Harris
Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, Barbara A. Hanawalt
Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain, Joyce Burnette
Women’s Work in the Ancient Near East, Saana Svärd
The Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, Alice Clark
Women and Paid Work in Early Modern England, Amy Louise Erickson and Jane Whittle
To the City: Urban Women and the Industrial Revolution, Deborah Simonton
Women, Work, and Wages in England, 1600–1850, Penelope Lane, Neil Raven, and K. D. M. Snell

Men have a physiological advantage throughout life, and it is particularly marked in the neonatal period - female premature infants have better survival rates than male. Testosterone also makes people more susceptible to infection.

Here's a few more, going back a bit further and a bit more widespread. Hth.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years - Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Women in Ancient Egypt, Gay Robins
The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East, Brigitte Lion and Cécile Michel
Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation, Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant
Women's Roles in Ancient Civilizations: A Reference Guide, Bella Vivante
Women and Work in Precolonial India, Bijayalaxmi Nanda and Vibhuti Patel
Women's Writing of Ancient Mesopotamia, Charlotte Pfeffer Harrington and Saana Svärz
Women in Medieval English Society, Mavis E. Mate
Women, Work, and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire c.1300–1520, P. J. P. Goldberg
Women and Work in Medieval Europe, Madeleine Pelner Cosman and Linda Gale Jones
Women and Economic Activities in Late Medieval Ghent, Shennan Hutton
The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London, Barbara A. Hanawalt
Women in England, 1275–1525: Documentary Sources, P. J. P. Goldberg
Working Women in English Society, 1300–1620, Marjorie Keniston McIntosh
Women’s Labour and the History of the Book in Early Modern England, Valerie Wayne

Men are more likely to be involved in dangerous crime or risky behaviour. Like riding fast motorcycles or extreme sports, or being in a gang. So they're more likely to die from major trauma injuries. Or murder/ manslaughter.

I think they are also more likely to commit suicide.

I think that contributes to bringing the general figures down for men.

Yep. The mere fact that married men live longer on average and married women die earlier on average tells you all you need to know about the way women care for others and the way men do not care for themselves.

Having said that, my husband is actually brilliant. He's in the minority though and he is my second husband, as my first fit all the stereotypes of being much more of a burden than an equal companion and team member.

When you add to that male risk taking, male violence (to other men and women), male desire to wage war, it's not tricky to figure out why women, on average, live longer - and that's despite so many women going through the very risky, difficult and life shortening job of pregnancy.

In purely evolutionary and biological terms, the main purpose of any species is to reproduce. Grandmothers have a vested interest in assisting their daughters to bring up their grandchildren to ensure continuation of the species.
There would be fewer childless women as to have children was their prime purpose so no woman would remain childless by choice, women started reproducing young so fewer fertility problems and every effort was made to find a man for the woman to have children with.
Fertility was the aim of the whole society. Any childless women of any age would presumably help to bring up the children of family members, do more cooking etc.

Interesting thread! I think all of the things you mentioned are potential contributing factors.

Just from observations but I think older woman tend to do more. They tend to still do housework, looking after grandchildren, socialising, cooking/eating healthily. A lot of the older men I’ve known tend to be more sedentary and particularly if they’ve had a partner that’s died they seem to be far more isolated and rely on packaged food/takeaway. There is some research that says that married women don’t live as long as single women and married men live longer than single men. I think it’s probably down to diet and self care.

Evolutionary biology. There are many many small but cumulative differences built in over millenia which make women a bit more 'hardy'. Very basically because if the species hits an ecological bottleneck, it's more important to have more females than males because with in a society of 99 females and 1 male, there is far more chance of creating a viable population, than with 99 males and 1 female.

My kids were born through IVF and I remember a consultant telling me that more boys are born to account for girls being hardier (naturally) but in IVF the difference is even more pronounced because male embryos tend to develop slightly faster. So chances are when they check them to transfer at either 2, 3 or 5 days the male embryo will look healthier as slightly further along the developmental route. Obviously we don't check for sex of embryo in the UK (except in very specific health related situations) but if we did there MAY be more of an even number of girls vs boys born.

But many women were just sahm 🤦‍♀️ - I didn't say all.
Go and do something more productive than mindlessly baiting someone who has an opinion that differs to yours.

Why the name calling?
Are you always so abusive?

Why are you abusively harassing me? Why can't you read a book? Why are you still talking nonsense?

So many questions.

Why are you personally attacking people to make your point?