Studies debunk myth of male as stronger sex

[snopes]

In the world of gender politics, death is the latest measure of parity.

Not only do women outlive men, but recent research shows that they're also being born more often than in the past. The allegedly stronger sex, it turns out, is really the weaker and more vulnerable — from conception until death do us part.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...706100321/1030

Do any biologists have ideas on why the Y chromosone is so vulnerable?

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Elf

Do any biologists have ideas on why the Y chromosone is so vulnerable?

It's alone. There's only one of it, with no backup. This is why we have two eyes, kidneys, etc. The Y chromosome, per se, is no more vulnerable than any other, but some sex-linked diseases are more likely to appear in men than in women (in part) because the Y hasn't got any redundancy.

Other sex-linked diseases appear in men because the X chromosome is alone and doesn't have any redundancy; these are the kinds, such as Imperial Hemophilia, which are carried by women, but which fully express themselves as diseases in men more often than in women.

Silas

[Prints Myshkin]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

It's alone. There's only one of it, with no backup. This is why we have two eyes, kidneys, etc. The Y chromosome, per se, is no more vulnerable than any other, but some sex-linked diseases are more likely to appear in men than in women (in part) because the Y hasn't got any redundancy.

Other sex-linked diseases appear in men because the X chromosome is alone and doesn't have any redundancy; these are the kinds, such as Imperial Hemophilia, which are carried by women, but which fully express themselves as diseases in men more often than in women.

Silas

Nah. It's obviously cultural. Nothing biological could ever cause differences. The fact that, in most vertebrate species, if a net difference in mean longevity exists at all, females live longer - well, that's just a smokescreen created by The Man, who is after all a Sociobiologist. That's almost as bad as being a Liberal.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Prints Myshkin

Nah. It's obviously cultural. Nothing biological could ever cause differences. The fact that, in most vertebrate species, if a net difference in mean longevity exists at all, females live longer - well, that's just a smokescreen created by The Man, who is after all a Sociobiologist. That's almost as bad as being a Liberal.

Grin! Actually, women's longer lifespan is, in part, cultural. In industrialized nations, women have fewer babies, and having a baby is a very major stress upon the body, and a common cause of early death. If one adds in advanced medical technology (or just simply knowing to wash one's hands) as a factor, giving birth is far less risky than "nature intended," and this, too, adds to women's lifespans.

Heck, the very division of labor in nearly every human civilization -- men hunt, women bake -- has helped women live longer. (The home hearthfire is less likely to gore you than a water-buffalo is!)

Silas

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

(The home hearthfire is less likely to gore you than a water-buffalo is!)

Obviously you've never sampled my attempts at cooking.

[FloridaGirl]

Also, there is no real need for an equal number of male to female in the biological world. The male involvement in reproduction is simple - to fertilize. Of course, depending on the species, the male may need to provide some care after the birth. But, one male can fertilize many a female, so it makes since that there are more females.

That being said, there is a reason men don't have children...

[Johnny Slick]

Come on, now. In actual hunter-gatherer societies, which presumably was the last time we humans were involved in natural selection, the division of labor was quite a bit less stratified than what Silas implies. Yes, the men tended to be the ones who went out and killed the wild cows... but from what I've read, these societies didn't eat a lot of meat. Women and men together gathered the fruits and vegetables that made up the overwhelming majority of their diet.

My take on why women live longer than men:

- Women tend to be smaller, and smaller people (excluding those with genetic disorders) seem to have fewer medical problems than bigger ones.

- Division of labor in modern society, although I'm not all that confident in this since labor has become a lot less divided recently but average lifespans have not gotten any closer.

- I think there *could* be some extra genetic resistance to some diseases, etc. that fell men because so many women used to die during childbirth (as recently as 1800 the average lifespan of a female was 30 years) that women who didn't die of something else were selected. Or perhaps women who were of particular body types that they died in childbirth very often were weeded out and that body type has also managed to protect them against other things.

Overall, though, I'm going to apply the old "I have no idea" to this.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

Come on, now. In actual hunter-gatherer societies, which presumably was the last time we humans were involved in natural selection, the division of labor was quite a bit less stratified than what Silas implies. Yes, the men tended to be the ones who went out and killed the wild cows... but from what I've read, these societies didn't eat a lot of meat. Women and men together gathered the fruits and vegetables that made up the overwhelming majority of their diet.

But, again, fruits and vegetables don't fight back... Miss Mouse's cooking being, perhaps, an exception... (grin!)

Warfare is another traditionally male-dominated field of endeavor, having obvious life-shortening effects...

Just saying that it isn't entirely hoo-ha to suggest that "cultural roles" play some part in the inequality. (But, of course, it would be bull-fewmets to say that it is the sole or entire cause, as Prints Myshkin was suggesting, in parody of post-modernist social science.)

Silas

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

But, again, fruits and vegetables don't fight back... Miss Mouse's cooking being, perhaps, an exception... (grin!)

*Sigh*. Anyone for ramen noodles?

[Majorsam]

Howdy;

I read this a couple of days ago and thought “well, that ain’t right” because…well…I’m a guy and don’t like to think of my gender as the “weaker” one and figured the discrepancies in death rates were more likely because of men having a more dangerous (in general) lifestyle.

Well, after some number crunching based on US statistics from the CDC I’m afraid I have to say it...

I’m wrong.

Women do indeed appear to be straight-up healthier (I decline to use “strong” as imprecise) from literally the cradle to grave. At every age from birth to 80+ male mortality is higher than female and even if you take out death by violence, females STILL have a lower death rate by a long stretch.

Okay here’s the boring numbers breakdown:

Men are more likely to die of injuries 81.8 per 100,000. A little over a tenth of those will be by murder (9.3/100K) and about double that by suicide (18.1). Women, conversely, suffer less than 33 deaths per 100,000…gads, less than half by a good number. They get murdered less per capita, fewer suicides as well (2.6 & 4.3 per 100K respectively). So to put it in simple terms, if you are a man you are 60% more likely to die a violent death.

But hold the phone. Despite that chilling statistic….it accounts for less than 10% of male mortality, which is 988/100K per year compared to overall female 700/100K for woman…so on a grand scale male mortality is “only” 29% higher than female. If we take out violent deaths (suicide, murder, accidents with sharp sticks etc.) men suffer 906/100K and women 667/100K…meaning that male mortality is still 26% higher than women. This is statistically significant, and it does make it clear that there’s something more going on than the violence inherited in the system.

However the danger of raw statistics is that they are…well…raw. Even removing the violence bit doesn’t assure us that environmental and social factors aren’t at play. Men, for instance, are more likely to have high-risk professions that can affect their health & shorten life span. There aren’t that many female coal miners, for instance, or asbestos removers. These statistics can’t tell us that.

Infant mortality seems to me to be the best measure of gender differences because at that age (0-364 days) there’s very little difference between genders when it comes to affects from the environment (although, strangely, boys are more likely to die of accidents than girls by 20%). Even here there was a noticeable difference, with boys suffering a staggering 22% higher mortality rate than girls. Please note that about half of the deaths were due to congenital defects, complications from prematurity, SIDS and complications from birth….things in which gender presumably wouldn’t change.

The “best” time to be a male is as a toddler….where the gap closes considerably. Males die in 1-4 year age at a thankfully low 32/100K and females at 28/100K…and male mortality is 14% higher.

So, yes, it does appear that women tend to be healthier than men. Go figure.

[Johnny Slick]

It's because of all those 6-month-old boys attacking wild cows.
I kid, I kid!

[Prints Myshkin]

Originally Posted by Johnny Slick

Come on, now. In actual hunter-gatherer societies, which presumably was the last time we humans were involved in natural selection...

I dunno. Selection pressures are certainly different then they were in that culture and environment, but in order for no natural selection to be taking place, there would have to be not a single genetically-influenced trait that has any effect, in any population, on net fitness. Even only partially genetically influenced (e.g. a certain genotype having a greater chance of contracting some disease when exposed to a certain environmental influence) traits that have any net effect on reproduction will be objects of selection. Any behavioral or personality traits that are even a little affected by genetics - aggressiveness, social tendencies, attention span - can all affect fitness, either by premature death by accident, suicide, or even by the phenotype (incl. some genetically-influenced traits in the partners) of parent-partners, the desire or ability to reproduce, and the ability to keep these offspring alive to reproductive age.

Natural selection is currently acting on all these traits. It doesn't mean that we have enough information to predict any particular selection trend, nor does it mean that the physical, cultural, and social environments will stay constant enough to allow net directional change in any trait, but natural selection is happening. I don't see how it could not happen.

Now I'm recovering from what were once pretty hardcore sociobiological tendencies, but I just can't get my head around to the idea that nothing genetic affects fitness in human populations.

[MapleLeaf]

Originally Posted by FloridaGirl

Also, there is no real need for an equal number of male to female in the biological world. The male involvement in reproduction is simple - to fertilize. Of course, depending on the species, the male may need to provide some care after the birth. But, one male can fertilize many a female, so it makes since that there are more females.

That being said, there is a reason men don't have children...

Oh? And what might that be (besides the obvious "They biologically can't")?

I seem to remember reading an article claiming that the longevity gap was slowly closing. No cite, though, so I guess I'm outta luck on that one.

[James G]

Originally Posted by FloridaGirl

Also, there is no real need for an equal number of male to female in the biological world. The male involvement in reproduction is simple - to fertilize. Of course, depending on the species, the male may need to provide some care after the birth. But, one male can fertilize many a female, so it makes since that there are more females.

The evolutionary biologist Fisher has addressed this conundrum, which is all down to selection acting at the level of the individual, rather than the species. In any population in which there is a bias in the sex ratio, (certain exceptions withstanding) the sex which in shortest supply will produce the most offspring and thus gain a selective advantage. This results in strong selevtive pressure to maintain the 50:50 ratio.

Of course the exceptions are more interesting, such as in some populations of insect in which an inherited parasite kills the males, resulting in a huge female bias. The benifit in this case is that the females can eat their dead male siblings, increasing the survival in the important first moments after hatching.

[kitap]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

Heck, the very division of labor in nearly every human civilization -- men hunt, women bake -- has helped women live longer. (The home hearthfire is less likely to gore you than a water-buffalo is!)

Silas

I remember in one of my anthro classes in college being told that men hunted and women gathered in some hunter/gatherer societies because the anthropologist was male. If they saw men gathering, they "successfully brought food home from the hunt" (or words to that effect). If they saw women hunting small game they "gathered food they had found". I am not saying it was big game or in all hunter gatherer societies; but in some socieites women apparently did do some small game hunting and men did gather.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by kitap

. . . but in some socieites women apparently did do some small game hunting and men did gather.

One day, my sister had just killed a gopher, and her husband had just finished boiling and sealing a jar of strawberry jelly. He grunted, in a cliche Tarzan voice, "Woman slayer, man preserver."

Silas

[Majorsam]

Originally Posted by MapleLeaf

I seem to remember reading an article claiming that the longevity gap was slowly closing. No cite, though, so I guess I'm outta luck on that one.

The longevity gap is kinda hard to pin down...I found articles that said it was improving, it was gettnig worse and staying the same.

So when in doubt...go for some CDC action.

The gap, if anything, seems to be widening as far as mortality rates go. In 1935 white males had a mortality of 1160/100K compared to white females 950/100K (note: I went to all white because the statistics I found are broken into "White" and "Other" from this period & I didn't want to compare apples & oranges) with men having a 22% higher mortality rate. Then it went up by 1950 to 36% higher, then dipped by 1975 to be 30.7% higher and then went up until the modern era it's a whopping 41% higher.

But as always raw statistics hide things. Male mortality has dropped steadily since 1935 (again, US stats only) from 1160 to 968 today. Problem is women's has dropped faster from 950 to 687. There can be many reasons for this including the 1935 stats was smack-dab in the depression which possibly meant many more birth complications, which affected women more than men, but with declining birthrates women's lifespans went up...not sure why the dip in 70s, but these things happen.

Anyway, this isn't a very detailed analysis...just a back-of-the-envelope that the gap seems to be widening.

Originally Posted by Majorsam

Howdy;

I read this a couple of days ago and thought “well, that ain’t right” because…well…I’m a guy and don’t like to think of my gender as the “weaker” one and figured the discrepancies in death rates were more likely because of men having a more dangerous (in general) lifestyle.

Well, after some number crunching based on US statistics from the CDC I’m afraid I have to say it...

I’m wrong.

...


So, yes, it does appear that women tend to be healthier than men. Go figure.

Just wanted to congratulate you on a great post.

[Towknie]

Just throwing this out there without any basis for it being fact.

Might it be that the longevity gap has something to do with women in general keeping a more vigilant eye on their health and health maintenance, while most men spurn doctor visits until something is broken beyond repair?

If one wants to take this theory a step further, I had a girlfriend in college who used to claim that a woman's menstruation cycle causes women to have more self realization about their bodies and health than men. Personally, I found this idea to be a bit presumptive, but there it is.


Tow "Hey, what's this rash? Meh, that'll go away" knie