Crisis in Men's Health

@LifeOfDreamer the book, “The Hazards of Being Male, Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege” by Herb Goldberg, explored this in detail in 1976. My boyfriend at the time gave it to me. It was a real eye-opener. Dr. Goldberg stressed how women’s support systems (female relatives and friends who share emotional support) do not have a male equivalent in American culture where men’s relationships are often superficial.

Wendy

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Still true nearly 50 years later.

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examining actual humans throughout history the important role of gay males in leavening straight male isolation and depression is… interesting factually and terrifying within current social taboos.

david fb

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Support systems certainly have lots of benefits, but it is likely irrelevant with respect to the sex difference in life span. Consider two studies.

The first surveyed about 50 mammalian species and found in most that females live longer than males. So this is a general mammalian rather than a human-specific characteristic. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911999117

The second surveyed animals by the number of X chromosomes. Those with two X chromosomes tended to live considerably longer than those with one. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0867

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in our chromosomes, …”

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We just need more Wendy’s to save men. Society has failed to produce enough caring person like you is the real problem :slight_smile:

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Consider that there can be both environmental and genetic components.

Sure, but when a relationship persists in different cultures, over different time periods, and even in different species, then the genetic components are almost certainly far more significant than the environmental ones.

In mammals, males have the single X chromosome and they tend to have shorter life spans. In birds, females have the single Z chromosome (the equivalent to the mammalian X) and they have shorter life spans. One might be able to come up with an environmental explanation but it would probably be pretty convoluted.

This is not to say men shouldn’t live a healthy life style. It is to say that even if men behaved exactly like women, they would still on average die younger.

C’est la vie.

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