Why women live longer than man, that's unfair :-)

[Pawelk198604]

You can see it in all the statistics, the longest living man is a woman from France? lived to 124 years. She died probably in 2005, is in the record Guinness Book of Records.

Two of the longest reigning monarchs of British are women

[christok]

Bad joke time!

Q: Why don't husbands live as long as their wives?

A: They don't want to.

[Sirrobert]

The longest living man is a woman? Makes sense

And yeay for redudancy on the record guiness book of records

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Partly this is just because males are significantly more likely to die violent or accidental deaths. Men more likely to be murdered, killed in war, die in car crashes (because they drive more and more recklessly) and die in accidents in the mining, fishing agriculture or construction industries. That all shaves a few months off life expectancy.

[phoenix_ca]

Check your privelage! Men should be happy to live at all, what with being obsolete!

[vger]

Check your privilege! Men should be happy to live at all, what with being obsolete!

It's quite a privilege to have the politically-correct authority to say "check your privilege."

[phoenix_ca]

It's quite a privilege to have the politically-correct authority to say "check your privilege."

You'd think that irony would be apparent to those who say that with a straight face.

@Fuzzy: Let's see some numbers to support those claims. Women can be just as reckless as men when driving. (Though the workplace death gap is indeed huge. Men make up the vast majority of workplace deaths and injuries. One need only consult publically available figures from government to see that one.)

[vger]

Though the workplace death gap is indeed huge. Men make up the vast majority of workplace deaths and injuries.

That's like saying men are more reckless in professional football because the players who are always getting hurt are men.

Unfortunately, unless the research takes into account the nature of the job, those numbers are going to be horridly skewed. Men traditionally have far more dangerous jobs than women.

It would only be a fair assessment if you take into account not only the number of accidents, but look at each profession separately, AND factor in the ratio of men to women in that profession.

[Pawelk198604]

The longest living man is a woman? Makes sense

And yeay for redudancy on the record guiness book of records

The longest confirmed man are woman, Jeanne Calment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

At the same time, I would like to improve my mistake, she died in 1997, not 2005.

mea culpa

[Sirrobert]

Check your privelage! Men should be happy to live at all, what with being obsolete!

Pssh, good luck making new life without our DNA injections

[vger]

Pssh, good luck making new life without our DNA injections

Wow, you sure picked a pretty poor era in biotechnology for making a statement like that.

Even if the entire human race becomes impotent, science has that one covered.

[Pawelk198604]

Check your privelage! Men should be happy to live at all, what with being obsolete!

Do you refer to the supposed degenerating Y chromosome?

Bad joke, besides is a dirty feminist, misandric propaganda:D

Long live "Man" kind

[vger]

Do you refer to the supposed degenerating Y chromosome?

I was thinking it was about ever-increasing technology eliminating the need for humans to do any kind of strenuous work. As far as I can tell, physical labor is just about the only thing that males were inherently built for. Every other aspect is technically a woman's world. It just hasn't gotten there yet.

[Sirrobert]

Wow, you sure picked a pretty poor era in biotechnology for making a statement like that.

Even if the entire human race becomes impotent, science has that one covered.

Wait, can we actually make sperm out of other stuf? I was under the impression that was still a nature exclusive

[vger]

Wait, can we actually make sperm out of other stuf? I was under the impression that was still a nature exclusive

We can clone sperm from existing ones. All that would have to be done then is to start playing with the genes to maintain a diverse population, which wouldn't be that hard. 'Designer babies' have been a thing for a while now.

[phoenix_ca]

That's like saying men are more reckless in professional football because the players who are always getting hurt are men.

Unfortunately, unless the research takes into account the nature of the job, those numbers are going to be horridly skewed. Men traditionally have far more dangerous jobs than women.

It would only be a fair assessment if you take into account not only the number of accidents, but look at each profession separately, AND factor in the ratio of men to women in that profession.

No, not when the very point you're making is that men tend to have more dangerous occupations. If you did normalize everything to the extent you suggest, you wouldn't find much if any variance between sexes, just as there's little to no variance in pay in such a situation.

The whole point is that men have a higher chance of occupational death because they take the far more hazardous jobs.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Its partially because we have an extra X chromosome which means if there is a fault in one then the other can pick up the slack. As males have just a single X chromosome if a fault appears then there is no redundancy.

[vger]

The whole point is that men have a higher chance of occupational death because they take the far more hazardous jobs.

Got it. I was thinking it was trying to imply something else, since it was a response to the suggestion that men are more dangerous behind the wheel.

[xenomorph555]

Since this post is slightly turning into a gender battle ground I will say the real answer, an average woman lives longer then an average man simply because of biology and evolution, most females in nature live longer because they need to reproduce as much as possible to keep the species going (there also tends to be less of them). Because of the stated reasons, nature merely decided to increase the females life length so species stand better odds of surviving, this was also passed down to humans.

[Dkmdlb]

most females in nature live longer because they need to reproduce as much as possible to keep the species going (there also tends to be less of them)

If this is true, why do women experience menopause halfway through their life while men retain their ability to, um, spread their seed indefinitely (save for the occasional dysfunction)?

And why is the ratio of women to men almost 1:1?

[Comrade Jenkens]

most females in nature live longer because they need to reproduce as much as possible to keep the species going (there also tends to be less of them)

There are actually very slightly more females than males. Ratio around 51:49

[Sirrobert]

Its partially because we have an extra X chromosome which means if there is a fault in one then the other can pick up the slack. As males have just a single X chromosome if a fault appears then there is no redundancy.

That's not exactly how it works

What actually happends with your X chromosones is a little more complicated than 'you have 2 of them'

If you look at Down syndrome, you see what happends when chromosones have doubles. Biology has come up with a clever system to prevent this same thing from happening with all woman, on account of them having twice as many X chromosones as designed for.

After a couple of cycles of cell division in a female zygote (recently fertilized egg), the cells will randomly 'turn off' one of the X chromosones. This is random on each cell, and thus different cells will have different active X chromosones. So half of the females body has X chromsone 1, and the other half has X chromosone 2 active.

For producing new eggs this process is reversed again, so both are equal in the eggs.

A fun conclusion we can draw from this is that female is the 'default' state in mammals. Add a Y chromosone and they become Male

A fun example of this process is cats. For them, the color of their fur is coded in the X chromosone. So when a female cat has 1 X chromosone coded for red fur, and 1 for white fur, and they are randomly turned off differently throughout the body. This causes them to have different colored fur in different places

If this is true, why do women experience menopause halfway through their life while men retain their ability to, um, spread their seed indefinitely (save for the occasional dysfunction)?

And why is the ratio of women to men almost 1:1?

That's quite simple actually.

The mother's age has a major impact on the health of the child. For example Down syndrom rates go up extremely fast as the mother gets older.

Example here, taken from this study, which was the first one to come up in google. It's a highly researched concept, and you can find tons of studys saying the same thing with a little searching.

Funny enough, the age of the father seems to have almost no impact, and some examples (although this is not proven) seems to indicate that a man's offspring only gets healthier as the father is older.

So it's a biological safety net to ensure healthy offspring

Edited May 24, 2014 by Sirrobert

[xenomorph555]

If this is true, why do women experience menopause halfway through their life while men retain their ability to, um, spread their seed indefinitely (save for the occasional dysfunction)?

And why is the ratio of women to men almost 1:1?

I'm talking about in nature, as in not human. As for menopause, it is defined as "uncommon" in the animal kingdom so it could just be an human gene error. 1:1 for humans but can greatly differ for other species.

[vger]

I'm talking about in nature, as in not human. As for menopause, it is defined as "uncommon" in the animal kingdom so it could just be an human gene error. 1:1 for humans but can greatly differ for other species.

I wonder if it's been found more often in captive animals with access to medicine?

If you could go back in time, you wouldn't have found it in humans either. How many women would have ever lived to a menopause age before advances in medicine and sanitation came about?

I think it's probably one of those things that have become a thing because our bodies now typically run a lot longer than they were designed to. Warranty expires around 30-40.

[Pawelk198604]

There are actually very slightly more females than males. Ratio around 51:49

This again unfair:)

Fortunately, in China the ratio is reversed:D

It is of course ironic, I love to be ironic , please do not take what I wrote above seriously