Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men?

Women “Why can't a woman be more like a man?" It's a humorous question asked by Professor Henry Higgins in a show-stopping song from the Broadway musical My Fair Lady. But Higgins would sing quite a different tune if the subject was longevity. When it comes to life span, why can't a man be more like a woman?” (Harvey Simons, 2004) Women do indeed live longer than men. But why? And can men do anything to catch up? “Do women live longer than men because they are less affected by the social gradient?” What is it about a woman that makes them able to live longer in life? “In eight months, 174 persons between the ages of 100–110 celebrated birthdays. 151 were women, 23 were men. Thus, 87% of persons 100 or older were women, and only 13% were men. In addition, there were 18 women and only two men between the ages of 105.” (Capps) This is a shocking study, out of all these people only 23 were men. This begs the question why is it that men die before women? Women live longer than men. It is unfair, but true. In developed countries, the average difference is five or six years. In the poor world the gap is smaller, owing to the risks of childbirth. But nowhere is it absent. The question is, why? Death in males is 60% higher than females (www.sciencedirect.com/science?) They blame these statics on heart disease mostly. Females have certain hormones that help combat this disease. Yes women can still get this but they are not as likely as men. Men also in the habits and they way they live their lives encourage these odds. The other causes of death are due to men’s behaviors throughout his life, suicide, lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver. These are also from the way men live their lives. They live their lives drinking and smoking they are obviously going to have more health problems than women, who for the most part don’t participate in these activities. It is also said men wear themselves out from their own competitive nature. “It is that while 70-year-old men have the hearts of 70-year-olds, those of their female peers resemble the hearts of 20-year-olds.” (web.ebscohost.com) So men feeling the need to compete for everything in life shortens their life expectancy. Don’t women have competitions in their lives? Yes women do but if you look at it, men are the more aggressive sex. Their aggressive nature helps them in their lives it gives them their drive to fight for the things they want most but with these studies maybe it is better to have a woman’s calm carrying nature instead of men’s brute force. If men live a certain life style that causes them to die younger than women why isn’t this more widely know so that men can combat what they are doing to themselves? At the same time even if it was widely known for the majority of men it would just run in their genes, so no matter what they did to combat this problem they still would lose the battle against women.