Life expectancy: women now on top everywhere
BMJ 2006; 332 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.332.7545.808 (Published 06 April 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;332:808
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How far has society gone when we should quietly celebrate men dieing
earlier than women?
What happened to the equality movement for women? Were they even
looking for equality - judging by this article, no. It is probably a
testament to how focused we are on ensuring women get what they want that
we actually have people 'quietly celebrating' mens shorter life
expectancy. Could it be due to such things as womens health care being
placed above mens? Breast cancer recieving many times more funding than
prostate cancer? The US government having five womens health departments
and none for men? Have I missed any other examples of 'femenist' equality?
I'd bet my life I have, though it may not be worth as much as a womans.
This article shows more about how far things have gone rather than
how far we have come.
Life expectancy of men is short - something to celebrate - can we get
any lower?
Competing interests:
Member of the 'Demise Celebrated' male gender
Competing interests: No competing interests
Sir,
If ‘being a man’ were a profession, the Health & Safety Executive
would be all over us, as the men-related reduced life expectancy, compared
to other professions, i.e. here that of ‘being a women’, seems to be 6.3
years (in the UK, more elsewhere).
The (let’s face it) shamefully gloating note by Anna Barford et al.
should not have been published in the BMJ in this form. They did not even
consider, as far as I can see, that women now having a higher or equal
life-expectancy compared to men in some developing countries may be due to
life-expectancy of men in those countries coming down.
Sincerely yours,
Reinhard Wentz
Competing interests:
I am male
Competing interests: No competing interests
With distress I read your editorial titled “Life expectancy: women
now on top everywhere”; from its coquettish title to the inflammatory
quote by Timothy Leary, proponent for the therapeutic and spiritual
benefits of LSD, all the way to the first sentence’s disdainful and sexist
encouragement for “at least a quiet celebration” that women can now expect
to live longer than men everywhere. Can you imagine the outcry if such a
remark in a medical journal were directed towards women—well, there’s the
politically correct point: such a hateful remark directed at women would
never be allowed.
The authors write that these “processes driving it [longer life
expectancy for women] cannot be purely biological: they relate primarily
to social change.” Yet they go on right past the proverbial elephant
standing in the room when they state: “In a way, women's life expectancy
is an indicator of how well everyone can do.”
As reported in the BBC (1), the authors “put the changes down to
reductions in childbirth deaths, and the fact that more men smoke.”
Really?
Do the authors choose to ignore data indicating men carry the brunt
and burden of this “social change”. To name three: Significantly more men
than women are likely to suffer military deaths, work-related fatalities,
and—the ultimate “social disease”—suicide.
Nearly all combat-related deaths are men. Here in the United States,
the Selective Service laws still discriminate against men; only men when
they turn 18 are required by law to register. US military deaths from
principal wars, from 1775 to 1973, totaled more than 708,000, with female
deaths negligible (2); female combat deaths in Iraq are currently 2.2%
(3).
A 2005 report by the International Labor Organization stated: “Men
occupy a large majority of hazardous jobs and therefore they suffer some
80% of occupational deaths. In high-income countries this figure is
86%.”(4) Here in the US, 93% of work fatalities are men (5).
And it is no secret how “successful” men are at suicide attempts (6).
The World Health Organization reports that, across all age groups, men
commit suicide at a rate of 3-5 times higher than women.
Finally, perhaps we all could take a simple lesson from basic
numbers: how much is being said about a topic? Search the archives of the
British Medical Journal on “men’s health”, from April 1994 to April 2006,
and you’ll have 82 items returned. Do the same search on “women’s health”
and you’ll get 640 results, a nearly 8-fold number.
In the US, there is a federally funded Office of Women’s Health whose
sole purpose is “promoting research, information, and service to women's
health”, yet no corresponding office exists for men’s health. Curious,
considering the wide disparities between the genders in life expectancies,
combat deaths, work fatalities, and suicide rates.
Rather than snide editorials about celebrations over one sex living
longer than another, shouldn’t a medical journal be interested in
publishing information that we all can use to better our communities, our
world? After all, how much more celebrating of women’s health can men
stand?
References
1. Women 'outliving men worldwide'. Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4883462.stm. Accessed April 11, 2006.
2. US Military Operations: Casualty Breakdown. Available at:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/casualties.htm. Accessed on
April 11, 2006.
3. Iraq Coalition Casualty Count: Female Fatalities. Available at:
http://icasualties.org/oif/female.aspx. Accessed April 11, 2006.
4. Introductory Report: Decent Work – Safe Work. XVIIth World
Congress on Safety and Health at Work (Orlando, 18-22 Sep. 2005).
International Labour Organization 2005. Available at:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/wdcongrs17/intrep.pdf.
Accessed April 11, 2006.
5. Table A-7. Fatal occupational injuries by worker characteristics
and event or exposure, All United States, 2004. Available at:
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0202.pdf. Accessed on April 11,
2006.
6. Distribution of suicide rates (per 100,000), by gender and age,
2000. Available at:
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicidecharts/en/.
Accessed on April 11, 2006.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Would it not be more informative to look at statistics of something
called "years left at a certain age"?
We seem to go around bragging about the vastly increased life
expectancy between 1900 and 2000 but no one mentions either the quality of
life in our oldsters today or the almost negligible difference in years
left at a certain age, between 1900 and 1990 (the last year statistics I
could find).
Any increase in lifespan is most certainly not due to the great
advances in medical treatment.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Is any difference in life expectancy between male and females
something to be celebrated? Nobody would question the celebration of
absolute increases in life expectancy or in the achievement of more equal
life expectancies worldwide. However the suggestion that an inequality of
any kind should be celebrated is quite distasteful.
Personally I feel quite embarrassed about the disadvantages afforded
men in my own sphere of medicine. Due to influences and pressures largely
out of our control, General Practice in the UK makes very little direct
attempt to address the differences in life expectancy between men and
women.
Should any health professional, geographer or medical journal be
suggesting the celebration of a health advantage of one group over
another? In the developed world men have long been disadvantaged in terms
of life expectancy, and the fact that there is evidence to suggest that
this is not entirely biological should be cause for further concern for
those involved in commissioning medical and social care. It is certainly
not a reason to start planning a celebration, however quiet.
Competing interests:
member of the health disadvantaged male sex
Competing interests: No competing interests
Very odd spin on the article
I found the article regarding the increase in women's longevity to
have a bizarre spin on it - a gloating over the fact that men's longevity
is losing pace to women's. A cause to celebrate? If you care little for
men, perhaps it is. If you show an interest in both men and women, the
findings should cause concern for the age gap between men and women, and
why it should be increasing.
I found the tone to be offensive, particularly the 'humourous' title,
along with the Timothy Leary quote, which seems to be an attempt to
conflate an ideology (feminism) with medical findings - highly
inappropriate.
I can see by the other comments left here that the spin on this
article hasn't gone unnoticed. You'd do well to report findings in the
future with more objectivity, and a concern for all human beings.
After all, isn't that what the medical profession is all about?
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests