Why Men Are So Good at Dying

Staying on topic

Clearly everyone posting has an opinion regarding men's issues. But each of you continue to reinforce my point that your anxiety stems from some sort of economic or social anxiety and not actual health issues. I have yet to see any substantive discussion of explicitly HEALTH related concerns. Somehow each of you wraps your pet issue into each comment. Michael H comments about no-fault divorce while Norman Lathers has concerns about homelessness. These could relate to health in very direct ways, but both of you quote my comment regarding gender disparities in politics instead of substantiating your arguments (which was in response to another off topic post and "tongue in cheek" to boot). I recognize these other issues as valid and worthy of reasoned debate and discussion, but continually expanding the scope of the discussion with inflammatory rhetoric helps no one. I fundamentally believe the economy and society is expansive enough for men and women to both be able to achieve great things. The divisive belief that one's success comes at the expense of another cannot be the foundation for our society, politics, research or health policy.

Good news for someone who's ignorant

PS: I don't know about the other guy, but I myself do stay away from American women. Hope that made your day.

The rest of the story

"As we know we have never had a female president, (not fair!) there are only 16 female senators (that's 16% and there are 51% women in the country). "

It's also true that 85% of the street homless are men (Warren Farrell, Myth of Male Power), and in dangerous occupations such as firefighter, miner, and construction worker, 94-99% of on-the-job fatalaties are men (also Farrell). Not to mention that only men are required to register for the draft.

And guess what?? There's a lot more soldiers, miners, firefighters, construction workers, and homeless who are men, than all these politicians you're talking about. In fact I would wager that there are more homeless men alone in this country, than there are politicians of any type who are men. New York City alone has 48,000 homeless people (USA Today, 3/17/08).

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the term "homeless" wasn't invented until the 80's, when it came to be recognized that there were a few women on the scene. Prior to that, they (homeless men) were just "bums".

Michael H

Men's health can suffer if as fathers, they are separated from their children using the force of government based on no fault divorce.

Lawyers encourage mothers to make claims of abuse for tactical advantage in family courts.

"As we know we have never had a female president, (not fair!) there are only 16 female senators (that's 16% and there are 51% women in the country). "

How many of us are parents, and how many of us are Senators and Presidents?

To Tony S of DE

Let's begin with your cherry picked statistics then we will move on to the failed attempts at name calling.

I am not an expert, nor claim to be, on health funding. But I can read a chart. If you visit here

http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/Table.aspx?Group=TableAll&Year=2004&Display=n

you will find a handy chart that shows the incidence and mortality rates for all cancer types. Though the chart does not show percentages, a simple calculation reveals that prostate cancer accounts for only 27% of male cancers, not 37%. Starting your rant with a lie is usually a bad idea. If you click over and look at mortality you find that only 10% of cancer fatalities are due to prostate cancer, which means it's a pretty beatable disease. Breast cancer, on the other hand, accounts for 15% of female cancer fatalities. Does a 5% difference justify a spending difference? I don't know. I think that depends on the specifics of the two diseases and the age at which they affect people. (Prostate cancer affects predominately older men in their 70s and 80s where breast cancer strikes much younger women.) Clearly it's a more complex picture than waving a few numbers around, jumping up and down and whining "Mommy it's not fair she got the money!!!"

And to be honest, I would have respected your argument if it hadn't been followed by a hysterical angry screed against women. It seems you have some sort of issue regarding women in the government workforce. It would seem you believe the government is comprised of only women in high heels. This is patently ridiculous at all levels. As we know we have never had a female president, (not fair!) there are only 16 female senators (that's 16% and there are 51% women in the country). As for the rest of the government sector statistics can be found here.

http://www.govexec.com/features/0204/0204s2.htm

Essentially only 45% of the rank and file government "paper pushers" are women and only 14.6% of the management are women. Totally not fair.

You have only made my point that your anxiety about health funding is simply an offshoot of your economic anxieties as an incompetent man being pressured in the workplace. When you could have continued with a rational reasoned argument regarding health care you simply veered off topic revealing the true nature of your upset.

Though I recognize you are upset with the term MAN UP. It was meant to comical and jovial similar to the "Go Team" or "Saddle Up" that we men use during sports events. I know sometimes it's hard to buck up and keep a stiff upper lip under the onslaught, but that's why we need to encourage each other to avoid whining and to maintain some level of dignity in our collective comportment as men. As an avid athlete who runs marathons, competes in triathlons, and have played multiple team sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball) I was only trying to appeal to my fellow sportsmen.

Lastly, if you want to stay away from the American "women" I fully encourage you to do so. Not only will you avoid getting slapped, but men who don't whine will get all the girls! Everyone will be happier!

Your secondary misconception

Your pointing out the various behaviors such as smoking, drinking, etc by men, as at a greater rate than that of women, fails to take into account two things:

1) Undue societal pressure on men, as compared to women, to achieve, be successful, and support a family (the male is still the primary bread-winner in most families); and ramapant misandry, and bias and discrimination against men in today's society, which is bound to cause increases in some of these behaviours you mention; and,

2) The plain fact that males have not had their "awareness raised" (a phrase which the media is tiresomely fond of), to the extent that women have, on how to address and prevent some of these problems. Women have been encouraged to come forward more than men have, and provided with more gender-specific programs, tests, etc., to do something about them.

What you are doing here amounts to blaming the victim.

Neglected women's health

Around 1900 men and women had a very short life expectancy. Less then 40 years. Since that time there has been dramatic improvement in both men and women's life expectancy but more so for women. There never has been a time (at least in the last hundred years) when women's health has been negected in favor men. Claims along those lines have been shown to be false. Yet radicals in the women movement have trumped up charges of discrimination to force disproportiate research and funding for women's health issues. I can't drive for 2 minutes without seeing one of those stupid pink ribbons yet more men die of prostrate cancer than women die of breast cancer. I don't think we need a national men's health office but, by the same token, I think the national women's health office should be shut down. Let's just care of our citizens... men and women... and not start this silly divisiveness.

Your fundamental misconception

It's wrong to say that in the past, men's health was focused on at the expense of women's. To quote Warren Farrell in

"The Myth of Male Power" (p. 189), "we do more research on men in prison, men in the military, and men in general than on women, for the same reason we do more research on rats than we do on humans." That is the reason so many studies used men. That does not imply that men's health is what was being focused on. The vast majority of health studies (approximately 85% according to the NIH) focus, now as in the past, on non-gender-specific health problems.

Propganda about men's health issues.

Sally Satel MD in her book PC MD shows that womens health, despite public perceptions, wasn't neglected. If anything, we have always had more funding for women and have always tended to be more protective of women.

When feminists, including politicians, a few years ago saw that 14% of the National Health budget was for women they assumed, as feminist tend to do, that women were being ripped off. It turned out that the rest of the budget was for both genders and there was no seperate budget for men's health.

If women were dying in greater numbers as men are, and then others blamed women, there would be an outcry. Blaming men is what our culture does. Men work hard, 93 percent of the deaths in the work place are male deaths, no one cares. Really, no one cares.

If women were dying in such numbers every "gender studies" class would sear that number into the students brains.

SD

Why Men Are So Good at Dying

Two misleading comments in this article merit a response.

First, the reason that men fail to visit doctors as often as women is because employers are generally more willing to let women take time off for such visits. Since more women don't work full time, they don't have to get a boss's permission anyway. Also, even when they do work, most employers are more lenient about their absence than they are for men. While there is seldom a formal policy discouraging men to take the time off, the unspoken condemnation firm.

Second, the reason that most medical research prior to 1991 was done on men was because out society is more willing to put men at risk. The military services provided many of the individuals who were tested, and they happened to be mostly males. For example, to evaluate the effects of nuclear radiation male soldiers were placed in proximity to atomic explosions.

Feminist merely grabbed onto the statistic that most of those tested were male and thereby whined that they needed more money for female-specific research. They totally ignored the female-advantaged reasons that most of the testing was on men.

A third point also warrants comment. Specifically, why the question of men's shorter lifespan only comes-up in a column about men. If the reverse were true, it would be never-ending demands on the front pages of all news publications demanding that the government take action to correct the situation.