Six for Six

From Menletter August 2003

By Tim Baehr

Remember when feminists were wearing a button that said "59 cents"? This was supposedly the amount women in the workforce made for each dollar a man made. On the basis of equal pay for equal work and qualifications, the gap was actually much smaller - and is almost zero today.

There's another gap we should be concerned about: the approximately six-year gap between women's and men's longevity. That's right: on average we guys will die 5.5 years - about 7% earlier - than our female counterparts. (If you're a black male, the gap with white women is about 12 years.)

Our situation is improving: in 1975 the gap was nearly eight years. The narrowing of the gap, however, seems to be as much because women are adopting more "male" lifestyle habits - drinking and smoking - as it is because men's health care is better.

Women have made many improvements in their general situation over the past thirty years. But they didn't exactly bootstrap their way up. They used men as the instruments of their betterment: recruiting feminist, female-friendly, and female-fearing men - legislators, advertisers, CEOs (mostly men in "power") - to get better jobs and pay, better health care, better child care, and so on. Women have even managed, through their male allies, to dictate how men are allowed to speak and act.

So here we are, men, living in a Politically Correct world, dying younger than the women we're supposed to both protect and be equal to (bit of irony there, eh?).

What do we do? We could start wearing buttons with the numeral 6 on them. We could start lobbying and pestering all those female-friendly legislators and talking to those CEOs getting rich by selling to women.

Somehow that doesn't sound like a workable plan. After all, it was those men who got us into this fix.

Appeal to women, and their sense of fairness? I don't think so. They still think they're getting shafted by us bad men.

So if we can't appeal to women or female-friendly men in power, who will help us?

Maybe we don't need help. Men have a long history and prehistory of fending for ourselves while protecting and providing for others. Maybe what we need to do is redefine "fending." I don't think it would take more than a few tweaks - six of them, actually - to close the six-year gap.

1. Take a few pills every day: a low-dose aspirin, Vitamins C and E, 250 mg of magnesium. Omit the aspirin if your doctor disapproves, and don't overdo on the Vitamin E. You're taking aim at heart disease, stroke, prostate cancer, and possibly Alzheimer's.

2. Eat five servings of fruit and/or vegetables every day. Your heart and colon will thank you.

3. Walk 10 to 20 minutes a day. (That's a doable minimum; more, and more vigorous, exercise is good, too.) Studies have shown that exercise has a larger influence on longevity than either smoking or overweight. Exercise has also been shown to be as effective against depression as Prozac.

4. Limit risky and potentially self-destructive behaviors: Find a way to stop smoking. Limit alcohol intake. Wear that seat belt and don't drive more than 10% over the speed limit. Don't use street drugs. Don't have unprotected sex.

5. Sit quietly for 10 to 20 minutes a day. (Learn to meditate if it suits you.) It's a stress-reducer, anti-depressant, blood pressure reducer.

6. Find one or more other men to talk to regularly. We've been taught to compete with each other, which is isolating and lonely and saps our strength. Men's fears, sorrows, griefs, joys, defeats, and victories are meant to be shared with other men. We become stronger by knowing and sharing what we have in common.

These steps are not only linked to longevity, they also address the issue of "it's not how long you live but how well." Most of the life style adjustments on the list will make us happier day to day - more alive, more attractive to our mates or potential mates, our kids, and maybe even our employers. We'll be taking care of ourselves. We'll be more youthful in body and mind. We'll know who we are and what we want (steps 5 and 6 almost guarantee that).

Jumping into a new life style all at once isn't easy to do, and we probably shouldn't try all of the items at once. But there aren't any serious barriers to getting started. Notice that none of these six things involves new legislation, new taxes, or limiting the rights of other people. We don't have to be "against" anyone or anything, picketing or burning our jock straps (actually, our wallets might be a better symbol). We don't have to join a pressure group or attend rallies and meetings. (Exception: For men with a serious alcohol or drug problem, getting outside help - joining a group, going to meetings - may be the best way to go.)

I have no way to predict scientifically what will happen if men start following the six steps. But I would be willing to bet that we can narrow that six-year gap considerably.

Not a bad way to fend for ourselves.