Forget the gender pay gap, the gender superannuation gap or the glass ceiling: there’s a real and urgent gender gap that demands redress. The gap in question strikes right to the heart of the wellbeing, indeed, the very lives of one half of humanity.
The gender gap in question is the gender health gap.
It’s been well-known for decades, at least. But, like so many social inequalities, it’s been exacerbated by the Wuhan virus.
Deaths from COVID show a stark disparity: nearly two-thirds are men.
This only brings into sharp relief a fundamental injustice that has gone unaddressed for decades, indeed has been largely unnoticed, namely the fact that women live, on average, several years longer than men. For example, women live just over three and a half years longer in Britain than men; in the U.S., the difference is five years; in France, six; in Russia, ten. Overall in the world, men were the victims of 73 percent of fatal road accidents and 78 percent of homicides.
These statistics are shocking. They demand immediate action. We are, after all, supposed to be deeply committed to equality.
Of course, achieving equality will not be easy: We shall have to guard against overcorrection, which would be equally unjust. But it must be frankly admitted that it is easier to increase the numbers of homicides than to reduce them, so that, regrettably, if the ultimate goal of equality is to be reached, it may be necessary… Well, I leave it to the reader to draw the conclusion.
But “bridging the gap” between male and female homicides, even road accidents, won’t go anywhere near far enough. Very few people in our safe modern times die by murder or road fatality. Not even COVID is a big killer, either.
No, by far the biggest killer in modern times is cardiovascular disease. The gender health gap here is stark: as Australian data shows, despite falls in the rate of deaths from cardiovascular disease, men continue to suffer worse than women.
Clearly something more drastic needs to be done. Again, it is easier, or would take less effort and expense, to reduce life expectancy than to increase it. The causes of death are cheap, the means to save life expensive[…]
There is, I think, a simple solution to the problem. It has been estimated that a high proportion of the relatively reduced life expectancy of the poorer sections of British society is attributable to their much higher rates of smoking. A good part of the difference (ten years for men and eight for women) would disappear if the proportions of people smoking were equalized.
So, there’s the obvious solution: get more girls to take up smoking! The struggle for health equality demands nothing less.
But how do you get people to smoke more, especially when you want some people to smoke more than others?
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and so we must plan ahead and think in the long-term. As Saint Ignatius Loyola said, give me a child for the first seven years and I will give you the man—or in this case woman. Smoking classes in primary school, especially for little girls, could be the answer. If you have them hooked by the age of 7, surely many of them will continue for life.
The importance of female role models mustn’t be overlooked, either. Surely Dr Siouxsie Wiles will do her civic duty and light up the odd Malboro Red. The sight of a pack of Winnie Blues tucked under Jacinda Ardern’s sleeve would certainly do the trick. While they’re at it, ditch the plain packaging and start using girl-friendly branding: My Little Durrie, Winnie Blueys, Frozen Menthols… the possibilities are endless.
Jacinda Ardern is quite committed to achieving social happiness, so she tells us. Here’s her chance.
Once equality of life expectancy is achieved, thus putting an end to centuries of oppression of men by women who have used their power to lengthen their lives at the expense of men, our societies will be much happier: For, as we know, the majority of all human unhappiness derives from inequality. This happiness will result, whether we have achieved equality by lengthening the lives of men or by shortening the lives of women. A golden age will have been ushered in and social conflict resolved. It is time, then, to approach the crisis of the sexual-inequality life expectancy with new thinking to overcome age-old prejudices that have so disadvantaged men.
Takimag
This may sound drastic, but is it really any more draconian or lunatic than the endless nostrums peddled by finger-wagging public health bureaucrats? What kind of monster could possibly oppose eliminating gender health inequities, anyway?
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