swanqueen109 t1_j1zrtrn wrote
A few years ago I heard about a study where they only looked at monks and nuns.
Both have similarly organized, very structured and repetitive days of work and prayer. They usually know exactly what's coming and don't tend to stress about things.
Unsurprisingly there was no significant difference in life expectancy.
ATownStomp t1_j2003gt wrote
That seems surprising to me. Men and women having different physiology makes it seem like there could be a reason one lives longer than the other inherently.
swanqueen109 t1_j201d0n wrote
That's what I always thought but it's true. Traditionally men have more stressors and are taught from the beginning that they have to fight, solve problems, not cry and ideally never ask for help. If you can take those factors out of the picture it kinda makes sense that they live longer lifes. Sure, the physiology is different but they were made for those differences. Knowing nature if everyone can get what they need and there are no stressors they should pretty much be on equal footing.
I thought it was an interesting thesis. Very neat. Never really thought about it.
RoyalSloth t1_j21nfw3 wrote
I mean whether men or women have more stressors is kind of an impossible thing to quantify or measure. So I wouldn’t chalk it up to men being more stressed than women. If anything women have more reason than men to be stressed out given that we live in a, y’know, patriarchy.
It probably has to do with a mix of things, like how a lot of the men who would be in the oldest cohort right now died in WWII, how toxic masculinity disincentivizes men from reaching out for help, and how a lot of unhealthy behaviors are traditionally seen as masculine, like drinking, smoking, and murder. I’m sure other elements are a part of it too but stress is probably only related indirectly if at all
Autolycus14 t1_j22fsu2 wrote
This makes so much more sense than just physiological differences. The difference in life expectancy is much more culturally informed than biologically informed.
Deafwindow t1_j22olyl wrote
I don't think culture and physiology are mutually exclusive
swanqueen109 t1_j23mpa2 wrote
More or less what the monastery study proofed.
swanqueen109 t1_j23or6b wrote
I don't disagree. Tried to incorporate former posts. But as far as I know these statistics don't count deaths by war.
TheNightIsLost t1_j23fjey wrote
>If anything women have more reason than men to be stressed out given that we live in a, y’know, patriarchy.
Makes no sense. Living under oppression actually makes people LESS stressed, since they know they have no control over their lives and don't worry about it.
It's why atheistic democracies have such high rates of suicide and depression, whereas religious and more authoritarian states have less.
RoyalSloth t1_j23z8ft wrote
That doesn’t explain how women attempt suicide at much higher rates than men, and more likely to suffer from depression. Of course it’s possible that more men suffer from mental illness and they’re just not reporting it, but that’s getting into the realm of speculation, because it could very well be the case that even more women suffer from mental illness and are not reporting it.
Of course, more men commit suicide successfully relative to women, but a huge part of that has to do with gun ownership being a traditionally masculine behavior.
90% of suicide attempts using guns are fatal, compared to 4% using other methods, and 86% of firearm suicide victims are men. Rather than simply being more stressed, this most likely stems from the fact that nearly twice as many men personally own a gun than women, male gun owners are about 40% more likely to own multiple guns over female gun owners, and men who grow up in gun-owning households are much more likely to go hunting, practice shooting, and use airsoft guns.
And furthering the correlation between gun ownership and suicide, female gun owners are 35x more likely to kill themselves with a gun than women who don’t own guns.
This is all US-centric data but I imagine the trends hold steady in at least most of the Western world. All of this is to say that the rate of suicidal thoughts and attempts are more worth considering in determining the impact of stressors on mental health, because the difference in suicide rates between men and women is almost as much a function of gun ownership as it is mental health issues, and when we look at mental health issues alone, women are worse off than men.
Also, your general point about oppressed people being less stressed makes no sense. Oppressed people aren’t going to feel as safe seeking help as non-oppressed people. Compared to whites, for example, BIPOC are less likely to have access to mental health services, to seek out those services, less likely to receive needed care, more likely to receive poor quality of care, and more likely to end services prematurely. This suggests that the reported rate of mental illness in minority communities is significantly lower than what it actually is. But even when you take the reported rates at face value, Native Americans and people of multiple races are more likely to seriously consider, plan, and actually commit suicide than whites. So the idea that people who experience oppression are less likely to be stressed doesn’t hold based on either the available data or the data that we’d expect to be available under favorable reporting conditions.
And yes, religion plays an important role in decreasing the rate of suicide, but the manner in which it does so is probably more coercive than anything else, as loved ones of suicide victims and those who attempt suicide are more likely to be stigmatized in religious communities. This suggests that people in religious communities could very easily want to kill themselves at a similar or even higher rate to people in non-religious communities, but avoid doing so out of fear of failing the attempt or of bringing harm or shame to their loved ones.
I imagine a similar methodology is at play in authoritarian states, given that authoritarian regimes’ legitimacy would be undermined by a high suicide rate, thereby encouraging stigmatization and underreporting of the practice at all levels of society in order to prevent that.
[deleted] t1_j241ukc wrote
[deleted]
TheNightIsLost t1_j242wfy wrote
Are you a frikking bot?
RoyalSloth t1_j243di0 wrote
No? Everything you said was just the complete opposite conclusion of what virtually every fact about the topic would suggest, so I wanted to bring those facts up for you and for anyone else who might be misinformed by what you’re saying.
TheNightIsLost t1_j245kak wrote
What kind of normal person scrounges up a veritable sea of paragraphs and links like that? Also, you posted the same comment in a reply to your OG comment, which isn't something that can just happen.
RoyalSloth t1_j248io5 wrote
Yeah the app is annoying, I tried editing some things I noticed I worded wrong when I was reading the original comment and somehow I replied to myself instead of making an edit. Really confusing lol.
I mean if I’m being perfectly honest I’m also trying to get myself into academic writing mode so I can finish a college paper I need to do. That comment helped with that a lot lol. But mostly, you responded to what I said with stuff that’s not only completely wrong but dangerous if it were to be believed, since you’d be fooling people into thinking that oppressed people have it better than they actually do, and that mental health is better under authoritarian or theocratic regimes than democratic ones. No way in hell was I gonna let that slide
Void_0000 t1_j20i536 wrote
Shit, so you're telling me the memes were right all along?
alex_quine t1_j22bfxd wrote
I’ve seen some research that the gap can be entirely explained by behavioral differences. Take for example diet: women are more likely to order a salad, men are more likely to order the bacon cheeseburger. Which gender is more likely to watch their figure? Regularly apply sunscreen? Smoke? Drink to excess? Etc…
DMRexy t1_j22pe6n wrote
Which group composes the vast majority of deaths at work and due to violence? Which group is more likely to suffer harsher legal penalties for the same crimes? Who commits suicide more often? Who's more likely to not be able to stop working if they are Ill?
This difference is not because of who orders a salad. It's because men are still trapped in a medieval patriarchal system, being raised to be working machines, never learning they have any value but what they can provide financially.
Women managed to break free of a fucked up system, and now have their roles in society adjusted to a modern existence. It's far from perfect, it's far from good even, but the process is ongoing and irreversible. Men are still trapped, and most aren't even aware of how fucked they are.
So that's how you get half of the population losing 5 years of their lives. 80 cents to a dollar is horrible, but the people profiting from it are getting almost 9 years to a decade, and believe they have it good.
Gender inequality hurts everyone horribly. And until we let go to of the idea that it's something natural, that it's just how men are or just how women are, we will still be fucked by it.
alex_quine t1_j22vo6u wrote
It’s not either or. The thing you listed are in there too.
swanqueen109 t1_j23p2a0 wrote
True. Which the study further proofs I think.
NotAnotherScientist t1_j22mv94 wrote
Most of the differences in life expectancy that are due to genetic factors present themselves in the early stages of life (<20 years). So by the time someone is old enough to join a convent or monastery, life expectancy mostly evens out.
For example, look at infant mortality rates: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23151996/#:~:text=Infant%20mortality%20is%20higher%20in,to%20diseases%20and%20premature%20death.
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