I Want To Die Like a Man
Yes, women live longer than men. Long enough for their ovaries to torture them.
I want to die like a man. Not just any man. Charles Darwin will do. After all, he’s partially to blame for this mess. You see, Darwin was positively baffled by peri-menopausal women like myself. He figured once a woman’s ovaries began to shrivel up, evolution was done with you. If you weren’t cranking out babies, what was the point of hanging around? Unless, of course, you were babysitting grandkids. Otherwise, evolutionary biology had no use for you. So begone, witch.
We can’t really blame Darwin. He was just observing what he saw. In his day, most women began a hunched shuffle toward the grave after menopause (assuming childbirth didn’t kill them first). Women died young, and Darwin wrapped his theory up in a pink evolutionary bow. Reproductive purpose fulfilled. Evolutionary exit granted. The end.
Then, right around 1890, something odd happened — women had the audacity to outlive men. We can thank a Darwinian purpose for this longevity — reproduction. Humans finally figured out how to make babies without killing mothers.
Such was not the case before the late nineteenth century. Many women died from complications related to childbirth. The development of antiseptics, anesthesia, and…
