Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Price of Patriarchy

I'm sure you all have heard all the horror stories of the evils of "the patriarchy" from your friendly local feminists. Well, let's look at some of those evils, shall we?

  1. In almost every country in the world, men have shorter life spans than women. As you can see here, that discrepancy varies from 4.0 years (Israel) to 12.6 years (Russian Federation).
  2. According to the World Health Organization, in all three major categories of cause of death, more men die than women.
  3. Also according to the World Health Organization, "The rate of suicide is almost universally higher among men compared to women by an aggregate ratio of 3.5 to 1."
  4. According to the WHO World Report on Violence and Health, men die in combat at a ratio of 3:1 vs. women.
  5. Overall, violence causes 14% of all male deaths, while causing 7% of all female deaths.
  6. In nearly 200 studies of domestic violence, with an aggregate sample size of over 177,000 people, women were found to be equally as violent as men, if not more violent.

Yup. We certainly pay a high price for patriarchy. Then again, isn't that true of any -archy? The only -archy I've seen so far that doesn't cost so much in human lives is anarchy, but what are the odds any of us (outside of the free parts of the former artificial state of Somalia) will ever see anything like that in our lifetimes?