ABSTRACT
Although everyone dies, some people manage to delay the inevi-table by capitalizing on certain advantages. Those with the best chance of living a long life are born to healthy, white parents in a developed country. In addition, they eat sensibly, practice a safe profession, and live in a benign environment. But the greatest assist to longevity is being born female, since the average woman in the Western world now tends to outlive the average man by the substantial margin of six to seven years. It is not modern mortality statistics which support the belief that females are either the second or the weaker sex.
