--by Mike Murray

We “raced for the cure.” (The cure’s object, for those readers who’ve been living on Mars for the last umpteen years, is breast cancer.) We graciously sported pink bats (pink, for crying out loud!) at ballparks in support of the cause.

We also “went red for women” and “painted the town red” in order to raise awareness – and cash – in the fight against cardio-vascular ailments afflicting females.

Isn’t it time someone asked: “What about Bob?”

Make no mistake, I think women are terrific. My wife, my mother, and my sisters are all women. Many of my friends are women. And my ex is a wom... many of my friends are women.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist an ex-spouse joke. But if I can allow that my “first wife” wasn’t an ogre, perhaps a few of you gals could be similarly gracious in referring to your first hubbies.)

So where was I? Oh, yeah: women are wonderful. My dad – who I’ll admit wasn’t a fountain of wisdom on many aspects of life (despite his enhanced cerebral capacity) – did manage to pass on a few nuggets. Among them: females are special.

Pop was imperfect in numerous ways, ways that I was too young to appreciate then (he died when I was only 12). Looking back now, I can see that he was what his generation might have generously termed a “skirt chaser.”

Nevertheless, I believe my old man was sincere in his conviction concerning the unique qualities of the gentler gender. He insisted that my brothers and I treat girls with respect, and he was generous to a fault with my (then) only sister at Christmas time.

When I lamented one year that Kafoleen (as we called her when she was a squirt) got way more presents than anyone else, he unapologetically explained: “One half of the presents goes to boys; the other half goes to girls.” The six-to-one ratio being, you understand, completely irrelevant.

It was his humorous way of reinforcing the notion that – no matter how much we hate to admit it – we males would be lost without the sugar & spice set. We don’t say it out loud very often, but most of us detect and appreciate the extraordinary qualities of things female.

I have often relied on that old saw, “My wife doesn’t let me date,” when dealing with the amorous advances (or perhaps the merely mischievous manipulations) of forward females. The implication being that, if my wife would allow it, I might stray.

That’s not true, of course. But that’s not to say I’m not tempted by the considerable allure that women possess.

I find most women beguiling, enchanting. Perhaps that’s why I’ve tended to keep my guard up throughout my life: Having observed the damaging impact that succumbing to desire had on my dad (and on my mother and other innocents), I am keenly aware of the devastating impact of extracurricular indulgence.

Still, I have jokingly confided to my wife on more than one occasion that were I born female, I’d probably have to be homosexual. That is, I’d still prefer women. Whether that’s so or not, you get the idea. I do like women.

Just the same, I have to say it: I think things have gotten out of whack. It seems to me that America has gone just a little too girl crazy lately.

When the gender most likely to live to a ripe old age is the focus of our greatest medical concern, something’s wrong.

Oh, I know. Experts cite the growing dangers to females. From heart disease to cancer, women are at increasing risk of developing serious health disorders, “just like men.” Gender-specific (read: female) studies abound these days, professional journals proliferate. They ratchet up concern and donations.

It is not my intent to trivialize or to minimize the health hazards that confront women. But let’s be honest. The simple fact is that women tend to live longer than men. And white women, in particular, tend to live longer than any other demographic group.

Those with vested interests in elevating concern (those who stand to benefit from research-grant awards and from philanthropy) have been playing fast and loose with the truth for years.

Recognizing that females are far more likely than males to take health issues seriously (perhaps contributing to their superior longevity) and that they respond well to a woman-centric approach, they’ve been skewing the data.

When you read that a woman died of heart disease, note her age when she succumbed. If it was greater than 80, she died of old age, people. Sure, her heart failed. But when you reach your eighth decade, something has got to be the precipitating cause of your demise.

Categorizing a person who made it beyond “four score” (and who was born in the early 1900s, when life expectancies were something decidedly less) as a victim of a heart condition is a stretch. Regardless of the specific system or organ that failed, reasonable people would allow that her time had simply come.

We used to say that in such cases the person died of “natural causes.” That is, we acknowledged that it is a normal state of affairs that people expire when they reach certain ages. Not anymore. Now each death is an opportunity for advocates of one health cause or another to pad statistics.

Have you ever heard of the Exception Principle of management? It dictates that attention be directed to the problem that most urgently needs it. If you were, say, a firefighter and you arrived at a location to discover that a house had flames engulfing it (and that a desperate mother was holding her child at a second-story window, pleading for help), would you relegate that urgency to secondary status in order to first tend to an adjoining, vacant building?

Of course not. What a ridiculous proposition, you say. No more ridiculous, I contend, than our society’s current preoccupation with the health of its longer-lived gender.

Several factors facilitate the absurdity. Among them: we men really do value the females in our lives. No matter how hard we may try to hide it, most of us realize that we’d be devastated if they fell victim to illness or injury.

Then too, males are often reluctant to seek proper medical care for themselves. (Yeah, I get the irony. Even as I kvetch about the disproportionate concern for women, I admit that men don’t seem to care enough about their own well-being.)

And then there is the unmistakable fact that women respond to being treated specially. I remember the laughable notion put forth by a female presenter at a small-business conference I attended some years back. She said that it was easier to sell to men than to women because, “They never admit they can’t afford something.”

Har, har, har, dee, har, har! I don’t know who she’s been talking to, but I know scads of cheap men. They regularly rely on “frugality” to thwart purchases.

The truth is that women are the easier sell. They are especially vulnerable to the “for women only” appeal. You see it everywhere. “Do it for you” is a potent pitch for the estrogen crowd. Marketing types long ago observed the impact of exclusivity on women.

Flattery works well, too. Tell females that it’s okay to be a tad overweight (“real women have curves,” don’t you know?), or that they’re powerful, strong, and beautiful (each having, you see, an “inner goddess” waiting to be released), and they’ll stampede the place – each waving her checkbook, demanding to know, “Who will take my money?”

The suits on Madison Avenue figured out these phenomena; so have researchers and fundraisers. When a buck is involved, no tricks are missed.

God knows I love women. I wouldn’t want to live in a world without them. They can be lovely to look at. They can be caring and compassionate. They can be smart as whips. (They can be other things, too. But I’m trying to be generous here.)

Nevertheless. Can we let up a little on the all-things-female nonsense? Since men tend to die younger than women, it seems they should be the greater – not the lesser – objects of our collective health concern.

And though I haven’t taken the time lately to research the data, I’m fairly certain that – even as women outlive men – among males, whites have less to worry about when it comes to longevity than do minorities. Certainly, black men are at an alarmingly high risk for early demise.

So to the health community, I ask: What about Bob? More to the point, What about Juan? What about Ja’Mal?

Copyright © 2006 Michael F. Murray -- All rights reserved.