Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00538)

At 12:25 AM 12/21/96 +0000, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@sprynet.com> wrote:

>Tom Robertson wrote:

>> If women have it so much worse than men do, why do they live longer?  Or is
>> it sexist to believe that the expected longevity of men and women is
different?

>	As long as you don't believe that, if a woman dies at age 25, then all
>men who reach that birthday must be put to death.
>
>	Bart Lidofsky

This statement was a challenge to figure out, but, since I have plenty of
free time, I thought I would give it a try.  I'm still not sure I have done
so correctly.  If you are saying that it is sexist to believe that the
expected longevity of men and women is different as long as you don't
believe that, if a woman dies at age 25, then all
men who reach that birthday must be put to death, then, according to you, I
am sexist, since I believe that the expected longevity of men and women is
different and I do not believe that, if a woman dies at age 25, then all men
who reach that birthday must be put to death.  If you are saying that, if
any woman dies before any man, the expected longevity of women cannot be
longer than the expected longevity of men, then this would reflect a
misunderstanding of what I meant by the word "expected," which refers to an
average, not to any specific cases.  Is one of these a correct inderstanding
of what you meant, or are there other possibilities?  All I know is that if
this was a Mensa test question, I had better not try to join.