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Do you know men who get "man flu"? Are you a guy who gets "man flu"? If you don't know what man flu is, my understanding is that it's the idea that men are lazier than women when they're sick. I heard this and wrote it off, like most gender war stuff. Men don't help around the house enough, women earn less than men for doing the same work. But I keep seeing guys defending the idea that viruses make them sicker than women.
This is completely anathema to me. My father would go years without taking a sick day. He would get sick every few years during his busiest work event of the year, when he'd be pulling 12-hour-plus days. Growing up, I don't recall ever hearing about anything being put off in our social circle because a man was sick. My mom, on the other hand, was down all the time with one thing or another.
My father-in-law is the same. In 2021, he clearly had COVID. His wife was in the bedroom for days; he was out shoveling snow, cooking, and then making everyone play cards with him.
The only time I take "medicine" is when I'm at work events pretending I'm not sick. Afrin and a constant supply of cough suppressants..
For some reason, my wife gets a lot more ill than I do from the same illness - when she catches my cold or flu, she is ill for longer and with worse symptoms. I think there is also an element of tolerance - I lived alone for many years prior to our marriage, whereas she never lived alone, so I am quite used to soldiering on when I'm sick as I had no alternative; when she is sick, she is instead used to going into full rest mode to recover.
I also wonder about the effect of overall physical wellness. My wife, while she has a healthy BMI, is not a consistent exerciser and has relatively poor strength and cardio; whereas I have always exercised regularly so I can hike, play tennis, etc. I have read anecdotally that this does influence immune response.
The fitness would apply to my parents. While my father has born with several physical maladies, he pushed through and was an athlete. He plays pick up basketball in his 70's. My mother not so much.
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This may explain the whole phenomenon.
Back when people lived on homesteads, it was expected that men worked outdoors (that is to say farm, hunt, repair the buildings etc), women did the household, and no one lived alone, there was no room for being ill. You pushed on as best you could or suffer a real shortage later.
A little later, when factory and office jobs came about and allowed you to call in sick sometimes, the men started doing so. But someone still needs to do the household tasks; there are tasks that can be delayed, but if no one cooks there's nothing to eat, and that is a pretty immediate concern.
And if the man has no experience cooking at all (which wasn't that weird - many people never lived alone and this was a "woman's task"), you can't expect him to instinctively know how to do it. You'd have to teach him and show him, all the while being ill. At that point it's probably still easier to do it yourself.
Nowadays it is expected that a man knows how to do the basic household tasks, at least in a pinch, just as women are expected to have "real" jobs. But two generations ago it really wasn't. So the ill woman still had to push on, while the ill man takes a day off work.
Two generations ago there were balogna sandwiches.
I beg people to actually talk to their grandparents and great-grands about how life changed in their lifetimes. Everyone in 1970 had wonderbread and lunchmeat at home all the time, and ate it regularly. Yeah nobody preferred it but it was how life was that sometimes you ate what you had available instead of what you wanted- remember this was a society as poor as Russia or Mexico is today.
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