The Better Half

A Guardian Book of the Week
Longlisted for the PEN / E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

An award-winning physician and scientist makes the game-changing case that genetic females are stronger than males at every stage of life

Here are some facts: Women live longer than men. They have stronger immune systems. They''re better at fighting cancer and surviving famine, and even see the world in a wider variety of colors. They are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why is this? And why are we taught the opposite?

To find out, Dr. Sharon Moalem drew on his own medical experiences - treating premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit; recruiting the elderly for neurogenetic studies; tending to HIV-positive orphans in Thailand - and tried to understand why in every instance men were consistently less likely to thrive. The answer, he discovered, lies in our genetics: two X chromosomes offer a powerful survival advan