1. Anger uses several categories of division in this piece: the “so good and so
bad” habits of “Everyman” (I 3); the self-destructive habits and rates of men versus
women (throughout); the division between the rugged individual versus the egali-
tarian help meet roles today’s men are expected to play (Ts 23-25). Why do such
divisions enable readers to clearly recognize similarities as well as differences?
2. Anger’s explanations for these divisions are equally divided. What evidence
does she otter to support the “crude evolutionary hypothesis” that “men are
Natalie Angier, Why Men Don’t Last: Self-Destruction as a Way of Life
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natural risk-takers, given to showy display of bravado, aggression and daring all
for the sake of attracting a harem of mates” (1 11)? What evidence does she offer
to contradict this hypothesis?
3. What might be some reasons why women talk about committing suicide more
than men do, but that men actually have a higher rate of suicide than women do
(9s 16-19)?
4. What are the dangers and difficulties of categorizing behavior by gender?
Why aren’t the divisions and classifications Angier uses more clear-cut? Is this a
phenomenon of the research she cites, of her writing, of the way things are in real
life, or of some combination of the three?
5. Anger is writing as a reporter of other people’s research. Do we know where
she stands on the subject- which hypothesis for men’s risk-taking behavior she
believes? Is her essay slanted in favor of one opinion or another, either in terms of
her examples or her language?
6. Should a reporter be neutral? Isn’t the selection of evidence in itself a form of
tipping the scale in favor of one side or another?
