<p>Are women and men really that different? No, says Angela&nbsp;Saini, author of a new book that debunks a few so-called scientific hypotheses about &lsquo;the weaker sex&rsquo;.</p>

- Tracy Ramsden And Jenny Proudfoot

Myth: we aren’t as tough as men 

Women live longer than men because they are biologically better survivors from the day they’re born. Statistically, baby girls are more robust than boys, which makes mortality rates among babies a little skewed in favour of girls. And for reasons that scientists don’t fully understand, throughout their lives women tend to survive the same diseases that kill men. This is true across all countries and as far back as records have been kept. Today, of the 45 people in the world living beyond the age of 110 all but one are women.

Myth: men are wired to be hunters 

We think of hunting animals as something men usually do, originating from caveman times, but there are a number of tribes worldwide in which women primarily hunt. Among the Martu aborigines in Western Australia, women are particularly skilled at outrunning prey. Some researchers now think that in our distant past, women would have hunted even more than they do today. This means that for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, life was nothing like The Flintstones – it wasn’t solely the men who brought home the bacon.

Myth: sexual equality is new 

When women today fight for equal rights, they’re not overturning any laws of nature. Anthropologists widely agree

This story is from the July 2017 edition of Marie Claire - UK.

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