Men Can't Handle An Apocalypse
“I can save you. I can save everybody.”
Almost every post-apocalyptic movie--from "12 Monkeys" to "Mad Max" to "I Am Legend"--stars a man. And yet, guess who's biologically primed to slay more zombies and survive the end of the world? Yes, us. Yes, women. According to a study out of Denmark, women outlived men during past catastrophes like the potato famine and a measles epidemic. And yet, according to a poll taken just last year, men (nearly 50%) are more likely than women (36%) to believe they would survive a week or more of an apocalyptic disaster. Do we see where this is going, ladies? We must root for ourselves.
Before Covid, scientists predicted a 99.7 percent chance that a magnitude 6.7 earthquake would rock California in the next 30 years. That chilling forecast prompted me to enroll my husband and I in a couples survival course. In my mind, we would learn how to make fire, build a shelter and subsist on berries if end times arrived. (We could save our daughter too.) Hmm. You can read about how all that went down in my essay for Marie Claire.