Here are some facts: Women live longer than men. Women have stronger immune systems. Women are less likely to suffer from developmental disabilities, are more likely to see the world in a wider variety of colors, and are better at fighting cancer. Women are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. But why?

This question haunted Dr. Sharon Moalem throughout various stages of his career—when he was working with premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, when he was recruiting older adults for neurogenetic studies, when he was tending to HIV-positive children in Thailand. He didn’t understand why males consistently failed to thrive. And it wasn’t until a wise colleague suggested he flip the question and ask himself why females thrived that things started to click into place.

With clear, lively prose that weaves together original research, case studies, and diverse examples—from the behavior of honeybees to the fate of the Donner party—and bolstered by experiences drawn from his personal life and his medical practice, Moalem's The Better Half shows us how genetic females triumph over males at every life stage when it comes to resiliency, intellect, physiological stamina, and immunity. He argues persuasively that this new knowledge can help us move away from the male-centric, one-size-fits-all approach to drug trials and dosages and toward a more nuanced approach to the treatment of everything from heart attacks to melanoma.