I gave all my classes this riddle this week - 3 kids got the answer.

[IHeartKingThistle]

I teach secondary English. Last week as a starter I gave all my classes (Yr 7s, 8s and 9s) some riddles to solve and this was one of them:

A man and his son are in a car accident and are rushed to hospital. When they arrive the doctor looks at the boy and exclaims 'I can't operate on him, he's my son!' How can this be?

Some kids guessed that the boy had 2 dads in a gay relationship, which could technically be correct of course. But it only occurred to 3 kids out of nearly 100 that the doctor could be a woman. Not one of the Year 7s thought of it.

In this day and age? I couldn't believe it!

They got a nice little lecture on feminism as a bonus that lesson

That's quite shocking.

I expect many of them saw the comments after Jodie Whitaker's casting as the next Time Lord was announced: "Nurse Who!"

One of my proud parenting moments was when my then 4yo got that one right .

I use this at school too with similar results. It’s a great way of introducing unconscious bias. I teach in a girls’ school as well.

My 11 year old DD just got it wrong. I have failed as a parent.

My husband got it wrong! 🤦‍♀️ time for a divorce!

Just asked my 5 year old DS. Firstly he said oh that’s sad and then I asked, so who could the doctor be and he answered ‘his mum’ straight away.

Smaller kids get it right more IME. Which means we are socializing sexism into them (well durrrrr).

I talk to DD all the time about female scientists, doctors, fire fighters, politicians, leaders etc.

Wow that's depressing

I’m going to do this with my year 9 tutor group on Monday!

That’s pretty depressing.

Although I found out recently that DS2 (Reception age) was convinced that only men can be doctors.

His school had a doctor come in and when I asked DS2 about it afterwards, he said something along the lines of “she wasn’t a doctor, she was a nurse” and when I queried this, because we’d been told a doctor, not a nurse, would be visiting the class, DS2 said something like “well, she said she was a doctor, but she was wrong because she was a girl and only boys can be doctors”

Hopefully the lecture he got about that will have stuck.

These sexist stereotypes are just so dismayingly hard to dismantle, aren't they?

I was quite shocked a couple of years ago when I sat some online test that was supposed to reveal your unconscious biases about sex and race. I like to think that I've shaken a lot of them off through decades of feminism. I was wrong! They are extraordinarily pernicious.

I am ashamed to say a while ago my husband got it before I did. I still can't quite believe I was convinced he or him had been used. It shows how deep it goes and how difficult it is to unlearn what you've learnt. Which is why it's so important to get them young OP. Well done.

I am a doctor and I didnt get it! Neither did my DS 11, DS 8 or dh even after pointing at myself (answers ranged from adoption, abducted alien to God). Very telling!

My 6 year old DS guessed dad, then grandad, then mum. Think I have a way to go, which is sad seeing as he's my wee gender non-conforming quirky boy that wears unicorn leggings and tshirts to school as they are not just for girls.

Ironically for at least the last 10 years, most medical schools in the country have had more females than males on their courses. At applicant level - it can be 60:40.

My son was also convinced that men were doctors and women were nurses. But he also believed that doctors and nurses were the same thing.

So there was no ranking as such - just different names for the same job

Gwyn

And I've wondered whether that's part of the unconscious justification for treating Junior Doctors like shit.

Yes remember DS9 just did the same thing - went 'well it's a nurse, it's the mum.' Turns out he thought that was the word for a female HCP. He didn't know nurse and doctor were different jobs.

Can I take that as a partial win?!

I just asked my husband and he straight away said..

"The doctors a woman"

Then "that's not really a riddle though, it's a question to find out if someone is a sexist pig"

My 6 year old daughter got it! My 9 year old son did not.

Ironically for at least the last 10 years, most medical schools in the country have had more females than males on their courses. At applicant level - it can be 60:40

And at graduate level - 56.6% of medicine and dentistry grads are women - take a look talent2030.org/talent-2030-dashboard-2/

Interesting that there are people who still haven't heard this - I remember giving it to a friend in the mid-80s! It's weird, though. Even if you're a feminist you still default to the idea that a surgeon must be male.

It's depressing isn't it

My DH didn’t get it. I did straight away! 😎