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

Yeah I didn't put in that the dad died or was unconscious. I don't know my classes that well yet and didn't want anything that was unwittingly triggering!

This is all very interesting!

It's bleedin' obvious that to be able to identufy and arrest Bob there can only be 1 man and 2 women in the room.

Absolutely. But if your unconscious bias is firmly telling you that a surgeon / mechanic / lawyer must be a man, then that might stop you from drawing the logical “Bob is the only man in the room” conclusion.

My dd yr6 got it right straightaway, and when I explained that lots of other children didn’t realise because they assumed the doc was a man she said “that’s stereotyping” clever girl
Made me think though if someone told me that would I have got it right? Not sure!

Absolutely. But if your unconscious bias is firmly telling you that a surgeon / mechanic / lawyer must be a man, then that might stop you from drawing the logical “Bob is the only man in the room” conclusion

I think someone would be a bit thick not to work that out. It's perfectly obvious Bob must be the only man in the room.

It’s also fairly obvious that the doctor in the OPs puzzle is the mum.

Bet you’d get some people saying stuff like “Bob must be the mechanic, he must have Bob embroidered on his overalls” or suchlike.

I agree with an earlier poster that younger children get it because they are less influenced by the gender stereotypes. When I first heard this (years ago) I was puzzled by it despite being an ardent feminist.

Interesting to see so many people automatically assume a surgeon to be male. I work in healthcare so I'm well aware of the ratio of male to female doctors from consultant level down.
That said, I was still very impressed when playing a happy families card game with Ds1 to see that both parents of the "medicine" family were titled doctor, and not Dr medicine and Mrs medicine!

It’s also fairly obvious that the doctor in the OPs puzzle is the mum

That one is more subtle by the leading information of he, his, him. I heard it years ago and got it right but the re-written version where the accident victims are both female made me think it is a lesbian couple.

In the second one the professions are a red herring. I'm really struggling to see how anyone could come to a conclusion other than there was only 1 man in the room. The people in the room could have been a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker and Bob would still be easily identified.

Ds (14) looked at me as though I’d gone loopy & said because the Dr is his mum of course.

(However his latest Instagram post is a maths percentages question on Nobel Prize winners where he commented on women’s achievements not being recognised.

I think the Bob one is confusing people because of how the first poster phrased it.

If you said - the detective walked into the room. In there room was a mechanic, a lawyer and a surgeon. The detective immediately knew which one to arrest, why?
Then I think most people would pause. But I think you are looking for a cryptic solution.

Much more powerful to me is that clip upthread where you ask kids to draw a fire fighter /surgeon and fighter pilot, and they all draw men.

Michonnes* DH is with your DD - the man was the doctor ..

Then he decided the doctor was the father of the man who was his boy so technically he's right. Thinking outside the box.

I do this quiz with 1st year under grads ....never fails to surprise me how many don't get it. I use it to illustrate the concept of unconscious bias

If you said - the detective walked into the room. In there room was a mechanic, a lawyer and a surgeon. The detective immediately knew which one to arrest, why?
Then I think most people would pause. But I think you are looking for a cryptic solution

It's still obvious there can only be one person who would be likely to be called Bob.

Much more powerful to me is that clip upthread where you ask kids to draw a fire fighter /surgeon and fighter pilot, and they all draw men

That was a much better example. I blame Fireman Sam for at least part of it. To be accurate the vast majority, but not all, drew men.

But I think you are looking for a cryptic solution

I think the point of this is not the gender of the professions listed, it is because it is a riddle, you mentally think - they are looking for some tricky thing that told us how they knew which one of the 3 similar people was Bob, in other words, the structure of the riddle is leading you to assume 3 men, not because of the professions, but because you are looking for some trick.

The fact that the solution is gender, is a bit of a let down, too mundane!

I also ask my undergrads to discuss the words they associate with certain professions or people in society.....the most interesting discussion is around the different narrative around single mother and single father.

Without reading the whole thread anyone familiar with Blackaddet knows Bib is a girl. Also I expect that if the riddle was a man and his daughter went to hospital you might get very different results.

I recall this from thirty odd years ago at school.
Cannot believe it is being used at graduate level now. Graduate level! And still worse, people are flummoxed.

I know a woman called Bob.

My (male) partner didn’t get it 🙄

I asked my DC this years ago and they got it no problem, maybe because our gp and our dentist are both women. I think nurses are still assumed to be female though.

I tried this riddle on my friend. His mum is a doctor. STILL got it wrong

There's an alternative version which avoids the valid answer of 2 gay dads (which I don't suppose anyone considered when the riddle first started circulating decades ago, so that's progress anyway)

A doctor and a boy were fishing. The boy was the doctors son, but the doctor was not the boys father. Who was the doctor?

You could try that one with girl/daughter and a different activity to test biases other than doctor=Male

A doctor and a boy were fishing. The boy was the doctors son, but the doctor was not the boys father. Who was the doctor?

Isn't there a big prompt in the question? If the doctor is not his father would one's brain not just default to mother as the opposite of father?.

The first version led one's thinking on to expect another male character- this one invites you think of the opposite.

The "draw a firefighter" test is neutral.

Oddly enough, I asked my two this over the summer (camping/raining/googled for riddles and brainteasers). Preteen dd and 7yo ds both got it instantly. I'd like to say due to feminism because both are v aware of my feminist leanings but they're also just good at riddles. DH couldn't understand how it even worked as a riddle ie of course a child has at least one other parent.