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

Mine just said the boy has two dads.

Second guess was: the dad came back from the dead.

She was fairly embarrassed when I told her the right answer!

(almost secondary age).

DH, who works in the NHS, got this before I'd even finished the question

It’s very little to do with feminism and everything to do with lazy thinking and a lack of common sense.

My 5 year old just got it, DP didn't

It’s very little to do with feminism and everything to do with lazy thinking and a lack of common sense

It might have had to do with feminism decades ago when it first appeared. It has nothing to do with feminism now.

It might have a valid point if the OP had spent some time to think about why the wording and the use of language led to this result (big hint is the "2 dads answer") which she doesn't appear to have done.

On the re-written version, where the driver and the passenger were both female, the instant picture that came into my mind was the doctor was also female, not that the doctor was the girl's father.

It would be somewhat interesting to try that version 'in the wild'. My suspicion is that the most usual reaction would be along the lines of 'huh? The doctor is the girl's dad, obviously'.

OK lass, stand down. I genuinely just found some riddles for a lesson starter.

As an English teacher I am of course interested in the linguistic explanation for most people getting it wrong; I never said I wasn't. Great if it is that.

I didn't give them a full on lecture on feminism, that was a bit tongue in cheek, which is why I used the . I said something like 'it's 2018 and it didn't occur to you that doctor could be a woman?' They all went 'Ohhhh!' and then I got on with my lesson.

I just thought it was interesting. I'm done defending myself on it if that's OK.

I just asked DS8. The only option he could come up with was that the boy was dead and didn't need operating on. Oh dear.

As an English teacher I am of course interested in the linguistic explanation for most people getting it wrong; I never said I wasn't. Great if it is that

You never mentioned the linguistic explanation. It did not appear to have occurred to you, despite the fact there is nothing remotely unusual these days about a female doctor, that there might be something else at play. Rather you ticked them off about it being 2018 and didn't it occur to them a doctor could be a woman.

Your assumption was this is down to sexism, hence they got a nice little lecture on feminism as a bonus rather than any critical analysis of how language might influence thought. You are supposed to be teaching English, not social studies.

Your response is now , "oh don't pick on me". I'm not picking on you unless you think pointing out something you hadn't thought of is picking on you.

Your assumption was this is down to sexism,

' I said something like 'it's 2018 and it didn't occur to you that doctor could be a woman?' They all went 'Ohhhh!''

Sounds as though she was right though.

Asked younger daughter, who's 8. She went for "stepdad", which I don't think I've seen come up, and is still a logical conclusion to draw. I know she's been thinking about step-parents quite a bit lately as a couple of families in her class have remarried, and probably just assumed you say "son" even if it's not a biological relation.

I do think it's linguistically leading as she then went for second dad and even Grandad before realising that was impossible, so it must be mum.

Please someone try it, on a person who hasn't been exposed to the original, with the mother/daughter variant - does the linguistic lead hold?

I don't feel like it is just linguistics, but I'm trying to think of a gender-neutral job title which is more associated with women too, and a parallel situation to make the point. I'm not having much luck though!

How about; it's the year 2030 and the government's secretly poisoning people through selected restaurants (because, you know - reasons). A dad and his son arrive at one and order the deadly poison meal. The chef looks across, and says "I can't feed him this. That's my son!"

Would you instantly think second father/stepfather/grandfather then? I don't think I would as the word "chef" means woman to me in my experience (maybe not to others).

(Someone's going to think of such an obvious parallel and I'll feel so stupid in a minute!)

I'm pleased to report that DS, 13, is both clever and a feminist. He immediately said it was the mother.
(While putting his own mother to shame. Although, she has clearly done a great job raising him. )

Meanwhile, I'm going to publicly embarrass myself with why I'm horribly aware of ingrained sexist biases.

A few years ago, DD mentioned her new chemistry teacher, Dr xxx. Without any thought, I asked something like 'is he any good?'.

This was in a girls school with majority female staff, some PhDs of both sexes. The new chemistry teacher was there because the previous one was on maternity leave.
Bad enough? There's more...
I'm a PhD chemist. My boss is a female PhD chemist. About half my close colleagues are female PhD scientists.

Yet I still heard 'chemistry teacher Dr X' and automatically thought 'he'.

My 8 yr old ds and 13 yr old dd got the Doctor riddle and the Bob riddle correct.
My 4 year old answered "poo poo bum" so still a way to go there!

@ErrolTheDragon

I'll join you and have a or over this.

So proud - my 7 year old daughter just said ‘the doctor is his mum’ without hesitation!

I got it wrong and my sister is a doctor. 🤦‍♀️

Ds7 got this in under a minute. Ds8 claims he was just about to say the same.

My year 6 DD got it right. I must be winning as a parent ;-)

I got it wrong and my sister is a doctor

Which would tend to support it is the linguistics which produces the wrong answer.

Ingrained sexism might be the answer- I don't think it is. I do think for an English teacher to leap to that assumption, without considering any other possibility, and then lecture her class on feminism shows poor critical analysis.

@LassWiADelicateAir
I keep coming back to my post on this thread where I reversed the sexes of the characters involved and although I know that the answer is that the doctor is the girl's father, when I'm reading the text all i can picture is a woman in a white doctor's coat. I'm sure it's to do with my brain subconsciously adding a "she" before the word "exclaims".

I asked a couple of friends (who are a lesbian couple). One got it immediately, the other said "Does he have two dad's?" I was their 10yo niece got it almost immediately, which pleased me!

They had this as a starter riddle at DD's all girls school. Many of the parents are medics and pretty much all of the girls rightly identified the doctor as a woman, and his mum. But then they are surrounded by female doctors. Though DD did come up with various options, stating it was clearly the child's other parent - but that it could be his mum, or a step parent, adopted parent, a second dad as in same sex couple and so on.

Re the BOB riddle - most people would make the assumption that Bob was a man's name, and not many will see it as a woman's name - and the bias would come from there. I would be likely to do so. I definitely wouldn't make an assumption that a lawyer was always a man - though DH is one, most of his colleagues are women.