Not everyone is a stunt motorcycle driver, but more men than women tend to take the same risks as one. (Photo by Dikr Kempen, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
For diversity executives still fighting those stalwart, set in their ways souls who insist talk of gender differences is just bunk drummed up to cause trouble, I offer scientific evidence to the contrary.
According to a recent piece in Business Insurance, science confirms male risk-taking idiocy.
Researchers at Newcastle University in England conducted a study of the risk-taking behavior of winners for the Darwin Awards — which commemorate those who die in bizarre accidents — and came up with the “Male Idiot Theory.” Essentially, there is a “highly statistically significant” difference between the genders when it comes to “idiotic risk-taking behavior,” and men come out carrying the short straw.
Over a 20-year period, researchers found men made up more than 88 percent of Darwin Award nominations. Some of these lucky winners include a Polish farmer who cut off his own head with a chainsaw — no clue on that one, folks — and a Toronto lawyer who crashed through a pane of glass while demonstrating how safe the building’s windows were. He subsequently fell 24 floors to his extremely ironic death. This one might take the cake though: The piece mentioned a would-be terrorist who incorrectly judged how much postage he’d need to mail a letter bomb. He died when the parcel was returned — and he opened it. Sigh.
Having said all that, I do believe there are a lot of female idiots out there as well. Perhaps not as many are prone to playing with life-threatening power tools, but they’re just as prone to idiotic behavior as evidenced by their actions over — you guessed it — men.
