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.
A Life Not Grey 