Is it just ME?

Or are women the daredevil sex?

THE traditional view is that men are risk-takers and women are naturally timid. Recently, Exeter University academics set out to disprove this, saying it only seems that way because research focuses on ‘manly’ stuff like mountains and motorbikes. So they asked women ‘girly’ questions such as whether they’d risk cooking a new dish for a party. They concluded — what a surprise! — that women take risks, too.

I don’t know why they bothered. Women also ride motorbikes, climb mountains and sail singlehandedly around the world, so those girly questions are plain insulting.

Academics could have just tried looking under their learned noses and noticing the risks women — though physically weaker than most men — take every single day, without going near macho sports.

There are silly risks — getting into bed with strangers you meet on Tinder. But there are the ordinary ones sensible women take, reckless as we are. Marriage, of course, is a tricky bet for both sexes, but for centuries it was far more hazardous for women, without financial or legal protection. They still did it. Come up to date, and there are brave girls defying arranged marriages who risk losing their families — or their lives.

And what about pregnancy? In the terrifying business of childbirth, despite medical advances you get no safety belt. Women face huge physical changes and an event which may be an ordeal quite unlike your ‘birth plan’.

Then, with no foolproof guarantee of paternal help, motherhood means facing years of responsibility for a wholly unpredictable stranger. I call that noble risk-taking. Far more impressive than clawing up rock faces or leaving off your bike helmet to look cool.

Women take risks every single day without going near macho sports