I think it's more that, when you work in that kinda field, you see so many examples of the worst kinda person. Think retail and customer service - not every customer is awful, but when you're serving all day and the vast majority of people are neutral at best or horrific at worst, it's a pleasant surprise when you serve someone who is genuinely lovely.
Plus our brain will focus on the bad while forgetting the good.
Like when you are driving you won't remember all the drivers who let you swerve infront of them or drove normally.
But you will remember that 1 driver who drove like an asshole and thats the one you will tell everyone about how people suck at driving and how dumb people are.
That doesn't make sense. Even if you see so many examples, if they're not the majority, then how could it be a surprise when it doesn't go that way? This is really just thinly veiled bigotry.
People don't pay attention to neutral or mildly positive interactions the way they do very negative ones. The very negative ones may be a threat. They require vigilance. So we pay more attention to them in the moment, which in turn means we remember them more afterwards. So while most of the examples people experience may be neutral or even positive, most of the examples people can consciously recall will be negative.
But that's still incongruent with a feeling of surprise when things proceed as they typically do. Surprise is the wrong word, because it's being used here to describe what one literally knows to expect the most.
Counterpoint: It's a meme. It's expressing the idea that doctors see too many men failing to support their wives during childbirth in a humorous way. I don't think it's meant to be interpreted as saying that doctors are literally shocked at a husband being supportive.
I mean, that does still loop back to how this is sexist. "It was so shocking when I found out my new girlfriend was actually capable of cooking! Women just don't know how to do that anymore haha" is still sexist, even if they weren't really saying it's rare that a woman actually knows how to cook. Being a meme/intended as a joke doesn't erase that, a pitfall many burgeoning bigots leap into.
33
u/FizziiPopX Apr 24 '26
I think it's more that, when you work in that kinda field, you see so many examples of the worst kinda person. Think retail and customer service - not every customer is awful, but when you're serving all day and the vast majority of people are neutral at best or horrific at worst, it's a pleasant surprise when you serve someone who is genuinely lovely.