69% of Americans, which I take to be an average between women and men, compared to 66% of Britons believe that they can beat a domestic cat in an unarmed fight! If you drill down, the YouGov survey tells us that 58% of British women and 75% of British men believe that they can beat a “house cat” (domestic cat) in a fight if they were unarmed. In general, British women are less likely them American women to believe that they can beat an animal in an unarmed fight. Clearly, American women are more confident in this regard than British women or they feel more empowered, or they are simply physically stronger. Or perhaps it’s a combination of these factors.
America is more of a matriarchal society then British society, as I understand it, and perhaps this empowers American women to believe in themselves more? I’m not saying that either the USA or the UK are matriarchal societies because they are not, but I sense that in America, society empowers women more than in the UK. I would welcome comments from American women ✔️??.
Predictably, Americans are more confident about beating a house cat in a fight than Brits. I guess this points to Americans being more confident than Brits in general or perhaps more confidence in their physical prowess compared to Brits. It might point to Americans being overly confident or unrealistically confident, but I don’t know.
It is good to be confident and optimistic. And therefore, I tend to favour the American thought, but I do not favour the thought of a human fighting with a house cat!
The YouGov survey is very interesting because my mind starts to race about what it all means. Interestingly, only 58% of British women think that they could beat a goose in unarmed combat! That’s about the same as it is for cats. Clearly, British women are frightened of geese.
And only 23% of women believe they could beat a medium-sized dog in unarmed combat whereas 54% of men believe they can win.
Not that I want a person to fight a domestic cat but if a woman wore thick gloves and protection on their arms, an estimated 75% of women could beat a domestic cat in unarmed combat but it wouldn’t be easy. So, this is about confidence. It is also about respect for the cat.
Clearly, a lot of women and indeed men respect the domestic cat’s weapons; their claws and their teeth backed up by superb athleticism and agility.
Surprisingly, 10% of Brits and 17% of Americans believe that they would come off best in unarmed combat with a chimpanzee!
They are mistaken on my research. And Jan Garen, owner of Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary in Powys said: “A man would stand no chance at all. A chimp will go for your eyes so you can’t see, then hands so you can’t fight back.”
The best advice to people facing a belligerent chimpanzee is to run away as fast as possible! You can only hope to escape in the expectation that the chimpanzee becomes too tired to chase you.
Sarah Bell, science communicator at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, said that people who lived in places where there were chimpanzees such as in Sierra Leone regard them with fear.
She said that “Anyone who has ever actually observed fully grown chimpanzees would never assume they could take on a chimpanzee. Chimpanzees have been known to tear off people’s faces and leave men with a little less manhood than they had before the encounter. The chimpanzee would be fearing for his life, so it would do everything in its very impressive power to incapacitate the threat.”
Another interesting finding in this survey is that 1% of British women think that they can beat a gorilla in unarmed combat! 2% of men think the same thing. 3% of men think they can beat a lion in unarmed combat. That, too, is fanciful thinking. How a man can think that is beyond me unless they misunderstood the question, or they got some fancy tricks.
In the following order people in both the USA and UK ranked these animals the most difficult to fight when an armed, the most difficult being the first: Grizzly bear, elephant, lion, gorilla, crocodile, Wolf, Kangaroo, king cobra, chimpanzee, big dog, Eagle, medium-sized dog, goose, cat, rat.
American women were more confident than British men about defeating the most fearsome and animals which I find surprising but nice to know. At least 5% of US women said that they could overcome crocodiles, elephants, gorillas and grizzly bears whereas fewer than 5% of British men thought so.
Below are some articles on cat attacks.
Award-winning journalist badly hurt by a domestic cat she was rescuing
Lion and tiger can regard humans as dominant which is why staring into their eyes can stop an attack
Can a domestic cat kill a human?
Cat scratches woman’s face multiple times in row over infidelity
Do Canada lynx attack humans?
If my cat attacks someone, am I criminally responsible?
Do cheetahs kill people and could a person kill a cheetah?
Note: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified.