A recent study yielded interesting results about octopuses, female octopi in particular. It seems that when the female is being harassed by the male, she throws stuff at the male. This news story caught the attention of the Twitterati – soon there was a conversation around this. some found it funny, some not so much.
The female is seen to throw objects at the male who harasses her. And she has a lot of ‘arms’ to do this with.
Octopi may scare some of us senseless, but turns out they are quite intelligent creatures. They respond to stimuli and display problem-solving behaviours – such as getting rid of a harasser.
Apparently, it also means 'no' in whatever deep-sea language they ‘speak’.
Soon the tweeple were making jokes about the octopus story, relating with it in human terms.
Many women felt a sense of kinship with the female of the species – having similarly been subjected to unwanted attention from men.
Women often have to take action to counter unwanted attention from men after all – not too different from octopi.
This tweet seems to be mocking men’s rights activists who tend to be so aggrieved with women all the time.
Some felt that this is not unlike an angry mother.
One of the solutions to violence against women is supposed to be women learning self-defence. When attacked, just fight back, we are told.
While the banter and the jokes about the octopi throwing things is both interesting and funny, it does bring up a depressing question. Why are we still talking about women protecting themselves by resorting to physical violence?
The study found that the male octopuses were seen not to retaliate or throw things back at the women when their advances were rejected. Can we say the same for human males? Any woman who fights back knows that there is a strong chance of being overpowered; or suffering even worse retribution from her attacker. Besides violence can never be the answer to anything – not even violence!
So, the story about the female octopus throwing things at the male to repulse unwanted advances is funny and an interesting take on animal behaviour. It is all about consent; and clearly, male octopi get it. It is a pity that we seem to have lower expectations from men than we do of male octopuses.
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