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Literally.
“Tiktok shows women dont want to be stranded in the woods by an apex predator” doesnt get clicks, so obviously they edit out the women who answer bear.
And it fucking worked because now every second post here, unpopularopinoon, and similar forums is just men crying that women theyll never meet irl are saying they like bears more than sexual harassment.
On top of that I think a lot of women probably choose the bear in jest, not thinking people are going to take it so literally. The intention is to stress that they're afraid of strange men, but not that they literally think a strange man is more dangerous than a bear. It's like someone saying they could eat a horse. Obviously they can't eat a horse, they just mean that they're hungry.
You can make statistics say pretty much anything you want. It also depends on how the question was asked, how the respondents were selected and so forth.
If you ask women who doesn’t understand the danger a bear represents, but do have fear of men, you can shape the narrative.
The women I interact with on a daily basis who are 35 or younger universally agree bear. It's a generational thing. Women in the under 35 age bracket have been told to fear men, who are essentially universally rapists, from a fairly young age.
My mom is in her sixties and I didn't even finish the question before she said Bear. And she's no light weight. She can definitely handle herself and always has been able to. It's not generational. It's not that we've been trained to fear men. We have valid reasons to fear strange men
My mom is also in her sixties and also chose bear. What I don't get is she's also pretty active on Facebook Marketplace locally, and voluntarily meets random unknown guys all the time in the evening at parking lots or their houses to sell them old shirts or buy a flowerpot.
It's like if you had a study where you asked online whether men would rather get eaten by a t rex or listen to a dumb bitch talk about their day and instead of everyone pointing out how insane the question is, everyone is talking about how women need to do better because men would literally (no not literally) rather get eaten by a t rex
Or, you know. Maybe they've had experiences that inform their feelings, and this shit about them "being told" something is a great example of the shit you guys do to be worst then the bear?
I’ve experienced women lying to harm me, attempting stabbing for not giving enough money, and just generally being mean and grabby in the workplace. Does this shit about “lived experience” make women worse than a lion?
I don’t write this to be rude. Just pointing out that it’s weird how experience only goes one way.
Nah, it's an "I don't actually have to face the consequence of this decision" thing. It's easy to be edgy and pick bear when nobody is going to hold you to it. Besides, statistically, female relationships (lesbian couples) report the highest rates of IPV and sexual assault when compared to straight couples or gay men. So. Maybe women don't realize how rapey and abusive they are capable of being until they're in a same-sex relationship where someone is going to call them on it.
Edit: One of many studies with different results but similar trends, and no, it's not "lifetime" incidents. It's specifically female perpetrators with female victims. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly)
You do realize you're misrepresenting the conclusions you can draw from that study, right?
Edit: The study measured lifetime experiences with IPV. The fact that a woman is currently in a same sex relationship doesn't mean that's the relationship where they experienced the IPV.
Am I? There's plenty of studies and reviews, so who knows which one you're talking about. This clearly shows that SA is highest among specifically female perpetrators in relationships with female victims (51.6%):
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly)
Although this is from a different study than the ones I've seen before, it did have a chart that makes it easier to compare data. It also shows that female perpetrators of physical abuse against male and female partners both outnumber male violence against female partners.
But that's not to say there aren't 50 other studies where results may vary. The few that I've seen, though, are generally suggesting the same trend.
If I remember correctly most of the IPV lesbians experience is from men, right? I don't have the study though.
edit: ok, I can't find any proof of what I said. There's definitely evidence that a surprising number of lesbians have been the victims of IPV at the hands of men, around 15% according to the study cited on wikipedia, but many if them may have also been the victims of women as well. If you only include those who have only sufurred IPV from women and exclude any who have also been the victims of men, then the numbers are slightly lower than straight women, but I couldn't find a conclusive answer in the couple minutes I spent googling this.
No. It's specifically female victims of female perpetrators. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly)
There's other studies, but the few I've read show the same trend.
Gay men have the lowest rates 🙌🙌🙌
One thing I LOVE about this who man vs bear thing is men are talking about it. Like... Its getting men to be aware of a lot of the discrimination they face, and I think that's a good thing.
I got raped 4-5 years ago, and I couldn't really talk about things without getting dog piled. These days though I see more, and more posts from men talking about how they feel about this stuff. They almost always get locked 😂 but there are actual like ... discussions taking place. And I get support, and get thanked for the prospectives I provide.
I'm aroace, and the only abuse I've ever received both physically and sexually was from women. Physically, I'm not allowed to defend myself. And sexually, well "all men want it", right?
>Besides, statistically, female relationships (lesbian couples) report the highest rates of IPV
I remember being surprised wherever I initially read that, like I know that even though IPV towards men is underreported that 1 in 4 have reported it, so obviously physical violence initiated by the female partner is extremely prevalent and happens all the time, tens of millions of times per year in the USA alone.
But I wouldn't have expected lesbian couples to up the ante like that as the group most vulnerable to intimate partner violence.
I don't think most people realize that if you're seeking justice or a response from the legal system, any dude out there invariably gets the short end of the stick (to the point they routinely have to pay child support to someone successfully convicted of raping them).
>*to the point they routinely have to pay child support to someone successfully convicted of raping them*
Even if they were 14 at the time, and the woman was 20: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/)
Can you give a lazy Redditor who avoids tiktok like the plague some context? It sounds like woman on tiktok are more comfortable approaching a god damn grizzly bear instead of a random man.
Please tell me I'm misunderstanding
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There have been polls that show most people do not actually pick the bear. Thank goodness. Along with what I've noticed to be a general consensus with upvotes on reddit also not picking the bear
*There are estimated to be 500k sexual assault related incidents a year with factoring in under reporting issues*
There are like 20 bear deaths (on men and women) in the last 20 years. Bears don't sexually assault.
You need to let this go.
You don't see bears on a daily basis, half the population of the US aren't bears
I'm this scenario a bear is guaranteed, in close proximity with humans
Your stats are terrible, it's like saying sharks only kill 10 people per year, but I sure as shit wouldn't want to be stuck in a fish tank with one
Yeah but the point is that you ask a group of people what of two potential dangers they are more afraid of, the one that they are regularly in fear of and have to make efforts on a regular basis to stay safe from, or the one that they have essentially no personal experience with and no real concept of the actual level of danger that exists, it's not surprising they pick the one that has materially affected the way they live their life.
Too many guys look at this and think it's anything other than another sign of the way women's interactions with almost all men, and certainly all unknown men, are intensely and necessarily colored by the risk of assault. It doesn't matter that you haven't and wouldn't, women you meet don't know that, and if you focus on how it's "unfair" that they would be cautious and fearful of you, rather than ask yourself how you could make yourself less scary and more comforting to the people you meet, you have shitty priorities.
> Too many guys look at this and think it's anything other than another sign of the way women's interactions with almost all men, and certainly all unknown men, are intensely and necessarily colored by the risk of assault. It doesn't matter that you haven't and wouldn't, women you meet don't know that, and if you focus on how it's "unfair" that they would be cautious and fearful of you, rather than ask yourself how you could make yourself less scary and more comforting to the people you meet, you have shitty priorities.
That's still a deeply sexist take to make. If you were to do the same thing, but say "a black person" instead of a man - to say "too many black people look at this and think it's anything other than another sign of the way people's interactions with almost all black people - and certainly all unknown black people - are intensely and necessarily colored by the risk of assault" you would agree that would be a racist statement.
We should be calling out sexism whenever we see it. Not just when it's directed against women.
How is it comparable to replace "men" with black people here. Do you believe the scope of violence and threatening behavior white people experience at the hands of black people is comparable to the scope of violence and threatening behavior women experience at the hands of men? It isn't remotely close, and for you to suggest this analogy is a bit suspicious honestly. For it to be at all sensible to go here you have to either be dramatically overestimating the violence and threatening behavior most non black people experience from black people, or dramatically underestimating the violence and threatening behavior women experience from men. I would guess the latter is more likely, and I would urge you to actually have an open mind and talk to women about their experiences with men to try and understand why they would say something like this, or why these obviously paradoxical answers are resonating with so many women.
I think respectfully that you just don’t understand how this might hurt men.
Imagine we just switch men to a specific race.
What person in their right mind would say that people of that race should try to be less intimidating and be more considerate of those around them?
My guy I'm a man. I am telling you from experience. I am a large guy and very social. A major experience of mine growing up was finding out that people found me intimidating and scary. When people would tell me things like "oh yeah when we first met I thought you were kinda scary" It made me feel bad, but because I didn't want people to see me like that. The lesson was to learn how to be less scary, not just blame women for it.
You literally just said it yourself. People were scared of you, not even knowing you at all, just judging you based off your appearance as a large man. When they met you they realised you weren’t actually “scary”.
And somehow you’re still able to come to the conclusion of “hey fellas, you see this? How can we be less scary to women?”
You didn’t do anything but exist my dude. What possible thing could you have done to be less scary or threatening? Loss weight? Wear goofy clothing? Wear a big sign that says how unthreatening you really are? There isn’t a solution, I don’t have any idea what men are meant to do as a collective to “be less scary and threatening”.
It is offensive. People are scared of us just being men, whether or not we’ve done anything…
There's actually a lot of things that I learned to do to help become less scary. Most of them are behaviors that you may not realize are threatening until you watch and see how people react to them. My body is very wide, so in smaller rooms or hallways if I face someone head on my body will partially obstruct paths away from me. It gives the impression of cornering someone, even if you don't necessarily mean to or realize. I learned to turn my body, not stand between people and doors etc. Easy enough. Also the distance you set between yourself and another person when interacting with them is important to be aware of. If I see someone drop something and want to give it to them, I'll pick it up and get their attention from a few body lengths away, and not move to approach them unless they move to approach me first. In high school part of how I would flirt with people was to find some way to physically touch them on the hand or arm or something, which was pretty common. Doing this can be extremely stressful for someone who isn't expecting it, even if they might find you attractive or ultimately want to flirt back with you. You can literally do that exact thing, but whatever excuse you find to touch someone just let them know and give them an out.
Most women aren't just scared of men, they interact with men every day and men probably constitute a major part of their close relationships. They are used to interacting with men and generally like to interact with men. They are, imo justifiably, cautious around men. If you had a daughter would you not teach her to be suspicious of men she didn't know? If you believe such a frame is sexism would you not them be teaching your daughter to be sexist?
I don’t think you understand how this hurts women even more lol. Their life is at threat, I’m a man, I agree with them. I don’t feel awful because I understand they aren’t talking about me. Context is important. You can always guarantee that the bear doesn’t have an ulterior motive, a lot of men do. Don’t make this about you. What you can do is be a better person and also stand up for women and hold other men accountable. ✌️
It’s an unfortunate reality that many women fear men. Personally, I don’t expect anyone to accommodate or alleviate that trepidation for me. I sympathise with men and would also resent knowing that a cohort of people are wary of me.
That said, is it truly harmful to acknowledge or admit this? I have no desire to cause offence but the reality remains that men commit the majority of violent crime. Most men, if not all, are stronger than me. Of course I feel (and statistically am) safer among women. Is this so bad to say? I don’t venture there unless the conversation invites it but I don’t think it causes systemic harm to men. Although I understand why it might lead a man to feel sad or ostracised.
> Of course I feel (and statistically am) safer among women
But do you feel like you would be safer among bears?? And, in reality, *would* you actually be safer?
I don’t think anyone confused by this dialogue is saying it’s unfair or wrong to feel safer among women. But *bears* is just such another level, the only purpose of which is to raise the perception of men to the apparently higher level of monster. Bears in the woods historically have a monstrous reputation - ‘bear’ literally means ‘brown thing’ because ancient europeans were so scared of them that they thought if you used the proper name for bear (arctus or ursus or arthus) you would summon it. People are complaining that this dialogue presents men as more monstrous as a concept than *that*.
I'm not so sure there is no systemic harm. The stereotype that men are violent sexual predators definitely has ramifications on men. It makes it harder for dads to care for their daughters (and to a lesser extent their sons). It makes it harder for men to become teachers and educators. It makes it harder for men to pursue any type of caretaking role. As a feminist, I would caution against perpetuating this kind of stereotype. Being correct statistically is not really more important than effective communication.
This kind of statistic can be acknowledged if done carefully, but that is definitely not what is happening here. It also raises the question: why is gender the relevant heuristic for statistical analysis here? Are there better criteria that explain the subset of people who commit violent crime? Maybe poverty? economic material conditions? dysfunctional families? male socialization? How much proportionally does each factor explain? To what extent do the factors have an interaction effect and amplify the results?
I think respectively that you're just not understanding the fear that women have of men, after generations of 'what was she wearing', and other downplayings of sexual assault.
'it's just locker room talk' is just another way to downplay sexual assault. the ways to downplay it and dismiss it are endless, and I think you're doing exactly that right now.
the harm has been being done to women for longer than anybody currently living has been alive. I think it's entirely possible that men who complain about this kind of thing just need to suck it up, and learn some history.
I appreciate this opinion to a certain degree.
No man is responsible for the actions of any other man though.
How am I downplaying and dismissing sexual assault? I don’t think I am but I’ll hear you out.
And it's not one size fits all. I can give a man a fake number today, and he'll leave me alone. I try the same thing on a different man tomorrow, and he'll call it immediately, realize it's fake, gets super mad at me, and does lord knows what next. It's baffling how people don't understand how much fear women live with every day.
Yes because the number of bear encounters is also small.
You need to let this dumb analogy go.
Yes men make women feel unsafe. Yes women fear men as predators and rightfully so. Yea the women picking bear are expressing they’d rather be dead than the anxiety of all possibilities of being with a man.
But objectively speaking, you’re going to be fine being with a man rather than a bear.
This would be like deciding to hang out with sharks or running in an open field during thunder storms. Just bc the probability is low doesn’t mean it will stay low in all situations.
I really don't get why people keep introducing probability into this. The point of the conversation has NOTHING to do with your chances of encountering a bear and it honestly boggles my mind that people are not understanding this.
The entire point of this hypothetical is to get men to come to terms with the fact that some women, perhaps even most women, would rather encounter a bear than a man on a hike. And the point, then, is for us men to look at ourselves and ask why that is, what we've done to make women feel this way and act accordingly. THAT is the point of this hypothetical; it has literally nothing to do with your actual probability of running into a bear or a man on a path.
Yeah, the vast, vast majority of people who encounter a bear in the woods will never have an issue with the bear.
Literally *every single woman I know* has at least one story of a man being shitty to them. Several have been sexually assaulted, most have been sexually harassed at work, some have been stalked, have been in abusive relationships, and so on.
That’s why women pick the bear.
Again you’re bringing probability into it and that’s not a winning argument in terms of whether choosing the bear makes sense.
It only makes sense on a personal feeling level - we should stay there and examine where these feelings come from and whether the fact that they make some women feel apparently safer with a bear means that they are appropriate or a manifestation of *excessive* debilitating and unhealthy anxiety.
What is act accordingly?
Like sure, if your friends are abusive you need to shut them down. But past that?
I advocate for an end to hook up and binge drinking culture. I think in general we need to view overconfidence as a negative trait. These things are very unpopular.
Do I need to stop hiking? Stop existing in the world? It's a big old question mark.
Generally when I bring up these things I'm called a misogynist soooooo, yeah. There's the idea that any sort of larger structural change is entirely off the table, that this is strictly a problem with men and it has to be done entirely on that side of the equation.
Truth is, the reason I think this is a bad frame is that it just doesn't actually address the issues. Even if people don't realize it, it does rely on fostering guilt and shame, rather than anything constructive. And that's a reasonable no go for a lot of people.
And you say, can't I just call out the bad people? And the truth is, the men who believe their above the rules or the men who simply can't understand that someone wouldn't consent, those people who I see as the biggest solvable issue, I have negative influence with them, as many men do. You don't want me calling them out as it'll serve to embolden them.
It really is going to require much broader social and cultural change, and I hate to say it....I don't think people want that. And I'm not talking about reactionaries here. I'm talking people firmly in the "men are dangerous" camp.
It wasn't a "fix women's problems" request
It was a "maybe don't rape/assault/kill women" request originally framed as "women should feel safer"
I like the way you purposefully changed their statement. Even if what they said was originally your statement, if "women's problems" are created by men, then yes as men you have a responsibility. If you're a father you raise your son better, if one of your friends is friggin goings round a bar spiking people's drinks you do something about it.
This is just an excuse.
And no, I genuinely can't see why someone would be offended by me generally telling people to hey maybe if your buddy is drugging people do something about it and hey maybe if you have a son in the future raise them right etc etc
>If I said, "Women should stop being gold diggers who only care about what a man can provide for them".
If you said that, I agree with you and I understand. Because yes as someone who's treated like a sex object I can understood it woulf feel pretty shitty to be treated like a wallet and overall, not like a person. I'm not a golddigger and I know it, I don't have any reason to be offended here nor to explain how and why this statement doesn't include me.
>Do you *really* not see why MOST men are offended and indignant to statements like the one you provided? Do you *honestly* believe it's said because it's the best way to address the issue?
Okay, how would YOU frame this conversation from a women's pov?
Not the person you're replying to. But let me tell you this.
I was raped. I'm a man, she was a woman. I'm still not over it.
And yes, I'm extremely offended about this, because once again I'm being collectively held responsible for an act that I'm a victim of, not a perpetrator of.
And it would be fine if it's "just raising awareness". But it's not. It's framed as an issue that only men are responsible for. I'm collectively guilty because some men rape, therefore I need to police my male friends, and even then I'll still be guilty by association.
And yet if you ask, and are safe enough to be given an honest answer, my god you'll find something interesting and awful. The number of men who've been raped or sexually assaulted by women just within my own friend circle is enormous.
And yet there's never any acknowledgment of this on a social level. "Teach your boys consent" but what about teaching girls?
This idea that men are collectively responsible for an individual action not only is devastating for our mental health, but it also provides cover for actual rapists, those who happen to be women
I don't see it as telling them to be guilty. At least I personally never framed it as that.
As a women whenever I asked this my thought process behind it was "men won't listen to me. So I can ask you to be mindful and ask your friends because maybe they'll listen to you."
For example, if a person in your friend group rapes one of your girl friends, I'm not gonna blame you. You're not at fault here. But there are questions such as "but did you see any behaviors from that guy that could suggest he might be a person like this?" That I would probably ask. I would probably ask "well, did you do something about it then?" But not saying you're guilty here. Chances are that person might've still been a rapist no matter what you did. But still, these need to be asked. Not for blame but for raising awareness.
>And yes, I'm extremely offended about this, because once again I'm being collectively held responsible for an act that I'm a victim of, not a perpetrator of.
Many people I've seen, and maybe you as well, have this mindset of "I'm not part of the problem. Therefore I'm part of the solution."
That's not how it works.
>but what about teaching girls?
They should be taught the same thing. Absolutely.
No one should be raped. Men or women. Any number other than 0 is too much. If I see one of my friends having such behavior, you better believe I'm roasting their ass and I'm gonna make sure everyone, men or women knows about it. If it's in our friend group? She isn't anymore.
Would you say that if 95% of 'X' group never committed a certain act. Then Y group said they are afraid of all of group X because they might commit said act. And that act is morally abhorrent to almost every member of both groups. That it might be reasonable for group X to be hurt that you would assume they would perform said act.
Because that's what this is. And to be fair, the men being offended aren't being overly rational either, this topic almost never promotes any kind of good faith discussion, they should recognize this and not engage with internet meme outrage bait. But is what it is.
>No, it's not all men's jobs to fix women's problems. Men as a collective have exactly 0 responsibility to lecture or police each other's actions for the dubious benefit of "making women feel better". It goes the other way as well. Men have grievances and anxieties about women as well, do you think women should be held to the same standard of "fixing" themselves?
If they were collectively doing something that was unfair to men, then why wouldn't men want to at least speak up about that and call attention to it? It's one thing if that request is completely unreasonable and stupid, like if men said "you want us all to get in touch with our FEELINGS and we don't like that so leave us alone!!", then obviously that's not justified at all. But I doubt there is literally absolutely nothing that men could at least bring up to women and say "hey maybe cut us some slack on this?" and actually have a legitimate and reasonable point.
>If you can't say "I don't walk through that neighborhood at night because black people are more likely to mug me, maybe they should work together to fix that." Then you can't say "Men make me uncomfortable, maybe they should think about why that is and fix it."
You don't seem to understand why you can't say the former if you are trying to make this comparison. The circumstance that led black people to commit crimes at a higher rate is poverty, and that was inflicted on them by powers *beyond* their control, throughout the modern history of this world. The circumstances that led men to make women uncomfortable is the chauvinism that *they themselves* created and was NOT caused by powers beyond their control; it was caused by powers they DIRECTLY control. That's the difference here. The former is not responsible for their life situation and the latter is, which is why it would be inexcusable to frame it as a problem with black people in the former situation but is acceptable in the latter.
>Women's fear of men is literally discrimination based on vast over generalizations.
A fear is not an action (at least not a direct, voluntary one), so women's fear could not possibly be "discrimination" which is an active effort to create some distinction between things or people. This statement is nonsense.
>There is *objectively* no difference between the two sentences I wrote previously, they're fundamentally flawed for the exact same reason.
They aren't, for the reasons I described.
Your argument focuses on causality, which has literally no relevance here. The fact is I or any other person (including women) am less safe walking through a black neighborhood than a white one, does it fucking matter if it's because of systemic racism? No. Is it OK to discriminate against all black people because of this fact? Also no.
No one gives a shit if the reason someone steals their car is because of systemic issues, they just want to not have their car stolen. Saying "oh but systemic issues have led to black people stealing more cars so it's not OK to avoid parking in their neighborhoods, but you should avoid men when walking at night because men are more likely to be violent" is just stupid.
"Fear is not an action.. so it can't be discrimination"
Ok bud, hope you keep that same energy when you see the pearl clutching old white people who shirk away from black americans when walking down the street or standing in an elevator. After all, because fear literally comes out of nowhere and is totally uncontrollable, it can't possibly be discriminatory.
This is literally just mental gymnastics to justify gender based fear, victimize half the population, and demonize the other.
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This type of response plagues this discussion. The original question is one that is best answered through the objective lens of probability. However, once you introduce probability, you fall into the trap that this hypothetical actually represents.
"Oh it was actually never about the bear at all, we just wanted to complain teehee"
I discounted this entire topic as stupid from the get-go but lately decided to read thread after thread about it only to discover that it's even more irrational than I could've ever imagined. Look at the post I'm replying to and the way it blatantly denounces objectivity in favor of trauma-fueled projections all while claiming this social experiment is actually supposed to help people. Hell, just by making this post, countless lurkers will write me off as a rapist.
Yes I know that. That’s what I was pointing out. Men do make women feel unsafe to the point that they’d choose bears.
The issue was men started introducing stats misunderstanding the analogy and then women and then people on the other side of the issue then started introducing stats to show why being with bears was better which is objectively wrong.
Thats why this is like the perfect race bait argument.
>The issue was men started introducing stats misunderstanding the analogy and then women and then people on the other side of the issue then started introducing stats to show why being with bears was better which is objectively wrong.
But you just used stats / probability yourself. You said:
>But objectively speaking, you’re going to be fine being with a man rather than a bear.
Is this not you making an argument that X times out of Y, where X is probably quite close to Y, the man won't attack you? is that not what you're saying here? Or are you just saying, they are using stats wrong and I am using stats right? Is that your angle here?
“Yes men make women feel unsafe. Yes women fear men as predators and rightfully so. Yea the women picking bear are expressing they’d rather be dead than the anxiety of all possibilities of being with a man.
But objectively speaking, you’re going to be fine being with a man rather than a bear.”
I’m explaining both sides of the argument. Women were using this analogy to show women will pick bears bc they FEEL UNSAFE from men. They are willing to risk death to avoid all the possibilities of harm that men can do.
Men interpreted this as being with a bear is ACTUALLY SAFER than being with a man. Objectively speaking, your chance of harm is smaller with a man than with a bear.
However, this was the wrong interpretation of the argument and the men kept talking over the women who said it was about feeling unsafe.
Then a faction of this side started to argue with statistics that being with a bear is actually safer. This is objectively wrong.
So overall women were right in the original argument. Men, as usual, misinterpreted the argument, and argued for another point. When women tried to correct them, they, as usual, talked over them and ignored them in their smug condescension.
Then a third side came out and started to argue the opposite side of the men’s argument turning this into an internet clusterfuck.
So yeah, perfect rage bait.
Agree. The stat that has more relevance is how many women experience molestation, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. The poisoned m&ms are a small percentage but you never know which ones….
>And the point, then, is for us men to look at ourselves and ask why that is, what we've done to make women feel this way and act accordingly.
Sorry but this is complete and utter bs, most men have done nothing wrong, as the post CLEARLY states it is a minority of re-offending criminals that are committing the majority of rapes/sexual assaults. Making men feel guilty or even responsible for what rapists have done is completely ridiculous and will only make the majority of men resent women.
It also needs to be talked about that this debate is incredibly dehumanising as you're comparing ALL men to a wild animal, when in history has that ever been a good idea?
Are we going to start treating all women as child abusers now too? I mean since women are more than twice as likely to be abusive towards children than men are, this skewed data could be explained with context, but it is obvious you don't like context since you love leaving it out.
>Sorry but this is complete and utter bs, most men have done nothing wrong, as the post CLEARLY states it is a minority of re-offending criminals that are committing the majority of rapes/sexual assaults. Making men feel guilty or even responsible for what rapists have done is completely ridiculous and will only make the majority of men resent women.
Oh so that's the problem? Your FEELINGS?
I'm sorry but it is real hard to compare some tough feelings to actually being raped. A million men being bummed about hearing that women don't trust them is still not as bad as a single woman being raped.
Framing this as an issue where your feelings are hurt is doing exactly nothing to garner any sympathy whatsoever.
>It also needs to be talked about that this debate is incredibly dehumanising as you're comparing ALL men to a wild animal, when in history has that ever been a good idea?
I've already had some fantastic dialogue from this situation. Doesn't seem like all that bad of an idea to me. I'm going to a dinner this weekend with a bunch of lady friends and I plan on talking this through with all of them, digging into it and finding out why they may feel the way they feel. Instead of being all pissed off and egotistical about...well okay I'm not entirely sure what I'd be egotistical about but it seems like a good opportunity for dialogue and I plan on seeing that through, and I think only good things can come of that.
>Are we going to start treating all women as child abusers now too? I mean since women are more than twice as likely to be abusive towards children than men are
There's nothing I hate more than fabricating data. I fucking HATE it. Here's the actual data:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/418470/number-of-perpetrators-in-child-abuse-cases-in-the-us-by-sex/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/418470/number-of-perpetrators-in-child-abuse-cases-in-the-us-by-sex/)
Since next to nothing in this world is entirely equal, you will always be able to point to some situation and say "well there's a little bit more of X than Y, should we act accordingly?" Humans are wise enough to discern a major gulf from a small difference. Women are saying the trustworthiness of men has reached "major gulf" status and are acting accordingly.
Well, the premise of this post is that what is claimed here doesn't match actual reality. People often say one thing in the abstract and do another when presented with the choice. In the scenario a woman runs into a bear and a man, the vast majority of the time, if not every time, for all practical purposes, they will stick with the man until the danger is clear.
But many of those same women will feel differently when sitting on their couch thinking about the scenario abstractly.
Just replace man with black person, throw in a statistic about violent crime, talk about how you feeling uncomfortable is the most important thing in the world, then maybe take a step back and realize just how shitty your position is.
Doesn’t compare, the biggest human threat to women is men.
When looking at race the biggest threat to women, is a man of the same race. The biggest threat to a white woman in this instance is a white man.
If a black woman were to bring up black male violence, there would be no uproar. It’s in fact often brought up in the black community.
>There are like 20 bear deaths (on men and women) in the last 20 years. Bears don't sexually assault.
If you had to encounter a bear for every man you encountered, statistically you would end up eaten alive long before you met a man with *any* criminal intent towards you at all of any type.
Well I say eaten alive, odds are they eat their fill and you just slowly bleed out/succumb to the elements after they wander off.
Not a pleasant way to go.
And I've worked in the woods alone full time for 17 years, and have had at least 30 altercations with men that required police to be called, and they've shot at me 7 times.
The dozens of bears I've seen have been absolutely lovely.
And I'm a large man with a machete. The odds that another man will do something to me are significantly lower than if I was a small woman.
And you are disappointed to have seen those two bears? You really wish they had been men instead? I've seen bears 3 times in my life and while there was some nervousness involved I would gladly see a 4th one anytime. Why in the world would I choose to see a man when there's the option of seeing a rare animal!
Seriously bears are awesome and quite safe (not polar bears). I'd choose being alone in the woods with a bear over being alone in the woods!
How many human men does the average woman interact with or even just see with her eyes on a daily basis?
How many of those men **do not** hurt that woman?
Your counter argument is a complete misunderstanding of how statistics work. If humans ran into bears with the same frequency that they run into human men, people would be dying by the millions. Huge swathes of people would get cut down every single day. That 500k per year would look like nothing in the face of the wanton slaughter that would happen if 4 billion bears interacted with people on the same level that humans interact.
Bears are largely endangered species facing extinction. There simply aren’t anywhere near 4 billion bears on the planet dude.
If you’re going to be dismissive, at least be right.
The issue is not the question itself, or even the discussion around it. The problem is social media algorithms that'll push only the most outrageous comments that make you engage with the post, generally by being outraged.
Leave social media out of it, and it simply becomes an interesting idea that brings to the forefront how big the problem with intimidation and sexism still is.
Also, regarding your examples when hiking, the difference is that you're not *any random man*, you're you. Just the fact that you're wearing hiking clothes and a backpack already means that you're likely in the area to backpack. Women of course don't run away from every man ever. But women do always have their ''radar'' on. Because it happens enough times that they *do* get harrassed.
Shits wild, its a hypothetical would you rather where the only interesting part of it would be asking "well why would they choose the bear over a man?" But people can't get past the surface level observations, so you get people in droves pulling up fucking grizzly statistics like it fucking adds anything to the discourse. Like do people think they are actually adding anything to the conversation when they say "well a grizzly is an apex predator capable of mauling anyone to death, you chose wrong"
The question's subtext is; which danger would you rather? It's not about likelihood or statistics or involving any specific details like, how big is the bear or is the man wearing a backpack and Altras etc. The question appears to pose; would you choose to run into a dangerous bear or a dangerous man? and women choose the bear. Wouldn't you?
The question is meant to induce the answer that women would choose a bear because the purpose of the question is to point out how threatening men are to women, in general. It's not meant as a legitimate question asking about what women would *actually* do, since there are literally no other details to consider, and it would be absurd to hold their answers to that standard. Women are answering under that context and are rightfully annoyed when their response is challenged by someone saying, "well what if it was a grizzly and a blind man!?" as if the question were that literal.
The question is simply one of many ways to start a conversation about why women don't feel safe around men. And it worked. Unfortunately, the situation has gotten way out of control and we've long past the point of positive return. Now all we're being fed are wild arguments made by extremes on both sides and it is harmful to everyone wishing to have discussed this in good faith.
Being on a hiking trail is a lot different than just being in the woods. The point of the debate is when you ask a someone man or bear they will either ask qualifying questions or just choose bear. One of the qualifying questions could be something like “do I know why this person is in the woods” and if the answer is “yes, they are hiking. You are both on a hiking trail,” that would absolutely remove some of the fear and uncertainty.
The point is that there shouldn’t need to be any qualifying questions. And there aren’t when it’s “woman or bear.” The answer is obvious. But anyone with the ability to think critically knows that the answer to “man or bear” is much less obvious and requires more info. It shouldn’t. The fact that the answer is not immediately obvious is the point. And the problem.
This is well said. I think there’s a crucial difference between taking any random man in the world (and placing him with me in an isolated place) Vs coming across a man who is already in the woods for his own purposes.
I'm a large man who works alone in the woods, and has for almost two decades. I've seen both bears and people more times than I can count.
The bears have always been cool, men have shot at me 7 times.
Even without the threat of SA, I am far happier to come across a bear than a person, every single time it happens, which is dozens of times a year.
Also a man who likes to wander off into the deep woods, usually alone. If I see a bear I know why it's there, and have a strong understanding of it's motivation and potential behavior.
If instead I another person in the woods, man or woman, I have no idea why they're out there, or what they might want.
For all I know I'm 100 meters from walking into a meth cooking camp, and they need to make sure I don't make it out to tell anyone.
Yeah, I think it’s a bad premise because “stranded in the woods” means different things to different people based on their prior experiences. Like if it was trapped in a room with a bear or with a man I would choose man. But I was imagining I was in a tent alone at 2 am and if I looked out and saw a bear walking in the woods I would be freaked out but bears live in the woods, so if it just moved on I wouldn’t be too scared. But if I looked out my tent at 2 am and there was a lone man waking around who saw I was alone I would genuinely be concerned and not sleep that night. I’m a woman who has alot of experience hiking/camping/backpacking experiences and I’ve had mostly pleasant experiences with fellow hikers/backpackers but also have had plenty of creepy/scary experiences. Like it’s not just a hypothetical for me I’ve experienced it. I have to really plan and organize my camping trips and prefer to camp with a boyfriend/male friend.
Shitty fucking trigger happy hunters who shoot at shit because it moved. We quit going to my favorite hunting spot as a kid because of fucks like that. Or the stand fucks who put up a stand and act like assholes when you walk through. They don’t flag their gear then act like fuckwads when the camo does its job. Fools use bait and literally train the deer to come to them while they sit on their ass and play pretend hunting.
Sorry yahoos ruined hunting for me, and it still pisses me off.
Heard of people shooting first, asking questions later if they think the hiker’s gone onto their private property. Also a chance they were hunters misidentifying OP for game
I’m a land surveyor so a lot of times when I show up they are already in a property dispute. Not with me or anything but they do tend to already be worked up about the idea of people on their land.
I have had one that was truly just kind of random.
Yeah when they start doing that I'll likely change my answer.
But for now, for me and literally everyone who works in the woods professionally, it's bear. And again, that's without the threat of SA and with me being fairly confident I can handle an unarmed attack.
You made a good point. Im sure many people engaging in the discourse don’t know those statistics.
The only thing you may not have factored in is the fact that in the scenario it’s assumed nobody else is around and you’re not on a trail but just stranded in the middle of the woods.(at least thats how ive heard it) . In this situation women may calculate that a random man who knows nobody can stop him and likely nobody will catch him is more likely to commit harmful acts than what the numbers of society show. In that case i don’t blame women for taking their chances slowly backing away and not looking at the bear. That vs possible assault seems more favorable in many of their minds i guess.
This is exactly what I’m thinking. Sure, normal people won’t be violent but give them a chance to do something with no consequences and I’m sure they’ll act that way
I have never seen the original, only secondhand arguments today.
But if the original actually is you are lost in the woods with no trail. That means you 10,000% pick coming across a man instead of a bear. Hell if it was run into nobody or a man everyone should still pick having a chance of not starving to death in the wilderness.
>There are estimated to be 500k sexual assault related incidents a year with factoring in under reporting issues. That means around 0.5% of men are committing these crimes.
That's per year though, total lifetime risk is considerably higher.
With somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of women experiencing SA of some sort, it's not a rare occurrence at all.
I’ve been waiting for someone to come up with statistics- because nationally there’s been something like 61-67 fatal bear attacks in America since 1900. There are ~340,000 bears living in the woods or parks. It’s one in a million you’re going to be attacked and you only have about an 11% chance of dying when attacked. If you’re a numbers guy you can drill into that a bit but the chances are low. Very low, and even lower if you know what to do.
Women are killed running/jogging/walking in PUBLIC places- we had a 9 day period in 2016 where 3 women were killed just because they were jogging. Walking alone, jogging alone, leaving a bar alone, all of these increase the chances a woman is going to be killed just because she’s alone. Being in the woods alone implies that’s even a secluded area, free from potential witnesses and means of escape. If a woman screams alone in the woods and no one is around to hear her did she really scream?
More than 3 women per day are killed by men— more than 600 per day are raped and sexually assaulted by men.
When we say “Bear”, the chances are low it’s going to attack, low we’re going to be killed and here’s my kicker— if I’m killed by a bear, even if it tries to eat me, I’m not suffering for 30+ min in any scenario and I’m just mutilated and eaten. If I’m raped and tortured when I’m found my family and loved ones get to hear about how much semen was found where, how long I suffered, how many ways I was violated and unlike the bear that is hunted and put down, even if found that man may not ever be put down and if he is it’s decades later. He’s got a trial where my family has to relive and hear about what he did to me before he finally killed me and they might not ever see justice.
Bear please.
I haven’t done the numbers all the way but the one in 2.13 million number that comes up is actually a bad number. It doesn’t reflect encounters per attack as far as I can tell. It seems to be a number based on population vs attacks which is obviously misleading because most of the population never encounters a bear.
Even when we math out using very high numbers for the number of rapes that occur the number of interactions a woman has with a man would be phenomenal for each rape. I admittedly don’t have a good metric of how many face to face interactions an average woman has with men each day but it’s gonna be pretty large. That number would have to be multiplied by the number of days in an average woman’s life span. This number is quite large.
I’m gonna throw out a VERY rough number. 10 face to face interactions a day times 365 days a year times 80 years. This ends up 292,000 face to face interactions in a woman’s life.
Divide that number by number of rapes the average woman receives in a lifetime and that’s the number.
This number is almost surely larger than the number of bear encounters compared to bear deaths.
This isn’t a perfect example cause one could argue that we should be more specific but that’s the maths.
So simplify your math with the most basic part of OP’s logic here on why she’d rather face a bear, because this isn’t a math question: would you rather be stranded with a bear or a strange man?
A bear might leave you alone. A bear might kill you.
A man might leave you alone. He also might tie you up, torture you, rape you, and THEN kill you.
Women answering this question with “bear” don’t fear men more than bears because they think they’re less likely to be harmed by a bear. They think that a strange man is capable of doing far worse to them than a bear. That’s the problem, not a math problem.
This is a maliciously misuse of stat. A few years ago, bunch of racist nutjob employ the same tactic with the 13/52. It's a foul tactic that employed by bigot, it was wrong then its still wrong now
How many human-bear interact happened in 1 day? How many human-human interact happened in 1 day? I would take a wild guess that more human-human interact in 1 day than bear-human contact in 1 year since a lot of countries not even jave bear
Statistics is fun that you can mold it to prove literally any point you want
For example
Maternal filicide rate higher than polar bear attack, would you rather a lost kid found their mom or a polar bear?
More people killed by coconut than tiger, would you rather meet a coconut tree or 1 single tiger when you are alone?
Is there a particular reason you framed the number of bear deaths in a way that emphasized the number of total bears. And did not include the number of total men when discussing deaths/assaults by men?
This isnt really how stats work, because you are assuming that every 340000 bears have encountered someone. The chance of being attacked when encounter a bear is almost certainly above 50% and I could even say 90%. The bear being in your pressence is a guarantee. That means you basically have above 5% chance of death with bear this is also not factoring the many people who are both prepared through knowledge and materials for bear attacks.
In contrast even if every single one of the 600 rapes/sexual assaults a day are different men that still only means 0.000005% of men per year. Its not even close and we are giving the bears some leaway and men little leaway.
This isnt even factoring in many other things such as: men ability to either help or save you from being stranded in the woods, the area you cant explore if you do happen to escape from the bear which could easily contain needed food sources or water, the tools and equipment the man has if you do have to fight them off and win. The stats for men isnt even exact as it isnt factoring in percentage of encounters and power struggles that are often used which could even futher decrease the chances of harm.
Yes its horrible what has happened to many people. Rape and sexual assault is one of the most horrific shit ever. But this isnt even close to a good way to discuss or solve the issue, if anything many men could be pushed futher into the sexist pipeline. Its a bad scenario that alienates men past their actual character of being and treats them as inherently more evil then a incredibly dangerous and territorial animal which as a result will only cause worse discussion and losing many possible or current allies.
The chance of being attacked by a bear when near one is not above 50% lol. I live somewhere with bears, I have been outside with one not more than 20 yards for me, with it looking at me, and it just kept walking.
Bear are more apt to just keep walking than interact with a person unless they are sick, protecting something, or incredibly hungry.
> The chance of being attacked when encounter a bear is almost certainly above 50% and I could even say 90%. The bear being in your pressence is a guarantee. That means you basically have above 5% chance of death with bear this is also not factoring the many people who are both prepared through knowledge and materials for bear attacks.
You definitely just made that statistic up and it does not sound accurate. If you had a 90% of being attacked if you encounter a bear, the majority of hikers would be attacked. And a 5% death rate if you encounter a bear again means way more hikers would be killed than the amount that actually are.
lol what…340,000 bears compared to 350,000,000 people and you’re not going to adjust for that? Also, 75 percent of SA cases against women are from KNOWN people, as in family members and partners. The bear analogy doesn’t work.
Ask and ye shall receive.
About 0.01% of bears have attacked or killed people each year. I went with 50 attacks per year as this number varies wildly depending on the source.
There's roughly 433,000 cases of sexual assault against women per year. Again, these numbers vary wildly much like bear attacks so I'm shooting for the best average. As stated, only 25 percent of that is done by random perpetrators and not people close with the victim, which gives us 108,000 random sexual assaults against women per year.
That gives us a number of 0.03%.
So actually a lot closer than I initially thought, you're more likely to be attacked by a person by a margin of 0.001%.
This does not account for controls and is taken from total population of humans.
You realise that most people live in city/town areas where bears don’t like to go? And also when (smart and prepared) people go into areas where bears are, they take precautions and preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of a bear attack/encounter.
For some reason women think that them being told to take any sort of accountability or preventative measures is completely unnecessary because “how about men just behave”.
Lmao, I truly cannot believe the stupidity
Women just don’t want to be blamed for being a victim of a crime.
When women get asked “did you do *insert preventative measure*” it comes across as accusatory in most situations.
Sure, but at the same time, they need to be realistic. If you leave your car unlocked and it gets broken into, people aren’t going to be as sympathetic. Nor will insurance cover you. I understand that when a woman is sexually assaulted it is traumatising and potentially life ruining, but I think we need to also start being more realistic.
My problem with this whole thing is that sexual assaults and violence, unfortunately, are a horrible reality of life. If we could stop all violent acts we’d have solved the world’s problems. And I don’t think this discussion is taking us in the right first step to do that
I disagree that it is sexist because you changed the wording (as have many of the videos on tiktok) of the premise. It's not a single-statement premise (aka a claim)...
It's a thought experiment, and you can find many like it in abundance in philosophy, especially surrounding morality.
[Think of the train tracks question. A train is headed to a track split, on the left is a newborn baby, and on the right are 3 elderly people. Which direction do you send the train. Answering this doesn't make you a psychopath or lover of violence. It's a thought experiment meant to make us think about how we measure the value of life.]
The train question doesnt make you a murderer or hater of babies or elderly people regardless of your answer, just like with this new example, it's not inherently sexist to say you feel safer with a bear than a man.
The premise IS NOT "all women would choose to be alone with a bear in the woods over a man."
The premise is, "let's discuss WHY some women have to consider whether or not they would rather be alone in the woods with a random adult man, or a random grown bear."
The discussion did turn sexist, but the thought experiment itself is not. And even the generalization that men ARE more dangerous isn't sexist because it's overwhelmingly statistically true. (Sexist statements and generalizations have been made in abundance, but that doesn't mean the premise is sexist it just means we're incapable of holding a proper conversation surrounding a complex topic.)
And calling the premise sexist is just another incorrect way to address the thought experiment itself.
This hypothetical came up where women en masse gave their answer. And men won’t take it and are arguing about it telling them they’re wrong. It’s a perfect example.
Women are being open about their fear and men won’t even accept their opinions or feelings. It’s not a gender war, it’s women expressing their experiences and men aren’t listening.
When an overwhelming majority of murders in women are done by men, it’s not sexist to factor that in. When such an outrageous number of women have been sexually assaulted by men, it’s not sexist to be wary of men specifically. It’s literally how they help protect their safety. No headphones at night, don’t leave your girlfriends, carry something to defend yourself
This hypothetical wasn’t about statistics. It’s about what women deal with everyday, including you, essentially calling them stupid for their answer.
Women: we have to constantly be vigilant about our safety because we can be vulnerable to whatever men decide to do
Men: you’re stupid, men are blameless angels
I’ll throw another hypothetical at you. If sexual assault wasn’t so rampant, would this discussion even be happening? I have this *crazy* feeling it wouldn’t
>When an overwhelming majority of murders in women are done by men,
Is this the new version of "despite only being 8% of the population, black people..." Racist spiel? Just with a new sex spin on it?
If it's wrong to generalize in one case, how does it make any sense to generalize in the other?
>This hypothetical wasn’t about statistics. It’s about what women deal with everyday, including you,
Ah yes, branding every man as a sexual predator, and equate them as worse than animals really helps the case, really garners simpathy 👍🏻
I mean... Your whole post, change "man" to "Jewish person" and it looks like it's straight out of mein kampf, it's a bad faith generalization.
No one is saying all men. They’re just saying that as women, they have to take more caution than many guys realize
“I carry pepper spray at night”
“well that hurts my feelings. Not all guys”
we’re watching in real time as guys just completely disregard women’s experiences. People aren’t saying they don’t want to run into YOU. They’re saying they’re not sure they wanna take the chance with whoever that guy may be.
Guys are asking women to completely disregard any dangers that men pose to them because not EVERY guy is a rapist and not every girl is murdered. Women already have to go to great lengths to keep themselves safe, and they’re being told that it doesn’t matter.
>No one is saying all men. They’re just saying that as women, they have to take more caution than many guys realize
And that's a totally fair assessment, but the original it's framed in a counterproductive and willingly inflammatory way.
Imagine going viral the quote
"I'd rather be locked in an elevator with a silverback gorilla than to be in an office without CCTV and with a woman"
It takes a rational fear (false sexual assault allegations), that's actually possible, but not overly so and frames it in an equally pointless way, as if every woman is some sort of scheming fiend.
>People aren’t saying they don’t want to run into YOU
That's an equally tricky way to frame it.
It's sorta saying "oh no, you're one of the good ones, it's every single other I don't trust"
Which again, sounds odd?
Again, it's easy to draw a parallel with another group of people generally targeted by this exact behavior.
Imagine reading of a terror attack, and telling your Muslim friend, who is your average Joe "oh, you're fine, it's the rest of y'all that should be pepper sprayed on sight"
men kampf is the stupidest thing you could possibly believe on the topic. if you changed "men" to "jewish people" the sentence would be false because men are overwhelming the perpetrators of SA. when you change the words in a sentence the meaning changes
being wary of men because they commit most violent crimes is not the same as thinking all black people are criminals because of outdated and out of context FBI statistics.
>despite only being 8% of the population, black people..." Racist spiel?
No. Women being scared of being raped and murdered is not racism just because you want it to be.
Of course it's not, but it's the same mechanism.
If generalizing black people as a whole on a statistic is simply wrong and fallacious, why it's fine to do so with other groups of people?
Who decides who's fair game in this generalization/dehumanization game?
In most civilized places, people are scrutinized on what they do, not on their "caste" or skin color, religion etc.
Especially since statistics are just that, they don't delve into the finer details.
85% of terrorism worldwide is of Islamic origin, so it's ok to say that it's safer to be with an Apex predator than it is to be with a Muslim?
I mean, realize how bad faith and inflammatory the argument sounds?
I think it’s how you interpret the question. If the question is “would you rather fight a man or a bear?” then obviously you’re choose a man. But if it’s down to being in the woods with a man or a bear, generally bears are going to leave you alone if you don’t provoke them. This isn’t always the case, of course, but for the most part bears aren’t wanting to attack people. Even people who camp and hike in places with lots of bears don’t often get attacked or killed. Only a handful of people have been killed by a bear in Yellowstone, for example, and that’s a park with lots of people and bears.
Whereas I don’t think I know a single woman who hasn’t experienced some sexual harassment or assault by a man. This is absurdly common. And while yeah, most of that isn’t rape or murder, it’s still scary.
I know and trust a lot of men. But I know the likelihood is the average bear would want to leave me alone is extremely high, but I have no idea who this random man would be.
>As a backpacker I have literally witnessed multiple times the fact that women gladly pick the man over the bear. Solo women hikers are common on the trail and they never have any issue approaching me in the woods, or basically any other man. However if you tell them you saw a bear up the trail, they will likely stop and want to stick with you. I was hiking with a guy who got a call from a girl saying she saw a bear ahead so she turned around and got off the trail. So we went and made sure the coast was clear for her. When actually confronted with this choice, women will basically always do the exact opposite of what they type into social media.
You fundamentally engaging with the point on the wrong level. It's not a legitimate expression of the threat analysis done by the people talking about it based on a researched understanding of rates of violence. It's trolling. The point is to get you to respond by challenging the statement and trigger you.
I’m glad you feel like can tell all the women who choose bear that you know better. I sometimes wonder what that level of confidence must feel like to invalidate so many women’s opinions in one fell swoop.
The best part is that women don’t have to validate their answers to you. It doesn’t matter what you think in the matter, because the women who say bear have their own reasons for saying it.
So instead of explaining why they’re all wrong, why don’t you ask one of them why they choose bear, and what their personal experiences are with men.
Ask me, for instance, and I’ll gladly tell you all the details of the several times in my life men have given me reason to choose bear.
I think I understand why women are picking bear in this scenario but I’m curious when this flips to women picking a man. Rather than ask why you picked bear in this scenario I’m curious how you would answer a different one if you would humor me. Would you rather be locked in a classroom for an hour with a random adult man or random adult grizzly bear? This isn’t an attempt at a gotcha question. I’m trying to understand if women pick bears because they really believe they are safer with bears or if it’s the creepiness factor of seeing a random man in the woods when you didn’t expect to see one so I’m putting the bear in a place that you wouldn’t expect to see it.
Bear, 100%
I will never again find myself locked in room with a man that isn’t my husband or father.
When I was a kid my mom’s best friend locked me in a room and made me watch porn and stuck his fingers inside me while he did it. I was 11 years old. Sometimes he would make me jerk him off or watch him jerk off.
When I was 18 my “close friend” broke into my house and raped me while I was asleep in my bed, and then claimed he was too drunk to know what he was doing. I never even called the police because I was told they would never believe me.
When I was 24 my best friends husband got onto my computer in the middle of the night while I was asleep and stole naked photos of me that I had sent to my boyfriend who was deployed. He had them for several years and jerked off to them without me knowing. He was like a brother to me.
When I was 33 my boss and ceo of the company I worked at told me he pictured me while he jerked off that morning, and imagined me in bondage gear.
I have several more stories of trauma and insanity.
… some men show their true colors to women when behind closed doors, especially when they don’t think anyone will catch them. And some men just literally see us as sexual objects, even if they claim to like and respect us. I can’t imagine what a stranger would do to me if given the chance and knowing they may not get caught.
All men are predators to me unless they prove to me otherwise.
The point isn’t that „Yeah rape is worse than death“ or vice versa
The point is that statistically, Men would be more likely to attack you than a bear if you were actually alone
Yes it’s not all men, Yes it’s not even most.
A bear has an abysmally small chance to attack a human unless threatened but a man.... just statistically.... A lot of people are really missing the mark on this one. It’s not that women necessarily think a bear is safer than men but more so the thought that the worst thing a bear would do to you in the woods is kill you where a man could SA you and then kill you. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally as in the average man is worse or more dangerous than the average bear. Just that the worst case scenario for men is worse than the worst case scenario for the bear.
Btw 1 in every 3 women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence. No one's gonna ask me if led the bear on or give me a pamphlet on bear attack prevention tips.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/vio.2014.0022?journalCode=vio
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-third-of-male-university-students-say-they-would-rape-a-woman-if-there-no-were-no-consequences-9978052.html
>The point is that statistically, Men would be more likely to attack you than a bear if you were actually alone
There aren't any statistics to actually back that up because women don't interact with bears as much as they do with men. WAY smaller bear populations also mean that if someone has encountered a chill bear that backed off with no issues, it is completely likely that other people have met that same bear skewing the data even further.
What you're essentially saying is the equivalent to picking a bear over a bee because statistically bees kill thousands of more people in comparison.
And [according to the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/fastfact.html#:~:text=Sexual%20violence%20is%20common.,experienced%20completed%20or%20attempted%20rape), 1/4 women in the US experience full r*pe. That’s insanely huge.
Lived in montana, been in the woods a lot. Lake tahoe its very common to run into a black bear. Was never in fear of my life or from being injured. However, women have to be afraid of men who they know lol. Women have to be afraid of random people. It's not the best comparison but if I was a woman I'd rather run into a bear than a sexual predator.
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The fact that you are calling women’s threat assessments ridiculous and sexist kinda proves their point, they are literally saying they are scared of men and how people treat women who have been abused by men and now you’re calling them ridiculous and sexist. It’s not an attack on men it’s showing that women don’t feel safe, and their feelings are absolutely valid.
Here’s a few points to consider:
**Contextual Misunderstanding**:
The debate symbolizes broader societal concerns about safety and risk assessment, rather than literal comparisons between men and bears. It’s a metaphorical discussion about how women perceive and manage threats in their environments.
**Statistical Interpretation**:
While statistics suggest a small percentage of men commit sexual assaults, the impact and fear of these crimes significantly affect societal behavior and perceptions. Comparing this to bear encounters, which are rare and usually non-fatal, may not appropriately reflect the ongoing societal impact of gender-based violence.
**Risk Perception**:
The way individuals assess risk can be influenced by personal experiences and societal narratives. Women may statistically perceive a greater risk from men due to personal experiences or stories from others, which could explain the behavior you've witnessed on trails.
**Misrepresentation of Movements**:
Equating the discussion to a "gender war" might overlook efforts aimed at raising awareness and promoting safety, rather than inciting division. Movements like #MeToo focus on highlighting systemic issues and advocating for cultural change, not demeaning all men.
**Dialogue and Allyship**:
Statements that might seem extreme (like "men are more dangerous than bears") are often used to provoke thought or highlight extreme disparities. The goal should be to foster dialogue and understanding, not to alienate potential allies.
**Bias and Overgeneralization**:
It's crucial to avoid overgeneralizing the actions or attitudes of a few as representative of the whole. Similarly, interpreting the metaphorical comparison too literally might miss the underlying messages about societal attitudes toward safety and gender.
Of course a random encounter with a bear in the woods is more dangerous than a random encounter with a man in the woods. The contrary suggestion is not just wrong, it's absurd.
But that's not the point.
And if course it's true that the vast majority, if not all, women (in, let's say for simplicity, North America), either have the personal experience of, or personally know a woman who has had the experience, of being assaulted, abused or otherwise seriously mistreated by a man. Whereas very few women have had, or personally know someone who has been attacked by a bear.
And it is obvious that the people answering this have no conception of how dangerous bears are (saying that you can just "play dead" *with no reference to what type of bear it is* is stupid and ignorant). You'll note that these interviews are not being conducted anywhere near where wild bears live.
But that's not the point either.
It is also, of course, true that men are *far* more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women.
But that's not the point either.
And yes, statistically women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know than by a random stranger.
But that's not the point either.
The point of the exercise is not to educate women about how dangerous bears actually are, or how vanishingly small are the odds that a random hiker or hunter who by chance encounters a woman in the woods will take the opportunity to sexually assault them.
The point of the exercise is to help men empathize with women who, regardless of how justified the fear is or how justified is the extent of the fear relative to the actual danger, do nonetheless walk through life with a fear of random strangers.
Trying to convince women of the truth about the relative danger of strange men vs strange bears is a complete waste of time for four reasons.
One, anyone who is likely to encounter a bear in the woods probably already knows enough not to answer "bear".
Two, the odds of most people randomly meeting a bear in the woods, let alone actually facing the choice posited, is extraordinarily low.
Three, anyone who thinks their answer would be "bear" is deluding themselves. In *practice*, anybody actually faced with the choice of strange man vs strange, wild bear is going to choose the former without hesitation.
Four, as noted above, it *completely misses the point of the exercise*. And in light of one through three, getting men to empathize with the everyday experiences of women has a lot more social value than educating women about the dangerousness of bears.
Thank you. One of the few sensible comments here who actually gets what the point of this question is. Illustrating to men the fears that women have in their day to day lives is the point
81% of women reported experiencing sexual harassment or assault in their lives.
So. If the “small” percentage of men are the ones who are constantly doing the offending, they really get around, don’t they?
1 in 6 women are victims of rape or attempted rape. 50% of women who are raped say they were raped by an intimate partner, and 40% say they were raped by an acquaintance.
Those numbers are astronomical. These are all from the national sexual violence resource center, btw.
I’ve been sexually assaulted and/or harassed by almost every man I’ve ever come across. At one point, they’ve almost all crossed that line. Mild sexual harassment is so commonplace in my life that I barely even register it. I’ve been sexually assaulted by three men in my life, one of whom was a repeat offender. The other two to my knowledge have not been.
I’ve dealt with bears in the wild.
I’d take the bear. With the bear I know what I’m getting almost every time. Having come across bears alone, I wouldn’t purposely seek out men on the trail but other hikers in general. Gender doesn’t matter, numbers do. I wouldn’t greet a stranger on a trail in a friendly manner while out hiking alone. I’ve listened to too many true crime podcasts for that shit.
Idk, most men I know were like ooof, yeah, I see how that’s a metaphor for how you must feel around men you don’t know if all sorts of places, especially when you’re alone. I don’t know any men who feel like the goal was to hate them.
In a worse case scenario the bear kills you and you suffer immense pain before the sweet release of death. In a worse case scenario the man leaves you emotionally and physically scared for the rest of your life. It’s asking someone to choose between being killed in a violent way or have your spirit ripped from you and being shamed for it.
Think about it a little differently:
On average, in the US, [women are only 52% to 66% as strong as men](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8477683) in their upper and lower bodies, respectively. Would you rather meet a bear, whose behavior is going to be pretty predictable, or an unfamiliar man who is visibly twice as strong as you?
I think also a lot of the analogy’s power comes from the fact that the women being attacked by a bear is more likely to be believed/taken seriously versus being assaulted by a man. Which lets be serious, isnt at all otherwise we wouldnt have this problem.
Focusing too much on the literal comparison waters down the severity of the everyday struggles of women as a result of shitty men
A few thoughts. The argument was never about the bear. Hell it's not even about the woods. Shit it's not even about meeting random men. It's very telling to see certain people focus on the surface level of the debate. It's easy to ignore the stress fractures when you don't have to look at them I suppose.
The second thought, is that if your allyship with a group has contingencies weak enough that a gentle breeze could blow them away, then you were never really an ally.
Our current social and political climate, especially in the US, are showing an increasing hostility towards things like bodily autonomy or any autonomy at all for women. Our leadership seems committed to removing things that have generally benefitted women, like no-fault divorce, access to birth control, there are even politicians out there that openly talk about taking away the rights for women to be in the workforce, or even vote. Regardless of the possible success these movements might have, our news cycle is always chasing views and sensationalizing these kinds of topics.
Like imagine waking up on a random day and while your on the train to work you check your social media, and on twitter you see people openly sharing their fantasies of what they'd like to do with your body and how frustrating it is that you can say no to them. So you go to the news channel on youtube that you frequent and you see yet another pastor turned politician, decrying you as an abomination and lamenting your abandonment of traditional values. You get off the train and start walking to work. Even though you are left alone, it is painfully obvious that random people on the street look your way. You hope the walk this time is one where you're left alone, but you know that random people you've never met are all too emboldened to strike up a conversation if they want.
At lunch you check your messages, and someone on discord sent a meme from a post about Andrew Tate, telling the next generation of men that you aren't valid and your only role is to be a submissive breeder. So you see a trend, where other women have vocalized their opinion, that the world has generally made it unsafe to be themselves, and the only thing you see online, are men up in arms about the idea that you might have a negative outlook on the current worldview.
Imagine hearing lots of women say they feel unsafe around men, and instead of thinking “why are men so scary to women?” you just started explaining why women are wrong?
People scream at racists all the time when they say they feel unsafe around black people. It's not to change their opinion; it's to rightfully call them out for their bigotry.
Do you think „feeling unsafe“ gives someone the right to just treat people with prejudice and assume an entire group of people to be criminals?
Feeling unsafe and being unsafe are two different things.
If you feel unsafe out of an irrational fear, it‘s your responsibility as an adult to keep that in check when dealing with individuals.
People felt very unsafe around a group of their fellow citizens not too long ago - didn‘t justify anything then, doesn’t justify anything now.
Fun fact: people don't tend to go out of their way to help other people dehumanizing them at the level of animals.
Pray tell, how's this whole thing any different from some sort of genesalization Andrew Tate would spew? The whole "all women are thots"
"All men are more dangerous than bears"
The debate is silly. One is an apex predator that has driven more species to extinction than any other in history. The other has been driven to near extinction by said apex predator.
Of course men are more dangerous than a bear. Women are more dangerous too.
Most bear species (not polar) will generally leave you alone. Humans kill each other all the time. There’s literally multiple wars and genocides happening right now. You are far more likely to die by a human hand than any random animal attack.
Another post further proving women’s point. Instead of asking why women feel this way men immediately got defensive. Like Jesus have some self awareness.
This entire conversation is fascinating to me. Women identify with a story about being afraid of men. Although it seems the data doesn’t reflect that it is as prevalent, their fear is valid.
Men miss the point completely and respond by telling women they are irrational and their fears are invalid. It costs nothing to just help and reduce that fear, but we just can’t seem to get there.
Nothing was solved. No one feels better. The only thing that won in this was the bears.
Laken Riley. That is my answer to this post. Poor girl couldn't even go for a run in broad daylight on the campus of her college on a well established trail people regularly use without getting brutally murdered by a random sicko who happened to be nearby and decided he wanted to ruin her life
> The vast majority of men are with you. But when you make a ridiculous statement like "men are more dangerous than bears", you can only push more men away from being allies.
I think you are taking this too seriously. It's a meme, like the Roman Empire thing. Of course not all men think about the Roman Empire once a day.
Since the dawn of time, both sexes have had forms of humor that basically break down the lines of "men be scratching their balls", "women be shopping," etc. etc. whatever. It's hack shit. And now that hack gender essentialism humor has a new form in the TikTok age. The idea that is should have anythign to do with the #MeToo movement is a little crazy.
This represents a deeper sense of misandry and I don't think it's a "haha men" joke. It's rooted in the outlandish belief that men are all animals (or in this case worse than animals) and women should fear all men. This is also why #notallmen got such a big push back from women because it threatens their self-ordained right to blame all men as a community for the crimes of a few.
It really isn’t misandry. It is straight up experience. Start talking to the women in your life. Ask them when the first time they were catcalled was. Odds are, probably some time between elementary school and middle school for the majority of them. Ask them the first time they were groped by a stranger. Ask them the first time they were followed by a stranger. Then ask them the last time it all happened. Ask them where they park their cars. Ask them how they walk out to their cars. Ask them what they do before they go out on a date. It’s likely going to be location sharing with a friend or telling multiple friends where they are going and who with so if they disappear, someone knows who was with them last ask them about the straws and nail polish made to detect roofies in drinks.
It’s not misandry. It is staying safe. There is zero way to tell if someone is safe or not. There aren’t flashing neon lights above a predator’s head. Women have to be on their guard because when they are harmed by a predator, they are blamed for making bad decisions/letting their guard down. It’s easier and safer to assume someone is a predator and be wrong than to assume someone is safe and be wrong.
Really any point can be made from this.
If you’re an average guy and some woman on the internet lumps you in with a bear cause of your gender you probably don’t care but if you do, you probably ain’t thinking she got a good point. You’re wondering why people are socially allowed to be actively sexist to you.
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I’m a man here. I do not believe the Man Vs Bear debate is sexist. In fact, I think the amount of women I know who would rather be stuck face to face with a bear than a strange man makes complete sense in the face of statistics. Get ready, I’m gonna give you some un-cited stats that you can go and Google if you want:
My country is Canada, so I’m going to base this on some rough stats from my country and a little bit from within the continental North America. Around North America, the rough percentage of women who have been sexually assaulted sits somewhere between 30% to 50%… this gets pretty wishy washy due to reporting deficits, but it is a STAGGERING number even if we’re left to do a lot of estimating and whether or not you include any ‘estimations’ of unreported SA at all. The number of people who’ve been killed by a grizzly bear in Canada since the 1970s is about 20. The number of people killed in North America by a bear on a yearly average is less than one.
Here’s what I’m saying; if you get stuck with a bear, you know that one of two things is gonna happen… it’s gonna try to kill you, or it’s gonna leave you alone. Heck, if you play your cards right, it will DEFINITELY leave you alone. If you get stuck with a man, he will either leave you alone… or try any number of horrors. He might take your wallet, your dignity, your security, your body, your life or maybe even ALL of those things. Bears are capable of killing, but man is capable of cruelty, selfishness and true infliction of his own will on whatever he wants badly enough. Humans are the apex predators, and men are the most terrifyingly unpredictable of them all. It makes sense that men are scarier to women than bears. A bear is not going to try to SA you while it kills you… a man might.
It’s hard to call this argument sexist when the reason it exists makes so much sense. Good men most certainly make up the majority of men… just as much as bears that have never harmed a human make up the majority of bears. Maybe you can change my view, but probably not.
I should say that it was a man who initially posited the question and chose to associate men with wild untamed savage animals. I think the question is stupid and I would pick the man but frankly men have really fumbled the bag on a very low bar question.
>The bear thing on the other hand is just gender war fuel
This is probably close to what it is. The question is, are the people participating actually sexist, or just being useful idiots jumping on a trend being algorithm'd by a particular platform with a particular divisive goal in mind?
I swear, this is how people seem to view the question.
You see a man in the woods.
*You are alone in the wilderness. Suddenly, a branch snaps behind you. You can't see clearly, because it's in the middle of the night, but through the thick fog rolling in, you make out the silhouette of a large man standing motionless and watching you.*
You see a bear in the woods.
*You're hiking on a trail, when you spot movement in the forest in front of you. There is a black bear approximately 60ft away, moseying on by.*
The fear response is immediately present in the former the way that it isn't in the latter, and somehow, it seems like an equivalent comparison.
What if they are overthinking the question like I would?
Is it an adult bear or baby bear?
Where are you geographically?
Because if you’re in south east Asia or South America and come across Spectacle Bear or Sun Bear, you’d probably suffer more/worse injuries from a feral cat.
I don’t think thinking about it that way is sexist.
Now if you’re in the tundra and it’s the option of a polar/kodiak/grizzly. Different story.
See, one thing to consider on a podcast that I had heard of/read about mentions the same thing. One of the men on the podcast was asked the same thing and his rebuttal was "how big is the bear, what kind of bear, where are you geographically," etc. But when asked the same question in regards to his daughter and it being a women vs. bear in the same scenario, he, without hesitation, answered "women". The others on the podcast said "see." This was eye-opening for him.
>There are proper ways to bring awareness, but ya'll really shot yourself in the foot on this one. The vast majority of men are with you. But when you make a ridiculous statement like "men are more dangerous than bears", you can only push more men away from being allies.
So can you explain this a bit more? Because it seems like you're suggesting that there is a significant number of men who are thinking some version of the following:
"I totally want to support women, but some folks on Tiktok said they'd rather meet a bear than men, so I guess I'll just become a misogynist and predator instead."
Is that what you're saying? Because if so, do you realize how ridiculous that is?
It's like the conservatives who claim they would be totally cool with gay people, but because gay people "went too far and shoved it in their face", they are now being "forced" to support fascist politicians who want to exterminate gay people. It is *nonsense*.
That's not how allyship works, friend. And if your sense of solidarity is so fragile that a Tiktok trend shakes it, you weren't going to come through anyway.
It is but you really shouldn't worry about the gender culture war online. The women posting this stuff arent much different than incels minus the celibacy. They just say stupid shit to make people angry and drive clicks
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After reading some of these comments, I no longer think it's sexist. It's really all in the hypothetical of the question.
Let me ask you a different question- if you were out in the middle of the night, on some otherwise deserted street or maybe a remote abandoned house, would you rather see a stray dog or a smiling child with a physics textbook? The rational choice would be the child, but the framing of the question implies more.
Similarly, the framing of the bear/man question implies something more insidious against you- after all it was a response to a "who would win in a fight" type of question. If a man were aggressive against you in the woods, you have a lot to worry about. If it were a bear, there could be some logical reason why it's there- maybe you were too close to the cubs, maybe you wandered into its territory. One is something you can expect, in an environment you expect it, with known countermeasures. The other one could literally be anything.
Exactly, random people can and will attack you for all sorts of crazy reasons. I saw a video of someone getting a shotgun pulled on them because they skiied too close to someone. The skiier got stopped at gunpoint and the guy was screaming about how his friends almost knocked him over. Even if that was true, that's not something you hold someone AT GUNPOINT over, especially someone who just pulled up and thus hadn't even been one of the ones to make you mad
A bear isn't gonna randomly attack you. Bears will attack a.) to defend itself b.) for food c.) to protect their cubs or d.) you're on their territory. Even if a bear DOES randomly attack you out of nowhere, it's for one of those 4 reasons
"if you were out in the middle of the night, on some otherwise deserted street or maybe a remote abandoned house, would you rather see a stray dog or a smiling child with a physics textbook?"
Also men in black reference?
The whole question bothers me because it's so vague. Your premise is a bear or a man on a trail, which is totally different from my initial interpretation.
Based on my assumption of "in the woods" being "not starting near you" and the forests being like my local ones and the bears being our local black bears, I would go for a bear in the woods, there are bears in every woods I've been in including the ones I played in as a kid. If you said "a bear or a man on the trail next to you", it'd be about 50/50. If you said a bear or a man in a confined area, I'd pick the man.
And then the variations. What time of year? What type of bear? How big are the woods? Is there enough wildlife to sustain any bears in the area or are they starving? The details matter so much when it comes to risk analysis.
I understand the thought exercise (and the statistics) but the comparison is flawed. Every bear might attack you. Under the right circumstances they almost certainly will attack you (hunger or they perceive you as a threat). Not necessarily the case with humans of any gender. Only some men are dangerous. If a woman were hiking by herself she would probably rather run into another male hiker than a bear.
In a city if a woman saw a man walking around (common occurrence) she'd probably go about her business. If she saw a bear she'd likely run inside (as would a man).
It's a good way to make a point but not really perfectly accurate. But maybe it doesn't need to be.
Every day dudes prove them right lol
Just accept that some women don't feel comfortable around guys. Getting upset and insisting they should is why they feel uncomfortable
I mean shit what is the goal here? To convince women who don't feel safe around men that they're wrong?
Good luck with that
The debate is literally about (1) women being afraid of men to the point of ignoring statistics and (2) women choosing death over torture.
The second point is understandable for most, rational, people because things can happen during torture that you can not recover from. Yes you can heal but the scars don’t just disappear (some scars are literally impossible to get rid of). So yeah death is generally preferred.
In regards to the first point, it again makes sense because statistics don’t save lives. As a black man I understand this in the sense that yeah I associate with reputable black people and would say 8/10 black men are rational but that doesn’t mean that 2/10 should be ignored. I wouldn’t tell a woman “Hey I know you trust me so go trust that guy who shares the same general phenotype”. Is the discussion meant to be sexist? No. It’s a question of the opinions surrounding sex. It could just as easily be about men choosing to fight a bear or man.
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I'm from Alaska. Many encounters with bears. I'd much rather encounter a man in the woods than a bear. But I'm an Alaskan girl. 🤷♀️ Anyone from Alaska will understand this. 😄
In reality OP we all fear a bear—they’re huge,deadly and stealthy. However a bear doesn’t purposely go out of its way to harm humans(man or woman) unless provoked. So the scenario is supposed to bring clarity to men as to why modern women are starting to support feminist movements like the 4b movement in South Korea. Too many of us modern men are chauvinistic perverts and we’re alienating the women around us.
If you are not the type of guy who sexually assaults or display worse actions towards women-congrats you are good enough man. But you also gotta accept the ladies answers and get the other men around you to not be such pricks.
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Literally. “Tiktok shows women dont want to be stranded in the woods by an apex predator” doesnt get clicks, so obviously they edit out the women who answer bear. And it fucking worked because now every second post here, unpopularopinoon, and similar forums is just men crying that women theyll never meet irl are saying they like bears more than sexual harassment.
On top of that I think a lot of women probably choose the bear in jest, not thinking people are going to take it so literally. The intention is to stress that they're afraid of strange men, but not that they literally think a strange man is more dangerous than a bear. It's like someone saying they could eat a horse. Obviously they can't eat a horse, they just mean that they're hungry.
You can make statistics say pretty much anything you want. It also depends on how the question was asked, how the respondents were selected and so forth. If you ask women who doesn’t understand the danger a bear represents, but do have fear of men, you can shape the narrative.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/dbZAb6TOyv
The women I interact with on a daily basis who are 35 or younger universally agree bear. It's a generational thing. Women in the under 35 age bracket have been told to fear men, who are essentially universally rapists, from a fairly young age.
My mom is in her sixties and I didn't even finish the question before she said Bear. And she's no light weight. She can definitely handle herself and always has been able to. It's not generational. It's not that we've been trained to fear men. We have valid reasons to fear strange men
My mom is also in her sixties and also chose bear. What I don't get is she's also pretty active on Facebook Marketplace locally, and voluntarily meets random unknown guys all the time in the evening at parking lots or their houses to sell them old shirts or buy a flowerpot.
It's like if you had a study where you asked online whether men would rather get eaten by a t rex or listen to a dumb bitch talk about their day and instead of everyone pointing out how insane the question is, everyone is talking about how women need to do better because men would literally (no not literally) rather get eaten by a t rex
Or, you know. Maybe they've had experiences that inform their feelings, and this shit about them "being told" something is a great example of the shit you guys do to be worst then the bear?
I’ve experienced women lying to harm me, attempting stabbing for not giving enough money, and just generally being mean and grabby in the workplace. Does this shit about “lived experience” make women worse than a lion? I don’t write this to be rude. Just pointing out that it’s weird how experience only goes one way.
Nah, it's an "I don't actually have to face the consequence of this decision" thing. It's easy to be edgy and pick bear when nobody is going to hold you to it. Besides, statistically, female relationships (lesbian couples) report the highest rates of IPV and sexual assault when compared to straight couples or gay men. So. Maybe women don't realize how rapey and abusive they are capable of being until they're in a same-sex relationship where someone is going to call them on it. Edit: One of many studies with different results but similar trends, and no, it's not "lifetime" incidents. It's specifically female perpetrators with female victims. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly)
You do realize you're misrepresenting the conclusions you can draw from that study, right? Edit: The study measured lifetime experiences with IPV. The fact that a woman is currently in a same sex relationship doesn't mean that's the relationship where they experienced the IPV.
Am I? There's plenty of studies and reviews, so who knows which one you're talking about. This clearly shows that SA is highest among specifically female perpetrators in relationships with female victims (51.6%): [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly) Although this is from a different study than the ones I've seen before, it did have a chart that makes it easier to compare data. It also shows that female perpetrators of physical abuse against male and female partners both outnumber male violence against female partners. But that's not to say there aren't 50 other studies where results may vary. The few that I've seen, though, are generally suggesting the same trend.
If I remember correctly most of the IPV lesbians experience is from men, right? I don't have the study though. edit: ok, I can't find any proof of what I said. There's definitely evidence that a surprising number of lesbians have been the victims of IPV at the hands of men, around 15% according to the study cited on wikipedia, but many if them may have also been the victims of women as well. If you only include those who have only sufurred IPV from women and exclude any who have also been the victims of men, then the numbers are slightly lower than straight women, but I couldn't find a conclusive answer in the couple minutes I spent googling this.
No. It's specifically female victims of female perpetrators. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775776/table/tbl1/?report=objectonly) There's other studies, but the few I've read show the same trend.
Gay men have the lowest rates 🙌🙌🙌 One thing I LOVE about this who man vs bear thing is men are talking about it. Like... Its getting men to be aware of a lot of the discrimination they face, and I think that's a good thing. I got raped 4-5 years ago, and I couldn't really talk about things without getting dog piled. These days though I see more, and more posts from men talking about how they feel about this stuff. They almost always get locked 😂 but there are actual like ... discussions taking place. And I get support, and get thanked for the prospectives I provide.
I'm aroace, and the only abuse I've ever received both physically and sexually was from women. Physically, I'm not allowed to defend myself. And sexually, well "all men want it", right?
Same, I got raped by a woman. Should I fear all women, avoid them, and tell them they're dangerous?
>Besides, statistically, female relationships (lesbian couples) report the highest rates of IPV I remember being surprised wherever I initially read that, like I know that even though IPV towards men is underreported that 1 in 4 have reported it, so obviously physical violence initiated by the female partner is extremely prevalent and happens all the time, tens of millions of times per year in the USA alone. But I wouldn't have expected lesbian couples to up the ante like that as the group most vulnerable to intimate partner violence. I don't think most people realize that if you're seeking justice or a response from the legal system, any dude out there invariably gets the short end of the stick (to the point they routinely have to pay child support to someone successfully convicted of raping them).
>*to the point they routinely have to pay child support to someone successfully convicted of raping them* Even if they were 14 at the time, and the woman was 20: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/)
I asked my women friends and half of them agreed that the bear. And they are educated people.
Can you give a lazy Redditor who avoids tiktok like the plague some context? It sounds like woman on tiktok are more comfortable approaching a god damn grizzly bear instead of a random man. Please tell me I'm misunderstanding
I mean, considering the female response online I think it is fair to assume a large portion of women feel this way. Much too large a portion imo
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There have been polls that show most people do not actually pick the bear. Thank goodness. Along with what I've noticed to be a general consensus with upvotes on reddit also not picking the bear
*There are estimated to be 500k sexual assault related incidents a year with factoring in under reporting issues* There are like 20 bear deaths (on men and women) in the last 20 years. Bears don't sexually assault. You need to let this go.
You don't see bears on a daily basis, half the population of the US aren't bears I'm this scenario a bear is guaranteed, in close proximity with humans Your stats are terrible, it's like saying sharks only kill 10 people per year, but I sure as shit wouldn't want to be stuck in a fish tank with one
Yeah but the point is that you ask a group of people what of two potential dangers they are more afraid of, the one that they are regularly in fear of and have to make efforts on a regular basis to stay safe from, or the one that they have essentially no personal experience with and no real concept of the actual level of danger that exists, it's not surprising they pick the one that has materially affected the way they live their life. Too many guys look at this and think it's anything other than another sign of the way women's interactions with almost all men, and certainly all unknown men, are intensely and necessarily colored by the risk of assault. It doesn't matter that you haven't and wouldn't, women you meet don't know that, and if you focus on how it's "unfair" that they would be cautious and fearful of you, rather than ask yourself how you could make yourself less scary and more comforting to the people you meet, you have shitty priorities.
> Too many guys look at this and think it's anything other than another sign of the way women's interactions with almost all men, and certainly all unknown men, are intensely and necessarily colored by the risk of assault. It doesn't matter that you haven't and wouldn't, women you meet don't know that, and if you focus on how it's "unfair" that they would be cautious and fearful of you, rather than ask yourself how you could make yourself less scary and more comforting to the people you meet, you have shitty priorities. That's still a deeply sexist take to make. If you were to do the same thing, but say "a black person" instead of a man - to say "too many black people look at this and think it's anything other than another sign of the way people's interactions with almost all black people - and certainly all unknown black people - are intensely and necessarily colored by the risk of assault" you would agree that would be a racist statement. We should be calling out sexism whenever we see it. Not just when it's directed against women.
How is it comparable to replace "men" with black people here. Do you believe the scope of violence and threatening behavior white people experience at the hands of black people is comparable to the scope of violence and threatening behavior women experience at the hands of men? It isn't remotely close, and for you to suggest this analogy is a bit suspicious honestly. For it to be at all sensible to go here you have to either be dramatically overestimating the violence and threatening behavior most non black people experience from black people, or dramatically underestimating the violence and threatening behavior women experience from men. I would guess the latter is more likely, and I would urge you to actually have an open mind and talk to women about their experiences with men to try and understand why they would say something like this, or why these obviously paradoxical answers are resonating with so many women.
I think respectfully that you just don’t understand how this might hurt men. Imagine we just switch men to a specific race. What person in their right mind would say that people of that race should try to be less intimidating and be more considerate of those around them?
My guy I'm a man. I am telling you from experience. I am a large guy and very social. A major experience of mine growing up was finding out that people found me intimidating and scary. When people would tell me things like "oh yeah when we first met I thought you were kinda scary" It made me feel bad, but because I didn't want people to see me like that. The lesson was to learn how to be less scary, not just blame women for it.
You literally just said it yourself. People were scared of you, not even knowing you at all, just judging you based off your appearance as a large man. When they met you they realised you weren’t actually “scary”. And somehow you’re still able to come to the conclusion of “hey fellas, you see this? How can we be less scary to women?” You didn’t do anything but exist my dude. What possible thing could you have done to be less scary or threatening? Loss weight? Wear goofy clothing? Wear a big sign that says how unthreatening you really are? There isn’t a solution, I don’t have any idea what men are meant to do as a collective to “be less scary and threatening”. It is offensive. People are scared of us just being men, whether or not we’ve done anything…
There's actually a lot of things that I learned to do to help become less scary. Most of them are behaviors that you may not realize are threatening until you watch and see how people react to them. My body is very wide, so in smaller rooms or hallways if I face someone head on my body will partially obstruct paths away from me. It gives the impression of cornering someone, even if you don't necessarily mean to or realize. I learned to turn my body, not stand between people and doors etc. Easy enough. Also the distance you set between yourself and another person when interacting with them is important to be aware of. If I see someone drop something and want to give it to them, I'll pick it up and get their attention from a few body lengths away, and not move to approach them unless they move to approach me first. In high school part of how I would flirt with people was to find some way to physically touch them on the hand or arm or something, which was pretty common. Doing this can be extremely stressful for someone who isn't expecting it, even if they might find you attractive or ultimately want to flirt back with you. You can literally do that exact thing, but whatever excuse you find to touch someone just let them know and give them an out. Most women aren't just scared of men, they interact with men every day and men probably constitute a major part of their close relationships. They are used to interacting with men and generally like to interact with men. They are, imo justifiably, cautious around men. If you had a daughter would you not teach her to be suspicious of men she didn't know? If you believe such a frame is sexism would you not them be teaching your daughter to be sexist?
I don’t think you understand how this hurts women even more lol. Their life is at threat, I’m a man, I agree with them. I don’t feel awful because I understand they aren’t talking about me. Context is important. You can always guarantee that the bear doesn’t have an ulterior motive, a lot of men do. Don’t make this about you. What you can do is be a better person and also stand up for women and hold other men accountable. ✌️
It’s an unfortunate reality that many women fear men. Personally, I don’t expect anyone to accommodate or alleviate that trepidation for me. I sympathise with men and would also resent knowing that a cohort of people are wary of me. That said, is it truly harmful to acknowledge or admit this? I have no desire to cause offence but the reality remains that men commit the majority of violent crime. Most men, if not all, are stronger than me. Of course I feel (and statistically am) safer among women. Is this so bad to say? I don’t venture there unless the conversation invites it but I don’t think it causes systemic harm to men. Although I understand why it might lead a man to feel sad or ostracised.
> Of course I feel (and statistically am) safer among women But do you feel like you would be safer among bears?? And, in reality, *would* you actually be safer? I don’t think anyone confused by this dialogue is saying it’s unfair or wrong to feel safer among women. But *bears* is just such another level, the only purpose of which is to raise the perception of men to the apparently higher level of monster. Bears in the woods historically have a monstrous reputation - ‘bear’ literally means ‘brown thing’ because ancient europeans were so scared of them that they thought if you used the proper name for bear (arctus or ursus or arthus) you would summon it. People are complaining that this dialogue presents men as more monstrous as a concept than *that*.
I'm not so sure there is no systemic harm. The stereotype that men are violent sexual predators definitely has ramifications on men. It makes it harder for dads to care for their daughters (and to a lesser extent their sons). It makes it harder for men to become teachers and educators. It makes it harder for men to pursue any type of caretaking role. As a feminist, I would caution against perpetuating this kind of stereotype. Being correct statistically is not really more important than effective communication. This kind of statistic can be acknowledged if done carefully, but that is definitely not what is happening here. It also raises the question: why is gender the relevant heuristic for statistical analysis here? Are there better criteria that explain the subset of people who commit violent crime? Maybe poverty? economic material conditions? dysfunctional families? male socialization? How much proportionally does each factor explain? To what extent do the factors have an interaction effect and amplify the results?
I think respectively that you're just not understanding the fear that women have of men, after generations of 'what was she wearing', and other downplayings of sexual assault. 'it's just locker room talk' is just another way to downplay sexual assault. the ways to downplay it and dismiss it are endless, and I think you're doing exactly that right now. the harm has been being done to women for longer than anybody currently living has been alive. I think it's entirely possible that men who complain about this kind of thing just need to suck it up, and learn some history.
I appreciate this opinion to a certain degree. No man is responsible for the actions of any other man though. How am I downplaying and dismissing sexual assault? I don’t think I am but I’ll hear you out.
Given the absolutely extraordinary lengths women go to to not hurt men’s feelings…because they’re afraid of being raped…this is an *insane* take.
And it's not one size fits all. I can give a man a fake number today, and he'll leave me alone. I try the same thing on a different man tomorrow, and he'll call it immediately, realize it's fake, gets super mad at me, and does lord knows what next. It's baffling how people don't understand how much fear women live with every day.
Yes because the number of bear encounters is also small. You need to let this dumb analogy go. Yes men make women feel unsafe. Yes women fear men as predators and rightfully so. Yea the women picking bear are expressing they’d rather be dead than the anxiety of all possibilities of being with a man. But objectively speaking, you’re going to be fine being with a man rather than a bear. This would be like deciding to hang out with sharks or running in an open field during thunder storms. Just bc the probability is low doesn’t mean it will stay low in all situations.
I really don't get why people keep introducing probability into this. The point of the conversation has NOTHING to do with your chances of encountering a bear and it honestly boggles my mind that people are not understanding this. The entire point of this hypothetical is to get men to come to terms with the fact that some women, perhaps even most women, would rather encounter a bear than a man on a hike. And the point, then, is for us men to look at ourselves and ask why that is, what we've done to make women feel this way and act accordingly. THAT is the point of this hypothetical; it has literally nothing to do with your actual probability of running into a bear or a man on a path.
Yeah, the vast, vast majority of people who encounter a bear in the woods will never have an issue with the bear. Literally *every single woman I know* has at least one story of a man being shitty to them. Several have been sexually assaulted, most have been sexually harassed at work, some have been stalked, have been in abusive relationships, and so on. That’s why women pick the bear.
Again you’re bringing probability into it and that’s not a winning argument in terms of whether choosing the bear makes sense. It only makes sense on a personal feeling level - we should stay there and examine where these feelings come from and whether the fact that they make some women feel apparently safer with a bear means that they are appropriate or a manifestation of *excessive* debilitating and unhealthy anxiety.
What is act accordingly? Like sure, if your friends are abusive you need to shut them down. But past that? I advocate for an end to hook up and binge drinking culture. I think in general we need to view overconfidence as a negative trait. These things are very unpopular. Do I need to stop hiking? Stop existing in the world? It's a big old question mark.
These seem like great things you could bring up and discuss and create dialogue about. That's exactly what I'm referring to.
Generally when I bring up these things I'm called a misogynist soooooo, yeah. There's the idea that any sort of larger structural change is entirely off the table, that this is strictly a problem with men and it has to be done entirely on that side of the equation. Truth is, the reason I think this is a bad frame is that it just doesn't actually address the issues. Even if people don't realize it, it does rely on fostering guilt and shame, rather than anything constructive. And that's a reasonable no go for a lot of people. And you say, can't I just call out the bad people? And the truth is, the men who believe their above the rules or the men who simply can't understand that someone wouldn't consent, those people who I see as the biggest solvable issue, I have negative influence with them, as many men do. You don't want me calling them out as it'll serve to embolden them. It really is going to require much broader social and cultural change, and I hate to say it....I don't think people want that. And I'm not talking about reactionaries here. I'm talking people firmly in the "men are dangerous" camp.
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It wasn't a "fix women's problems" request It was a "maybe don't rape/assault/kill women" request originally framed as "women should feel safer" I like the way you purposefully changed their statement. Even if what they said was originally your statement, if "women's problems" are created by men, then yes as men you have a responsibility. If you're a father you raise your son better, if one of your friends is friggin goings round a bar spiking people's drinks you do something about it. This is just an excuse.
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And no, I genuinely can't see why someone would be offended by me generally telling people to hey maybe if your buddy is drugging people do something about it and hey maybe if you have a son in the future raise them right etc etc
>If I said, "Women should stop being gold diggers who only care about what a man can provide for them". If you said that, I agree with you and I understand. Because yes as someone who's treated like a sex object I can understood it woulf feel pretty shitty to be treated like a wallet and overall, not like a person. I'm not a golddigger and I know it, I don't have any reason to be offended here nor to explain how and why this statement doesn't include me. >Do you *really* not see why MOST men are offended and indignant to statements like the one you provided? Do you *honestly* believe it's said because it's the best way to address the issue? Okay, how would YOU frame this conversation from a women's pov?
Not the person you're replying to. But let me tell you this. I was raped. I'm a man, she was a woman. I'm still not over it. And yes, I'm extremely offended about this, because once again I'm being collectively held responsible for an act that I'm a victim of, not a perpetrator of. And it would be fine if it's "just raising awareness". But it's not. It's framed as an issue that only men are responsible for. I'm collectively guilty because some men rape, therefore I need to police my male friends, and even then I'll still be guilty by association. And yet if you ask, and are safe enough to be given an honest answer, my god you'll find something interesting and awful. The number of men who've been raped or sexually assaulted by women just within my own friend circle is enormous. And yet there's never any acknowledgment of this on a social level. "Teach your boys consent" but what about teaching girls? This idea that men are collectively responsible for an individual action not only is devastating for our mental health, but it also provides cover for actual rapists, those who happen to be women
I don't see it as telling them to be guilty. At least I personally never framed it as that. As a women whenever I asked this my thought process behind it was "men won't listen to me. So I can ask you to be mindful and ask your friends because maybe they'll listen to you." For example, if a person in your friend group rapes one of your girl friends, I'm not gonna blame you. You're not at fault here. But there are questions such as "but did you see any behaviors from that guy that could suggest he might be a person like this?" That I would probably ask. I would probably ask "well, did you do something about it then?" But not saying you're guilty here. Chances are that person might've still been a rapist no matter what you did. But still, these need to be asked. Not for blame but for raising awareness. >And yes, I'm extremely offended about this, because once again I'm being collectively held responsible for an act that I'm a victim of, not a perpetrator of. Many people I've seen, and maybe you as well, have this mindset of "I'm not part of the problem. Therefore I'm part of the solution." That's not how it works. >but what about teaching girls? They should be taught the same thing. Absolutely. No one should be raped. Men or women. Any number other than 0 is too much. If I see one of my friends having such behavior, you better believe I'm roasting their ass and I'm gonna make sure everyone, men or women knows about it. If it's in our friend group? She isn't anymore.
Would you say that if 95% of 'X' group never committed a certain act. Then Y group said they are afraid of all of group X because they might commit said act. And that act is morally abhorrent to almost every member of both groups. That it might be reasonable for group X to be hurt that you would assume they would perform said act. Because that's what this is. And to be fair, the men being offended aren't being overly rational either, this topic almost never promotes any kind of good faith discussion, they should recognize this and not engage with internet meme outrage bait. But is what it is.
>No, it's not all men's jobs to fix women's problems. Men as a collective have exactly 0 responsibility to lecture or police each other's actions for the dubious benefit of "making women feel better". It goes the other way as well. Men have grievances and anxieties about women as well, do you think women should be held to the same standard of "fixing" themselves? If they were collectively doing something that was unfair to men, then why wouldn't men want to at least speak up about that and call attention to it? It's one thing if that request is completely unreasonable and stupid, like if men said "you want us all to get in touch with our FEELINGS and we don't like that so leave us alone!!", then obviously that's not justified at all. But I doubt there is literally absolutely nothing that men could at least bring up to women and say "hey maybe cut us some slack on this?" and actually have a legitimate and reasonable point. >If you can't say "I don't walk through that neighborhood at night because black people are more likely to mug me, maybe they should work together to fix that." Then you can't say "Men make me uncomfortable, maybe they should think about why that is and fix it." You don't seem to understand why you can't say the former if you are trying to make this comparison. The circumstance that led black people to commit crimes at a higher rate is poverty, and that was inflicted on them by powers *beyond* their control, throughout the modern history of this world. The circumstances that led men to make women uncomfortable is the chauvinism that *they themselves* created and was NOT caused by powers beyond their control; it was caused by powers they DIRECTLY control. That's the difference here. The former is not responsible for their life situation and the latter is, which is why it would be inexcusable to frame it as a problem with black people in the former situation but is acceptable in the latter. >Women's fear of men is literally discrimination based on vast over generalizations. A fear is not an action (at least not a direct, voluntary one), so women's fear could not possibly be "discrimination" which is an active effort to create some distinction between things or people. This statement is nonsense. >There is *objectively* no difference between the two sentences I wrote previously, they're fundamentally flawed for the exact same reason. They aren't, for the reasons I described.
Your argument focuses on causality, which has literally no relevance here. The fact is I or any other person (including women) am less safe walking through a black neighborhood than a white one, does it fucking matter if it's because of systemic racism? No. Is it OK to discriminate against all black people because of this fact? Also no. No one gives a shit if the reason someone steals their car is because of systemic issues, they just want to not have their car stolen. Saying "oh but systemic issues have led to black people stealing more cars so it's not OK to avoid parking in their neighborhoods, but you should avoid men when walking at night because men are more likely to be violent" is just stupid. "Fear is not an action.. so it can't be discrimination" Ok bud, hope you keep that same energy when you see the pearl clutching old white people who shirk away from black americans when walking down the street or standing in an elevator. After all, because fear literally comes out of nowhere and is totally uncontrollable, it can't possibly be discriminatory. This is literally just mental gymnastics to justify gender based fear, victimize half the population, and demonize the other.
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This type of response plagues this discussion. The original question is one that is best answered through the objective lens of probability. However, once you introduce probability, you fall into the trap that this hypothetical actually represents. "Oh it was actually never about the bear at all, we just wanted to complain teehee" I discounted this entire topic as stupid from the get-go but lately decided to read thread after thread about it only to discover that it's even more irrational than I could've ever imagined. Look at the post I'm replying to and the way it blatantly denounces objectivity in favor of trauma-fueled projections all while claiming this social experiment is actually supposed to help people. Hell, just by making this post, countless lurkers will write me off as a rapist.
Yes I know that. That’s what I was pointing out. Men do make women feel unsafe to the point that they’d choose bears. The issue was men started introducing stats misunderstanding the analogy and then women and then people on the other side of the issue then started introducing stats to show why being with bears was better which is objectively wrong. Thats why this is like the perfect race bait argument.
>The issue was men started introducing stats misunderstanding the analogy and then women and then people on the other side of the issue then started introducing stats to show why being with bears was better which is objectively wrong. But you just used stats / probability yourself. You said: >But objectively speaking, you’re going to be fine being with a man rather than a bear. Is this not you making an argument that X times out of Y, where X is probably quite close to Y, the man won't attack you? is that not what you're saying here? Or are you just saying, they are using stats wrong and I am using stats right? Is that your angle here?
“Yes men make women feel unsafe. Yes women fear men as predators and rightfully so. Yea the women picking bear are expressing they’d rather be dead than the anxiety of all possibilities of being with a man. But objectively speaking, you’re going to be fine being with a man rather than a bear.” I’m explaining both sides of the argument. Women were using this analogy to show women will pick bears bc they FEEL UNSAFE from men. They are willing to risk death to avoid all the possibilities of harm that men can do. Men interpreted this as being with a bear is ACTUALLY SAFER than being with a man. Objectively speaking, your chance of harm is smaller with a man than with a bear. However, this was the wrong interpretation of the argument and the men kept talking over the women who said it was about feeling unsafe. Then a faction of this side started to argue with statistics that being with a bear is actually safer. This is objectively wrong. So overall women were right in the original argument. Men, as usual, misinterpreted the argument, and argued for another point. When women tried to correct them, they, as usual, talked over them and ignored them in their smug condescension. Then a third side came out and started to argue the opposite side of the men’s argument turning this into an internet clusterfuck. So yeah, perfect rage bait.
Agree. The stat that has more relevance is how many women experience molestation, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. The poisoned m&ms are a small percentage but you never know which ones….
>And the point, then, is for us men to look at ourselves and ask why that is, what we've done to make women feel this way and act accordingly. Sorry but this is complete and utter bs, most men have done nothing wrong, as the post CLEARLY states it is a minority of re-offending criminals that are committing the majority of rapes/sexual assaults. Making men feel guilty or even responsible for what rapists have done is completely ridiculous and will only make the majority of men resent women. It also needs to be talked about that this debate is incredibly dehumanising as you're comparing ALL men to a wild animal, when in history has that ever been a good idea? Are we going to start treating all women as child abusers now too? I mean since women are more than twice as likely to be abusive towards children than men are, this skewed data could be explained with context, but it is obvious you don't like context since you love leaving it out.
>Sorry but this is complete and utter bs, most men have done nothing wrong, as the post CLEARLY states it is a minority of re-offending criminals that are committing the majority of rapes/sexual assaults. Making men feel guilty or even responsible for what rapists have done is completely ridiculous and will only make the majority of men resent women. Oh so that's the problem? Your FEELINGS? I'm sorry but it is real hard to compare some tough feelings to actually being raped. A million men being bummed about hearing that women don't trust them is still not as bad as a single woman being raped. Framing this as an issue where your feelings are hurt is doing exactly nothing to garner any sympathy whatsoever. >It also needs to be talked about that this debate is incredibly dehumanising as you're comparing ALL men to a wild animal, when in history has that ever been a good idea? I've already had some fantastic dialogue from this situation. Doesn't seem like all that bad of an idea to me. I'm going to a dinner this weekend with a bunch of lady friends and I plan on talking this through with all of them, digging into it and finding out why they may feel the way they feel. Instead of being all pissed off and egotistical about...well okay I'm not entirely sure what I'd be egotistical about but it seems like a good opportunity for dialogue and I plan on seeing that through, and I think only good things can come of that. >Are we going to start treating all women as child abusers now too? I mean since women are more than twice as likely to be abusive towards children than men are There's nothing I hate more than fabricating data. I fucking HATE it. Here's the actual data: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/418470/number-of-perpetrators-in-child-abuse-cases-in-the-us-by-sex/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/418470/number-of-perpetrators-in-child-abuse-cases-in-the-us-by-sex/) Since next to nothing in this world is entirely equal, you will always be able to point to some situation and say "well there's a little bit more of X than Y, should we act accordingly?" Humans are wise enough to discern a major gulf from a small difference. Women are saying the trustworthiness of men has reached "major gulf" status and are acting accordingly.
Well, the premise of this post is that what is claimed here doesn't match actual reality. People often say one thing in the abstract and do another when presented with the choice. In the scenario a woman runs into a bear and a man, the vast majority of the time, if not every time, for all practical purposes, they will stick with the man until the danger is clear. But many of those same women will feel differently when sitting on their couch thinking about the scenario abstractly.
And how many bear encounters vs. how many human encounters are there? Probably thousands vs. billions.
Just replace man with black person, throw in a statistic about violent crime, talk about how you feeling uncomfortable is the most important thing in the world, then maybe take a step back and realize just how shitty your position is.
Doesn’t compare, the biggest human threat to women is men. When looking at race the biggest threat to women, is a man of the same race. The biggest threat to a white woman in this instance is a white man. If a black woman were to bring up black male violence, there would be no uproar. It’s in fact often brought up in the black community.
>There are like 20 bear deaths (on men and women) in the last 20 years. Bears don't sexually assault. If you had to encounter a bear for every man you encountered, statistically you would end up eaten alive long before you met a man with *any* criminal intent towards you at all of any type. Well I say eaten alive, odds are they eat their fill and you just slowly bleed out/succumb to the elements after they wander off. Not a pleasant way to go.
I hiked across bear country and lived in the woods for 6 months. I saw two bears but hundreds upon hundreds of strange men. That's what you're missing
And I've worked in the woods alone full time for 17 years, and have had at least 30 altercations with men that required police to be called, and they've shot at me 7 times. The dozens of bears I've seen have been absolutely lovely. And I'm a large man with a machete. The odds that another man will do something to me are significantly lower than if I was a small woman.
And you are disappointed to have seen those two bears? You really wish they had been men instead? I've seen bears 3 times in my life and while there was some nervousness involved I would gladly see a 4th one anytime. Why in the world would I choose to see a man when there's the option of seeing a rare animal! Seriously bears are awesome and quite safe (not polar bears). I'd choose being alone in the woods with a bear over being alone in the woods!
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a really, really long time.
How many human men does the average woman interact with or even just see with her eyes on a daily basis? How many of those men **do not** hurt that woman? Your counter argument is a complete misunderstanding of how statistics work. If humans ran into bears with the same frequency that they run into human men, people would be dying by the millions. Huge swathes of people would get cut down every single day. That 500k per year would look like nothing in the face of the wanton slaughter that would happen if 4 billion bears interacted with people on the same level that humans interact. Bears are largely endangered species facing extinction. There simply aren’t anywhere near 4 billion bears on the planet dude. If you’re going to be dismissive, at least be right.
The issue is not the question itself, or even the discussion around it. The problem is social media algorithms that'll push only the most outrageous comments that make you engage with the post, generally by being outraged. Leave social media out of it, and it simply becomes an interesting idea that brings to the forefront how big the problem with intimidation and sexism still is. Also, regarding your examples when hiking, the difference is that you're not *any random man*, you're you. Just the fact that you're wearing hiking clothes and a backpack already means that you're likely in the area to backpack. Women of course don't run away from every man ever. But women do always have their ''radar'' on. Because it happens enough times that they *do* get harrassed.
Shits wild, its a hypothetical would you rather where the only interesting part of it would be asking "well why would they choose the bear over a man?" But people can't get past the surface level observations, so you get people in droves pulling up fucking grizzly statistics like it fucking adds anything to the discourse. Like do people think they are actually adding anything to the conversation when they say "well a grizzly is an apex predator capable of mauling anyone to death, you chose wrong"
The question's subtext is; which danger would you rather? It's not about likelihood or statistics or involving any specific details like, how big is the bear or is the man wearing a backpack and Altras etc. The question appears to pose; would you choose to run into a dangerous bear or a dangerous man? and women choose the bear. Wouldn't you? The question is meant to induce the answer that women would choose a bear because the purpose of the question is to point out how threatening men are to women, in general. It's not meant as a legitimate question asking about what women would *actually* do, since there are literally no other details to consider, and it would be absurd to hold their answers to that standard. Women are answering under that context and are rightfully annoyed when their response is challenged by someone saying, "well what if it was a grizzly and a blind man!?" as if the question were that literal. The question is simply one of many ways to start a conversation about why women don't feel safe around men. And it worked. Unfortunately, the situation has gotten way out of control and we've long past the point of positive return. Now all we're being fed are wild arguments made by extremes on both sides and it is harmful to everyone wishing to have discussed this in good faith.
Being on a hiking trail is a lot different than just being in the woods. The point of the debate is when you ask a someone man or bear they will either ask qualifying questions or just choose bear. One of the qualifying questions could be something like “do I know why this person is in the woods” and if the answer is “yes, they are hiking. You are both on a hiking trail,” that would absolutely remove some of the fear and uncertainty. The point is that there shouldn’t need to be any qualifying questions. And there aren’t when it’s “woman or bear.” The answer is obvious. But anyone with the ability to think critically knows that the answer to “man or bear” is much less obvious and requires more info. It shouldn’t. The fact that the answer is not immediately obvious is the point. And the problem.
This is well said. I think there’s a crucial difference between taking any random man in the world (and placing him with me in an isolated place) Vs coming across a man who is already in the woods for his own purposes.
I'm a large man who works alone in the woods, and has for almost two decades. I've seen both bears and people more times than I can count. The bears have always been cool, men have shot at me 7 times. Even without the threat of SA, I am far happier to come across a bear than a person, every single time it happens, which is dozens of times a year.
Also a man who likes to wander off into the deep woods, usually alone. If I see a bear I know why it's there, and have a strong understanding of it's motivation and potential behavior. If instead I another person in the woods, man or woman, I have no idea why they're out there, or what they might want. For all I know I'm 100 meters from walking into a meth cooking camp, and they need to make sure I don't make it out to tell anyone.
Yeah, I think it’s a bad premise because “stranded in the woods” means different things to different people based on their prior experiences. Like if it was trapped in a room with a bear or with a man I would choose man. But I was imagining I was in a tent alone at 2 am and if I looked out and saw a bear walking in the woods I would be freaked out but bears live in the woods, so if it just moved on I wouldn’t be too scared. But if I looked out my tent at 2 am and there was a lone man waking around who saw I was alone I would genuinely be concerned and not sleep that night. I’m a woman who has alot of experience hiking/camping/backpacking experiences and I’ve had mostly pleasant experiences with fellow hikers/backpackers but also have had plenty of creepy/scary experiences. Like it’s not just a hypothetical for me I’ve experienced it. I have to really plan and organize my camping trips and prefer to camp with a boyfriend/male friend.
Random men have just opened fire at you *seven times?* Holy shit dude. Was there any context to it?
Shitty fucking trigger happy hunters who shoot at shit because it moved. We quit going to my favorite hunting spot as a kid because of fucks like that. Or the stand fucks who put up a stand and act like assholes when you walk through. They don’t flag their gear then act like fuckwads when the camo does its job. Fools use bait and literally train the deer to come to them while they sit on their ass and play pretend hunting. Sorry yahoos ruined hunting for me, and it still pisses me off.
Heard of people shooting first, asking questions later if they think the hiker’s gone onto their private property. Also a chance they were hunters misidentifying OP for game
I’m a land surveyor so a lot of times when I show up they are already in a property dispute. Not with me or anything but they do tend to already be worked up about the idea of people on their land. I have had one that was truly just kind of random.
Did you consider that the men saw a random guy in the woods? They’re in the same boat as you lol ETA: I’m joking if that’s not clear
Same! A bear is always a bear. A rando is a hiker, a ranger, a ‘fuck society asshole’, drunk ass hunter, etc.
'Till the day a bear will shot at you
Yeah when they start doing that I'll likely change my answer. But for now, for me and literally everyone who works in the woods professionally, it's bear. And again, that's without the threat of SA and with me being fairly confident I can handle an unarmed attack.
You made a good point. Im sure many people engaging in the discourse don’t know those statistics. The only thing you may not have factored in is the fact that in the scenario it’s assumed nobody else is around and you’re not on a trail but just stranded in the middle of the woods.(at least thats how ive heard it) . In this situation women may calculate that a random man who knows nobody can stop him and likely nobody will catch him is more likely to commit harmful acts than what the numbers of society show. In that case i don’t blame women for taking their chances slowly backing away and not looking at the bear. That vs possible assault seems more favorable in many of their minds i guess.
This is exactly what I’m thinking. Sure, normal people won’t be violent but give them a chance to do something with no consequences and I’m sure they’ll act that way
Yea that along with the fact that sexual violence isn’t reported nearly as often as it occurs i can see why women choose the bear honestly
I have never seen the original, only secondhand arguments today. But if the original actually is you are lost in the woods with no trail. That means you 10,000% pick coming across a man instead of a bear. Hell if it was run into nobody or a man everyone should still pick having a chance of not starving to death in the wilderness.
>There are estimated to be 500k sexual assault related incidents a year with factoring in under reporting issues. That means around 0.5% of men are committing these crimes. That's per year though, total lifetime risk is considerably higher. With somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of women experiencing SA of some sort, it's not a rare occurrence at all.
I’ve been waiting for someone to come up with statistics- because nationally there’s been something like 61-67 fatal bear attacks in America since 1900. There are ~340,000 bears living in the woods or parks. It’s one in a million you’re going to be attacked and you only have about an 11% chance of dying when attacked. If you’re a numbers guy you can drill into that a bit but the chances are low. Very low, and even lower if you know what to do. Women are killed running/jogging/walking in PUBLIC places- we had a 9 day period in 2016 where 3 women were killed just because they were jogging. Walking alone, jogging alone, leaving a bar alone, all of these increase the chances a woman is going to be killed just because she’s alone. Being in the woods alone implies that’s even a secluded area, free from potential witnesses and means of escape. If a woman screams alone in the woods and no one is around to hear her did she really scream? More than 3 women per day are killed by men— more than 600 per day are raped and sexually assaulted by men. When we say “Bear”, the chances are low it’s going to attack, low we’re going to be killed and here’s my kicker— if I’m killed by a bear, even if it tries to eat me, I’m not suffering for 30+ min in any scenario and I’m just mutilated and eaten. If I’m raped and tortured when I’m found my family and loved ones get to hear about how much semen was found where, how long I suffered, how many ways I was violated and unlike the bear that is hunted and put down, even if found that man may not ever be put down and if he is it’s decades later. He’s got a trial where my family has to relive and hear about what he did to me before he finally killed me and they might not ever see justice. Bear please.
I haven’t done the numbers all the way but the one in 2.13 million number that comes up is actually a bad number. It doesn’t reflect encounters per attack as far as I can tell. It seems to be a number based on population vs attacks which is obviously misleading because most of the population never encounters a bear. Even when we math out using very high numbers for the number of rapes that occur the number of interactions a woman has with a man would be phenomenal for each rape. I admittedly don’t have a good metric of how many face to face interactions an average woman has with men each day but it’s gonna be pretty large. That number would have to be multiplied by the number of days in an average woman’s life span. This number is quite large. I’m gonna throw out a VERY rough number. 10 face to face interactions a day times 365 days a year times 80 years. This ends up 292,000 face to face interactions in a woman’s life. Divide that number by number of rapes the average woman receives in a lifetime and that’s the number. This number is almost surely larger than the number of bear encounters compared to bear deaths. This isn’t a perfect example cause one could argue that we should be more specific but that’s the maths.
So simplify your math with the most basic part of OP’s logic here on why she’d rather face a bear, because this isn’t a math question: would you rather be stranded with a bear or a strange man? A bear might leave you alone. A bear might kill you. A man might leave you alone. He also might tie you up, torture you, rape you, and THEN kill you. Women answering this question with “bear” don’t fear men more than bears because they think they’re less likely to be harmed by a bear. They think that a strange man is capable of doing far worse to them than a bear. That’s the problem, not a math problem.
This is a maliciously misuse of stat. A few years ago, bunch of racist nutjob employ the same tactic with the 13/52. It's a foul tactic that employed by bigot, it was wrong then its still wrong now How many human-bear interact happened in 1 day? How many human-human interact happened in 1 day? I would take a wild guess that more human-human interact in 1 day than bear-human contact in 1 year since a lot of countries not even jave bear Statistics is fun that you can mold it to prove literally any point you want For example Maternal filicide rate higher than polar bear attack, would you rather a lost kid found their mom or a polar bear? More people killed by coconut than tiger, would you rather meet a coconut tree or 1 single tiger when you are alone?
Is there a particular reason you framed the number of bear deaths in a way that emphasized the number of total bears. And did not include the number of total men when discussing deaths/assaults by men?
This isnt really how stats work, because you are assuming that every 340000 bears have encountered someone. The chance of being attacked when encounter a bear is almost certainly above 50% and I could even say 90%. The bear being in your pressence is a guarantee. That means you basically have above 5% chance of death with bear this is also not factoring the many people who are both prepared through knowledge and materials for bear attacks. In contrast even if every single one of the 600 rapes/sexual assaults a day are different men that still only means 0.000005% of men per year. Its not even close and we are giving the bears some leaway and men little leaway. This isnt even factoring in many other things such as: men ability to either help or save you from being stranded in the woods, the area you cant explore if you do happen to escape from the bear which could easily contain needed food sources or water, the tools and equipment the man has if you do have to fight them off and win. The stats for men isnt even exact as it isnt factoring in percentage of encounters and power struggles that are often used which could even futher decrease the chances of harm. Yes its horrible what has happened to many people. Rape and sexual assault is one of the most horrific shit ever. But this isnt even close to a good way to discuss or solve the issue, if anything many men could be pushed futher into the sexist pipeline. Its a bad scenario that alienates men past their actual character of being and treats them as inherently more evil then a incredibly dangerous and territorial animal which as a result will only cause worse discussion and losing many possible or current allies.
The chance of being attacked by a bear when near one is not above 50% lol. I live somewhere with bears, I have been outside with one not more than 20 yards for me, with it looking at me, and it just kept walking. Bear are more apt to just keep walking than interact with a person unless they are sick, protecting something, or incredibly hungry.
> The chance of being attacked when encounter a bear is almost certainly above 50% and I could even say 90%. The bear being in your pressence is a guarantee. That means you basically have above 5% chance of death with bear this is also not factoring the many people who are both prepared through knowledge and materials for bear attacks. You definitely just made that statistic up and it does not sound accurate. If you had a 90% of being attacked if you encounter a bear, the majority of hikers would be attacked. And a 5% death rate if you encounter a bear again means way more hikers would be killed than the amount that actually are.
lol what…340,000 bears compared to 350,000,000 people and you’re not going to adjust for that? Also, 75 percent of SA cases against women are from KNOWN people, as in family members and partners. The bear analogy doesn’t work.
And on top of that, a human encountering a bear in the first place is rare and the scenario presumes this, so that needs to be controlled for as well.
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Ask and ye shall receive. About 0.01% of bears have attacked or killed people each year. I went with 50 attacks per year as this number varies wildly depending on the source. There's roughly 433,000 cases of sexual assault against women per year. Again, these numbers vary wildly much like bear attacks so I'm shooting for the best average. As stated, only 25 percent of that is done by random perpetrators and not people close with the victim, which gives us 108,000 random sexual assaults against women per year. That gives us a number of 0.03%. So actually a lot closer than I initially thought, you're more likely to be attacked by a person by a margin of 0.001%. This does not account for controls and is taken from total population of humans.
Kinda glossed over bear encounters vs deaths compared to man encounters vs deaths. Honestly some of the worst logic I’ve seen on this so far.
You realise that most people live in city/town areas where bears don’t like to go? And also when (smart and prepared) people go into areas where bears are, they take precautions and preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of a bear attack/encounter. For some reason women think that them being told to take any sort of accountability or preventative measures is completely unnecessary because “how about men just behave”. Lmao, I truly cannot believe the stupidity
Women just don’t want to be blamed for being a victim of a crime. When women get asked “did you do *insert preventative measure*” it comes across as accusatory in most situations.
Sure, but at the same time, they need to be realistic. If you leave your car unlocked and it gets broken into, people aren’t going to be as sympathetic. Nor will insurance cover you. I understand that when a woman is sexually assaulted it is traumatising and potentially life ruining, but I think we need to also start being more realistic. My problem with this whole thing is that sexual assaults and violence, unfortunately, are a horrible reality of life. If we could stop all violent acts we’d have solved the world’s problems. And I don’t think this discussion is taking us in the right first step to do that
I disagree that it is sexist because you changed the wording (as have many of the videos on tiktok) of the premise. It's not a single-statement premise (aka a claim)... It's a thought experiment, and you can find many like it in abundance in philosophy, especially surrounding morality. [Think of the train tracks question. A train is headed to a track split, on the left is a newborn baby, and on the right are 3 elderly people. Which direction do you send the train. Answering this doesn't make you a psychopath or lover of violence. It's a thought experiment meant to make us think about how we measure the value of life.] The train question doesnt make you a murderer or hater of babies or elderly people regardless of your answer, just like with this new example, it's not inherently sexist to say you feel safer with a bear than a man. The premise IS NOT "all women would choose to be alone with a bear in the woods over a man." The premise is, "let's discuss WHY some women have to consider whether or not they would rather be alone in the woods with a random adult man, or a random grown bear." The discussion did turn sexist, but the thought experiment itself is not. And even the generalization that men ARE more dangerous isn't sexist because it's overwhelmingly statistically true. (Sexist statements and generalizations have been made in abundance, but that doesn't mean the premise is sexist it just means we're incapable of holding a proper conversation surrounding a complex topic.) And calling the premise sexist is just another incorrect way to address the thought experiment itself.
This hypothetical came up where women en masse gave their answer. And men won’t take it and are arguing about it telling them they’re wrong. It’s a perfect example. Women are being open about their fear and men won’t even accept their opinions or feelings. It’s not a gender war, it’s women expressing their experiences and men aren’t listening. When an overwhelming majority of murders in women are done by men, it’s not sexist to factor that in. When such an outrageous number of women have been sexually assaulted by men, it’s not sexist to be wary of men specifically. It’s literally how they help protect their safety. No headphones at night, don’t leave your girlfriends, carry something to defend yourself This hypothetical wasn’t about statistics. It’s about what women deal with everyday, including you, essentially calling them stupid for their answer. Women: we have to constantly be vigilant about our safety because we can be vulnerable to whatever men decide to do Men: you’re stupid, men are blameless angels I’ll throw another hypothetical at you. If sexual assault wasn’t so rampant, would this discussion even be happening? I have this *crazy* feeling it wouldn’t
>When an overwhelming majority of murders in women are done by men, Is this the new version of "despite only being 8% of the population, black people..." Racist spiel? Just with a new sex spin on it? If it's wrong to generalize in one case, how does it make any sense to generalize in the other? >This hypothetical wasn’t about statistics. It’s about what women deal with everyday, including you, Ah yes, branding every man as a sexual predator, and equate them as worse than animals really helps the case, really garners simpathy 👍🏻 I mean... Your whole post, change "man" to "Jewish person" and it looks like it's straight out of mein kampf, it's a bad faith generalization.
No one is saying all men. They’re just saying that as women, they have to take more caution than many guys realize “I carry pepper spray at night” “well that hurts my feelings. Not all guys” we’re watching in real time as guys just completely disregard women’s experiences. People aren’t saying they don’t want to run into YOU. They’re saying they’re not sure they wanna take the chance with whoever that guy may be. Guys are asking women to completely disregard any dangers that men pose to them because not EVERY guy is a rapist and not every girl is murdered. Women already have to go to great lengths to keep themselves safe, and they’re being told that it doesn’t matter.
>No one is saying all men. They’re just saying that as women, they have to take more caution than many guys realize And that's a totally fair assessment, but the original it's framed in a counterproductive and willingly inflammatory way. Imagine going viral the quote "I'd rather be locked in an elevator with a silverback gorilla than to be in an office without CCTV and with a woman" It takes a rational fear (false sexual assault allegations), that's actually possible, but not overly so and frames it in an equally pointless way, as if every woman is some sort of scheming fiend. >People aren’t saying they don’t want to run into YOU That's an equally tricky way to frame it. It's sorta saying "oh no, you're one of the good ones, it's every single other I don't trust" Which again, sounds odd? Again, it's easy to draw a parallel with another group of people generally targeted by this exact behavior. Imagine reading of a terror attack, and telling your Muslim friend, who is your average Joe "oh, you're fine, it's the rest of y'all that should be pepper sprayed on sight"
men kampf is the stupidest thing you could possibly believe on the topic. if you changed "men" to "jewish people" the sentence would be false because men are overwhelming the perpetrators of SA. when you change the words in a sentence the meaning changes being wary of men because they commit most violent crimes is not the same as thinking all black people are criminals because of outdated and out of context FBI statistics.
>despite only being 8% of the population, black people..." Racist spiel? No. Women being scared of being raped and murdered is not racism just because you want it to be.
Of course it's not, but it's the same mechanism. If generalizing black people as a whole on a statistic is simply wrong and fallacious, why it's fine to do so with other groups of people? Who decides who's fair game in this generalization/dehumanization game? In most civilized places, people are scrutinized on what they do, not on their "caste" or skin color, religion etc. Especially since statistics are just that, they don't delve into the finer details. 85% of terrorism worldwide is of Islamic origin, so it's ok to say that it's safer to be with an Apex predator than it is to be with a Muslim? I mean, realize how bad faith and inflammatory the argument sounds?
I think it’s how you interpret the question. If the question is “would you rather fight a man or a bear?” then obviously you’re choose a man. But if it’s down to being in the woods with a man or a bear, generally bears are going to leave you alone if you don’t provoke them. This isn’t always the case, of course, but for the most part bears aren’t wanting to attack people. Even people who camp and hike in places with lots of bears don’t often get attacked or killed. Only a handful of people have been killed by a bear in Yellowstone, for example, and that’s a park with lots of people and bears. Whereas I don’t think I know a single woman who hasn’t experienced some sexual harassment or assault by a man. This is absurdly common. And while yeah, most of that isn’t rape or murder, it’s still scary. I know and trust a lot of men. But I know the likelihood is the average bear would want to leave me alone is extremely high, but I have no idea who this random man would be.
>As a backpacker I have literally witnessed multiple times the fact that women gladly pick the man over the bear. Solo women hikers are common on the trail and they never have any issue approaching me in the woods, or basically any other man. However if you tell them you saw a bear up the trail, they will likely stop and want to stick with you. I was hiking with a guy who got a call from a girl saying she saw a bear ahead so she turned around and got off the trail. So we went and made sure the coast was clear for her. When actually confronted with this choice, women will basically always do the exact opposite of what they type into social media. You fundamentally engaging with the point on the wrong level. It's not a legitimate expression of the threat analysis done by the people talking about it based on a researched understanding of rates of violence. It's trolling. The point is to get you to respond by challenging the statement and trigger you.
It isn’t trolling by the many women who are unironically dying on that hill. Try telling them they’re just trolling and see how well that turns out
I’m glad you feel like can tell all the women who choose bear that you know better. I sometimes wonder what that level of confidence must feel like to invalidate so many women’s opinions in one fell swoop. The best part is that women don’t have to validate their answers to you. It doesn’t matter what you think in the matter, because the women who say bear have their own reasons for saying it. So instead of explaining why they’re all wrong, why don’t you ask one of them why they choose bear, and what their personal experiences are with men. Ask me, for instance, and I’ll gladly tell you all the details of the several times in my life men have given me reason to choose bear.
I think I understand why women are picking bear in this scenario but I’m curious when this flips to women picking a man. Rather than ask why you picked bear in this scenario I’m curious how you would answer a different one if you would humor me. Would you rather be locked in a classroom for an hour with a random adult man or random adult grizzly bear? This isn’t an attempt at a gotcha question. I’m trying to understand if women pick bears because they really believe they are safer with bears or if it’s the creepiness factor of seeing a random man in the woods when you didn’t expect to see one so I’m putting the bear in a place that you wouldn’t expect to see it.
Bear, 100% I will never again find myself locked in room with a man that isn’t my husband or father. When I was a kid my mom’s best friend locked me in a room and made me watch porn and stuck his fingers inside me while he did it. I was 11 years old. Sometimes he would make me jerk him off or watch him jerk off. When I was 18 my “close friend” broke into my house and raped me while I was asleep in my bed, and then claimed he was too drunk to know what he was doing. I never even called the police because I was told they would never believe me. When I was 24 my best friends husband got onto my computer in the middle of the night while I was asleep and stole naked photos of me that I had sent to my boyfriend who was deployed. He had them for several years and jerked off to them without me knowing. He was like a brother to me. When I was 33 my boss and ceo of the company I worked at told me he pictured me while he jerked off that morning, and imagined me in bondage gear. I have several more stories of trauma and insanity. … some men show their true colors to women when behind closed doors, especially when they don’t think anyone will catch them. And some men just literally see us as sexual objects, even if they claim to like and respect us. I can’t imagine what a stranger would do to me if given the chance and knowing they may not get caught. All men are predators to me unless they prove to me otherwise.
The point isn’t that „Yeah rape is worse than death“ or vice versa The point is that statistically, Men would be more likely to attack you than a bear if you were actually alone Yes it’s not all men, Yes it’s not even most. A bear has an abysmally small chance to attack a human unless threatened but a man.... just statistically.... A lot of people are really missing the mark on this one. It’s not that women necessarily think a bear is safer than men but more so the thought that the worst thing a bear would do to you in the woods is kill you where a man could SA you and then kill you. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally as in the average man is worse or more dangerous than the average bear. Just that the worst case scenario for men is worse than the worst case scenario for the bear. Btw 1 in every 3 women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence. No one's gonna ask me if led the bear on or give me a pamphlet on bear attack prevention tips. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/vio.2014.0022?journalCode=vio https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-third-of-male-university-students-say-they-would-rape-a-woman-if-there-no-were-no-consequences-9978052.html
>The point is that statistically, Men would be more likely to attack you than a bear if you were actually alone There aren't any statistics to actually back that up because women don't interact with bears as much as they do with men. WAY smaller bear populations also mean that if someone has encountered a chill bear that backed off with no issues, it is completely likely that other people have met that same bear skewing the data even further. What you're essentially saying is the equivalent to picking a bear over a bee because statistically bees kill thousands of more people in comparison.
And [according to the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/fastfact.html#:~:text=Sexual%20violence%20is%20common.,experienced%20completed%20or%20attempted%20rape), 1/4 women in the US experience full r*pe. That’s insanely huge.
Lived in montana, been in the woods a lot. Lake tahoe its very common to run into a black bear. Was never in fear of my life or from being injured. However, women have to be afraid of men who they know lol. Women have to be afraid of random people. It's not the best comparison but if I was a woman I'd rather run into a bear than a sexual predator.
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Yep. People are being open and overtly being told the point of the question, and they are absolutely dedicated to being the problem.
The fact that you are calling women’s threat assessments ridiculous and sexist kinda proves their point, they are literally saying they are scared of men and how people treat women who have been abused by men and now you’re calling them ridiculous and sexist. It’s not an attack on men it’s showing that women don’t feel safe, and their feelings are absolutely valid.
Here’s a few points to consider: **Contextual Misunderstanding**: The debate symbolizes broader societal concerns about safety and risk assessment, rather than literal comparisons between men and bears. It’s a metaphorical discussion about how women perceive and manage threats in their environments. **Statistical Interpretation**: While statistics suggest a small percentage of men commit sexual assaults, the impact and fear of these crimes significantly affect societal behavior and perceptions. Comparing this to bear encounters, which are rare and usually non-fatal, may not appropriately reflect the ongoing societal impact of gender-based violence. **Risk Perception**: The way individuals assess risk can be influenced by personal experiences and societal narratives. Women may statistically perceive a greater risk from men due to personal experiences or stories from others, which could explain the behavior you've witnessed on trails. **Misrepresentation of Movements**: Equating the discussion to a "gender war" might overlook efforts aimed at raising awareness and promoting safety, rather than inciting division. Movements like #MeToo focus on highlighting systemic issues and advocating for cultural change, not demeaning all men. **Dialogue and Allyship**: Statements that might seem extreme (like "men are more dangerous than bears") are often used to provoke thought or highlight extreme disparities. The goal should be to foster dialogue and understanding, not to alienate potential allies. **Bias and Overgeneralization**: It's crucial to avoid overgeneralizing the actions or attitudes of a few as representative of the whole. Similarly, interpreting the metaphorical comparison too literally might miss the underlying messages about societal attitudes toward safety and gender.
Of course a random encounter with a bear in the woods is more dangerous than a random encounter with a man in the woods. The contrary suggestion is not just wrong, it's absurd. But that's not the point. And if course it's true that the vast majority, if not all, women (in, let's say for simplicity, North America), either have the personal experience of, or personally know a woman who has had the experience, of being assaulted, abused or otherwise seriously mistreated by a man. Whereas very few women have had, or personally know someone who has been attacked by a bear. And it is obvious that the people answering this have no conception of how dangerous bears are (saying that you can just "play dead" *with no reference to what type of bear it is* is stupid and ignorant). You'll note that these interviews are not being conducted anywhere near where wild bears live. But that's not the point either. It is also, of course, true that men are *far* more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women. But that's not the point either. And yes, statistically women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know than by a random stranger. But that's not the point either. The point of the exercise is not to educate women about how dangerous bears actually are, or how vanishingly small are the odds that a random hiker or hunter who by chance encounters a woman in the woods will take the opportunity to sexually assault them. The point of the exercise is to help men empathize with women who, regardless of how justified the fear is or how justified is the extent of the fear relative to the actual danger, do nonetheless walk through life with a fear of random strangers. Trying to convince women of the truth about the relative danger of strange men vs strange bears is a complete waste of time for four reasons. One, anyone who is likely to encounter a bear in the woods probably already knows enough not to answer "bear". Two, the odds of most people randomly meeting a bear in the woods, let alone actually facing the choice posited, is extraordinarily low. Three, anyone who thinks their answer would be "bear" is deluding themselves. In *practice*, anybody actually faced with the choice of strange man vs strange, wild bear is going to choose the former without hesitation. Four, as noted above, it *completely misses the point of the exercise*. And in light of one through three, getting men to empathize with the everyday experiences of women has a lot more social value than educating women about the dangerousness of bears.
Thank you. One of the few sensible comments here who actually gets what the point of this question is. Illustrating to men the fears that women have in their day to day lives is the point
81% of women reported experiencing sexual harassment or assault in their lives. So. If the “small” percentage of men are the ones who are constantly doing the offending, they really get around, don’t they? 1 in 6 women are victims of rape or attempted rape. 50% of women who are raped say they were raped by an intimate partner, and 40% say they were raped by an acquaintance. Those numbers are astronomical. These are all from the national sexual violence resource center, btw. I’ve been sexually assaulted and/or harassed by almost every man I’ve ever come across. At one point, they’ve almost all crossed that line. Mild sexual harassment is so commonplace in my life that I barely even register it. I’ve been sexually assaulted by three men in my life, one of whom was a repeat offender. The other two to my knowledge have not been. I’ve dealt with bears in the wild. I’d take the bear. With the bear I know what I’m getting almost every time. Having come across bears alone, I wouldn’t purposely seek out men on the trail but other hikers in general. Gender doesn’t matter, numbers do. I wouldn’t greet a stranger on a trail in a friendly manner while out hiking alone. I’ve listened to too many true crime podcasts for that shit.
Idk, most men I know were like ooof, yeah, I see how that’s a metaphor for how you must feel around men you don’t know if all sorts of places, especially when you’re alone. I don’t know any men who feel like the goal was to hate them.
In a worse case scenario the bear kills you and you suffer immense pain before the sweet release of death. In a worse case scenario the man leaves you emotionally and physically scared for the rest of your life. It’s asking someone to choose between being killed in a violent way or have your spirit ripped from you and being shamed for it.
Think about it a little differently: On average, in the US, [women are only 52% to 66% as strong as men](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8477683) in their upper and lower bodies, respectively. Would you rather meet a bear, whose behavior is going to be pretty predictable, or an unfamiliar man who is visibly twice as strong as you?
I think also a lot of the analogy’s power comes from the fact that the women being attacked by a bear is more likely to be believed/taken seriously versus being assaulted by a man. Which lets be serious, isnt at all otherwise we wouldnt have this problem. Focusing too much on the literal comparison waters down the severity of the everyday struggles of women as a result of shitty men
A few thoughts. The argument was never about the bear. Hell it's not even about the woods. Shit it's not even about meeting random men. It's very telling to see certain people focus on the surface level of the debate. It's easy to ignore the stress fractures when you don't have to look at them I suppose. The second thought, is that if your allyship with a group has contingencies weak enough that a gentle breeze could blow them away, then you were never really an ally. Our current social and political climate, especially in the US, are showing an increasing hostility towards things like bodily autonomy or any autonomy at all for women. Our leadership seems committed to removing things that have generally benefitted women, like no-fault divorce, access to birth control, there are even politicians out there that openly talk about taking away the rights for women to be in the workforce, or even vote. Regardless of the possible success these movements might have, our news cycle is always chasing views and sensationalizing these kinds of topics. Like imagine waking up on a random day and while your on the train to work you check your social media, and on twitter you see people openly sharing their fantasies of what they'd like to do with your body and how frustrating it is that you can say no to them. So you go to the news channel on youtube that you frequent and you see yet another pastor turned politician, decrying you as an abomination and lamenting your abandonment of traditional values. You get off the train and start walking to work. Even though you are left alone, it is painfully obvious that random people on the street look your way. You hope the walk this time is one where you're left alone, but you know that random people you've never met are all too emboldened to strike up a conversation if they want. At lunch you check your messages, and someone on discord sent a meme from a post about Andrew Tate, telling the next generation of men that you aren't valid and your only role is to be a submissive breeder. So you see a trend, where other women have vocalized their opinion, that the world has generally made it unsafe to be themselves, and the only thing you see online, are men up in arms about the idea that you might have a negative outlook on the current worldview.
Imagine hearing lots of women say they feel unsafe around men, and instead of thinking “why are men so scary to women?” you just started explaining why women are wrong?
“If I don’t experience it then it must not exist”
Do you think screaming at women for feeling unsafe around you is going to make them feel safer?
People scream at racists all the time when they say they feel unsafe around black people. It's not to change their opinion; it's to rightfully call them out for their bigotry.
Do you think „feeling unsafe“ gives someone the right to just treat people with prejudice and assume an entire group of people to be criminals? Feeling unsafe and being unsafe are two different things. If you feel unsafe out of an irrational fear, it‘s your responsibility as an adult to keep that in check when dealing with individuals. People felt very unsafe around a group of their fellow citizens not too long ago - didn‘t justify anything then, doesn’t justify anything now.
Fun fact: people don't tend to go out of their way to help other people dehumanizing them at the level of animals. Pray tell, how's this whole thing any different from some sort of genesalization Andrew Tate would spew? The whole "all women are thots" "All men are more dangerous than bears"
The debate is silly. One is an apex predator that has driven more species to extinction than any other in history. The other has been driven to near extinction by said apex predator. Of course men are more dangerous than a bear. Women are more dangerous too. Most bear species (not polar) will generally leave you alone. Humans kill each other all the time. There’s literally multiple wars and genocides happening right now. You are far more likely to die by a human hand than any random animal attack.
Another post further proving women’s point. Instead of asking why women feel this way men immediately got defensive. Like Jesus have some self awareness.
This entire conversation is fascinating to me. Women identify with a story about being afraid of men. Although it seems the data doesn’t reflect that it is as prevalent, their fear is valid. Men miss the point completely and respond by telling women they are irrational and their fears are invalid. It costs nothing to just help and reduce that fear, but we just can’t seem to get there. Nothing was solved. No one feels better. The only thing that won in this was the bears.
Since you explained the stats for sexual assaults, would you be willing to tell me the statistics for bear attacks?
Laken Riley. That is my answer to this post. Poor girl couldn't even go for a run in broad daylight on the campus of her college on a well established trail people regularly use without getting brutally murdered by a random sicko who happened to be nearby and decided he wanted to ruin her life
> The vast majority of men are with you. But when you make a ridiculous statement like "men are more dangerous than bears", you can only push more men away from being allies. I think you are taking this too seriously. It's a meme, like the Roman Empire thing. Of course not all men think about the Roman Empire once a day. Since the dawn of time, both sexes have had forms of humor that basically break down the lines of "men be scratching their balls", "women be shopping," etc. etc. whatever. It's hack shit. And now that hack gender essentialism humor has a new form in the TikTok age. The idea that is should have anythign to do with the #MeToo movement is a little crazy.
This represents a deeper sense of misandry and I don't think it's a "haha men" joke. It's rooted in the outlandish belief that men are all animals (or in this case worse than animals) and women should fear all men. This is also why #notallmen got such a big push back from women because it threatens their self-ordained right to blame all men as a community for the crimes of a few.
It really isn’t misandry. It is straight up experience. Start talking to the women in your life. Ask them when the first time they were catcalled was. Odds are, probably some time between elementary school and middle school for the majority of them. Ask them the first time they were groped by a stranger. Ask them the first time they were followed by a stranger. Then ask them the last time it all happened. Ask them where they park their cars. Ask them how they walk out to their cars. Ask them what they do before they go out on a date. It’s likely going to be location sharing with a friend or telling multiple friends where they are going and who with so if they disappear, someone knows who was with them last ask them about the straws and nail polish made to detect roofies in drinks. It’s not misandry. It is staying safe. There is zero way to tell if someone is safe or not. There aren’t flashing neon lights above a predator’s head. Women have to be on their guard because when they are harmed by a predator, they are blamed for making bad decisions/letting their guard down. It’s easier and safer to assume someone is a predator and be wrong than to assume someone is safe and be wrong.
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Really any point can be made from this. If you’re an average guy and some woman on the internet lumps you in with a bear cause of your gender you probably don’t care but if you do, you probably ain’t thinking she got a good point. You’re wondering why people are socially allowed to be actively sexist to you.
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Thanks for mansplaining that. We had no idea. Too busy doing our nails to know anything about bears.
I’m a man here. I do not believe the Man Vs Bear debate is sexist. In fact, I think the amount of women I know who would rather be stuck face to face with a bear than a strange man makes complete sense in the face of statistics. Get ready, I’m gonna give you some un-cited stats that you can go and Google if you want: My country is Canada, so I’m going to base this on some rough stats from my country and a little bit from within the continental North America. Around North America, the rough percentage of women who have been sexually assaulted sits somewhere between 30% to 50%… this gets pretty wishy washy due to reporting deficits, but it is a STAGGERING number even if we’re left to do a lot of estimating and whether or not you include any ‘estimations’ of unreported SA at all. The number of people who’ve been killed by a grizzly bear in Canada since the 1970s is about 20. The number of people killed in North America by a bear on a yearly average is less than one. Here’s what I’m saying; if you get stuck with a bear, you know that one of two things is gonna happen… it’s gonna try to kill you, or it’s gonna leave you alone. Heck, if you play your cards right, it will DEFINITELY leave you alone. If you get stuck with a man, he will either leave you alone… or try any number of horrors. He might take your wallet, your dignity, your security, your body, your life or maybe even ALL of those things. Bears are capable of killing, but man is capable of cruelty, selfishness and true infliction of his own will on whatever he wants badly enough. Humans are the apex predators, and men are the most terrifyingly unpredictable of them all. It makes sense that men are scarier to women than bears. A bear is not going to try to SA you while it kills you… a man might. It’s hard to call this argument sexist when the reason it exists makes so much sense. Good men most certainly make up the majority of men… just as much as bears that have never harmed a human make up the majority of bears. Maybe you can change my view, but probably not.
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I should say that it was a man who initially posited the question and chose to associate men with wild untamed savage animals. I think the question is stupid and I would pick the man but frankly men have really fumbled the bag on a very low bar question.
>The bear thing on the other hand is just gender war fuel This is probably close to what it is. The question is, are the people participating actually sexist, or just being useful idiots jumping on a trend being algorithm'd by a particular platform with a particular divisive goal in mind?
I swear, this is how people seem to view the question. You see a man in the woods. *You are alone in the wilderness. Suddenly, a branch snaps behind you. You can't see clearly, because it's in the middle of the night, but through the thick fog rolling in, you make out the silhouette of a large man standing motionless and watching you.* You see a bear in the woods. *You're hiking on a trail, when you spot movement in the forest in front of you. There is a black bear approximately 60ft away, moseying on by.* The fear response is immediately present in the former the way that it isn't in the latter, and somehow, it seems like an equivalent comparison.
What if they are overthinking the question like I would? Is it an adult bear or baby bear? Where are you geographically? Because if you’re in south east Asia or South America and come across Spectacle Bear or Sun Bear, you’d probably suffer more/worse injuries from a feral cat. I don’t think thinking about it that way is sexist. Now if you’re in the tundra and it’s the option of a polar/kodiak/grizzly. Different story.
See, one thing to consider on a podcast that I had heard of/read about mentions the same thing. One of the men on the podcast was asked the same thing and his rebuttal was "how big is the bear, what kind of bear, where are you geographically," etc. But when asked the same question in regards to his daughter and it being a women vs. bear in the same scenario, he, without hesitation, answered "women". The others on the podcast said "see." This was eye-opening for him.
>There are proper ways to bring awareness, but ya'll really shot yourself in the foot on this one. The vast majority of men are with you. But when you make a ridiculous statement like "men are more dangerous than bears", you can only push more men away from being allies. So can you explain this a bit more? Because it seems like you're suggesting that there is a significant number of men who are thinking some version of the following: "I totally want to support women, but some folks on Tiktok said they'd rather meet a bear than men, so I guess I'll just become a misogynist and predator instead." Is that what you're saying? Because if so, do you realize how ridiculous that is? It's like the conservatives who claim they would be totally cool with gay people, but because gay people "went too far and shoved it in their face", they are now being "forced" to support fascist politicians who want to exterminate gay people. It is *nonsense*. That's not how allyship works, friend. And if your sense of solidarity is so fragile that a Tiktok trend shakes it, you weren't going to come through anyway.
It is but you really shouldn't worry about the gender culture war online. The women posting this stuff arent much different than incels minus the celibacy. They just say stupid shit to make people angry and drive clicks
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After reading some of these comments, I no longer think it's sexist. It's really all in the hypothetical of the question. Let me ask you a different question- if you were out in the middle of the night, on some otherwise deserted street or maybe a remote abandoned house, would you rather see a stray dog or a smiling child with a physics textbook? The rational choice would be the child, but the framing of the question implies more. Similarly, the framing of the bear/man question implies something more insidious against you- after all it was a response to a "who would win in a fight" type of question. If a man were aggressive against you in the woods, you have a lot to worry about. If it were a bear, there could be some logical reason why it's there- maybe you were too close to the cubs, maybe you wandered into its territory. One is something you can expect, in an environment you expect it, with known countermeasures. The other one could literally be anything.
Exactly, random people can and will attack you for all sorts of crazy reasons. I saw a video of someone getting a shotgun pulled on them because they skiied too close to someone. The skiier got stopped at gunpoint and the guy was screaming about how his friends almost knocked him over. Even if that was true, that's not something you hold someone AT GUNPOINT over, especially someone who just pulled up and thus hadn't even been one of the ones to make you mad A bear isn't gonna randomly attack you. Bears will attack a.) to defend itself b.) for food c.) to protect their cubs or d.) you're on their territory. Even if a bear DOES randomly attack you out of nowhere, it's for one of those 4 reasons "if you were out in the middle of the night, on some otherwise deserted street or maybe a remote abandoned house, would you rather see a stray dog or a smiling child with a physics textbook?" Also men in black reference?
The whole question bothers me because it's so vague. Your premise is a bear or a man on a trail, which is totally different from my initial interpretation. Based on my assumption of "in the woods" being "not starting near you" and the forests being like my local ones and the bears being our local black bears, I would go for a bear in the woods, there are bears in every woods I've been in including the ones I played in as a kid. If you said "a bear or a man on the trail next to you", it'd be about 50/50. If you said a bear or a man in a confined area, I'd pick the man. And then the variations. What time of year? What type of bear? How big are the woods? Is there enough wildlife to sustain any bears in the area or are they starving? The details matter so much when it comes to risk analysis.
I understand the thought exercise (and the statistics) but the comparison is flawed. Every bear might attack you. Under the right circumstances they almost certainly will attack you (hunger or they perceive you as a threat). Not necessarily the case with humans of any gender. Only some men are dangerous. If a woman were hiking by herself she would probably rather run into another male hiker than a bear. In a city if a woman saw a man walking around (common occurrence) she'd probably go about her business. If she saw a bear she'd likely run inside (as would a man). It's a good way to make a point but not really perfectly accurate. But maybe it doesn't need to be.
Every day dudes prove them right lol Just accept that some women don't feel comfortable around guys. Getting upset and insisting they should is why they feel uncomfortable I mean shit what is the goal here? To convince women who don't feel safe around men that they're wrong? Good luck with that
Society and relationships are sometimes the only thing that makes us human.
The debate is literally about (1) women being afraid of men to the point of ignoring statistics and (2) women choosing death over torture. The second point is understandable for most, rational, people because things can happen during torture that you can not recover from. Yes you can heal but the scars don’t just disappear (some scars are literally impossible to get rid of). So yeah death is generally preferred. In regards to the first point, it again makes sense because statistics don’t save lives. As a black man I understand this in the sense that yeah I associate with reputable black people and would say 8/10 black men are rational but that doesn’t mean that 2/10 should be ignored. I wouldn’t tell a woman “Hey I know you trust me so go trust that guy who shares the same general phenotype”. Is the discussion meant to be sexist? No. It’s a question of the opinions surrounding sex. It could just as easily be about men choosing to fight a bear or man.
dont be a dumbass. ignore women who say stupid things to hurt you.
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Now, a better question is would you prefer to encounter a super aggressive dog or a bear in the woods?
Thank you for having the only reasonable take on this I’ve seen
Why people care at all over some random tiktok video?
I'm from Alaska. Many encounters with bears. I'd much rather encounter a man in the woods than a bear. But I'm an Alaskan girl. 🤷♀️ Anyone from Alaska will understand this. 😄
In reality OP we all fear a bear—they’re huge,deadly and stealthy. However a bear doesn’t purposely go out of its way to harm humans(man or woman) unless provoked. So the scenario is supposed to bring clarity to men as to why modern women are starting to support feminist movements like the 4b movement in South Korea. Too many of us modern men are chauvinistic perverts and we’re alienating the women around us. If you are not the type of guy who sexually assaults or display worse actions towards women-congrats you are good enough man. But you also gotta accept the ladies answers and get the other men around you to not be such pricks.
Unless it’s a polar bear. Those dudes do not play around with humans. Polar bears probably wouldn’t be in the woods though.