What stops a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.
What protects a woman from bad men? ...🤔...
Traditional ways of ensuring the safety of our precious womanfolk -- like fathers and big brothers vetting new boyfriends for starters -- were traditions for a reason. Do they seem to be making a comeback? Ladies, do you wish them to?
(Disclosure: I feel ashamed for how I dropped the ball in this regard for my daughters)
*warning, Unpopular opinion* I have heard a lot of "explanations" from women about this meme. To be honest, they just infuriate me. I have grown up in bear country and have had experience with bears since I was 3 years old. (I dont particularly like talking or telling people this) but I was also almost raped to death at age 15 by a strange man I ran into alone (although not in the woods). So I feel fairly qualified to speak. I still would pick a strange man over a bear, and I freak'n love bears! I could better explain, but basically, the fear you feel about a strange man in the woods is different and isn't accuratly comparable to the fear you should be feeling about a bear. Rapest and bad dudes don't just randomly walk around the woods hoping to run into a attractive girl alone. Preditors go where the pray is. Every man I have ever met alone in the woods has always been a outstanding gentleman concerned with my safety. If your too emotionally controlled to be able to make a logical decision, that you would rather encounter real danger then meet real potential safety, then thats on personal problem and on you, and not men.
Its genuinely offensive to women who have actually been through the trauma of being mauled by a bear, and them having to hear what they went through "is better then running into a strange man who might not be a nice guy."
I’d love to see the metrics on men’s reactions- as in, is there a correlation between status and how upset they get? Are single men or married men more likely to react negatively to a woman choosing Bear?
Is there a solipsistic element to their reactions? Question: would you rather encounter a random man or a bear? Man: pictures himself as the random man and is offended when the woman (his wife?) chooses bear
It's been made clear in the comments that men and women have very different priorities. I don't think it's so much solipsism but men taking into account the random men that are completely unseen by women and are largely helpful or neutral. Random men are rapists, torturers and murderers sure. But far far more random men are plumbers, street pavers, park rangers, janitors, manufacturers, electricians etc. Women fret about the first category and don't give a thought to the second.
The bear vs man question hits that modern dating sore spot where women say, "How come ALL men get to sleep around with 10+ body count at a whim and I get shamed for it!" and men reply "30% of men haven't managed to touch a woman in the last year!" and women just don't conceive that those men even exist. Similarly women fret about the forest rapists here while the boring delta men are so out of their minds they don't even enter the thought experiment. Forest janitor, forest accountant, forest cashier? Doesn't exist.
On that note several posters have said entering prison would inspire the fear in men that women feel at a constant. Men do have that experience, it's called entering the lowest grade of the public school system. Or a dojo, or a sports team or a gym. Every man remembers entering an environment, usually when they were young, when they were the worst and feeblest man in the entire group at the mercy of everyone else. It doesn't mesh with the women's expectations for agreement because men are different from women and handle that situation differently.
Here's the real male equivalent of the question:
"Would you rather your wife/girlfriend come home late from the night out with a random man or a bear?"
"Men do have that experience, it's called entering the lowest grade of the public school system. Or a dojo, or a sports team or a gym."
I don't think so. Men have a built-in sense of hierarchy and honor that they can draw from, and which provides a support framework to operate in.
Women don't operate on honor, and they are far more dependent on the group. So a man even when weak and vulnerable still doesn't experience fear and uncertainty like a woman.
After reading several comments concerning the prison experiment and listening to woman describe how fearful their daily existence has become in the modern world I will politely decline to comment further. Maybe men don’t really get it.
There's a lot of focus on leftism making women have unrealistic views of bears as a wild animal and men as intrinsically threatening.
Once I dig past all my own internal rhetoric, the instinct is simply that it is biologically a smarter bet for a woman to assume any one man is a threat, a deadly one at that, than to give him the benefit of the doubt. I remember an episode of "Naked and Afraid" where the man, supposedly a Marine but a gamma one at that, is visibly disappointed that the girl isn't hot. I doubt the woman had similar concerns.
I think most men in reverse would consider this a survival meets mating opportunity and the majority of them are optimistic about the encounter. Women by definition have to be pessimistic because as one even mentions "depends on the man" insinuating that each of these women are thinking of one truly terrible encounter or one awful person and said no thanks, bear. They have to assume the worst possible man whereas bears can be assessed in more general terms.
Women are also receivers of energy and in nature pursued. Dating from a woman's perspective is all about winnowing away what is hopefully a large pool of qualified suitors until you find "the best" one. Being stuck with one man you didn't choose is arguably more terrifying than death. At least that's how we're wired. Mating as an extension is finding the most reward for the risk. Also, as much as movies hype up alpha toxic masculinity, no woman is worried about being raped by a 6 ft guy who can chop wood and build a fire. Read a book. They're more worried about being creepily ogled at, or worse, a limp-wristed fondle with some weirdo who can't fight the bear. Ew.
I don't think this has anything to do with politics. The underlying assumption is that a bear would likely lose interest and leave you alone if you're not a threat. And a man would not. I think about the number of "the last man on Earth's scenarios" in literature and the best is Stephen Kings The Stand. The woman is pregnant with someone else's baby and stuck in the woods with an obvious gamma. She resents him the whole time and is clearly still uninterested in the prospect of romance despite knowing the character her whole life. But she clings to the first stranger who shows higher status despite the obvious potential downside. She chose the bear.
Women aren't afraid of bears because they assume they can be reasoned with unlike gammas. Gamma rage is more terrifying than a bear attack. "It is better to encounter a she-bear removed from her cubs than a fool in his folly." Proverbs 17 12. If you can't guarantee a non-gamma..... bear. 1000% bear.
With two daughters at either end of their teens and my awareness of the abuse and unwanted attention they have had from boys at their schools and elsewhere, I sympathise with this. It may be irrational but honestly, women often are and I find myself equally so when assessing risk for my children. This sort of news is like catnip to the online meme-pissed right but we should see it as something to be accepted, acknowledged and then move on. The world, both online and real life can be horrible for girls.
"The world, both online and real life can be horrible for girls."
This is the most often forgotten thing among communities of men, particularly angry ones. Just because the enemy has a host of oppressions for us does not mean that there aren't just as many for women. They look different, but they are there.
I think what muddies the conversation is only considering a purely hypothetical random man in the woods. A lot of men are underestimating the reality of "meeting a random man in the woods," which is what women are usually jumping to in their answer. It's not that we can't grasp a hypothetical. It's that we jump to consider the reality automatically, because as women it could actually happen to us. We can't afford to think hypothetically, we have been trained our entire lives to take these possibilities seriously.
There have been many high profile cases of "random man in the woods" murdering women and girls on trails, off the side of the road, at camp sites etc. Even more cases of women being physically and sexually assaulted, abducted from the woods or taken to the woods as the dreaded second site. Who knows how many cases of perverts cranking one out in the treeline to hikers walking by, who could escalate to violence at any point. Cat callers, harassers, stalkers, etc.
In reality, "a random man in the woods" isn't a random man with a random threat level. He may be "random" to the woman in the scenario, but he is much more likely to be there deliberately and an above average threat level to women among men. He is not there randomly or for a random reason.
So the hypothetical "random man in the woods" might possibly be statistically safer than the bear, but the bear is actually probably safer than the reality of "a random man in the woods."
There are other simple points that play into this. A man can give you a fate much worse than death until he finally kills you or allows you to die. A bear cannot, other than possibly leaving you alive after mauling to die more slowly. A man in the woods is out of place to some extent, knows your low threat level to him as a human woman, exercises less caution in the isolated environment, and cannot be dissuaded easily. A bear in the woods is in it's natural environment, does not know a human woman's threat level, exercises more caution for potential injury, and can typically be dissuaded if you don't act like prey.
Most of us women were taught as little girls, "never let them take you to the second site." You are better off fighting to the death immediately at the point of attempted abduction, then going to the second site. We were told we were almost guaranteed to die or receive a fate worse than death there. Given I was explicitly advised as a little girl it would be better to fight and die on the spot against a man, how is that any better than worst case scenario with a bear?
If a random bear in the woods attempts to kill me, it will be a fight to the death because it's either death, I dissuade the bear, or it loses interest. If I meet a random man in the woods that attempts to kill me (or worse) I have to fight to the death just the same, but without hope the man would be dissuaded or lose interest like there has been in cases with bears. He won't just let me go knowing I will likely report to law enforcement, and I don't wanna be caught alive at for a fate worse than death with a man. If I'm alive after a bear attack, hey lucky me, at least I'm still alive.
Hope there are some helpful thoughts in there to take into consideration. It's all very dark and disturbing and uncomfortable to talk about.
I hear and respect what you're saying, but have a very different perspective. "Random Man in the Woods" is a lot like "Stranger Danger," and while of course it is important to practice situational awareness and to know what one should do in the case of attack or abduction, in reality the number of cases of women being attacked by Random Man are still vanishingly slim, even in the woods.
My childhood was spent often roaming the woods alone in the same neighborhood where the Green River Murderer sometimes liked to dump the bodies. Thankfully, I never came across any of that and he had stopped before we moved back there, but there were certainly some bad people in the neighborhood. We knew who they were and generally tried to stay clear. The people who were most dangerous were never strangers or random people. They weren't even the obvious creepers and addicts who lived at the bad end of the road. The worst were people who placed themselves in a position of trust and bided their time until they thought they could do what they wanted without getting caught. Maybe even without a fight, if they played their grooming cards right.
Random strangers don't worry me half so much as the people who would insinuate themselves into your life in order to wreak havoc for their own ends, thus I still choose the random man over the bear.
Yes, statistics are slim on abductions, just like bear attacks, cougar attacks, etc. It's why this is such a great thought exercise. In fact, when it comes to violence by men, men are statistically multiple times more likley to be victims of violence by other men then women are. Yet most men don't choose bear, they chose man. But of course they tend to choose man, worst scenario random man to man is a much more even match than man vs. bear could ever be. Meanwhile there is no fairly even match choice for women in this scenario.
It's good your community was so aware of shady individuals. I enjoy true crime as a genre and brushed up a bit on Gary Ridgeway the Green River Killer to remind myself, I've seen doc's about him before. This further validates my perspective for me at least. Gary's one random man I'd hate to meet in the woods. A least a bear won't sexually abuse my corpse once I'm dead.
I'm a woman and I've seen people get mauled to death on video by bears. Definitely the man. If you've never spent time outside in the woods, what if you freeze when you see a bear or panic? Dead in a very grisly way.
Maybe these ladies on TikTok are thinking of Little Bear or how cute most bears look. Instead of being eaten alive.
Whole topic stinks of "men are trash" propaganda, as well
Many commentators, mostly men answering a question posed to women, are stuck thinking the answer is given in a literal dialectic manner versus rhetorically. While not all, most women are likely fully aware this is how they are answering when choosing the bear.
False binary -- I would not wish to run into *either one* in the woods.
That being said ... The only thing that I can fathom as the reason for choosing the bear is the possibility of being raped and tortured for hours/days/weeks/months is zero. With either, you can be just as hurt or killed. And with either, you can heal if you survive.
If you're mauled by a bear then move somewhere with no bears. That's pretty easy.
If you're an unwilling participant with a male, it's a bit tougher to go somewhere with no males.
Bears have no capacity for malice or cruelty as well, and it's hard to keep a straight mind on just the realistic odds of harm from either given the prevalence of fear profiteering from crime shows, news, etc.
Generally, the females saying they pick the bear don't exactly strike one as the most rational. That or they're around too many mouth breathing creeps and diversity hires.
I have zero reason to believe a man wouldn't be more safe than a bear. Last time I encountered a bear (well, bears) in the wild I was very concerned. It was a black bear mother with her cubs. My brother and I froze and waited. And waited and waited. We didn't move until we were certain they were well on their way in the opposite direction, because we knew they saw us! Generally speaking, men are safe people to be around. Most men will not harm me and have no reason to harm me. Most men are rational thinking beings that I can communicate with that I am not a threat to their existence. Even the men out there who are jerks still aren't a threat to my health and safety.
I should probably add that I'm obviously not a normal person. I grew up in a relatively safe environment. While I have pretty good situational awareness, now as a married person, I've sorta tossed that out the window because my husband (a navy vet) has extremely high situational awareness and I just can't be bothered anymore. I go out and really don't worry about most things unless I believe that I really NEED to.
But also perhaps because there's a part of me that knows that most people not out to harm others. When I lived in Victoria, BC, I'd go for walks and stop and talk to homeless people and get to know them, and most were really just . . . funny people, to be honest. They wanted someone who would look in the eye and not pretend they didn't exist (even if I wasn't going to hand out money).
Where I live near Edmonton now I'll occasionally buy a meal for a homeless person because it's extremely cold outside and a few minutes in a McDonald's gives them a nice warming break, and I'll listen while they tell me their story. And maybe they've got mental health issues, but still, they're not a danger to me. It's not like I don't have mental health issues too, after all. I'm much more concerned walking in the river valley and running in to coyotes.
I suppose for me, I like to see the humanity in everyone. And that, obviously, includes everyone including men. And it really doesn't include bears. Plus, I'm a numbers person. The chances of me being assaulted are remarkably low. That doesn't mean I'm going to behave like a careless idiot, but it also doesn't mean I'm also going to live my life in fear of every shadow around the corner. And there's no reason for me to believe that men are worse people than women, especially since most damage was caused by women.
Yeah, sorry for the essay. But I'm just a little tired of this irrational fear of men, most of whom just want to live their lives as decent people, but are dumped on by women who hate them for no reason, and when the get a bit upset by it, women then turn around and somehow use that to stoke the fear even more.
I don't understand what separates the "man, because bears are scary," the "bear, because men are scary", and the "man, because men are good" camps, but I am fascinated by how different the outlooks and approaches have been.
Thank you for the essay, and apologies in advance for the gross reductionism of the three positions.
At the end of the day, I don't even find bears all that scary. Most bears just want to be left alone. But I can at least communicate with men, and men are not wild animals. So they always seem the better choice. People seem to be this push of irrational fear against all men, which I find bizarre. Like: one man was bad, therefore all men are bad.
Same here. I'm really generally not that scared of bears or men; the bears are more terrifying if you're inside a tent and they're outside snuffling around the campsite, but in daylight, if you know how to conduct yourself and make enough noise, chances are good they'll leave you alone.
A lot of the comments around strange men being frightening give an impression of an underlying, existential dread of strange men as a part of daily life, which is simply foreign to me. Life is already challenging without adding outsized fears; one can certainly come up with a lot of worst-case scenarios, but based on experience the overwhelming likelihood is still that a man will usually try to help if help is needed, whereas the best you can hope for from the bear is that it will ignore you and wander off.
Living with that sort of low-level fear of other humans sounds exhausting. I wonder if there's a component of Anonymous Conservative's r/K selection theory here?
What stops a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.
What protects a woman from bad men? ...🤔...
Traditional ways of ensuring the safety of our precious womanfolk -- like fathers and big brothers vetting new boyfriends for starters -- were traditions for a reason. Do they seem to be making a comeback? Ladies, do you wish them to?
(Disclosure: I feel ashamed for how I dropped the ball in this regard for my daughters)
As a survivor of Childhood Sexual Assault, I couldn’t trust my own father. So who protects us when our own fathers are our perpetrators?
*warning, Unpopular opinion* I have heard a lot of "explanations" from women about this meme. To be honest, they just infuriate me. I have grown up in bear country and have had experience with bears since I was 3 years old. (I dont particularly like talking or telling people this) but I was also almost raped to death at age 15 by a strange man I ran into alone (although not in the woods). So I feel fairly qualified to speak. I still would pick a strange man over a bear, and I freak'n love bears! I could better explain, but basically, the fear you feel about a strange man in the woods is different and isn't accuratly comparable to the fear you should be feeling about a bear. Rapest and bad dudes don't just randomly walk around the woods hoping to run into a attractive girl alone. Preditors go where the pray is. Every man I have ever met alone in the woods has always been a outstanding gentleman concerned with my safety. If your too emotionally controlled to be able to make a logical decision, that you would rather encounter real danger then meet real potential safety, then thats on personal problem and on you, and not men.
Its genuinely offensive to women who have actually been through the trauma of being mauled by a bear, and them having to hear what they went through "is better then running into a strange man who might not be a nice guy."
You’re assuming that only attractive females are who gets targeted. My son was raped by 5 fellow soldiers at bootcamp
It would be wonderful if women would stop shaming each other over their answer to a hypothetical situation.
I’d love to see the metrics on men’s reactions- as in, is there a correlation between status and how upset they get? Are single men or married men more likely to react negatively to a woman choosing Bear?
Is there a solipsistic element to their reactions? Question: would you rather encounter a random man or a bear? Man: pictures himself as the random man and is offended when the woman (his wife?) chooses bear
"My wife said 'bear,' and I, a random man, took that personally!"
Idk about SSH status, but I can say that getting upset over how 6 rando women answered a dumb loaded question is not attractive at all.
It's been made clear in the comments that men and women have very different priorities. I don't think it's so much solipsism but men taking into account the random men that are completely unseen by women and are largely helpful or neutral. Random men are rapists, torturers and murderers sure. But far far more random men are plumbers, street pavers, park rangers, janitors, manufacturers, electricians etc. Women fret about the first category and don't give a thought to the second.
The bear vs man question hits that modern dating sore spot where women say, "How come ALL men get to sleep around with 10+ body count at a whim and I get shamed for it!" and men reply "30% of men haven't managed to touch a woman in the last year!" and women just don't conceive that those men even exist. Similarly women fret about the forest rapists here while the boring delta men are so out of their minds they don't even enter the thought experiment. Forest janitor, forest accountant, forest cashier? Doesn't exist.
On that note several posters have said entering prison would inspire the fear in men that women feel at a constant. Men do have that experience, it's called entering the lowest grade of the public school system. Or a dojo, or a sports team or a gym. Every man remembers entering an environment, usually when they were young, when they were the worst and feeblest man in the entire group at the mercy of everyone else. It doesn't mesh with the women's expectations for agreement because men are different from women and handle that situation differently.
Here's the real male equivalent of the question:
"Would you rather your wife/girlfriend come home late from the night out with a random man or a bear?"
"Men do have that experience, it's called entering the lowest grade of the public school system. Or a dojo, or a sports team or a gym."
I don't think so. Men have a built-in sense of hierarchy and honor that they can draw from, and which provides a support framework to operate in.
Women don't operate on honor, and they are far more dependent on the group. So a man even when weak and vulnerable still doesn't experience fear and uncertainty like a woman.
That's what I thought too, regarding the solipsism. The original Bear Question, like you said, was "Random Man vs. Bear."
By definition, a husband shouldn't be a "random dude." I would have questions for my hypothetical wifey if she said "random dude" to me!
After reading several comments concerning the prison experiment and listening to woman describe how fearful their daily existence has become in the modern world I will politely decline to comment further. Maybe men don’t really get it.
There is wisdom along this path, I am finding.
There's a lot of focus on leftism making women have unrealistic views of bears as a wild animal and men as intrinsically threatening.
Once I dig past all my own internal rhetoric, the instinct is simply that it is biologically a smarter bet for a woman to assume any one man is a threat, a deadly one at that, than to give him the benefit of the doubt. I remember an episode of "Naked and Afraid" where the man, supposedly a Marine but a gamma one at that, is visibly disappointed that the girl isn't hot. I doubt the woman had similar concerns.
I think most men in reverse would consider this a survival meets mating opportunity and the majority of them are optimistic about the encounter. Women by definition have to be pessimistic because as one even mentions "depends on the man" insinuating that each of these women are thinking of one truly terrible encounter or one awful person and said no thanks, bear. They have to assume the worst possible man whereas bears can be assessed in more general terms.
Women are also receivers of energy and in nature pursued. Dating from a woman's perspective is all about winnowing away what is hopefully a large pool of qualified suitors until you find "the best" one. Being stuck with one man you didn't choose is arguably more terrifying than death. At least that's how we're wired. Mating as an extension is finding the most reward for the risk. Also, as much as movies hype up alpha toxic masculinity, no woman is worried about being raped by a 6 ft guy who can chop wood and build a fire. Read a book. They're more worried about being creepily ogled at, or worse, a limp-wristed fondle with some weirdo who can't fight the bear. Ew.
I don't think this has anything to do with politics. The underlying assumption is that a bear would likely lose interest and leave you alone if you're not a threat. And a man would not. I think about the number of "the last man on Earth's scenarios" in literature and the best is Stephen Kings The Stand. The woman is pregnant with someone else's baby and stuck in the woods with an obvious gamma. She resents him the whole time and is clearly still uninterested in the prospect of romance despite knowing the character her whole life. But she clings to the first stranger who shows higher status despite the obvious potential downside. She chose the bear.
Women aren't afraid of bears because they assume they can be reasoned with unlike gammas. Gamma rage is more terrifying than a bear attack. "It is better to encounter a she-bear removed from her cubs than a fool in his folly." Proverbs 17 12. If you can't guarantee a non-gamma..... bear. 1000% bear.
Sex Segregation is what helps to protect women from Gammas.
Having nothing to add, the gamma commented. I choose bear.
Fair enough.
Funny.
With two daughters at either end of their teens and my awareness of the abuse and unwanted attention they have had from boys at their schools and elsewhere, I sympathise with this. It may be irrational but honestly, women often are and I find myself equally so when assessing risk for my children. This sort of news is like catnip to the online meme-pissed right but we should see it as something to be accepted, acknowledged and then move on. The world, both online and real life can be horrible for girls.
"The world, both online and real life can be horrible for girls."
This is the most often forgotten thing among communities of men, particularly angry ones. Just because the enemy has a host of oppressions for us does not mean that there aren't just as many for women. They look different, but they are there.
I'd rather run across a man in the woods. It takes a larger caliber than I have to eliminate a bear threat.
I think what muddies the conversation is only considering a purely hypothetical random man in the woods. A lot of men are underestimating the reality of "meeting a random man in the woods," which is what women are usually jumping to in their answer. It's not that we can't grasp a hypothetical. It's that we jump to consider the reality automatically, because as women it could actually happen to us. We can't afford to think hypothetically, we have been trained our entire lives to take these possibilities seriously.
There have been many high profile cases of "random man in the woods" murdering women and girls on trails, off the side of the road, at camp sites etc. Even more cases of women being physically and sexually assaulted, abducted from the woods or taken to the woods as the dreaded second site. Who knows how many cases of perverts cranking one out in the treeline to hikers walking by, who could escalate to violence at any point. Cat callers, harassers, stalkers, etc.
In reality, "a random man in the woods" isn't a random man with a random threat level. He may be "random" to the woman in the scenario, but he is much more likely to be there deliberately and an above average threat level to women among men. He is not there randomly or for a random reason.
So the hypothetical "random man in the woods" might possibly be statistically safer than the bear, but the bear is actually probably safer than the reality of "a random man in the woods."
There are other simple points that play into this. A man can give you a fate much worse than death until he finally kills you or allows you to die. A bear cannot, other than possibly leaving you alive after mauling to die more slowly. A man in the woods is out of place to some extent, knows your low threat level to him as a human woman, exercises less caution in the isolated environment, and cannot be dissuaded easily. A bear in the woods is in it's natural environment, does not know a human woman's threat level, exercises more caution for potential injury, and can typically be dissuaded if you don't act like prey.
Most of us women were taught as little girls, "never let them take you to the second site." You are better off fighting to the death immediately at the point of attempted abduction, then going to the second site. We were told we were almost guaranteed to die or receive a fate worse than death there. Given I was explicitly advised as a little girl it would be better to fight and die on the spot against a man, how is that any better than worst case scenario with a bear?
If a random bear in the woods attempts to kill me, it will be a fight to the death because it's either death, I dissuade the bear, or it loses interest. If I meet a random man in the woods that attempts to kill me (or worse) I have to fight to the death just the same, but without hope the man would be dissuaded or lose interest like there has been in cases with bears. He won't just let me go knowing I will likely report to law enforcement, and I don't wanna be caught alive at for a fate worse than death with a man. If I'm alive after a bear attack, hey lucky me, at least I'm still alive.
Hope there are some helpful thoughts in there to take into consideration. It's all very dark and disturbing and uncomfortable to talk about.
I hear and respect what you're saying, but have a very different perspective. "Random Man in the Woods" is a lot like "Stranger Danger," and while of course it is important to practice situational awareness and to know what one should do in the case of attack or abduction, in reality the number of cases of women being attacked by Random Man are still vanishingly slim, even in the woods.
My childhood was spent often roaming the woods alone in the same neighborhood where the Green River Murderer sometimes liked to dump the bodies. Thankfully, I never came across any of that and he had stopped before we moved back there, but there were certainly some bad people in the neighborhood. We knew who they were and generally tried to stay clear. The people who were most dangerous were never strangers or random people. They weren't even the obvious creepers and addicts who lived at the bad end of the road. The worst were people who placed themselves in a position of trust and bided their time until they thought they could do what they wanted without getting caught. Maybe even without a fight, if they played their grooming cards right.
Random strangers don't worry me half so much as the people who would insinuate themselves into your life in order to wreak havoc for their own ends, thus I still choose the random man over the bear.
Yes, statistics are slim on abductions, just like bear attacks, cougar attacks, etc. It's why this is such a great thought exercise. In fact, when it comes to violence by men, men are statistically multiple times more likley to be victims of violence by other men then women are. Yet most men don't choose bear, they chose man. But of course they tend to choose man, worst scenario random man to man is a much more even match than man vs. bear could ever be. Meanwhile there is no fairly even match choice for women in this scenario.
It's good your community was so aware of shady individuals. I enjoy true crime as a genre and brushed up a bit on Gary Ridgeway the Green River Killer to remind myself, I've seen doc's about him before. This further validates my perspective for me at least. Gary's one random man I'd hate to meet in the woods. A least a bear won't sexually abuse my corpse once I'm dead.
"Gary's one random man I'd hate to meet in the woods."
On that we agree 100%.
I'm a woman and I've seen people get mauled to death on video by bears. Definitely the man. If you've never spent time outside in the woods, what if you freeze when you see a bear or panic? Dead in a very grisly way.
Maybe these ladies on TikTok are thinking of Little Bear or how cute most bears look. Instead of being eaten alive.
Whole topic stinks of "men are trash" propaganda, as well
Maybe modern society has a pathology where too many animals are seen as cute, including really dangerous stuff like polar bears.
I'm guilty of that, as well. Might be the old Disney movies.
Many commentators, mostly men answering a question posed to women, are stuck thinking the answer is given in a literal dialectic manner versus rhetorically. While not all, most women are likely fully aware this is how they are answering when choosing the bear.
Obviously because one can spot black bears vs. brown/grizzlies from a distance.
Ladies cannot distinguish gammas until they're close enough to be heard.
The choice is obvious.
When I first heard this question aside from immediately thinking "bear" myself I couldn't help but joke.
Depends...Is it-
White man VS white bear? (Polar bear)
Brown man VS brown bear (Grizzly)
Black man VS Black bear?...
Cause that changes things!
I don't understand. I *like* outdoorsy men.
False binary -- I would not wish to run into *either one* in the woods.
That being said ... The only thing that I can fathom as the reason for choosing the bear is the possibility of being raped and tortured for hours/days/weeks/months is zero. With either, you can be just as hurt or killed. And with either, you can heal if you survive.
If you're mauled by a bear then move somewhere with no bears. That's pretty easy.
If you're an unwilling participant with a male, it's a bit tougher to go somewhere with no males.
Bears have no capacity for malice or cruelty as well, and it's hard to keep a straight mind on just the realistic odds of harm from either given the prevalence of fear profiteering from crime shows, news, etc.
Generally, the females saying they pick the bear don't exactly strike one as the most rational. That or they're around too many mouth breathing creeps and diversity hires.
I have zero reason to believe a man wouldn't be more safe than a bear. Last time I encountered a bear (well, bears) in the wild I was very concerned. It was a black bear mother with her cubs. My brother and I froze and waited. And waited and waited. We didn't move until we were certain they were well on their way in the opposite direction, because we knew they saw us! Generally speaking, men are safe people to be around. Most men will not harm me and have no reason to harm me. Most men are rational thinking beings that I can communicate with that I am not a threat to their existence. Even the men out there who are jerks still aren't a threat to my health and safety.
I should probably add that I'm obviously not a normal person. I grew up in a relatively safe environment. While I have pretty good situational awareness, now as a married person, I've sorta tossed that out the window because my husband (a navy vet) has extremely high situational awareness and I just can't be bothered anymore. I go out and really don't worry about most things unless I believe that I really NEED to.
But also perhaps because there's a part of me that knows that most people not out to harm others. When I lived in Victoria, BC, I'd go for walks and stop and talk to homeless people and get to know them, and most were really just . . . funny people, to be honest. They wanted someone who would look in the eye and not pretend they didn't exist (even if I wasn't going to hand out money).
Where I live near Edmonton now I'll occasionally buy a meal for a homeless person because it's extremely cold outside and a few minutes in a McDonald's gives them a nice warming break, and I'll listen while they tell me their story. And maybe they've got mental health issues, but still, they're not a danger to me. It's not like I don't have mental health issues too, after all. I'm much more concerned walking in the river valley and running in to coyotes.
I suppose for me, I like to see the humanity in everyone. And that, obviously, includes everyone including men. And it really doesn't include bears. Plus, I'm a numbers person. The chances of me being assaulted are remarkably low. That doesn't mean I'm going to behave like a careless idiot, but it also doesn't mean I'm also going to live my life in fear of every shadow around the corner. And there's no reason for me to believe that men are worse people than women, especially since most damage was caused by women.
Yeah, sorry for the essay. But I'm just a little tired of this irrational fear of men, most of whom just want to live their lives as decent people, but are dumped on by women who hate them for no reason, and when the get a bit upset by it, women then turn around and somehow use that to stoke the fear even more.
I don't understand what separates the "man, because bears are scary," the "bear, because men are scary", and the "man, because men are good" camps, but I am fascinated by how different the outlooks and approaches have been.
Thank you for the essay, and apologies in advance for the gross reductionism of the three positions.
At the end of the day, I don't even find bears all that scary. Most bears just want to be left alone. But I can at least communicate with men, and men are not wild animals. So they always seem the better choice. People seem to be this push of irrational fear against all men, which I find bizarre. Like: one man was bad, therefore all men are bad.
This irrational fear of all men and to paint them with the same brush as dangerous creeps and predators I believe is no coincidence.
It is using something legitimate and weaponizing it.
Same here. I'm really generally not that scared of bears or men; the bears are more terrifying if you're inside a tent and they're outside snuffling around the campsite, but in daylight, if you know how to conduct yourself and make enough noise, chances are good they'll leave you alone.
A lot of the comments around strange men being frightening give an impression of an underlying, existential dread of strange men as a part of daily life, which is simply foreign to me. Life is already challenging without adding outsized fears; one can certainly come up with a lot of worst-case scenarios, but based on experience the overwhelming likelihood is still that a man will usually try to help if help is needed, whereas the best you can hope for from the bear is that it will ignore you and wander off.
Living with that sort of low-level fear of other humans sounds exhausting. I wonder if there's a component of Anonymous Conservative's r/K selection theory here?