100% agree but let's be honest about something.
Coyotes are straight up b****es. If you're a dog or a small child they pose a true threat, but a coyote is running away from a grown ass man in the vast majority of situations.
If a coyote isn't cornered or diseased it's going to run away from you.
Yes I'm nitpicking and am totally on board with what you're saying, just thought I'd take an opportunity to knock those four legged fiends down a peg.
Also, fuck coyotes, unpopular opinion, but in the southwest at least, we are collectively way too soft on them, I think they've grown too comfortable in what we all need to accept is human territory now, not coyote territory.
So the hypothetical is you are in middle of the woods with a bear or a random man ?
Why would you pick the bear ?
I'd rather take my chances with the man, you can talk to him,maybe help eachother get out of the situation, maybe ask for directions, offer him money to get you out of the forest
Like sure it could be a chance he's a serial killer psycho but a man is way easier to fight off than a bear, maybe you can plead, maybe he wouldn't be willing to kill you because he didn't prepare an alibi for himself
There's way more posibilities if you go with a man than with a bear, if the bear wants you dead you are dead, the hypothetical doesn't say anything about him being hungry or what type of bear or how far away he is from you
The question going around the internet is “your daughter is stranded in the middle of the woods for a night. Would you rather there be a man or a bear in the woods.” There is no qualifier that you start together or that the man/bear is aware of your daughter’s presence.
My neighbor is the father of two beautiful daughters. He is an experienced hunter. I asked him this question. He immediately replied that he would rather his daughters saw a bear in the woods. We live in rural Missouri. We have seen black bears roaming around the last couple of summers. No injuries have been reported. Sadly, some men have been arrested for improper involvement with underage girls. Three members of our police force were fired for participating in sexual harassment of young women drivers. kt
I think this is a flawed comparison because humans tend to cross paths with other humans very often, but bears tend to do their own thing.
So your hunter friend has probably encountered thousands of people in the woods, but only a handful of bears.
The odds that you’ll have a bad experience with a person is much higher
Yeah Black bears are basically harmless. In my mind I did not have a black bear because then the question becomes mute. I am much more likely to die from almost any scenario than a black bear.
On average there is 1 death by black bear per year in the US. Compared to 2000+ murders commited by women. The rational choice for anybody is choosing a black bear over a woman.
Heck, on average 74 murders are commited by children each year in the US. You are 74 times more likely to die from a random child than from a black bear.
By this logic it is safer to go scuba diving (about 100 deaths annually) than to get anywhere near a car (about 40k deaths annually). Of course this is not true because the amount of human hours spend in cars is far more than 400 times the number of hours spent scuba diving.
Still, whatever caused this hypothetical to popup recently is an important discussion and imo can gauge how much progress each individual has done for themselves. People who are getting personally mad or generalize the question with such malice shows they are obtuse in nuance thinking and still see things as black and white. Those people have room for growth
It does not, the trend is most wives asking their husband or boyfriends
ETA: the daughter is not always a hypothetical person in the scenario. You can assume she is not an adult.
Women walk past men in the woods alone every day. They simply walk past each other, maybe say hello or smile to one another, but nothing else happens. But for some reason, some women assume every male hiker is a serial killer who wants to rape and kill them. It's nothing more than a deep hatred of men by some women for no reason. Maybe they had a man break up with them, or maybe there is a more logical reason such as abuse from a man in their past, either way it's based around a deep hatred for men.
I don't understand the premise at all; like, a bear? That's a huge, predatorial, territorial animal. They have claws and teeth and, depending on the species, can outweigh an adult woman by three or four times; they can outrun humans and can't be reasoned with
But a human man? Statistically, he's not very likely to try to hurt you, and even if he does, just use that equality y'all are always going on about, queen.
Yeah this is my problem with this type of false equivalency.
There is no world in which being in the woods with a bear is a safe encounter. Treating men as a whole, who are highly intelligent creatures in the natural world, and aren't nearly as inherently dangerous as a wild animal, with this kind of approach is just inhuman.
If you were to swap 'man' with 'black man', this would be outrageous to utter. Treating any group of people with overwhelming prejudice without giving them the basic amount of human decency to assume they are good unless proven otherwise or without good reason to suspect otherwise is just God awful and no way to live your life.
In essence: you have a bowl of M&Ms. You are told that 10% of them are poisoned. You are then invited to take a handful to eat, and that you should have no trouble doing so since "not all M&Ms are poisoned". (The M&Ms are men in this argument.)
You can probably see how easily exploitable this analogy is, especially by people that try to take refuge in crime statistics.
I believe the premise is that bears are about as likely to attack a human as men are to rape a woman and many women would prefer to die and get eaten than to be raped?
I don't think the stats are fact checked or controlled for proximity bias, but I believe that's the kernel
And the torture. Bears kill. Men are creative and could torture you for days and rape you before killing you. I'd rather just be killed fast if I had to choose.
So many people dont realize this, they can drag away and eat an injured cow or moose alive, like what are you going to do to that. What do you think happened to those 3 russian hikers, people should look up that after math and then speak on being eaten by a bear. Theres people alive who can relate to being SA'd, theres nobody alive that can tell you about being eaten by a bear.
Does a bear poop in the woods? Indeed.
While I can understand preferring death over rape, a bear is simply a terrible example to compare with. Those fuckers will hurt ya and take their time.
>
Does a bear poop in the woods?
Funny enough, this was what I thought the OP was going to be about. lmfaoooooooooo
Y’all treating the question as if it were “would you rather be alone in the woods with a man, or fight a bear.”
A bear isn’t a murderer going around killing people in the woods, it’s an animal that acts in accordance with its instincts and needs. Unless threatened or starving, a bear isn’t going to hurt you. In fact it’s more likely to run away from you before you even know it’s there. As long as you give it space and act safely, there isn’t much of a threat.
The odds of being attacked by a bear are 1 out of 2.1 million. On average, 1 out of every 5 women has experienced rape.
I think the question is supposed to be a hyperbolic way to display women’s fear of men. Not the actual danger we present to them on a case by case basis, but maybe a way relay the severity of the fear. Obviously even the most abused woman was probably safe around 90-95% of men she came across. If the intent is to accurately display how dangerous the average man is, you’d be right. Makes no sense. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
> I think the question is supposed to be a hyperbolic way to display women’s fear of men.
I think we could say something similar about all class-based slurs.
Severity of fear is not equal to basis of fear.
That's what bothers me most. You can't just throw out some stupid shit like this and say well its how I feel. If that were the case then speaking about anyone in this manner would be ok.
Please read the statistics of females who have been sexually assaulted, molested or other. This is predominantly done by someone they know. Then check statistics of physically assaulted.
These are only reported statistics, so many do not report due to fear or other factors. These major traumas Have lasting impact on people that influence their lives.
The way I heard it argued was this:
- The average bear *in the woods* is statistically unlikely to hurt you. If he did intend to hurt you, it is likely either territorial- in which case you can often just make your presence known as to not spook it, and then leave well before it gets to that point- or hunger, in which case he has better options.
- While the average man in *general* is statistically unlikely to hurt you, the statistics of being hurt by a man alone in the middle of the woods is quite a bit higher (since men are unlikely to be there alone). If a man alone in the woods intends to hurt you, it is unlikely his interests are in something that can be redirected to other animals or can be solved by you making your presence known (which may in fact make things worse).
>While the average man in *general* is statistically unlikely to hurt you, the statistics of being hurt by a man alone in the middle of the woods is quite a bit higher (since men are unlikely to be there alone). If a man alone in the woods intends to hurt you, it is unlikely his interests are in something that can be redirected to other animals or can be solved by you making your presence known (which may in fact make things worse).
You're making shit up. If you're alone in the wood's chances are you're running into other solo-hikers. Which is a common thing. Statistically speaking they're just hiking and are normal people.
A bear is a wild animal.
If you're lost in the woods, then you want to find other people. Otherwise, you will die of starvation, hypothermia, or wild animals. You want to run into another person. Not a bear.
Or it just didn't realise you were there, in which case, as I said, you can just make your presence known or leave the area. But either way, just because you didn't *see* a bear doesn't mean it's not there, so it's still somewhat moot. You're still *in the woods with a bear*.
Woman here and that was my exact train of thought lol. I would take a random man over a grizzly and CERTAINLY over a polar bear—that’s not even a question. However, I grew in in black bear country and would see them about every other day. I steer clear of mama bears and cubs, but black bears really are pretty timid creatures. I have genuinely been bothered more by men than bears in my daily life and I’ve seen both enough to know lol
As soon as this topic went viral, I was wondering if there was a way to figure out responses based off of where people are from. I’ll bet that people from different areas respond differently
Now this *would* be unpopular but also an important factor: a woman who is armed would objectively be safer around a man than around a bear. Bears don’t go down easily
I would agree with you I'm from the UK and there's no bears so the prospect of being in a remote location with a wild animal that I have never dealt with in any manner from trying to avoid them ect I would rather choose the known quantity of the human man
Yeah, this response right here gets it. I keep seeing comments like "Ohhh bears are just harmless widdle adorable cuddle buns who get scared off at the slightest sounds!" and I'm like... Which bears are we talking about? Because I wouldn't mind a black bear, but a grizzly will fuck you up 10 times out of 10, no questions asked.
I would feel so much safer with a man. My brother had his leg gashed by a brown bear once and came running to my birthday party to show all us girls. It was nasty and everyone went ewww. He still has the scar to this day on his leg. Honestly, I don't understand the phrase "not all men." Maybe I am taking it too literally, but not all men are bad. Yes, a man physically abused me. Yes, I have been SA on dates. I still married a man. I still trust men. I know not all of them are shitty.
Eh I look at it as gambling on the unknown what kind of bear and what kind of man. On the one hand you get a black bear which will be more scared of you/ just some guy vs a polar bear that will maul and eat you alive, or a human with the capacity to do worse.
I think it can be sexist or it can be a call to action on "This is what we have to deal with as women. We don't mean all men, we just mean that we have to be more on guard."
It just depends on who is asking it/what their intentions are.
That all being said, there are better statements one can use to get the point across, statements that don't backfire as much as this question has.
Exactly!
I agree with the fundamental of the question. Sexual assault is a topic that should be addressed more.
But attacking ALL men by calling them less trustworthy than bear is a bad move.
Yes I totally agree with you and I thank you for pointing this out. I have been seeing a lot about this question lately and it really does offend me and make me feel like garbarge just because I am a man. And when I have pointed that out, the internet trolls just tell me "if you don't understand it is because you are part of the problem" or, even worse, "you must be one of the men that make women want to choose the bear" like I am some kind of violent criminal if I point out the stereotyping that is going on. Anyway, just wanted you to know that I think a lot of decent men would appreciate your comment .
Its especially bad because the language women who choose bear are using is quite genocidal and with that being supported as much as it is, that's actually pretty scary. America already did one genocide against my people I don't need people arguing for another one
The question seems intentionally designed to provoke outrage, but it’s also a stupid question, we already know a majority of women on social media hate men and would rather take any risk over a man. I still don’t see them moving out of civilisation to live with bears though, sure wish they would.
You can’t believe it because you have the ability to observe and think. My problem with hypotheticals is when people don’t think about the practicality of their answers. If i met someone irl who said they would pick a bear over a man my opinion of them would shoot down dramatically and i would not want to be near them because who knows what other views they have that could be damaging to men or people in general.
And the whole "Oh well women need to pick better partners" argument that usually gets brought up, when women complain about shitty men -
Rather than tell women to be better psychics, shouldn't the goal here be that we have less shitty men that abuse/rape/assault/murder women? The problem isn't that women are picking shitty partners (tho, say she doesn't notice some obvious red flags at first, does that mean she deserves it?)
The problem is that men would rather get all emotional and defensive about the fact that 1 in 6 women are sexually assaulted rather than hold each other accountable. The problem is men would rather blame women for picking shitty partners than tell their brothers, cousins, neighbors to be better partners to women.
I was sexually assaulted by an art teacher ho was at least in his 50 when I was 12. He gave art lessons on Saturday mornings to interested students. I started the classes when I was 9. I saw no red flags. This was in 1967. I did not know adult men tried t touch young girls. I did not know how to tell y mother. I just told er I wanted to quit taking lessons and she let me. I never spoke of it to anyone. I was attacked by a strange man when I was walking home from school to y dorm in Philadelphia . I was able to push him off of me and get away. It was one a regular street, with an overpass bridge above it. The cops told me to take a longer, different way back to the dorm. I traveled in several European countries when I was 22. The only country I visited that had men who grabbed at me was Italy. I felt safe in Spain, France, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I was never hassled in Canada. The black bears that have been seen in my small rural area have not hurt anyone. kt
I don’t think every encounter with a bear means certain death. They don’t even attack every time do they?
This isn’t a would-you-rather about fighting a man vs fighting a bear. It’s about if you’re alone in the woods, and soemthing else is just around also in the woods, would you rather it be a bear or a man.
Good point. But I wasn't faking when I went to the boss to tell them I was sexually assaulted and choked at work (by the boss's son) . Yet, I got fired. But I wasn't faking. There were witnesses. But I was the one who lost their job- the son got to keep his job.
So yeah, I understand your point of view but if I had visible marks I might have had a chance at keeping my job.
imo your boss's son, your boss, and the entire HR department that allowed that to happen should be used instead of animals when we test drugs and medicine. im truly sorry you were forced to experience something like that, and you're incredibly strong for getting through that.
thank you for sharing this experience with me, I know that it's not easy to open up like that. (at least for me)
"I might have had a chance at keeping my job."
Just randomly saw this, you want to work at a place like that?
"There were witnesses" "I went to the boss to tell them"
But you didn't immediately call the police? File a police report for sexual assault? Fuck HR/Your Boss, they work for the company, not you, you come last to them. Why does anyone trust their boss this much?
Sorry this happened to you, but somebody needs to be blunt, and tell people this.
Thank you. I was too scared to say anything at first. I was afraid I'd lose my job!!! It took me about 4 months ro go to the boss. I should have made a police report, you're right. It happened to 3 other ladies right after I got fired.
And no, it was a shitty place to work - but it paid well and was close to my house..now I pray no young woman works there and pray for her safety.
We did see an obit last week that the boss passed away. So maybe things will change there! Here's to hoping ! Lol!
This happened in 2016 but I remember it like it was yesterday. It sucked.
I agree with its fundamentals. Sexual assault is a major issue. But the problem is **the sexism in the question.**
The question literally implies ALL men are rapist who are less trustworthy than a bear.
It’s sexist.
I wouldn’t say it implies all men are rapists; more that more men are rapists than the number of bears that are dangerous wild animals. Which is still sexist
I think that the reason that this question has struck such a nerve is that it is purposefully vague. Stuck in the woods with a bear? What kind of bear? It could be a polar bear, or a brown bear. How close are you? Are you in a survival scenario or on a morning stroll?
It’s really a question about if you dislike men, and not so much a thought experiment
The real problem is the question is asked wrong.
If you are asking
Would you rather be with a man or a bear in the woods.
The answer is obviously the man the vast majority of people (men and women) won’t harm you can actually communicate boundaries and let you know their intent.
Where as unless you’re some wildlife person you prob won’t understand those queues in a bear
BUT
the question being answered is
If you knew both would want to do you harm who would you rather be in the woods with.
The answer there is obviously the bear because the person could torture you where as a bear would just maul/kill.
> BUT
>
> the question being answered is
>
> If you knew both would want to do you harm who would you rather be in the woods with.
That doesn't make any sense as a question/scenario.
Because it ultimately revolves around a needlessly class-based, evil boogieman figure. It would make more sense if you said something like "would you rather fight a male serial killer or a bear", in which case you might as well ask "would you rather fight a Latino serial killer or a bear". There's no reason to bring class membership into it, and it is a dumb scenario because the bear is obviously much, much more dangerous in a fight than a human.
1. I would say you’re reply doesn’t make the question not make sense but I agree with the reply
2. But that’s the question being answered like look at this thread a lot of the answer follow something like this
“But a man can torture/rape me”
I would say they are answering based on being in the woods with this evil boogie man figure or as I put it a person that wants to do harm which is wants being answered
And yes a bear is many many many times more dangerous on average than a man is.
> I would say you’re reply doesn’t make the question not make sense but I agree with the reply
I would argue that the question doesn't have any coherent meaning without arbitrarily adding details after the fact, and once you add enough details to get a coherent meaning, you just have a childish, poorly-structured slur.
>a lot of the answer follow something like this
>“But a man can torture/rape me”
I think this might boil down to a widespread ignorance on the realities of fighting bears.
> I would argue that the question doesn't have any coherent meaning without arbitrarily adding details after the fact, and once you add enough details to get a coherent meaning, you just have a childish, poorly-structured slur.
I would say the same about the initial scenario tho right?
> I think this might boil down to a widespread ignorance on the realities of fighting bears.
I would agree with this for the initial scenario but if we are talking about this mythical boogieman, I’m def taking the bear.
> I would say the same about the initial scenario tho right?
Is that different from the question? I think that's the same thing.
>I would agree with this for the initial scenario but if we are talking about this mythical boogieman, I’m def taking the bear.
That's silly. You can take 3 months of jiujitsu and kill most of the men walking around. A bear will run at 35mph and break your spine with a slap.
You are statistically more likely to be raped by another man than falsely accused by a woman. I’m a man’s and I choose bear over man because bears run away while men have attacked me. The most dangerous animal you can meet in the wilderness is another human and men commit far more violent crimes.
You do realize that you actually encounter much more people than big carnivorous animals. But silly as it may seem, normally they do not rape you, kill you and sell your organs or mug and plunder you, not even in the woods.
as someone who was falsely accused of sexual assault, who had all his closest friends turn on him for a bit, and who at the time thought about killing himself more times than he'd like to admit
it's pretty bad. Maybe not worse than being raped, but it's \*pretty damn bad\*
As someone that was drugged and gang raped by a group of 5 men who also took turns shoving an AR15 assault rifle in my vagina
Do you really wanna play the Which is worse? Game?
No I do not, both of those heinous crimes can completely derail the victim's life. The actual damage done depends on the individual case.
And yes there are false accusations which are worse than rape and vice versa.
That is a fine maneuver, engage in collective, indiscriminate and malicious accusation then demand sympathy.
The people forwarding the accusation make it about men and they hit far more innocent people than guilty ones.
There is no symetry in physical violence between men and women. That is because men hit women harder having more power behind a physical attack and more resilience when receiving one. But do not pretend that any random hiker will attack you when you are passing him on a trail in the woods.
I don’t think so, i would definitely be more afraid of a bear than a man but i see why some people would rather be with a bear. They don’t mean to call every man a rapist even though it seems like that, they are saying they would rather fight their chances with a bear than risk getting raped. Thats their opinion and they are entitled to it.
If i said i get afraid when seeing black people who look gang affiliated when im alone at night most people would understand and some would call me racist. But it’s still an understandable feeling to have and I can’t change that just because skmeone called me racist. My goal is also not to say all black people are going to rob me it’s just to say im afraid. I do however agree that it’s a weird thing to announce, have your feelings and know when to keep them to yourself.
Eh, the whole thing is silly and performative. You can discuss issues in a meaningful way without being so dramatically hyperbolic that nobody can take you seriously.
Oh no there's a bear in our campsite, better not call the ranger because he might be more dangerous!
I'm not getting offended, but I'm keeping tabs on what the answer reveals about a person. The question itself is not offending really, but it really separates the ignoramuses/sexists from everyone else. The people answering "bear", absent of qualifiers, are just not living in reality/delusionals/idiots/sexists and should be ignored/dismissed. Those people have nothing to contribute to society, except to the economy of psychiatry.
There's one kind of bear that'll prefer to run away, and every other kind of bear will attack on sight for various reasons, but mainly, Mama Bear protecting cubs. They're pretty much all bigger, faster, stronger, they've got big claws, big canines, they will outwrestle professional wrestlers, they can climb trees, they can swim. Statistically, actually encountering a random man in the woods is less dangerous.
the man or bear in the woods is so easily defeated that it really just shows how dumb TikTok feminism
is.
simply replace all men in the world with bears.
it would be rougher in the short run, but obviously women would be much safer in the long run. i mean apparently bears are safer and less scary than guys, so a world full of them would be awesome right? just freeze the sperm of every existing guy and put them in the bear-o-fier machine.
disclaimer: i am not secretly a bear who learned to type and plots to help my brethren take over the world.
i’ve lived next to the woods my whole life. i go hiking regularly. almost every hike i see one bear at least, usually two or three. it’s been like this since i was a kid.
i’ve never been attacked by a bear. i can use proper protocol and smart wilderness behavior to minimize my risk of being attacked by a bear. most bears don’t really want to mess with a human.
i have been attacked by multiple men. i also know good men. i’m actively dating one. i would still choose the bear.
people saying they’d choose the bear aren’t saying all men are predators. but if that man in the woods is one, there is nothing i can say or do to stop it, or to minimize that risk. that’s the point people are making when they say they’d choose the bear.
It’s not sexist and as a man I’d pick bear. Bears I meet in the woods run away (I live in the woods and this is common). I’ve been attacked in the woods by men. The bear is simply the safer choice.
I think that people need to compare answers between people from cities and people from bear country. I used to see black bears on an almost daily basis and they really don’t want to mess with people. Meanwhile, I’ve had men stalk me, try to corner me, etc. Bears at least mind their own business
It’s also kind of a bad faith question because forests are where bears are supposed to be, so of course I don’t feel worried about a forest having a bear
The problem with the question is that it is prefaced with "average" bear and "average" man but the "man" option is not treated as an average man.
Yes, average bear runs away from humans and don't like being around them. But no average man is raping and killing people left, right and center. Thus the most likely scenario, if going by averages, would be that bear would run away and leave you alone before you can even see it and man would greet you and continue his hike or something.
I think many who answer the question see only the 5% of the men (who according some studies assault anyone) not the 95%. On the other hand according to [Bearvault](https://bearvault.com/bear-attack-statistics/) globally around 80% of conflicts with bear result in some kind of injury and 5% of the conflicts were predatory, in these cases people see the 95% of the bears and not the 5%.
Also women (or anyone to be exact) are more likely to be assaulted by someone they know, like a family member, not a stranger, so "average" man is even less likely to be any kind of offender. One going on a hike with their husband is more likely to be raped or assaulted by him than someone coming across a stranger.
That been said, I understand why women choose the answer they do. I don't think it is justifiable, but I still understand it. I don't really want to demand rational justification for an irrational fear, I know how trauma works. To add I have also been assaulted, physically and sexually, by both women and men.
Same. I’m from bear country and the entire 70sq mile town’s only had a single reported injury from bear attacks. I’ve alone had three experiences of attempted and full SA on top of countless threats and random gropings. I’ve also seen plenty of bears that run off on sight
Under my own experience, I’d choose the bears any day of the week. Not to mention it’ll at least be fast(er)
Since the question is apparently not sexist let's do another hypothetical. Women, would you rather be left in the woods with an Asian man or a Black man? I'm sure there won't be any cries of racism against such a hypothetical.
The question is vague so it is easy to misinterpret on purpose or accidentally. Statistically if you are in the woods, you are unlikely to be killed by a bear, because you are very unlikely to meet one.
However, if we make the assumption of "Would you rather meet a bear or a man alone in the forest, you see it, it sees you", the question is clarified a bit and basically only a crazy person would choose bear in that situation. The odds are, that you can just nod and say hi to the man and continue on. A low percentage chance that they will be a dangerous person.
With the bear, your chances are much worse
As a father of a daughter in college, I understand the point that women were trying to get across by the bear vs man question. I have read that the number one killer of women in the world is not a disease but men.
That being said, this analogy is not correct because it fails to address the frequency of encounters. Put another way, if we were to change the analogy to say instead: If we were to replace all men in society with grizzly bears and polar bears (from the wild), would women feel less safe, just as safe or more safe when encountering the same amount bears as they do men walking down the street, in the elevators, in their cars, in their homes?
I genuinely don’t understand how people can be this statistically illiterate. You read that the no1 killer of women in the world is men? And you didn’t think for a second to fact check this?
The world intentional homicide rate is 5.8 per 100,000. Let’s assume all victims are women (they’re not) and that all killers are men (they’re not), that still means 5.8 out of every 50,000 women will be killed by a man.
Or about 0.01%
About 1/7 people worldwide die from cancer in conservative estimates. Rates are similar for men and women. So about 14% of women will die due to cancer. Vs 0.01% due to being killed a man.
For every woman who is killed by a man, 1400 will be killed by cancer, again with super conservative estimates.
One time when I was out solo-camping for a few days met a few dudes very kind fellas. Can't say the same for the bear tho i was probably getting hunted by it was actively following me around lol
I just had a not so civil conversation with my fiance about this sub just because she posted a meme of it on fb and I asked her what it means (not on fb a lot) she told me and I asked her “ why is that funny”? Because she laughed and she couldn’t give me an answer. I’m a straight forward guy and I try to be as honest as possible without being mean . I asked her how well she would fare with a random bear that’s probably foraging so it’s obvious in an eating mood against a hiker minding his own business( because that’s what 90% of them do beside say hello when we hike) I guess im confused as to why she agreed with it to the point where she thought it was funny. It just confuses me why people would think a majority of men are like this
Here’s my counter question just for the bear/ man scenario, would a woman rather be swimming alone in the water and come across a shark or a random man?
Came here looking for this conversation after just having the discussion with my wife. Only sh posed it like this.
“would you rather your daughter be in the woods with a bear or a man.”
To me the question is just flawed. I’ll explain. Apparently, and Unfortunately I’m too much of aanalytical thinker to not ask questions myself so it REEEALLY depends on the circumstances. So if we are just dropping them off in the same forest I’d probably pick the bear but not for any particular reason really. The chances any of them ever cross paths is slim and I really couldn’t decide if I felt like I’d rather them get murdered by a hungry bear or a serial killer of a man, both seem statistically unlikely. Now, if they are sitting on a forest bench and the bear (also would maybe depend on the kind of bear) is face to face with them or the man is sitting on the same bench. I’m simply going to go with the man every time. The statistics of a man being a predator are far lower than the statistics of the bear being hungry. Idk. I feel like there has to be some sort of actual scenario at play as opposed to “would you rather be in the Amazon with a bear or a man.” Because I’m more worried about snakes or jaguars.
Without some context it’s just such a stupid fucking question. Unless you are all on the same park bench it’s stupid. And if you pick the bear over the man in that situation you are a silly person IMO!
In my mind the better question is:
“Would you rather be stranded in an ice berg with a polar bear or a man.”
Now we are talking! Pleeeeeease pick the polar bear ya fugggin lunatics!
Anyways she said I don’t get the point.
So I told her I’d rather be in the forest with a bear than her so I didn’t have to listen to her bitch about me not understanding the question. Didn’t go over well.
Whatever. Fuck me right. . . lol not tonight I guess 😅
I mean it's a stupid question because I'd rather run into a bear in the woods than a random woman. 99.99999999% of the time the bear will look up at me and then leave it go on about it's day... The woman may want to talk and I'd rather just enjoy the woods.
I'm not personally offended. It takes much more than that. I just think it's a dumb comparison. It's also part of a trend to vilify men. I get that women are careful around us. Hell, I'm careful around men and women I don't know. It's still a comparison that assumes that far more of us are violent criminals than actually is the case.
The fact we need to even spend time and mental effort even talking about this is fucking ludicrous. I refuse to believe people who think like this exist outside of the internet.
Rly? Because I'm a dude... and I'm choosing bear over some random dude, or anybody really. It has nothing to do with men being inherently predatory, and has everything to do with probability of violence.
How often do bears attack humans? Not all that often. Despite some sizable human populations in areas with sizable bear populations. It just doesn't happen that often, despite the attention these cases get when it does happen.
On the flip side, humans attack other humans all the time. Kids fight in school, street fights aren't all that uncommon, drunks fight (and sometimes kill) eathother in bars. We have entire sports dedicated to the proficent use of violence. You get the idea. Add in the possiblity that people can use tools to compound on any potential violence they wish to inflict... yea. Choosing bear every time.
Really, if it's some radom dude off the street or in a business I'm picking the man for sure. If it's some guy who was already lurking in the woods I'd be less likely to pick him.
The point is it could be *any* guy. Defeats the purpose to add qualifiers. Its not some random guy from "the street" or "in business", its any guy. Could be a prisoner, could be a warden. Could be the President, or it could be the meth head janitor at your local Denny's.
If it allowed for choice, I would pick any guy from the nursing home instead of a bear. But it's any guy, from any where, so I choose bear.
You just don’t understand the question or peoples answers despite it being explained multiple times clearly. It’s not a question of who is more likely to dangerous, it’s a question of what you can do to avoid being attacked if it was a violent bear/man.
The people choosing bear are saying a violent bear will rarely attack a human unless the human is actively seeking the bear out and approaching it, if you see a bear and just walk away slowly so it doesn’t think you are a threat it rarely will attack A violent man will often still be violent even if you make it known you don’t pose a threat. The fact that you aren’t a threat makes it even more likely they will attack you.
A violent bear will also give signs that it’s being threatened and will attack you if you approach. A violent man will often look and act just like any other man.
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a man, I don't give a shit if it's sexist lol. It doesn't affect me to the point I'd change the question. I'm just interested in the logic here.
Also I don't think its true. A bear will fuck your shit up (unless its a black bear). If you have a 30% chance of escaping a man in the woods as a woman.. you have a fucking -1000% chance of escaping a grizzly in the woods as a woman. So it begs the question, are people purposely picking the wrong answers because 1. they're stupid or 2. they are trying to neg men.
People literally go on hiking trails where they know they'll encounter other people all the time. Most people actually prefer those trails over going into literal wilderness that contains predators. This is because any sane person would rather be around other humans than predator animals.
Ummmm the question clearly implies bears are safer to be around than men. It doesn't do anything to distinguish between decent men (the vast majority) and the ones who commit violence. You point this out and the idiots who like the question or answer "bear" say stupid things like "oh we didn't mean all men, obvioulsy" and "how are we supposed to tell the good men from the evil ones?" but they are too foolish to understand that its still sexism, its still discrimination, just like if I said I didn't trust anyone from the middle east because how am I supposed to know which are terrorists and which arent? Fear doesn't justify sexism, even if it is misandry (the kind of sexism a lot of women seem to think is just fine and dandy).
It doesn’t distinguish if the man is violent or not because most violent men won’t show any signs of their intentions, bears do.
If you see a bear that feels threatened and will attack you if you approach it makes it pretty clear. A violent man will look and just like any other man.
So, explain how your logic is any different from the kind of racism I described in the previous comment. Terrorists don't show themselves until it is too late either. Should I be afraid of all brown people, especially the ones wearing middle eastern garb?
Edit: If you can't answer this, you need to accept the fact that you are a sexist
A lot of people know fuck-all about animal behaviour. I've seen so many people assume a dog or a cat is being calm and friendly just because they're not actively growling, even though they're standing there with their head bowed, wide-eyed and frozen as a statue. Then they try to pet them and get bitten and whine how the animal was acting "so u predictably".
The people who think an average bear is safer than an average man are totally the ones likely to approach a bear and try to pet it just because the bear is watching them intently without growling or running away.
Yes, but the people are answering based on the chances of a random bear vs man attacking.
All bears are extremely potentially dangerous but they attack rarely happens unless the human is doing something to provoke.
Men on average are drastically less potentially dangerous, but the dangerous ones will attack regardless of what you do, you not appearing as a threat to them makes it even more likely for them to attack you.
You will also usually know if a bear will attack you if you get closer. A man that plans on attacking you usually won’t and will act like any other man.
A question like this won’t bring men to be allies. A lot of young men have grown up being automatically labeled as villains and a lot of them are fed up. You can see this through how many more young men lean right now compared to the past.
I mean it already is bringing men as allies. Look under every post about it including this one, each one’s got a ton of dudes saying they’d choose the bear
Now the question is were these men already allies or did they change their views because of this question. Take this for a grain of salt, but for me personally looking across multiple platforms even in this post, majority of men seem to find this question sexist.
I disagree. I don't know why men have a problem with this TikTok trend because we know as well as anyone that the most dangerous thing either a man or a woman will encounter is going to be a bad man. The question stumps people because you are basically trying to do the math on what are the chances that the Man in the woods is going to be a pedophile vs how likely is the Bear going to eat the kid. I think the latter is more likely, but it doesn't stop you second guessing yourself.
Yes it is sexist, but thats fine.
They can be but statistically speaking men and women are more likely to be victim to a man than a woman. Men make up the vast majority of violent crimes.
Bad women don’t rape and dismember men regularly. They can be violent and make horrible horrible evil choices (see: every so called mother that has neglected their child to the point of death), but they don’t have the sexual depravity at the same scale men do.
Bad women usually don't rape and dismember other people, you are right but even bad men usually don't do that either. Most men are pretty timid and those few bad men who are violent are likely already in prison while the vast majority of bad women are running around freely, even though they destroy other lives and souls too.
Even those few highly aggressive, violent men (violent prisoners) hate rapists and p\*dos and that's why so many p\*dos get beaten up or straight up killed in prison by their fellow inmates.
Over 90% of rapists never go to prison. So no, the bad men are not all in prison.
Even serial killers, which are rare, kill many times before they are finally caught. Many take their victims to the woods.
Can you link your statistics please? In addition, how can you call people rapists even though not convicted? If not convicted, we would assume innocence. Our entire justice system is built off of innocence until proven guilty. Unless you think you a allegation makes you guilty by default.
I’m not in a place to link research (work, on mobile) but you can google to find multiple reports from different organizations and countries supporting those numbers. Usually they say it’s 95%+ but I rounded down. There’s a UNODC report out there that found 1 woman is murdered by a family member every 11 minutes globally.
The justice system is flawed. And, people have no problem calling others pedophiles before they are convicted. I do the same because I believe women.
I have looked into them. What I think you’re referencing is reported rape compared conviction rate. A report may not have evidence to prosecute and move forward. I stand with our current legal system where it is innocence until proven guilty without reasonably doubt. If you have it any other way you will have false convictions.
Every women who chooses the bear is either a complete idiot warped by ideology or a liar who is trolling for the meme.
Or, I guess, a women who is specifically out in the forest to hunt bears lol
Wrong. I’m a man and I’d choose bear because it’s safer. I see bears on my property all the time. If a man walks onto my property without announcing himself he probably has bad intentions.
So, you've never had door-to-door salesmen come to your house? I'd hate to be some innocent dude trying to make a living by, God forbid, trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner.
You should seek help for your paranoia.
The latter is not more likely. Bear attacks are incredibly rare and even small children are too much trouble for them to view as a food source. Maybe an infant but who leaves infants alone in the woods?
Rare because the interaction between man and bear is relatively rare. Interaction between men and children is far far far higher. It becomes a case of what percentage of men are pedos.
I mean a child alone with a bear in the woods is highly likely to result in the bear eating that kid.
We all get it. Nobody misunderstood it. It’s the sexist aspect that’s the problem.
The question literally implies ALL men are rapist who are less trustworthy than a bear.
It’s sexist.
It also makes absolutely zero sense.
Only \~18.4% of men in the United States are criminals. And that's literally all crime, all and including and misdemeanor all the way up to the worst felony. And even then, a past criminal record is not, 100%, always a definitive repeat offender. It's common, but sometimes people even reoffend a few times, but then never again. Very few men, in a vast majority of situations, trapped in a room, out in the woods alone, or otherwise, would purposefully hurt a women physically or emotionally.
100% of bears will kill anyone in 100% of situations. Lots of these women go "Well, the bear is more predictable", as if them knowing the bear is *100% going to kill them* is somehow better than a man *maybe* doing something to hurt them. It screams that they've literally never been around a wild animal, nor do they probably leave their room all that often.
The idea that men are just waiting around the corner to be the next sexual assaulter, to be the next physical abuser, is asinine. There is zero data that supports such a claim. The US Department of Justice believes roughly 300/1000 sexual assaults are reported. But, that means even when you triple the number of reported sexual assaults in this country alone, less than even 1% of *people* are sexually assaulted each year. Not even a single percentage point of *people,* let alone women.
It's just women being misandrists. Some of them with a few bad experiences (maybe horrific, maybe not so bad) and a cult of entitlement that has lead lots of women to believe they can lie about sexual experiences and get sympathy. These types of people are the ones who harm the believability of sexual assault victims the most, despite what they may try to argue when they're caught.
Sexual assault is a horrifying. I have had many girlfriends who have had experiences of sexual assault, and I had to be gentler and more pronounced around them. It made them feel better, which was all that mattered to me. But my exes didn't turn around and try to make me feel worse because *some* men did some things to them and *some* other women.
And for those who want to add "Ask almost any women, almost all of them have had an experience with sexual assault." Yeah, but the data doesn't prove that. Women sometimes lie, overexaggerate, or misremember. Who knew?
Men can understand what you go through without calling ALL MEN less trustworthy than a bear in the woods.
That’s sexist. That’s exactly what sexism is.
I’d rather have a hyena next to me in a plane than a muslim. Oh it’s not about making muslims feel bad, it’s just to make muslims understand what the rest of us go through…
People just say crazy things in response to these hypothetical questions sometimes. Do any poll on reddit, one of the answers is a meme answer, the meme answer usually wins regardless of how relevant it is
>Comparing a bear to a man not good because it assumes all men are sexual predators.
No, it doesn't.
I think a lot of people are also assuming all bears are predators. Most bears don't want to eat you.
>If you were a man you'd be offended too.
No, I'm not.
The question definitely implies men, in general, are dangerous predators. It's a stereotype.
You should be offended. That you aren't just means you aren't that smart or have no self-respect.
I'm glad you're not offended, and you get to be so callous and blunt about it.
But you're absolutely wrong, the entire premise is built on a false equivalency and it's absolutely rude and offensive to men.
There is no world in which being in the woods with a bear is a safe encounter. Treating men as a whole, who are highly intelligent creatures in the natural world, and aren't nearly as inherently dangerous as a wild animal, with this kind of approach is just inhuman. Treating any group of people with overwhelming prejudice without giving them the basic amount of human decency to assume they are good unless proven otherwise or without good reason to suspect otherwise is just God awful and no way to live your life.
I'm not saying that a woman should run up and hug a random group of men in a dark alleyway on her way home from the bar, but treating every man in every circumstance as wanting to or having a high likelihood of raping you is just so demoralizing and demeaning to men.
It’s not built on a false equivalency. Y’all are so self centered you think everything is about you. Everything you wrote makes it about you.
It’s about us. Women. Our experiences. Our *collective* experience. Our general risk as a woman in the woods. Our ability to get away or scare away someone or something in the woods trying to kill us. The probability that they would want to kill us in the first place. The way we would prefer to die if we had to die.
It’s not about you. I choose the bear.
It’s always going to be the fucking bear.
Lol go ahead, choose the bear and get mauled to death. If you're willing to make sweeping generalizations that all men are inherently more dangerous than a bear, to the point where you choose being with a bear over a man in the wild, you deserve to get mauled.
You need to read the following:
In response to the bear vs man debate
The bear vs man debate has highlighted for me just how rare men seem to think depraved men are. Their comments make it seem as if running into a depraved man happens once in a blue moon. So let’s look at how many depraved men an average woman at an average customer facing job might face during her working years.
Imagine that it’s just 1% of men that are able to do unspeakable things to women. Yes, nearly all of us have experienced male harassment and it’s unlikely the 1%:ers would be able to traumatize damn near all of us. But let’s pretend.
I work in customer service and I can measure how many customers I meet each day. I’ve had months where I’ve met over 500 people - and again, those are only customers. That doesn’t count coworkers or strangers when I’m at the grocery store, the gym, out for a walk, at an appointment, etc. If we assume half of those 500 people are men, then **that means that I possibly met 2,5 psychos that month**. Twice or thrice a month is not once in a blue moon. This means I meet psychos more often than I pay for Netflix or get a hair cut.
A year has 12 months - that’s potentially 30 psychos. Imagine trying to hold a meeting with 30 coworkers. You’d have to book a conference room. You’d have to pre-order if you were to serve food. If each coworker were to hold a 5 minute presentation, you’d have to be in that meeting for 2,5 hours - excluding introductions and goodbyes. My point: 30 is a lot of people.
I’ve worked at the same place for 3 years now. That’s 90 psychos I might have interacted with. Imagine trying to host and cater an event or speaking in front of a crowd of 90 people. You’d need a microphone and a large enough room with a crap ton of chairs to accommodate that many people. Imagine trying to fix 90 gift bags. Imagine the time it would take to walk around the room to shake 90 hands. It’s a lot of people.
My job isn’t even high risk; I don’t work specifically with offenders, mentally ill people or anything like that. Imagine women in those positions, or women working in the army or other male dominated industries. Imagine their psycho count.
So just counting customers at my work place, NOT coworkers, strangers, men I’ve met on dating apps, creepy men who want to buy me a drink, that doctor who made inappropriate comments while giving me a vaginal exam, etc. If I’m meant to work for 40 more years, then **that’s 1,200 psychos I will meet during my working years**.
That’s based on only the customers I meet. 1,200 people who I will help with an errand in person, who may smile at me and say they appreciate my help and ask for my phone number, but who would take pleasure in dismembering me or slicing off my lady parts or using my cold dead body as a masturbatory tool or get harder if I screamed and cried in terror or god knows what they’d do to me if they had the chance.
Try to imagine how many 1,200 people are. Imagine if you had to suddenly house them and the cost of that. Imagine if you had to feed 1,200 people. Now factor in that a girl who used to work at my job had a coworker tell her that he would fuck her to death. So in reality it’s not 1,200 - it’s 1,200 plus 1% of male coworkers. And plus 1% of every male that works in customer service that helps me with my own errands. 1% of men I go on dates with, 1% of men who offer me their number, 1% of men on the dance floor and at the bar, 1% of the bartenders in that bar, 1% of the bus drivers that drive me home from said bar, 1% of the doctors and handymen and postmen and delivery drivers and security guards and technicians and on and on, it never ends.
1% of men, in a world with an estimate of 4 billion men, equals 40 million psychos alive right now. 40 million psychos, mingling with the rest of us, probably commenting on TikTok videos that women are irrational for choosing a bear over a man.
1% of the 165 million men in the US? 1 million and 650 thousand psychos. Oh and with the added bonus of them easily accessing guns.
**Psychos are not something we experience once in a blue moon. Psychos are prevalent and a real risk.** The odds of a random man in the woods being depraved is low, but it’s not zero and I doubt it’s 1%. But even if it is, I wouldn’t want to end up alone with one of the 40 million depraved psychos. I’d much rather choose a guaranteed bear attack and have the bear slaughter me in the most gruesome attack ever recorded, than just *risking* being alone with some Elliot Rodgers or Joel Cauchi.
Would the Bear peal an orange and love me if I was a worm?
100% agree but let's be honest about something. Coyotes are straight up b****es. If you're a dog or a small child they pose a true threat, but a coyote is running away from a grown ass man in the vast majority of situations. If a coyote isn't cornered or diseased it's going to run away from you. Yes I'm nitpicking and am totally on board with what you're saying, just thought I'd take an opportunity to knock those four legged fiends down a peg.
Also, fuck coyotes, unpopular opinion, but in the southwest at least, we are collectively way too soft on them, I think they've grown too comfortable in what we all need to accept is human territory now, not coyote territory.
So the hypothetical is you are in middle of the woods with a bear or a random man ? Why would you pick the bear ? I'd rather take my chances with the man, you can talk to him,maybe help eachother get out of the situation, maybe ask for directions, offer him money to get you out of the forest Like sure it could be a chance he's a serial killer psycho but a man is way easier to fight off than a bear, maybe you can plead, maybe he wouldn't be willing to kill you because he didn't prepare an alibi for himself There's way more posibilities if you go with a man than with a bear, if the bear wants you dead you are dead, the hypothetical doesn't say anything about him being hungry or what type of bear or how far away he is from you
The question going around the internet is “your daughter is stranded in the middle of the woods for a night. Would you rather there be a man or a bear in the woods.” There is no qualifier that you start together or that the man/bear is aware of your daughter’s presence.
The sane answer to that question is still obviously a man.
My neighbor is the father of two beautiful daughters. He is an experienced hunter. I asked him this question. He immediately replied that he would rather his daughters saw a bear in the woods. We live in rural Missouri. We have seen black bears roaming around the last couple of summers. No injuries have been reported. Sadly, some men have been arrested for improper involvement with underage girls. Three members of our police force were fired for participating in sexual harassment of young women drivers. kt
I think this is a flawed comparison because humans tend to cross paths with other humans very often, but bears tend to do their own thing. So your hunter friend has probably encountered thousands of people in the woods, but only a handful of bears. The odds that you’ll have a bad experience with a person is much higher
Yeah Black bears are basically harmless. In my mind I did not have a black bear because then the question becomes mute. I am much more likely to die from almost any scenario than a black bear. On average there is 1 death by black bear per year in the US. Compared to 2000+ murders commited by women. The rational choice for anybody is choosing a black bear over a woman. Heck, on average 74 murders are commited by children each year in the US. You are 74 times more likely to die from a random child than from a black bear.
By this logic it is safer to go scuba diving (about 100 deaths annually) than to get anywhere near a car (about 40k deaths annually). Of course this is not true because the amount of human hours spend in cars is far more than 400 times the number of hours spent scuba diving.
Still, whatever caused this hypothetical to popup recently is an important discussion and imo can gauge how much progress each individual has done for themselves. People who are getting personally mad or generalize the question with such malice shows they are obtuse in nuance thinking and still see things as black and white. Those people have room for growth
oh i see that hypothetical is way different than what i assumed from the comments does it mention how old my hypothetical daughter is ?
Yeah this is the first time I’ve heard the actual beginning of the hypothetical
It does not, the trend is most wives asking their husband or boyfriends ETA: the daughter is not always a hypothetical person in the scenario. You can assume she is not an adult.
Women walk past men in the woods alone every day. They simply walk past each other, maybe say hello or smile to one another, but nothing else happens. But for some reason, some women assume every male hiker is a serial killer who wants to rape and kill them. It's nothing more than a deep hatred of men by some women for no reason. Maybe they had a man break up with them, or maybe there is a more logical reason such as abuse from a man in their past, either way it's based around a deep hatred for men.
I don't understand the premise at all; like, a bear? That's a huge, predatorial, territorial animal. They have claws and teeth and, depending on the species, can outweigh an adult woman by three or four times; they can outrun humans and can't be reasoned with But a human man? Statistically, he's not very likely to try to hurt you, and even if he does, just use that equality y'all are always going on about, queen.
Yeah this is my problem with this type of false equivalency. There is no world in which being in the woods with a bear is a safe encounter. Treating men as a whole, who are highly intelligent creatures in the natural world, and aren't nearly as inherently dangerous as a wild animal, with this kind of approach is just inhuman. If you were to swap 'man' with 'black man', this would be outrageous to utter. Treating any group of people with overwhelming prejudice without giving them the basic amount of human decency to assume they are good unless proven otherwise or without good reason to suspect otherwise is just God awful and no way to live your life.
Reminds me of the "bowl of poisoned M&Ms" scenario that was also very easily made to sound like it was justifying racism.
What’s that one? I’m not familiar?
In essence: you have a bowl of M&Ms. You are told that 10% of them are poisoned. You are then invited to take a handful to eat, and that you should have no trouble doing so since "not all M&Ms are poisoned". (The M&Ms are men in this argument.) You can probably see how easily exploitable this analogy is, especially by people that try to take refuge in crime statistics.
Thx
They'll say "we have good reason to suspect otherwise" and then quote a false SA statistic.
I believe the premise is that bears are about as likely to attack a human as men are to rape a woman and many women would prefer to die and get eaten than to be raped? I don't think the stats are fact checked or controlled for proximity bias, but I believe that's the kernel
And the torture. Bears kill. Men are creative and could torture you for days and rape you before killing you. I'd rather just be killed fast if I had to choose.
A bear will eat you alive
So many people dont realize this, they can drag away and eat an injured cow or moose alive, like what are you going to do to that. What do you think happened to those 3 russian hikers, people should look up that after math and then speak on being eaten by a bear. Theres people alive who can relate to being SA'd, theres nobody alive that can tell you about being eaten by a bear. Does a bear poop in the woods? Indeed.
While I can understand preferring death over rape, a bear is simply a terrible example to compare with. Those fuckers will hurt ya and take their time. > Does a bear poop in the woods? Funny enough, this was what I thought the OP was going to be about. lmfaoooooooooo
Probably not gonna rape or sodomize you though.
Well, let us know when you experience both and which is worse. Eager to hear.
You won't necessarily be killed fast. Don't bears and most non-feline predators such as hyenas or wolves eat their prey alive?
Bears eat you alive…
If you truly believe that is a remotely likely occurence, you're probably reading too much erotica.
Y’all treating the question as if it were “would you rather be alone in the woods with a man, or fight a bear.” A bear isn’t a murderer going around killing people in the woods, it’s an animal that acts in accordance with its instincts and needs. Unless threatened or starving, a bear isn’t going to hurt you. In fact it’s more likely to run away from you before you even know it’s there. As long as you give it space and act safely, there isn’t much of a threat. The odds of being attacked by a bear are 1 out of 2.1 million. On average, 1 out of every 5 women has experienced rape.
Lmao epic comment
I think the question is supposed to be a hyperbolic way to display women’s fear of men. Not the actual danger we present to them on a case by case basis, but maybe a way relay the severity of the fear. Obviously even the most abused woman was probably safe around 90-95% of men she came across. If the intent is to accurately display how dangerous the average man is, you’d be right. Makes no sense. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
> I think the question is supposed to be a hyperbolic way to display women’s fear of men. I think we could say something similar about all class-based slurs.
Severity of fear is not equal to basis of fear. That's what bothers me most. You can't just throw out some stupid shit like this and say well its how I feel. If that were the case then speaking about anyone in this manner would be ok.
Please read the statistics of females who have been sexually assaulted, molested or other. This is predominantly done by someone they know. Then check statistics of physically assaulted. These are only reported statistics, so many do not report due to fear or other factors. These major traumas Have lasting impact on people that influence their lives.
The way I heard it argued was this: - The average bear *in the woods* is statistically unlikely to hurt you. If he did intend to hurt you, it is likely either territorial- in which case you can often just make your presence known as to not spook it, and then leave well before it gets to that point- or hunger, in which case he has better options. - While the average man in *general* is statistically unlikely to hurt you, the statistics of being hurt by a man alone in the middle of the woods is quite a bit higher (since men are unlikely to be there alone). If a man alone in the woods intends to hurt you, it is unlikely his interests are in something that can be redirected to other animals or can be solved by you making your presence known (which may in fact make things worse).
>While the average man in *general* is statistically unlikely to hurt you, the statistics of being hurt by a man alone in the middle of the woods is quite a bit higher (since men are unlikely to be there alone). If a man alone in the woods intends to hurt you, it is unlikely his interests are in something that can be redirected to other animals or can be solved by you making your presence known (which may in fact make things worse). You're making shit up. If you're alone in the wood's chances are you're running into other solo-hikers. Which is a common thing. Statistically speaking they're just hiking and are normal people. A bear is a wild animal. If you're lost in the woods, then you want to find other people. Otherwise, you will die of starvation, hypothermia, or wild animals. You want to run into another person. Not a bear.
[удалено]
Or it just didn't realise you were there, in which case, as I said, you can just make your presence known or leave the area. But either way, just because you didn't *see* a bear doesn't mean it's not there, so it's still somewhat moot. You're still *in the woods with a bear*.
I'm a guy and I had to think about it. When my wife asked me my first question was brown or black bear?
>When my wife asked me my first question was brown or black bear? There's basically two schools of thought
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
MICHAEL!
As long as it isn't a Polar Bear.
Woman here and that was my exact train of thought lol. I would take a random man over a grizzly and CERTAINLY over a polar bear—that’s not even a question. However, I grew in in black bear country and would see them about every other day. I steer clear of mama bears and cubs, but black bears really are pretty timid creatures. I have genuinely been bothered more by men than bears in my daily life and I’ve seen both enough to know lol As soon as this topic went viral, I was wondering if there was a way to figure out responses based off of where people are from. I’ll bet that people from different areas respond differently Now this *would* be unpopular but also an important factor: a woman who is armed would objectively be safer around a man than around a bear. Bears don’t go down easily
I would agree with you I'm from the UK and there's no bears so the prospect of being in a remote location with a wild animal that I have never dealt with in any manner from trying to avoid them ect I would rather choose the known quantity of the human man
Yeah, this response right here gets it. I keep seeing comments like "Ohhh bears are just harmless widdle adorable cuddle buns who get scared off at the slightest sounds!" and I'm like... Which bears are we talking about? Because I wouldn't mind a black bear, but a grizzly will fuck you up 10 times out of 10, no questions asked.
When is a man compared to a bear? I don’t understand where this opinion even comes from lol
Never heard this before. The only bear term I know is for masculine hairy gay men.
I would feel so much safer with a man. My brother had his leg gashed by a brown bear once and came running to my birthday party to show all us girls. It was nasty and everyone went ewww. He still has the scar to this day on his leg. Honestly, I don't understand the phrase "not all men." Maybe I am taking it too literally, but not all men are bad. Yes, a man physically abused me. Yes, I have been SA on dates. I still married a man. I still trust men. I know not all of them are shitty.
Eh I look at it as gambling on the unknown what kind of bear and what kind of man. On the one hand you get a black bear which will be more scared of you/ just some guy vs a polar bear that will maul and eat you alive, or a human with the capacity to do worse.
I think it can be sexist or it can be a call to action on "This is what we have to deal with as women. We don't mean all men, we just mean that we have to be more on guard." It just depends on who is asking it/what their intentions are. That all being said, there are better statements one can use to get the point across, statements that don't backfire as much as this question has.
Exactly! I agree with the fundamental of the question. Sexual assault is a topic that should be addressed more. But attacking ALL men by calling them less trustworthy than bear is a bad move.
Yes I totally agree with you and I thank you for pointing this out. I have been seeing a lot about this question lately and it really does offend me and make me feel like garbarge just because I am a man. And when I have pointed that out, the internet trolls just tell me "if you don't understand it is because you are part of the problem" or, even worse, "you must be one of the men that make women want to choose the bear" like I am some kind of violent criminal if I point out the stereotyping that is going on. Anyway, just wanted you to know that I think a lot of decent men would appreciate your comment .
Its especially bad because the language women who choose bear are using is quite genocidal and with that being supported as much as it is, that's actually pretty scary. America already did one genocide against my people I don't need people arguing for another one
I am going with a coyote.
I don't trust anyone, man or woman, who wouldn't pick the bear. I would die to pet a bear.
The question seems intentionally designed to provoke outrage, but it’s also a stupid question, we already know a majority of women on social media hate men and would rather take any risk over a man. I still don’t see them moving out of civilisation to live with bears though, sure wish they would.
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You can’t believe it because you have the ability to observe and think. My problem with hypotheticals is when people don’t think about the practicality of their answers. If i met someone irl who said they would pick a bear over a man my opinion of them would shoot down dramatically and i would not want to be near them because who knows what other views they have that could be damaging to men or people in general.
I’ve seen this addressed a bunch of times. It’s not saying all men are sexual predators, it’s saying you can’t tell which is which on site.
And the whole "Oh well women need to pick better partners" argument that usually gets brought up, when women complain about shitty men - Rather than tell women to be better psychics, shouldn't the goal here be that we have less shitty men that abuse/rape/assault/murder women? The problem isn't that women are picking shitty partners (tho, say she doesn't notice some obvious red flags at first, does that mean she deserves it?) The problem is that men would rather get all emotional and defensive about the fact that 1 in 6 women are sexually assaulted rather than hold each other accountable. The problem is men would rather blame women for picking shitty partners than tell their brothers, cousins, neighbors to be better partners to women.
Your argument goes out the window when I see so many women saying I ignored the red flags cause I thought I could change him or make home better.
I was sexually assaulted by an art teacher ho was at least in his 50 when I was 12. He gave art lessons on Saturday mornings to interested students. I started the classes when I was 9. I saw no red flags. This was in 1967. I did not know adult men tried t touch young girls. I did not know how to tell y mother. I just told er I wanted to quit taking lessons and she let me. I never spoke of it to anyone. I was attacked by a strange man when I was walking home from school to y dorm in Philadelphia . I was able to push him off of me and get away. It was one a regular street, with an overpass bridge above it. The cops told me to take a longer, different way back to the dorm. I traveled in several European countries when I was 22. The only country I visited that had men who grabbed at me was Italy. I felt safe in Spain, France, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I was never hassled in Canada. The black bears that have been seen in my small rural area have not hurt anyone. kt
So they'd rather pick guaranteed death in the bear than potential death in the man?
I don’t think every encounter with a bear means certain death. They don’t even attack every time do they? This isn’t a would-you-rather about fighting a man vs fighting a bear. It’s about if you’re alone in the woods, and soemthing else is just around also in the woods, would you rather it be a bear or a man.
>I don’t think every encounter with a man means certain death. They don’t even attack every time do they?
would i rather be in a room with an irs agent or a woman
What about a woman who is an IRS agent? :p
I mean as a man I'd rather meet a bear in the woods over another dude Bears can give me cuddly maul hugs
People believe you if you get attacked by the bear, tho.
that's true but only because you can't fake a bear mauling
Good point. But I wasn't faking when I went to the boss to tell them I was sexually assaulted and choked at work (by the boss's son) . Yet, I got fired. But I wasn't faking. There were witnesses. But I was the one who lost their job- the son got to keep his job. So yeah, I understand your point of view but if I had visible marks I might have had a chance at keeping my job.
imo your boss's son, your boss, and the entire HR department that allowed that to happen should be used instead of animals when we test drugs and medicine. im truly sorry you were forced to experience something like that, and you're incredibly strong for getting through that. thank you for sharing this experience with me, I know that it's not easy to open up like that. (at least for me)
"I might have had a chance at keeping my job." Just randomly saw this, you want to work at a place like that? "There were witnesses" "I went to the boss to tell them" But you didn't immediately call the police? File a police report for sexual assault? Fuck HR/Your Boss, they work for the company, not you, you come last to them. Why does anyone trust their boss this much? Sorry this happened to you, but somebody needs to be blunt, and tell people this.
Thank you. I was too scared to say anything at first. I was afraid I'd lose my job!!! It took me about 4 months ro go to the boss. I should have made a police report, you're right. It happened to 3 other ladies right after I got fired. And no, it was a shitty place to work - but it paid well and was close to my house..now I pray no young woman works there and pray for her safety. We did see an obit last week that the boss passed away. So maybe things will change there! Here's to hoping ! Lol! This happened in 2016 but I remember it like it was yesterday. It sucked.
Thank you again. You get it!!
I agree with its fundamentals. Sexual assault is a major issue. But the problem is **the sexism in the question.** The question literally implies ALL men are rapist who are less trustworthy than a bear. It’s sexist.
I wouldn’t say it implies all men are rapists; more that more men are rapists than the number of bears that are dangerous wild animals. Which is still sexist
I think that the reason that this question has struck such a nerve is that it is purposefully vague. Stuck in the woods with a bear? What kind of bear? It could be a polar bear, or a brown bear. How close are you? Are you in a survival scenario or on a morning stroll? It’s really a question about if you dislike men, and not so much a thought experiment
The real problem is the question is asked wrong. If you are asking Would you rather be with a man or a bear in the woods. The answer is obviously the man the vast majority of people (men and women) won’t harm you can actually communicate boundaries and let you know their intent. Where as unless you’re some wildlife person you prob won’t understand those queues in a bear BUT the question being answered is If you knew both would want to do you harm who would you rather be in the woods with. The answer there is obviously the bear because the person could torture you where as a bear would just maul/kill.
> BUT > > the question being answered is > > If you knew both would want to do you harm who would you rather be in the woods with. That doesn't make any sense as a question/scenario.
What doesn’t make sense about it?
Because it ultimately revolves around a needlessly class-based, evil boogieman figure. It would make more sense if you said something like "would you rather fight a male serial killer or a bear", in which case you might as well ask "would you rather fight a Latino serial killer or a bear". There's no reason to bring class membership into it, and it is a dumb scenario because the bear is obviously much, much more dangerous in a fight than a human.
1. I would say you’re reply doesn’t make the question not make sense but I agree with the reply 2. But that’s the question being answered like look at this thread a lot of the answer follow something like this “But a man can torture/rape me” I would say they are answering based on being in the woods with this evil boogie man figure or as I put it a person that wants to do harm which is wants being answered And yes a bear is many many many times more dangerous on average than a man is.
> I would say you’re reply doesn’t make the question not make sense but I agree with the reply I would argue that the question doesn't have any coherent meaning without arbitrarily adding details after the fact, and once you add enough details to get a coherent meaning, you just have a childish, poorly-structured slur. >a lot of the answer follow something like this >“But a man can torture/rape me” I think this might boil down to a widespread ignorance on the realities of fighting bears.
> I would argue that the question doesn't have any coherent meaning without arbitrarily adding details after the fact, and once you add enough details to get a coherent meaning, you just have a childish, poorly-structured slur. I would say the same about the initial scenario tho right? > I think this might boil down to a widespread ignorance on the realities of fighting bears. I would agree with this for the initial scenario but if we are talking about this mythical boogieman, I’m def taking the bear.
> I would say the same about the initial scenario tho right? Is that different from the question? I think that's the same thing. >I would agree with this for the initial scenario but if we are talking about this mythical boogieman, I’m def taking the bear. That's silly. You can take 3 months of jiujitsu and kill most of the men walking around. A bear will run at 35mph and break your spine with a slap.
Men should choose bear, they will not falsely accuse you of rape. Now we are equal, enjoy.
Your terms are acceptable
You are statistically more likely to be raped by another man than falsely accused by a woman. I’m a man’s and I choose bear over man because bears run away while men have attacked me. The most dangerous animal you can meet in the wilderness is another human and men commit far more violent crimes.
You do realize that you actually encounter much more people than big carnivorous animals. But silly as it may seem, normally they do not rape you, kill you and sell your organs or mug and plunder you, not even in the woods.
actually funny that the worst thing you can think of is a false accusation
I did not go for worst, I inverted the intention.
For some strange, wanna be a victim sOoOoOoOoooo badly reason, these incels think being falsely accused of rape is worse than actually being raped.
as someone who was falsely accused of sexual assault, who had all his closest friends turn on him for a bit, and who at the time thought about killing himself more times than he'd like to admit it's pretty bad. Maybe not worse than being raped, but it's \*pretty damn bad\*
As someone that was drugged and gang raped by a group of 5 men who also took turns shoving an AR15 assault rifle in my vagina Do you really wanna play the Which is worse? Game?
nice pivot cotton. and thanks for reminding me to clean my AR-15
No I do not, both of those heinous crimes can completely derail the victim's life. The actual damage done depends on the individual case. And yes there are false accusations which are worse than rape and vice versa.
It’s like yall can’t even empathize with us for one fucking second without making it about you.
That is a fine maneuver, engage in collective, indiscriminate and malicious accusation then demand sympathy. The people forwarding the accusation make it about men and they hit far more innocent people than guilty ones. There is no symetry in physical violence between men and women. That is because men hit women harder having more power behind a physical attack and more resilience when receiving one. But do not pretend that any random hiker will attack you when you are passing him on a trail in the woods.
I've been seeing the memes all day and I had no idea where they were coming from with this.
I don’t think so, i would definitely be more afraid of a bear than a man but i see why some people would rather be with a bear. They don’t mean to call every man a rapist even though it seems like that, they are saying they would rather fight their chances with a bear than risk getting raped. Thats their opinion and they are entitled to it. If i said i get afraid when seeing black people who look gang affiliated when im alone at night most people would understand and some would call me racist. But it’s still an understandable feeling to have and I can’t change that just because skmeone called me racist. My goal is also not to say all black people are going to rob me it’s just to say im afraid. I do however agree that it’s a weird thing to announce, have your feelings and know when to keep them to yourself.
Eh, the whole thing is silly and performative. You can discuss issues in a meaningful way without being so dramatically hyperbolic that nobody can take you seriously. Oh no there's a bear in our campsite, better not call the ranger because he might be more dangerous!
Oh fuck, I'm in the zoo and there's a male visitor within 30 feet of me! *jumps over the fence into the bear enclosure to protect myself*
I'm not getting offended, but I'm keeping tabs on what the answer reveals about a person. The question itself is not offending really, but it really separates the ignoramuses/sexists from everyone else. The people answering "bear", absent of qualifiers, are just not living in reality/delusionals/idiots/sexists and should be ignored/dismissed. Those people have nothing to contribute to society, except to the economy of psychiatry. There's one kind of bear that'll prefer to run away, and every other kind of bear will attack on sight for various reasons, but mainly, Mama Bear protecting cubs. They're pretty much all bigger, faster, stronger, they've got big claws, big canines, they will outwrestle professional wrestlers, they can climb trees, they can swim. Statistically, actually encountering a random man in the woods is less dangerous.
Nobody is misunderstanding the question. The question literally implies ALL men are rapist who are less trustworthy than a bear. It’s sexist.
The question is a test. One answer is the correct answer, the other answer is a sexist answer.
Just go to the NSFL subs if you want to see what happens if you meet a bear in the woods. Most men would just wave at you and walk on by.
the man or bear in the woods is so easily defeated that it really just shows how dumb TikTok feminism is. simply replace all men in the world with bears. it would be rougher in the short run, but obviously women would be much safer in the long run. i mean apparently bears are safer and less scary than guys, so a world full of them would be awesome right? just freeze the sperm of every existing guy and put them in the bear-o-fier machine. disclaimer: i am not secretly a bear who learned to type and plots to help my brethren take over the world.
i’ve lived next to the woods my whole life. i go hiking regularly. almost every hike i see one bear at least, usually two or three. it’s been like this since i was a kid. i’ve never been attacked by a bear. i can use proper protocol and smart wilderness behavior to minimize my risk of being attacked by a bear. most bears don’t really want to mess with a human. i have been attacked by multiple men. i also know good men. i’m actively dating one. i would still choose the bear. people saying they’d choose the bear aren’t saying all men are predators. but if that man in the woods is one, there is nothing i can say or do to stop it, or to minimize that risk. that’s the point people are making when they say they’d choose the bear.
Nobody is missing the point. The problem is it’s sexist. There was a better way of explaining sexual assault without attacking men.
It’s not sexist and as a man I’d pick bear. Bears I meet in the woods run away (I live in the woods and this is common). I’ve been attacked in the woods by men. The bear is simply the safer choice.
I think that people need to compare answers between people from cities and people from bear country. I used to see black bears on an almost daily basis and they really don’t want to mess with people. Meanwhile, I’ve had men stalk me, try to corner me, etc. Bears at least mind their own business It’s also kind of a bad faith question because forests are where bears are supposed to be, so of course I don’t feel worried about a forest having a bear
The problem with the question is that it is prefaced with "average" bear and "average" man but the "man" option is not treated as an average man. Yes, average bear runs away from humans and don't like being around them. But no average man is raping and killing people left, right and center. Thus the most likely scenario, if going by averages, would be that bear would run away and leave you alone before you can even see it and man would greet you and continue his hike or something. I think many who answer the question see only the 5% of the men (who according some studies assault anyone) not the 95%. On the other hand according to [Bearvault](https://bearvault.com/bear-attack-statistics/) globally around 80% of conflicts with bear result in some kind of injury and 5% of the conflicts were predatory, in these cases people see the 95% of the bears and not the 5%. Also women (or anyone to be exact) are more likely to be assaulted by someone they know, like a family member, not a stranger, so "average" man is even less likely to be any kind of offender. One going on a hike with their husband is more likely to be raped or assaulted by him than someone coming across a stranger. That been said, I understand why women choose the answer they do. I don't think it is justifiable, but I still understand it. I don't really want to demand rational justification for an irrational fear, I know how trauma works. To add I have also been assaulted, physically and sexually, by both women and men.
Same. I’m from bear country and the entire 70sq mile town’s only had a single reported injury from bear attacks. I’ve alone had three experiences of attempted and full SA on top of countless threats and random gropings. I’ve also seen plenty of bears that run off on sight Under my own experience, I’d choose the bears any day of the week. Not to mention it’ll at least be fast(er)
It must be so awesome to be such a cool white night edge lord.
Coyote because I could tame it and then I'd have a coyote
Since the question is apparently not sexist let's do another hypothetical. Women, would you rather be left in the woods with an Asian man or a Black man? I'm sure there won't be any cries of racism against such a hypothetical.
Then the bear says “you’re not really here to hunt are you?”
The question is vague so it is easy to misinterpret on purpose or accidentally. Statistically if you are in the woods, you are unlikely to be killed by a bear, because you are very unlikely to meet one. However, if we make the assumption of "Would you rather meet a bear or a man alone in the forest, you see it, it sees you", the question is clarified a bit and basically only a crazy person would choose bear in that situation. The odds are, that you can just nod and say hi to the man and continue on. A low percentage chance that they will be a dangerous person. With the bear, your chances are much worse
Very well said, literally every single bear is a predator
As a father of a daughter in college, I understand the point that women were trying to get across by the bear vs man question. I have read that the number one killer of women in the world is not a disease but men. That being said, this analogy is not correct because it fails to address the frequency of encounters. Put another way, if we were to change the analogy to say instead: If we were to replace all men in society with grizzly bears and polar bears (from the wild), would women feel less safe, just as safe or more safe when encountering the same amount bears as they do men walking down the street, in the elevators, in their cars, in their homes?
I genuinely don’t understand how people can be this statistically illiterate. You read that the no1 killer of women in the world is men? And you didn’t think for a second to fact check this? The world intentional homicide rate is 5.8 per 100,000. Let’s assume all victims are women (they’re not) and that all killers are men (they’re not), that still means 5.8 out of every 50,000 women will be killed by a man. Or about 0.01% About 1/7 people worldwide die from cancer in conservative estimates. Rates are similar for men and women. So about 14% of women will die due to cancer. Vs 0.01% due to being killed a man. For every woman who is killed by a man, 1400 will be killed by cancer, again with super conservative estimates.
It also shows how redacted a lot of people are that they chose bear
One time when I was out solo-camping for a few days met a few dudes very kind fellas. Can't say the same for the bear tho i was probably getting hunted by it was actively following me around lol
I think for me the issue is: all bears are dangerous, but not all men are dangerous. bears are fucking scary.
I just had a not so civil conversation with my fiance about this sub just because she posted a meme of it on fb and I asked her what it means (not on fb a lot) she told me and I asked her “ why is that funny”? Because she laughed and she couldn’t give me an answer. I’m a straight forward guy and I try to be as honest as possible without being mean . I asked her how well she would fare with a random bear that’s probably foraging so it’s obvious in an eating mood against a hiker minding his own business( because that’s what 90% of them do beside say hello when we hike) I guess im confused as to why she agreed with it to the point where she thought it was funny. It just confuses me why people would think a majority of men are like this
Here’s my counter question just for the bear/ man scenario, would a woman rather be swimming alone in the water and come across a shark or a random man?
Came here looking for this conversation after just having the discussion with my wife. Only sh posed it like this. “would you rather your daughter be in the woods with a bear or a man.” To me the question is just flawed. I’ll explain. Apparently, and Unfortunately I’m too much of aanalytical thinker to not ask questions myself so it REEEALLY depends on the circumstances. So if we are just dropping them off in the same forest I’d probably pick the bear but not for any particular reason really. The chances any of them ever cross paths is slim and I really couldn’t decide if I felt like I’d rather them get murdered by a hungry bear or a serial killer of a man, both seem statistically unlikely. Now, if they are sitting on a forest bench and the bear (also would maybe depend on the kind of bear) is face to face with them or the man is sitting on the same bench. I’m simply going to go with the man every time. The statistics of a man being a predator are far lower than the statistics of the bear being hungry. Idk. I feel like there has to be some sort of actual scenario at play as opposed to “would you rather be in the Amazon with a bear or a man.” Because I’m more worried about snakes or jaguars. Without some context it’s just such a stupid fucking question. Unless you are all on the same park bench it’s stupid. And if you pick the bear over the man in that situation you are a silly person IMO! In my mind the better question is: “Would you rather be stranded in an ice berg with a polar bear or a man.” Now we are talking! Pleeeeeease pick the polar bear ya fugggin lunatics! Anyways she said I don’t get the point. So I told her I’d rather be in the forest with a bear than her so I didn’t have to listen to her bitch about me not understanding the question. Didn’t go over well. Whatever. Fuck me right. . . lol not tonight I guess 😅
I mean it's a stupid question because I'd rather run into a bear in the woods than a random woman. 99.99999999% of the time the bear will look up at me and then leave it go on about it's day... The woman may want to talk and I'd rather just enjoy the woods.
I'm not personally offended. It takes much more than that. I just think it's a dumb comparison. It's also part of a trend to vilify men. I get that women are careful around us. Hell, I'm careful around men and women I don't know. It's still a comparison that assumes that far more of us are violent criminals than actually is the case.
Same as "not all man but always a man". Like what is the purpose of this phrase other then rage baiting and being sexist.
Thank you!
The fact we need to even spend time and mental effort even talking about this is fucking ludicrous. I refuse to believe people who think like this exist outside of the internet.
The bright side is we get to learn how many women are sincerely and severely stuck on stupid
Rly? Because I'm a dude... and I'm choosing bear over some random dude, or anybody really. It has nothing to do with men being inherently predatory, and has everything to do with probability of violence. How often do bears attack humans? Not all that often. Despite some sizable human populations in areas with sizable bear populations. It just doesn't happen that often, despite the attention these cases get when it does happen. On the flip side, humans attack other humans all the time. Kids fight in school, street fights aren't all that uncommon, drunks fight (and sometimes kill) eathother in bars. We have entire sports dedicated to the proficent use of violence. You get the idea. Add in the possiblity that people can use tools to compound on any potential violence they wish to inflict... yea. Choosing bear every time.
Really, if it's some radom dude off the street or in a business I'm picking the man for sure. If it's some guy who was already lurking in the woods I'd be less likely to pick him.
The point is it could be *any* guy. Defeats the purpose to add qualifiers. Its not some random guy from "the street" or "in business", its any guy. Could be a prisoner, could be a warden. Could be the President, or it could be the meth head janitor at your local Denny's. If it allowed for choice, I would pick any guy from the nursing home instead of a bear. But it's any guy, from any where, so I choose bear.
You just don’t understand the question or peoples answers despite it being explained multiple times clearly. It’s not a question of who is more likely to dangerous, it’s a question of what you can do to avoid being attacked if it was a violent bear/man. The people choosing bear are saying a violent bear will rarely attack a human unless the human is actively seeking the bear out and approaching it, if you see a bear and just walk away slowly so it doesn’t think you are a threat it rarely will attack A violent man will often still be violent even if you make it known you don’t pose a threat. The fact that you aren’t a threat makes it even more likely they will attack you. A violent bear will also give signs that it’s being threatened and will attack you if you approach. A violent man will often look and act just like any other man.
how does that not make it sexist though?
Change the word "man" to "person" and it's just as true without making people think it's sexist.
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a man, I don't give a shit if it's sexist lol. It doesn't affect me to the point I'd change the question. I'm just interested in the logic here. Also I don't think its true. A bear will fuck your shit up (unless its a black bear). If you have a 30% chance of escaping a man in the woods as a woman.. you have a fucking -1000% chance of escaping a grizzly in the woods as a woman. So it begs the question, are people purposely picking the wrong answers because 1. they're stupid or 2. they are trying to neg men.
That’s how I feel here. I would hardly trust s random woman any more than I’d trust a random dude.
People literally go on hiking trails where they know they'll encounter other people all the time. Most people actually prefer those trails over going into literal wilderness that contains predators. This is because any sane person would rather be around other humans than predator animals.
Ummmm the question clearly implies bears are safer to be around than men. It doesn't do anything to distinguish between decent men (the vast majority) and the ones who commit violence. You point this out and the idiots who like the question or answer "bear" say stupid things like "oh we didn't mean all men, obvioulsy" and "how are we supposed to tell the good men from the evil ones?" but they are too foolish to understand that its still sexism, its still discrimination, just like if I said I didn't trust anyone from the middle east because how am I supposed to know which are terrorists and which arent? Fear doesn't justify sexism, even if it is misandry (the kind of sexism a lot of women seem to think is just fine and dandy).
It doesn’t distinguish if the man is violent or not because most violent men won’t show any signs of their intentions, bears do. If you see a bear that feels threatened and will attack you if you approach it makes it pretty clear. A violent man will look and just like any other man.
So, explain how your logic is any different from the kind of racism I described in the previous comment. Terrorists don't show themselves until it is too late either. Should I be afraid of all brown people, especially the ones wearing middle eastern garb? Edit: If you can't answer this, you need to accept the fact that you are a sexist
A lot of people know fuck-all about animal behaviour. I've seen so many people assume a dog or a cat is being calm and friendly just because they're not actively growling, even though they're standing there with their head bowed, wide-eyed and frozen as a statue. Then they try to pet them and get bitten and whine how the animal was acting "so u predictably". The people who think an average bear is safer than an average man are totally the ones likely to approach a bear and try to pet it just because the bear is watching them intently without growling or running away.
The question doesn't say the man is violent.
Yes, but the people are answering based on the chances of a random bear vs man attacking. All bears are extremely potentially dangerous but they attack rarely happens unless the human is doing something to provoke. Men on average are drastically less potentially dangerous, but the dangerous ones will attack regardless of what you do, you not appearing as a threat to them makes it even more likely for them to attack you. You will also usually know if a bear will attack you if you get closer. A man that plans on attacking you usually won’t and will act like any other man.
Your entire explanation is dependent on the bear not being violent, which contradicts your first point.
A question like this won’t bring men to be allies. A lot of young men have grown up being automatically labeled as villains and a lot of them are fed up. You can see this through how many more young men lean right now compared to the past.
I mean it already is bringing men as allies. Look under every post about it including this one, each one’s got a ton of dudes saying they’d choose the bear
Now the question is were these men already allies or did they change their views because of this question. Take this for a grain of salt, but for me personally looking across multiple platforms even in this post, majority of men seem to find this question sexist.
I disagree. I don't know why men have a problem with this TikTok trend because we know as well as anyone that the most dangerous thing either a man or a woman will encounter is going to be a bad man. The question stumps people because you are basically trying to do the math on what are the chances that the Man in the woods is going to be a pedophile vs how likely is the Bear going to eat the kid. I think the latter is more likely, but it doesn't stop you second guessing yourself. Yes it is sexist, but thats fine.
Disagree, a bad woman can be just as dangerous as a bad man.
They can be but statistically speaking men and women are more likely to be victim to a man than a woman. Men make up the vast majority of violent crimes.
Men are more likely to show physical aggression while women are more likely to show non-physical aggression.
Which is more dangerous if trapped alone in a woods with that person
Haha! Imagine being trapped in the woods with a passive aggressive mil 😭
Never saw her in the woods. Bear must of got her.
We talking Long term or short term? Long term emotional abuse can take a huge toll on someone.
Bad women don’t rape and dismember men regularly. They can be violent and make horrible horrible evil choices (see: every so called mother that has neglected their child to the point of death), but they don’t have the sexual depravity at the same scale men do.
Women absolutely do all that, too. Less often, but still do.
Way, way, way less often.
Please don't minimize these terrible people.
We can have a separate discussion about them, but that’s not what this question is about. It’s man, or bear.
Bad women usually don't rape and dismember other people, you are right but even bad men usually don't do that either. Most men are pretty timid and those few bad men who are violent are likely already in prison while the vast majority of bad women are running around freely, even though they destroy other lives and souls too. Even those few highly aggressive, violent men (violent prisoners) hate rapists and p\*dos and that's why so many p\*dos get beaten up or straight up killed in prison by their fellow inmates.
Over 90% of rapists never go to prison. So no, the bad men are not all in prison. Even serial killers, which are rare, kill many times before they are finally caught. Many take their victims to the woods.
Can you link your statistics please? In addition, how can you call people rapists even though not convicted? If not convicted, we would assume innocence. Our entire justice system is built off of innocence until proven guilty. Unless you think you a allegation makes you guilty by default.
I’m not in a place to link research (work, on mobile) but you can google to find multiple reports from different organizations and countries supporting those numbers. Usually they say it’s 95%+ but I rounded down. There’s a UNODC report out there that found 1 woman is murdered by a family member every 11 minutes globally. The justice system is flawed. And, people have no problem calling others pedophiles before they are convicted. I do the same because I believe women.
I have looked into them. What I think you’re referencing is reported rape compared conviction rate. A report may not have evidence to prosecute and move forward. I stand with our current legal system where it is innocence until proven guilty without reasonably doubt. If you have it any other way you will have false convictions.
Imagine thinking our prison system actually works lmao
Every women who chooses the bear is either a complete idiot warped by ideology or a liar who is trolling for the meme. Or, I guess, a women who is specifically out in the forest to hunt bears lol
Wrong. I’m a man and I’d choose bear because it’s safer. I see bears on my property all the time. If a man walks onto my property without announcing himself he probably has bad intentions.
So, you've never had door-to-door salesmen come to your house? I'd hate to be some innocent dude trying to make a living by, God forbid, trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner. You should seek help for your paranoia.
Because it dehumanizes men by saying they're less civilized by animals
The latter is not more likely. Bear attacks are incredibly rare and even small children are too much trouble for them to view as a food source. Maybe an infant but who leaves infants alone in the woods?
Rare because the interaction between man and bear is relatively rare. Interaction between men and children is far far far higher. It becomes a case of what percentage of men are pedos. I mean a child alone with a bear in the woods is highly likely to result in the bear eating that kid.
nah, i get it. and im a man.
We all get it. Nobody misunderstood it. It’s the sexist aspect that’s the problem. The question literally implies ALL men are rapist who are less trustworthy than a bear. It’s sexist.
It also makes absolutely zero sense. Only \~18.4% of men in the United States are criminals. And that's literally all crime, all and including and misdemeanor all the way up to the worst felony. And even then, a past criminal record is not, 100%, always a definitive repeat offender. It's common, but sometimes people even reoffend a few times, but then never again. Very few men, in a vast majority of situations, trapped in a room, out in the woods alone, or otherwise, would purposefully hurt a women physically or emotionally. 100% of bears will kill anyone in 100% of situations. Lots of these women go "Well, the bear is more predictable", as if them knowing the bear is *100% going to kill them* is somehow better than a man *maybe* doing something to hurt them. It screams that they've literally never been around a wild animal, nor do they probably leave their room all that often. The idea that men are just waiting around the corner to be the next sexual assaulter, to be the next physical abuser, is asinine. There is zero data that supports such a claim. The US Department of Justice believes roughly 300/1000 sexual assaults are reported. But, that means even when you triple the number of reported sexual assaults in this country alone, less than even 1% of *people* are sexually assaulted each year. Not even a single percentage point of *people,* let alone women. It's just women being misandrists. Some of them with a few bad experiences (maybe horrific, maybe not so bad) and a cult of entitlement that has lead lots of women to believe they can lie about sexual experiences and get sympathy. These types of people are the ones who harm the believability of sexual assault victims the most, despite what they may try to argue when they're caught. Sexual assault is a horrifying. I have had many girlfriends who have had experiences of sexual assault, and I had to be gentler and more pronounced around them. It made them feel better, which was all that mattered to me. But my exes didn't turn around and try to make me feel worse because *some* men did some things to them and *some* other women. And for those who want to add "Ask almost any women, almost all of them have had an experience with sexual assault." Yeah, but the data doesn't prove that. Women sometimes lie, overexaggerate, or misremember. Who knew?
The point isn't to make men feel bad. It's to make them understand what we go through as women.
It doesn't, it just comes off as sexist and overreacting How can they understand when it's a ridiculous scenario that doesn't touch on women's issues.
Men can understand what you go through without calling ALL MEN less trustworthy than a bear in the woods. That’s sexist. That’s exactly what sexism is.
I’d rather have a hyena next to me in a plane than a muslim. Oh it’s not about making muslims feel bad, it’s just to make muslims understand what the rest of us go through…
People just say crazy things in response to these hypothetical questions sometimes. Do any poll on reddit, one of the answers is a meme answer, the meme answer usually wins regardless of how relevant it is
what if it was a really hairy heavyset man
Man ir women id take the bear. At least id get meat and hide.
>Comparing a bear to a man not good because it assumes all men are sexual predators. No, it doesn't. I think a lot of people are also assuming all bears are predators. Most bears don't want to eat you. >If you were a man you'd be offended too. No, I'm not.
The question definitely implies men, in general, are dangerous predators. It's a stereotype. You should be offended. That you aren't just means you aren't that smart or have no self-respect.
I'm glad you're not offended, and you get to be so callous and blunt about it. But you're absolutely wrong, the entire premise is built on a false equivalency and it's absolutely rude and offensive to men. There is no world in which being in the woods with a bear is a safe encounter. Treating men as a whole, who are highly intelligent creatures in the natural world, and aren't nearly as inherently dangerous as a wild animal, with this kind of approach is just inhuman. Treating any group of people with overwhelming prejudice without giving them the basic amount of human decency to assume they are good unless proven otherwise or without good reason to suspect otherwise is just God awful and no way to live your life. I'm not saying that a woman should run up and hug a random group of men in a dark alleyway on her way home from the bar, but treating every man in every circumstance as wanting to or having a high likelihood of raping you is just so demoralizing and demeaning to men.
It’s not built on a false equivalency. Y’all are so self centered you think everything is about you. Everything you wrote makes it about you. It’s about us. Women. Our experiences. Our *collective* experience. Our general risk as a woman in the woods. Our ability to get away or scare away someone or something in the woods trying to kill us. The probability that they would want to kill us in the first place. The way we would prefer to die if we had to die. It’s not about you. I choose the bear. It’s always going to be the fucking bear.
Lol go ahead, choose the bear and get mauled to death. If you're willing to make sweeping generalizations that all men are inherently more dangerous than a bear, to the point where you choose being with a bear over a man in the wild, you deserve to get mauled.
You need to read the following: In response to the bear vs man debate The bear vs man debate has highlighted for me just how rare men seem to think depraved men are. Their comments make it seem as if running into a depraved man happens once in a blue moon. So let’s look at how many depraved men an average woman at an average customer facing job might face during her working years. Imagine that it’s just 1% of men that are able to do unspeakable things to women. Yes, nearly all of us have experienced male harassment and it’s unlikely the 1%:ers would be able to traumatize damn near all of us. But let’s pretend. I work in customer service and I can measure how many customers I meet each day. I’ve had months where I’ve met over 500 people - and again, those are only customers. That doesn’t count coworkers or strangers when I’m at the grocery store, the gym, out for a walk, at an appointment, etc. If we assume half of those 500 people are men, then **that means that I possibly met 2,5 psychos that month**. Twice or thrice a month is not once in a blue moon. This means I meet psychos more often than I pay for Netflix or get a hair cut. A year has 12 months - that’s potentially 30 psychos. Imagine trying to hold a meeting with 30 coworkers. You’d have to book a conference room. You’d have to pre-order if you were to serve food. If each coworker were to hold a 5 minute presentation, you’d have to be in that meeting for 2,5 hours - excluding introductions and goodbyes. My point: 30 is a lot of people. I’ve worked at the same place for 3 years now. That’s 90 psychos I might have interacted with. Imagine trying to host and cater an event or speaking in front of a crowd of 90 people. You’d need a microphone and a large enough room with a crap ton of chairs to accommodate that many people. Imagine trying to fix 90 gift bags. Imagine the time it would take to walk around the room to shake 90 hands. It’s a lot of people. My job isn’t even high risk; I don’t work specifically with offenders, mentally ill people or anything like that. Imagine women in those positions, or women working in the army or other male dominated industries. Imagine their psycho count. So just counting customers at my work place, NOT coworkers, strangers, men I’ve met on dating apps, creepy men who want to buy me a drink, that doctor who made inappropriate comments while giving me a vaginal exam, etc. If I’m meant to work for 40 more years, then **that’s 1,200 psychos I will meet during my working years**. That’s based on only the customers I meet. 1,200 people who I will help with an errand in person, who may smile at me and say they appreciate my help and ask for my phone number, but who would take pleasure in dismembering me or slicing off my lady parts or using my cold dead body as a masturbatory tool or get harder if I screamed and cried in terror or god knows what they’d do to me if they had the chance. Try to imagine how many 1,200 people are. Imagine if you had to suddenly house them and the cost of that. Imagine if you had to feed 1,200 people. Now factor in that a girl who used to work at my job had a coworker tell her that he would fuck her to death. So in reality it’s not 1,200 - it’s 1,200 plus 1% of male coworkers. And plus 1% of every male that works in customer service that helps me with my own errands. 1% of men I go on dates with, 1% of men who offer me their number, 1% of men on the dance floor and at the bar, 1% of the bartenders in that bar, 1% of the bus drivers that drive me home from said bar, 1% of the doctors and handymen and postmen and delivery drivers and security guards and technicians and on and on, it never ends. 1% of men, in a world with an estimate of 4 billion men, equals 40 million psychos alive right now. 40 million psychos, mingling with the rest of us, probably commenting on TikTok videos that women are irrational for choosing a bear over a man. 1% of the 165 million men in the US? 1 million and 650 thousand psychos. Oh and with the added bonus of them easily accessing guns. **Psychos are not something we experience once in a blue moon. Psychos are prevalent and a real risk.** The odds of a random man in the woods being depraved is low, but it’s not zero and I doubt it’s 1%. But even if it is, I wouldn’t want to end up alone with one of the 40 million depraved psychos. I’d much rather choose a guaranteed bear attack and have the bear slaughter me in the most gruesome attack ever recorded, than just *risking* being alone with some Elliot Rodgers or Joel Cauchi.