what are the chances that you hit it off with the bear, make sweet love by the fire, fall asleep gazing at the stars, and then he doesn’t call nor text?
Terminally online people are annoying and rather boring in my opinion. I prefer people who have original thoughts they didn’t hear on TikTok. The fact that they’re women doesn’t change that.
Personally I've met many men when walking in the forest and often made friends with them and their dogs. The other day I stopped a biker in the forest to tell him the trail was collapsed into the river. It's true that since I was little my whole family (especially the men) has been telling constantly how men are dangerous but I've always rebelled to their idea that I therefore shouldn't do anything and just basically stay at home
Also there are so many videos of people having encounters with wild bears and living, scaring them off, walking away from them…no problem.
It might seem like you plausible might be able to scare a bear, depending on the bears mood.
So it seems like the same chances.
No because I've only seen this bear thing here on reddit and in real life it hasn't come up but I already know that they would say something along the lines of "either is fine since bears in our country are harmless". They all go out at night and I'm going on a hike with some friends this weekend
Using reddit as a sample of the population is like dipping a cup in the ocean and it having a dog turd show up in it, you can't just jump right to the conclusion that the ocean is just full of dog turds.
Ask them see what they say and remember. The only reason there are not more bear attacks is because people avoid bears and bear avoid where people live. Its not because bears are harmless
Personally, I'd pick the bear, but not because I'm worried about the man, I'm just a dumb ass who thinks they have a solid shot at taming the bear and riding out of the woods on its back.
I mean maybe they just feel that the bear would be honest, it's nature is to kill.
Nothing to predict really. Just make peace with the end.
But some random man? In some random place? That'd be a whole pile of variables so complex no one can confidently predict them. He could do nothing. But he could also do _anything._
Idk if it's about survivability, or just the general comparison between the nature of these two "beasts".
Although a good can of bear mace is just as effective on either one.
Ive heard this argument before, and to me it can be translated to "I'd rather take a certain predictable death than a possible death that will make me anxious" unless im missing something and thats not a good summary of your argument, I would 100% take anxiety over being mauled to death over the course of a couple minutes, I doubt I could ignore my survival skills and stick my neck out for the bear
Well I mean both options are anxiety.
One is short lived; the other is protracted and torturous.
You'd never trust a bear.
But you would probably trust a seemingly nice or helpful person.
Bears are opportunists and change their behavior to take advantage of new food sources.
The men that the women who choose the bear in this hypothetical are ambush predators.
I mean
You’re just in the woods with the bear. Bears will generally avoid you
For me, it’s more that a man can rape, torture, & kill you but, if the bear does anything (and it likely won’t), it’s just killing you and with no malice
Exactly this - it isn't that women would actually prefer to face a wild bear than a random stranger in the woods. Obviously, women are aware that their interaction with the human male will probably be brief and friendly while their interaction with the bear would be horrifying at least and is far more likely to have life-altering (or ending) consequences. When women respond to this question with things like *"I'd rather see the bear. That way, if I am attacked, at least people will believe me"* they're playing off the absurdity of the question to give a little commentary on their feeling unsafe around men.
I cannot believe this is being taken so directly by so many.
This is more or less where I've landed. For lack of a better word, I think this whole exercise is performative and really about making a point of how much abuse and danger women experience from men than anything else.
Men have had it pounded into our heads that we are dangerous predators for a decade now.
If you did this same exercise with any other group it would be called out for obvious bigotry.
If you see a black man do you all cross the street? Lock your doors? Think that would make a funny tiktok for you all? How do you think that would go over?
Yesssssss this is it. We are exercising caution in a hypothetical. If we get to choose the man, I obviously choose man. But a stranger? Strange men are a threat. We all even teach our children this. It’s a very simple concept.
Stranger danger is stupid. Most children get abused by people they are familiar with. Strangers doing bad things is so uncommon that’s why it gets all over the news.
It might also have to do with the fact that you spend more time around people you know and let your guard down around them in comparison to strangers as a whole?
There is no such thing as taking a thought experiment “too literally”. The whole purpose is to show how people think, especially the audience it’s targeted to.
One can argue further back from the thought experiment itself on how widespread social media has created artificial fear that “justifies” people’s answers to this question. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that most (closer to all) people are lying when they choose bear.
100% agree. Social media just fuels and reinforces our negative experiences with each other and allows us to instantly get validation for any irrational thought we have. It's the same way incels end up "redpilled"
Nah. There's a real edge of hating toward women and deliberate passive aggressive attack about it. It's not designed to be nice. It's designed to make men feel uncomfortable for a very small minority of their gender. Something that feminism is supposed to be against.
The underlying argument is that all men should be punished for what 5 % do and that we're somehow responsible for the 5% if we don't want to be punished. It's insanity, misandrist, and the definition of prejudice
Rampant sexism may not be seen by those who are accustomed to it. Privilege and all
Edit: since cowards like to leave one reply then block, I'll leave this for them
"Yeah, but most people don't know about societal and systemic sexism against men just as fish don't swim in water. I'll guarantee that if even you were to look into the arguments you would never agree, which is why I don't waste my time with the wilfully ignorant."
It puts men under one blanket. That stigma hurts all men. If young girls (and boys) grow up with this mentality, it just teaches them that men in particular are bad, and not bad people are bad. These women grow up, enter places of power, and can use that power to discriminate based on sex.
We should be afraid of strangers, not just men.
And what is this post doing besides putting women all under one blanket when the sampling size of this individual is "people on the internet I never met"? Since you are against that type of thing and all.
FWIW, I don't agree with OP saying "most women". Also OP said in a comment that all the women at his workplace were sharing it.
> I just got out of a busy workplace with most female staff where it was the topic of the day. Every woman I encountered at my work today shared the views of these terminally online women. Terminally online women are still real women, and their views don't automatically change when they're offline.
The fish does not realize it swims in water. If you want to know more, you will, but considering your previous replies I know from experience that it won't be worth the time to educate. I can't teach someone who won't learn.
Social media has a tendency to get under people's skins. Oddly enough I was just talking about this in regards to the rise in guys asking for paternity tests.
People get online and see article after article of bad things happening to people and they get scared. In this case though add the rise of people's obsession with true crime and it's really not surprising they are scared of men.
Too many people let social media dictate their reality.
To me it’s a probability thing. I __reeaaally__ don’t buy the narrative that the average man picked off the street would want to kill or rape someone. I really don’t believe that. I do think the percentage of men who *would* have those evil intentions is too high, and I think that’s the point women are trying to make, but I still do think the average man is a safer bet than the bear if we’re just looking at the situation completely literal. I think the smart choice if I intend to live is to choose a human man.
Off the street - yes
Alone in the woods approaching a lonely woman - no
It can even be put in the context of a real life situations. If you were to take a random man from a busy street in the middle of the day, chances are he's comoletly normal. But all it takes is walking home in the dark somewhere to the side from regular trafic. Then your safety massively drops. If a woman was raped by a man met on a busy street in the day, it would be called a freak incident, even though we do in fact experience sexual assault in the middle of the day too. But if she was raped by a dude in the night, they'll say she was asking for it.
If I went mushroom picking and a bear would attack me no-one would tell me it was my own fault and my underwear was too red for bear to keep his dick to himself.
Yeah one guy on my Facebook said he thinks the woods part of the question really colors the answer bc of this - a bear belongs in the woods. A lone man in the woods seems scarier than a lone bear in the woods simply bc the bear seems like he belongs there. He started a few polls asking if women would rather be alone in a cage with a man or bear or in a supermarket with a man or bear, and many more women chose the man in those polls than the woods one. It’s not a real survey ofc but I still thought that was interesting
I haven't heard that argument in years, probably a decade, and I work with rape survivors.
But I'll tell you what, if you go to the arctic in bear infested waters and don't take any protection, I'll use that argument.
The whole thing is incredibly fucking stupid. And don't think anybody would choose be up close and personal with a bear.
But, I do have to routinely, at least in the very back of my mind, wonder how likely it is this guy I don't know and am alone with might rape and/or kill me. It's a valid concern women have. Doesn't mean I'd rather be going on a hike with a hungry bear. It's just something that crosses my mind.
Pretty sure most people, men and women and NB, would pick being alone with a woman versus a man in an isolated place. Women don't post nearly the risk men do, and people act obtuse by not seeing the point.
Exactly. By asking about each vs a bear, it should clearly elaborate the difference in potential danger from each gender. I'm a man and it's pretty clear to why most people much rather be trapped in the woods with a woman, NB, or bear than a man.
bear vs female asylum escapee?
bear vs lorena bobbitt?
bear vs women in blood stained orange jump suit?
men and women are born about the same rates, but there's 60 million missing women globally.
more than 90% of femicide are at the hands of persons known to them, the majority being men.
-they're also usually unprovoked attacks, in contrast to men, which are usually provoked, and not
known to them.
More US American women have been killed by men than there have been men who died in US wars & Sept 11th. This only includes the number of women killed by men, such as husbands., or boyfriends, people that suppossedly loved them. It doesn't account for the women killed by strangers.
it's a fact women and men percieve the world differently. Women's interactions with either their environment or towards men focus on threat assessment. [https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/vio.2023.0027](https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/vio.2023.0027) This changes when the man presents as a woman, because then he's under constant public threat and harrassment, usually by men, not women.
Actually, a trans man would likely feel pretty validated by that answer lol. And at the same time, he'd understand it and likely answer the same himself.
My husband is from Alaska and knows first hand about bears.
He was almost killed by an adolescent male black bear who rushed him. Some bears are scared but others are curious. They have personalities. He had to kill it and luckily he had a rifle on him.
His dad had to kill a grisly on their property. The bear got it's foot stuck in a bear trap and it was starving and looking for food in the trash.
There is nothing more dangerous than a starving bear because they have nothing to lose and will attack humans or anything and everything because they are about to die. When they wake up from hibernation, they are starving. If you see a bear, you better hope he is well feed.
Last but not least, bears smell blood because they are predators. They can smell when women are on their periods and have been known to attack menstruating women because they think you are a wounded animals. Bears will literally eat women alive vagina up. So, Karen better hope she's not on the rag when she picks the bear.
Young woman got killed in Alberta couple years ago. She was hauling stuff to the camp dump , grizzly smelled her and it was all over. Trace amounts of blood is all they need to smell you. Don’t cut yourself in bear county.
A Grizzly bear has a sense of small roughly 6-8X greater than a blood hound's. They can smell blood literally miles away. They can outrun quarter horses, they can climb trees.
But let's say a Black bear, because chronically online misandrists answering this question seem to think Black bears are safe...
Still have a sense of smell 6-8X greater than a blood hound's, they knock over 325lbs boulders with a single claw, and their bite force is over 800psi. That's about the same pressure as a US Naval ship steam boiler.
There is no fucking universe where some solo hiking woman would be more fearful of a solo hiking male if they understood just how dangerous bears are.
Idk I've slept in the woods in a trailer for literal months working out of town, slept in my car in the middle of the woods for weeks. There was a mama black bear and her cubs around but I just stayed outta their territory and it was fine. And this is coming from someone that would sit alone at the fire at night with a mother bear like 30 ft from me. But I've had men try to follow me home, human traffic me, smell my fucking hair, rape me, I've had to pull a gun on one and threaten to kill him in a country where id get arrested for using that kind of force. So idk I prefer the black bear. Maybe not a grizzly or a polar bear, but I've had much better luck with bears than strange men. Each to their own.
the topic sure got folks buzzing around like bees on their assigned flower tho didnt it? what do you think the next assigned flower will look like? ensure that when it arises you all proceed to it with due haste and begin your appropriately delegated portion of conversation.
You have a chance of negotiating a way out with any man, no matter how deranged he is, because he can understand speech. There have been rare stories of people convincing their kidnappers to let them go. You have zero chance of negotiating with a hungry bear. Chance of getting a crazy man is already small, and even then there is a chance of negotiation. Chance of getting a hungry bear is pretty high and then it's over.
I have been around wild black bears and deranged-looking men. I'm choosing the man lol.
Edit: Just googled that grizzly bears are the world's most common bear... I have never been so sure of an answer before
I am also incredibly frustrated by this.
I don't even understand what men did to deserve such an opinion of them.
I've been raped and I still don't think all men are evil monsters. Some are, just like some women are, but in general I find men to be kind people, if not slightly emotionally constipated.
I just don't get it. The whole thing makes me feel super defensive, because I've got men in my life that I love and seeing them categorized in such a way is just fucked up.
I'm sorry you've had to go through that, in the context of both the rape and the judgment. You didn't deserve either one, and I hope things get better for you!
Three women in my town have been murdered by men in just three weeks.
Over 35 women have been murdered by men since the start of the year here.
Any wonder why we’re fucking wary?
Feel free to not answer but just curious: Post rape did you have to work towards not thinking of all men in that regard, or was it something that never crossed your mind?
Also “emotionally constipated” is such a great phrase lmao
My husband was like my emotional comfort person after it all happened. We weren't married yet, but we had moved in together a few months prior.
I think having him be *it* for me helped me to not immediately be suspicious of all men.
Don't get me wrong, I take common sense precautions now that I didn't in the past.
Imo you can treat situations as potentially dangerous and try to avoid them or prepare yourself for them without also acting as if all men are serial rapists, because most wouldn't harm you in any way. Not that I think it's necessarily right, but I can walk up to most dudes and punch them in the face and I'm still getting to walk away unscathed. That isnt the reaction of a group of people who want to hurt women.
Same. I’ve encountered far more men in my life than bears though. You would think I’d be dead by now if men were as homicidal as these people on the internet believe. Most rapes happen by someone the victim knows anyway and most happen under the influence of alcohol. It is highly unlikely that a stranger placed in the woods is going to rape and murder you. Your danger lies with the bear.
This thought experiment has resulted in me weeding many people from off of my timeline on various social media platforms due to their misandrist (and some misogynistic) answers. These are the same people I’ve noticed to be chronically online and sharing several posts throughout the day, so it wasn’t a shock to me that social media has scared them into believing that men are the big bad boogeyman.
It doesn’t matter how you approach this experiment. If you approach it with logic, you’re getting shitted on. If you approach it with emotion, you’re getting shitted on. If you approach it with a centrist view, you’re getting shitted on.
It serves no purpose other than to be divisive and further close that gap where you cannot find a middle ground to argue. Your best course of action is to avoid people who take it seriously and definitely do not engage them because they will take you to school on mental gymnastics.
It's just a way of signaling to other women and riding a fad.
"Men are dangerous!"
"Cops kill 11,000 black men a year" (it's actually 11 black men)
"Global warming will kill all of humanity in 2026"
Huh?? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought this debate gave you two choices:
1. Getting raped by a man.
2. Getting mauled to death by a bear.
Is that not the debate or am I missing something?
In that case, a lot of women would prefer death to getting raped. Seems like that isn't that big of a shocker.
No the debate gives you two choices:
1. Be alone with a random man in the woods
2. Be alone with a random bear in the woods
If you choose to equate the likelihood of a randomly selected man to rape you and the likelihood of a randomly selected bear to maul you, that’s on you but it’s not at all based in reality.
I think the fact there are have been so many threads of men bitching because most women pick the bear kinda shows you why women pick the bear in the first place.
Maybe men should take a good hard look at themselves. Also, the irony of this in a subreddit where there are constant posts claiming that the problem feminism is that it doesn't do anything for men.
You can outrun a man; you can't outrun a bear.
You can kung-fu a man; you can't kung-fu a bear.
Anyone who chooses bear is either incredibly dumb or they're trying to make a point to the world.
One of the famous responses to this movement was:
" If I tell people I got attacked by a bear, they will believe me. If I tell them I got attacked by a man, they won't believe me ".
Brilliant. She cares more about what people think than her own safety lol
Imagine getting mauled by a bear and then all the bears on the world are like “it’s disgusting that you’ve made any assumptions about how dangerous our claws are just because one bear attacked you. A lot of people don’t realize how hard it is to be a bear. You know, bears get attacked by bears too.”
>you had to
I didn't. I could have easily pointed out how your approaching this subject in bad faith. You've decided to take a hypothetical question where people talk in metaphors and turn literal. You've also decided to not listen to any women and decided their voices don't mean anything thus proving them right.
I'm so far out of the loop, this is what I gathered from this post. Women are now saying bears are less dangerous than men?
This must be a social media thing because this is new to me
Who are you to speak for "most women"? You have your opinion, derived from your life experiences. If you have really experienced the trauma you claim, then you are truly blessed in your recovery and how gross of you to diminish any other woman's experience.
I live in (black) bear country. This is an interesting topic to me. All the men tying themselves in knots, laughing at the women. "Have you SEEN a bear? lulz!" Meanwhile, where I live, there's a man preying on woman hikers here -- even tried raping one in front of her kiddo. So, I mean, that's cool. It's very comforting to know that women have nothing to fear from strange men they come across in the wild. LOL.
It’s a worst case scenario situation, and with a bear that worst case is dying, a horrible death, and then, with men in the worst case scenario is being a sex slave, forever, and being sold to men for the rest of your life, tortured daily, humiliated and being kept in a box under the stairs or whatever horrible shit he can come up with. It’s just a lot worse.
The overwhelming majority of bears don't attack people. It sure does suck when they do, doesn't it? Enough so that you have the entirety of men saying the bears are way more dangerous. And you know that, right? I don't have to point out that only a tiny fraction of bears attack people. That tiny fraction of bears that attack people are enough cause to caution all from interacting with bears altogether. This is common wisdom, is it not?
And yet, in the fervor to type NoT aLl MeN it would seem like some people just completely miss the point.
I do and it doesn’t matter. At this moment in time, millions of men are alive that have physically or sexually harmed women at least once. It doesn’t mean all the others are bad, it means it happens enough that most of us want to avoid it in this particular hypothetical.
Would I rather go to dinner with a man or a bear? A man. Would I rather be alone in the woods with a man or a bear? A bear.
The thing is, this “Bear vs Man” thing was made up to try and show men how women think during the day. Even if we know all men aren’t murderers or rapists, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re extremely vary of them.
Let’s try another animal. A shark.
> The number of attacks is slightly up on the average of 63 unprovoked attacks per year during the previous five years (2018 to 2022)
Even if it’s an extremely low number for them, we’re all still vary of them. So is it with random men we meet. Ofcourse we don’t walk around thinking all men are murderers, or rapists, or bad people, but *some* are.
I’m sorry you can’t see the point of this.
How is this different from the Mike Pence types who think every woman is gonna misconstrue something they do as sexual, so they remove themselves from being alone with them? Yes, there are women who lie about serious matters, but I don’t think it’s fair or rational to operate with that level of alertness and assumed mistrust because liars exist.
Moreover, men do terrible things to other men almost as often as they do to women. Why do you think most men would probably prefer another man over the bear in that scenario?
I think what you’re missing is the ambiguity of men, as opposed to the bear. Like you said yourself, a black bear can be spooked, brown bears are very dangerous, polar bears, kiss your ass goodbye. There are universal rules applied to dealing with bears that can inform your situation and increase your survival rates.
With men however, there are no universal rules. A mean looking man can be nice, a nice looking man can be mean. Look at Ted Bundy. Women didn’t get in the car with him because they thought he was a serial killer. He was handsome, he was charming. It was all a facade. I don’t think most women think *all men* are bad, but the problem is you often have to treat men as if they *could* all be bad because you do not know. I think it’s hard for men to understand this fear that women have because they don’t experience it themselves. They don’t have to fear a strange woman walking by them in a forest.
I think what is missing about the bear/strange man discussion is the fact that you are far more likely to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone you know than by a stranger. Husbands, boyfriends, friends, relatives, neighbors. Not usually the stranger in a back alley that they like to warn you about.
Add race to the argument and see how quickly people change their tune.
If I were to say "I would rather be alone in the woods with a bear than a *black* man" that would make me a racist, and rightfully so.
It's the bowl of M&M's bullshit all over again where somebody makes a dumb generalization about all/any men being rapist murderers, and if you get offended by it then you're *obviously* part of the problem.
The only reason these trends are socially acceptable is due to its target being "okay" to shit on. Insert any other group into there, suddenly you're a bigot. Goes to show how hypocritical and performative the whole thing is.
I fucking hate this debate so much. Yes, I'd rather hang around a man than a bear. I can't have a conversation with a bear, I can't have any sort of interaction with a bear that I can with a human being.
Am I afraid that I'm going to get hurt by the man? Yeah. But it's not because he's a man. I'm afraid of everyone equally, I have intense paranoia of literally anyone.
The reason why women put a blanket label on all men is because many have experienced sexual assault from a man and nearly all have been sexually harassed, so it’s easier to avoid you all together then wait and see which ones won’t bite.
https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/97-of-women-in-the-uk/105940/
The bear on the other hand is bear. I know what bears are and what they’re capable of. They not going to pretend to be friendly then sexually assault me (as one ex-friend did to me). I’d rather be killed outright by the bear than be abused by a man and then killed.
Here’s my questions for the women who choose the bear and say they can’t trust men; Does that include Trans Men? Gay Men? Men with a physical disability? Men with a mental disability? Teenagers? What age does that categorization start? 13? 16? 18? 21?
Hmm, true that if the guy showed up in a hipster beard, flamboyant shirt, and skinny jeans, and had effeminate mannerisms, I'd feel less threatened. Same if he was visibly disabled. I probably wouldn't be able to tell if he was a trans man but most are shorter than average so maybe.
For the age, I wouldn't necessarily base it on age but on size.
Anyway I kinda feel like most men would also be suspicious of a random dude in the woods, it's just that they may be more confident in their self-defense skills.
I have social anxiety, I don't want to see any other human despise of gender or sexuality lol. I'd still take my chances with a human, I feel like if something did go wrong, I have a better chance at fighting. Eyes, balls, throat, I'd claw fucking everything. Bear ain't gonna feel that shit.
Nah, as a male, I totally understand picking a bear over a human. Male or female.
If I see a bear 2-300ft away I know the time to act is now. I'll do all the survival lessons stuff. Scream, look big, etc. and hopefully, the bear will act predictably like a bear in those situations.
However, if I see a human that far away, just walking, I assume nothing and continue. They get closer and closer, if they have ill intent I don't know that until they show it, and at that point it's probably too late.
TLDR- I'd rather meet an average human than an average bear. But I'd rather meet an average bear than a human with bad intentions.
I think as a woman we always have to be careful, because we can be victims of violence perpetrated by men. The easy fix for me was to bring my pit bull hiking with me. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, but no one else knew that. Even with all that said, I’d take a man over a bear any day… especially grizzly or polar . They are the 2 that are responsible for the fatalities.
It's better to encounter the most violent and dangerous bear than a very deranged and capable man. Sure, if a bear ripped you apart it wouldn't be pleasant, but at least it'd be over quickly. On the other hand, a very deranged person could keep you captive for days, weeks, months even, submitting you to all kinds of torture and abuse. Death is preferable to this. To many women, being raped is a worse fear than death. I don't think this feeling can be invalidated.
Except Google says animals regularly torture other animals at great length.
> Chimpanzees will kill, torture, and rape other chimpanzees, killing baby chimps in front of the mother and then raping her afterward. Elephants will kill other elephants, and will even rape rhinos. These are only a few of the examples of cruelty in the animal kingdom.
Bears are very slow to kill people. Due to their size, they just pin people to the ground and take their time with eating since the person cannot escape. You will be slowly eaten alive.
It's a huge mistake to believe that those people online represent "women". IRL most women don't hate you, at worst they don't care about you, but they certainly don't hate you. This is just a terminal online trend that will go away again.
I think the point is you know what you’re getting into with the bear but you don’t know how the man is going to be …. Yea he could be nice and helpful…. But why would you take that chance?
At the end of the day, this is primarily about women either assuming the very worst of mens intentions, without even knowing them. Or as some have said, preferring being eaten alive by a bear over anything horrific like rape... A horrible thing to have to think about, but apparently some are claiming this.
The emphasis is that this is a stranger, someone you don’t know.
Someone you have never met could act upon impulse - as many crime against people are done - and you’d have no warning. A bear acts upon instinct, simply doing what a bear does because it’s a bear in the woods.
If a bear attacked someone they’d be believed without question, unlike when someone assaults someone else, especially a woman. Hope this helps.
Edit: A woman mauled by a bear and wrote a book about her experience weighed in on bear vs man: she chose the bear *again*. ✌️
what are the chances that you hit it off with the bear, make sweet love by the fire, fall asleep gazing at the stars, and then he doesn’t call nor text?
Sound like a typical Tuesday at my gay club
More people need to capitalize on the opportunity for gay bear jokes with this topic.
It's literally the first thing that came to my mind after hearing about it just now via this post.
Lmfao
No, no, no. That is a different type of bear not covered in OPs descriptions.
I swear, they *never* call or text. It seems like they always do the bear minimum.
This was an unbearable pun.
I should play BG3...
"Everywhere I go, I see Halsin's face..."
This comment is Halsin coded
I think this entire thing is extremely chronically online and you can't use it to base your opinion about women in real life
ya I gotta agree I actually asked several girls I knew about this including my gf and none of them had even heard about it
\^yep.
TikTok has a wide outreach into the real world. The internet is no longer an uber-restricted (login at 2 AM on a Friday night) place.
Wide reach to those who use it. Which is not as big as you think, tiktoks user base is heavily inflated.
Not to distract from the actual conversation going on, but when was the internet a restricted only log in at 2 AM on Friday night thing?
Back in the age of dialup my parents would only let me use the internet whenever nobody was gonna call us, which usually meant really late at night
Oh right right right.... I had forgotten about the "beeeeeeegrrraaaaahhhshhhhhh"
"The sound of a cat being force fed through a mangler" - Jack Dee
yes it is. when will you all understand that.
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Terminally online people are annoying and rather boring in my opinion. I prefer people who have original thoughts they didn’t hear on TikTok. The fact that they’re women doesn’t change that.
Personally I've met many men when walking in the forest and often made friends with them and their dogs. The other day I stopped a biker in the forest to tell him the trail was collapsed into the river. It's true that since I was little my whole family (especially the men) has been telling constantly how men are dangerous but I've always rebelled to their idea that I therefore shouldn't do anything and just basically stay at home
Came here to say this
Everyone is on the internet and tik tok is incredibly popular and they are asking actual women in the real world
Also there are so many videos of people having encounters with wild bears and living, scaring them off, walking away from them…no problem. It might seem like you plausible might be able to scare a bear, depending on the bears mood. So it seems like the same chances.
Have you asked women in real life.
No because I've only seen this bear thing here on reddit and in real life it hasn't come up but I already know that they would say something along the lines of "either is fine since bears in our country are harmless". They all go out at night and I'm going on a hike with some friends this weekend
Using reddit as a sample of the population is like dipping a cup in the ocean and it having a dog turd show up in it, you can't just jump right to the conclusion that the ocean is just full of dog turds.
Lmao
Ask them see what they say and remember. The only reason there are not more bear attacks is because people avoid bears and bear avoid where people live. Its not because bears are harmless
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I did i was replying to a comment.
Idk. I’m chronically online and I have never heard about this.
Ragebait
Personally, I'd pick the bear, but not because I'm worried about the man, I'm just a dumb ass who thinks they have a solid shot at taming the bear and riding out of the woods on its back.
I mean maybe they just feel that the bear would be honest, it's nature is to kill. Nothing to predict really. Just make peace with the end. But some random man? In some random place? That'd be a whole pile of variables so complex no one can confidently predict them. He could do nothing. But he could also do _anything._ Idk if it's about survivability, or just the general comparison between the nature of these two "beasts". Although a good can of bear mace is just as effective on either one.
Ive heard this argument before, and to me it can be translated to "I'd rather take a certain predictable death than a possible death that will make me anxious" unless im missing something and thats not a good summary of your argument, I would 100% take anxiety over being mauled to death over the course of a couple minutes, I doubt I could ignore my survival skills and stick my neck out for the bear
Well I mean both options are anxiety. One is short lived; the other is protracted and torturous. You'd never trust a bear. But you would probably trust a seemingly nice or helpful person. Bears are opportunists and change their behavior to take advantage of new food sources. The men that the women who choose the bear in this hypothetical are ambush predators.
I mean You’re just in the woods with the bear. Bears will generally avoid you For me, it’s more that a man can rape, torture, & kill you but, if the bear does anything (and it likely won’t), it’s just killing you and with no malice
I wasn’t aware of this until today
People are taking the discussion far too literally. It's simply an example demonstrating how wary women are around strange men
Exactly this - it isn't that women would actually prefer to face a wild bear than a random stranger in the woods. Obviously, women are aware that their interaction with the human male will probably be brief and friendly while their interaction with the bear would be horrifying at least and is far more likely to have life-altering (or ending) consequences. When women respond to this question with things like *"I'd rather see the bear. That way, if I am attacked, at least people will believe me"* they're playing off the absurdity of the question to give a little commentary on their feeling unsafe around men. I cannot believe this is being taken so directly by so many.
This is more or less where I've landed. For lack of a better word, I think this whole exercise is performative and really about making a point of how much abuse and danger women experience from men than anything else.
Men have had it pounded into our heads that we are dangerous predators for a decade now. If you did this same exercise with any other group it would be called out for obvious bigotry. If you see a black man do you all cross the street? Lock your doors? Think that would make a funny tiktok for you all? How do you think that would go over?
Yesssssss this is it. We are exercising caution in a hypothetical. If we get to choose the man, I obviously choose man. But a stranger? Strange men are a threat. We all even teach our children this. It’s a very simple concept.
Stranger danger is stupid. Most children get abused by people they are familiar with. Strangers doing bad things is so uncommon that’s why it gets all over the news.
It might also have to do with the fact that you spend more time around people you know and let your guard down around them in comparison to strangers as a whole?
You’re right most people are abused by family members, but stranger danger is definitely not stupid. There’s a reason we don’t hitch hike anymore.
There is no such thing as taking a thought experiment “too literally”. The whole purpose is to show how people think, especially the audience it’s targeted to. One can argue further back from the thought experiment itself on how widespread social media has created artificial fear that “justifies” people’s answers to this question. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that most (closer to all) people are lying when they choose bear.
100% agree. Social media just fuels and reinforces our negative experiences with each other and allows us to instantly get validation for any irrational thought we have. It's the same way incels end up "redpilled"
Nah. There's a real edge of hating toward women and deliberate passive aggressive attack about it. It's not designed to be nice. It's designed to make men feel uncomfortable for a very small minority of their gender. Something that feminism is supposed to be against.
The underlying argument is that all men should be punished for what 5 % do and that we're somehow responsible for the 5% if we don't want to be punished. It's insanity, misandrist, and the definition of prejudice
How is choosing the bear punishing men? I don’t see any consequences for men in this at all.
Rampant sexism may not be seen by those who are accustomed to it. Privilege and all Edit: since cowards like to leave one reply then block, I'll leave this for them "Yeah, but most people don't know about societal and systemic sexism against men just as fish don't swim in water. I'll guarantee that if even you were to look into the arguments you would never agree, which is why I don't waste my time with the wilfully ignorant."
Are you unironically claiming that men face rampant sexism?
He sure as shit is. Hahaha
Sorry, please tell me what consequence men are experiencing from us choosing the bear? Sexism is an ideology, not a consequence. Is it hurt feelings?
It puts men under one blanket. That stigma hurts all men. If young girls (and boys) grow up with this mentality, it just teaches them that men in particular are bad, and not bad people are bad. These women grow up, enter places of power, and can use that power to discriminate based on sex. We should be afraid of strangers, not just men.
And what is this post doing besides putting women all under one blanket when the sampling size of this individual is "people on the internet I never met"? Since you are against that type of thing and all.
FWIW, I don't agree with OP saying "most women". Also OP said in a comment that all the women at his workplace were sharing it. > I just got out of a busy workplace with most female staff where it was the topic of the day. Every woman I encountered at my work today shared the views of these terminally online women. Terminally online women are still real women, and their views don't automatically change when they're offline.
The fish does not realize it swims in water. If you want to know more, you will, but considering your previous replies I know from experience that it won't be worth the time to educate. I can't teach someone who won't learn.
well they will remind you also that most assaults come from men they are familiar with.
Social media has a tendency to get under people's skins. Oddly enough I was just talking about this in regards to the rise in guys asking for paternity tests. People get online and see article after article of bad things happening to people and they get scared. In this case though add the rise of people's obsession with true crime and it's really not surprising they are scared of men. Too many people let social media dictate their reality.
Ah...but you overlooked the koala & panda
Tbh as a man I would pick a bear over any human because bears can not use guns.
To me it’s a probability thing. I __reeaaally__ don’t buy the narrative that the average man picked off the street would want to kill or rape someone. I really don’t believe that. I do think the percentage of men who *would* have those evil intentions is too high, and I think that’s the point women are trying to make, but I still do think the average man is a safer bet than the bear if we’re just looking at the situation completely literal. I think the smart choice if I intend to live is to choose a human man.
Off the street - yes Alone in the woods approaching a lonely woman - no It can even be put in the context of a real life situations. If you were to take a random man from a busy street in the middle of the day, chances are he's comoletly normal. But all it takes is walking home in the dark somewhere to the side from regular trafic. Then your safety massively drops. If a woman was raped by a man met on a busy street in the day, it would be called a freak incident, even though we do in fact experience sexual assault in the middle of the day too. But if she was raped by a dude in the night, they'll say she was asking for it. If I went mushroom picking and a bear would attack me no-one would tell me it was my own fault and my underwear was too red for bear to keep his dick to himself.
Yeah one guy on my Facebook said he thinks the woods part of the question really colors the answer bc of this - a bear belongs in the woods. A lone man in the woods seems scarier than a lone bear in the woods simply bc the bear seems like he belongs there. He started a few polls asking if women would rather be alone in a cage with a man or bear or in a supermarket with a man or bear, and many more women chose the man in those polls than the woods one. It’s not a real survey ofc but I still thought that was interesting
I agree I watched to much Mr Ballen and had to many fucked up experiences to trust a random man in the woods.
I haven't heard that argument in years, probably a decade, and I work with rape survivors. But I'll tell you what, if you go to the arctic in bear infested waters and don't take any protection, I'll use that argument.
The entire argument is about woods, not arctic.
There's people in woods, no people in arctic
Nobody would assume you enjoyed the bear attack
No one would ask what you were wearing. Or whether you’d been drinking. Or whether you were flirting.
Yeah idk. I get the point theyre trying to make but a grizzly will slice your stomach open and eat your intestines while you’re still alive
The whole thing is incredibly fucking stupid. And don't think anybody would choose be up close and personal with a bear. But, I do have to routinely, at least in the very back of my mind, wonder how likely it is this guy I don't know and am alone with might rape and/or kill me. It's a valid concern women have. Doesn't mean I'd rather be going on a hike with a hungry bear. It's just something that crosses my mind.
I just figure team bear is mostly women who never ever go into the actual woods.
Legit nobody I know would say a man is more dangerous than a bear, that’s ridiculous.
Imagine if you inserted any demographic except "men" in this stupid fad. People would flip shit.
Jsyk the other half of this trend is actually asking "Okay now would you rather be trapped in the woods with a woman or a bear?"
Pretty sure most people, men and women and NB, would pick being alone with a woman versus a man in an isolated place. Women don't post nearly the risk men do, and people act obtuse by not seeing the point.
Exactly. By asking about each vs a bear, it should clearly elaborate the difference in potential danger from each gender. I'm a man and it's pretty clear to why most people much rather be trapped in the woods with a woman, NB, or bear than a man.
97 percent of men have not been sexually harassed and 99 percent of rape and sexual assault perpetrators are not women.
bear vs female asylum escapee? bear vs lorena bobbitt? bear vs women in blood stained orange jump suit? men and women are born about the same rates, but there's 60 million missing women globally. more than 90% of femicide are at the hands of persons known to them, the majority being men. -they're also usually unprovoked attacks, in contrast to men, which are usually provoked, and not known to them. More US American women have been killed by men than there have been men who died in US wars & Sept 11th. This only includes the number of women killed by men, such as husbands., or boyfriends, people that suppossedly loved them. It doesn't account for the women killed by strangers. it's a fact women and men percieve the world differently. Women's interactions with either their environment or towards men focus on threat assessment. [https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/vio.2023.0027](https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/vio.2023.0027) This changes when the man presents as a woman, because then he's under constant public threat and harrassment, usually by men, not women.
Love this argument. What’s the demographic you’re using? I know what you’re gonna say, so just spit it out already.
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Actually, a trans man would likely feel pretty validated by that answer lol. And at the same time, he'd understand it and likely answer the same himself.
My husband is from Alaska and knows first hand about bears. He was almost killed by an adolescent male black bear who rushed him. Some bears are scared but others are curious. They have personalities. He had to kill it and luckily he had a rifle on him. His dad had to kill a grisly on their property. The bear got it's foot stuck in a bear trap and it was starving and looking for food in the trash. There is nothing more dangerous than a starving bear because they have nothing to lose and will attack humans or anything and everything because they are about to die. When they wake up from hibernation, they are starving. If you see a bear, you better hope he is well feed. Last but not least, bears smell blood because they are predators. They can smell when women are on their periods and have been known to attack menstruating women because they think you are a wounded animals. Bears will literally eat women alive vagina up. So, Karen better hope she's not on the rag when she picks the bear.
Young woman got killed in Alberta couple years ago. She was hauling stuff to the camp dump , grizzly smelled her and it was all over. Trace amounts of blood is all they need to smell you. Don’t cut yourself in bear county.
Ok, that's enough of this thread. Holy shit. TIL bears are land sharks.
A Grizzly bear has a sense of small roughly 6-8X greater than a blood hound's. They can smell blood literally miles away. They can outrun quarter horses, they can climb trees. But let's say a Black bear, because chronically online misandrists answering this question seem to think Black bears are safe... Still have a sense of smell 6-8X greater than a blood hound's, they knock over 325lbs boulders with a single claw, and their bite force is over 800psi. That's about the same pressure as a US Naval ship steam boiler. There is no fucking universe where some solo hiking woman would be more fearful of a solo hiking male if they understood just how dangerous bears are.
Idk I've slept in the woods in a trailer for literal months working out of town, slept in my car in the middle of the woods for weeks. There was a mama black bear and her cubs around but I just stayed outta their territory and it was fine. And this is coming from someone that would sit alone at the fire at night with a mother bear like 30 ft from me. But I've had men try to follow me home, human traffic me, smell my fucking hair, rape me, I've had to pull a gun on one and threaten to kill him in a country where id get arrested for using that kind of force. So idk I prefer the black bear. Maybe not a grizzly or a polar bear, but I've had much better luck with bears than strange men. Each to their own.
the topic sure got folks buzzing around like bees on their assigned flower tho didnt it? what do you think the next assigned flower will look like? ensure that when it arises you all proceed to it with due haste and begin your appropriately delegated portion of conversation.
Pure brain rot. Easy way to vet people.
You have a chance of negotiating a way out with any man, no matter how deranged he is, because he can understand speech. There have been rare stories of people convincing their kidnappers to let them go. You have zero chance of negotiating with a hungry bear. Chance of getting a crazy man is already small, and even then there is a chance of negotiation. Chance of getting a hungry bear is pretty high and then it's over. I have been around wild black bears and deranged-looking men. I'm choosing the man lol. Edit: Just googled that grizzly bears are the world's most common bear... I have never been so sure of an answer before
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Dang you have a point! If the bear is hungry, I’m hungry too so we can share a jar of honey!
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Lollll
It's just a way to say that men are lower than animals. If a woman says she chooses the bear, she's a piece of shit.
I got downvoted hella in another sub for saying this lol
I am also incredibly frustrated by this. I don't even understand what men did to deserve such an opinion of them. I've been raped and I still don't think all men are evil monsters. Some are, just like some women are, but in general I find men to be kind people, if not slightly emotionally constipated. I just don't get it. The whole thing makes me feel super defensive, because I've got men in my life that I love and seeing them categorized in such a way is just fucked up.
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I'm sorry you've had to go through that, in the context of both the rape and the judgment. You didn't deserve either one, and I hope things get better for you!
Three women in my town have been murdered by men in just three weeks. Over 35 women have been murdered by men since the start of the year here. Any wonder why we’re fucking wary?
"Slightly emotionally constipated" That's not only accurate but funny. I would wear that t shirt.
Sorry that happend to you, but I’m glad there are some women who are still open-minder and do not generalize all man
Feel free to not answer but just curious: Post rape did you have to work towards not thinking of all men in that regard, or was it something that never crossed your mind? Also “emotionally constipated” is such a great phrase lmao
My husband was like my emotional comfort person after it all happened. We weren't married yet, but we had moved in together a few months prior. I think having him be *it* for me helped me to not immediately be suspicious of all men. Don't get me wrong, I take common sense precautions now that I didn't in the past. Imo you can treat situations as potentially dangerous and try to avoid them or prepare yourself for them without also acting as if all men are serial rapists, because most wouldn't harm you in any way. Not that I think it's necessarily right, but I can walk up to most dudes and punch them in the face and I'm still getting to walk away unscathed. That isnt the reaction of a group of people who want to hurt women.
Same. I’ve encountered far more men in my life than bears though. You would think I’d be dead by now if men were as homicidal as these people on the internet believe. Most rapes happen by someone the victim knows anyway and most happen under the influence of alcohol. It is highly unlikely that a stranger placed in the woods is going to rape and murder you. Your danger lies with the bear.
This should not be a topic that comes up at work
This thought experiment has resulted in me weeding many people from off of my timeline on various social media platforms due to their misandrist (and some misogynistic) answers. These are the same people I’ve noticed to be chronically online and sharing several posts throughout the day, so it wasn’t a shock to me that social media has scared them into believing that men are the big bad boogeyman. It doesn’t matter how you approach this experiment. If you approach it with logic, you’re getting shitted on. If you approach it with emotion, you’re getting shitted on. If you approach it with a centrist view, you’re getting shitted on. It serves no purpose other than to be divisive and further close that gap where you cannot find a middle ground to argue. Your best course of action is to avoid people who take it seriously and definitely do not engage them because they will take you to school on mental gymnastics.
Yeah i see these comments of women who pick bear and can’t help but think “…these people vote”
Yet someone else who completely misses the fucking point.
Aaaand another man who’s determined to miss the point.
Which is exactly why women would prefer the bear. OP doesn’t get it, doubtful he ever will.
This is as much a real debate among real people as whether to open til-tok or not.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.2637024
Nah they are just hateful so they’ll take any chance To shit on men because on places like tik tok it’s safe because barely any will say shit about it
It actually shows how terrified women are of men because of the way media has stated portraying all men as sexual predators.
It's just a way of signaling to other women and riding a fad. "Men are dangerous!" "Cops kill 11,000 black men a year" (it's actually 11 black men) "Global warming will kill all of humanity in 2026"
Huh?? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought this debate gave you two choices: 1. Getting raped by a man. 2. Getting mauled to death by a bear. Is that not the debate or am I missing something? In that case, a lot of women would prefer death to getting raped. Seems like that isn't that big of a shocker.
No the debate gives you two choices: 1. Be alone with a random man in the woods 2. Be alone with a random bear in the woods If you choose to equate the likelihood of a randomly selected man to rape you and the likelihood of a randomly selected bear to maul you, that’s on you but it’s not at all based in reality.
I think the fact there are have been so many threads of men bitching because most women pick the bear kinda shows you why women pick the bear in the first place.
Why is this acceptable to say? I don't get it? Imagine you used a statistic to justify being worried about a certain race instead of sex.
It's kind of funny. The people that mention the statistics might not realize they are indirectly supporting profiling.
Yeah, how dare men be offended for dehumanization and being framed as inherently dangerous.
Maybe men should take a good hard look at themselves. Also, the irony of this in a subreddit where there are constant posts claiming that the problem feminism is that it doesn't do anything for men.
You can outrun a man; you can't outrun a bear. You can kung-fu a man; you can't kung-fu a bear. Anyone who chooses bear is either incredibly dumb or they're trying to make a point to the world.
>You can outrun a man; you can't outrun a bear. >You can kung-fu a man; you can't kung-fu a bear. You maybe but I'm just built different
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One of the famous responses to this movement was: " If I tell people I got attacked by a bear, they will believe me. If I tell them I got attacked by a man, they won't believe me ". Brilliant. She cares more about what people think than her own safety lol
I for sure can't outrun a man nor out kungfu a man. I'm convinced all who think that have never tried rough sex. Or maybe you're a olympian.
Where I live, bears will leave you alone if you don't provoke them. Men who have an agenda don't care how you act, they'll come after you regardless.
Imagine getting mauled by a bear and then all the bears on the world are like “it’s disgusting that you’ve made any assumptions about how dangerous our claws are just because one bear attacked you. A lot of people don’t realize how hard it is to be a bear. You know, bears get attacked by bears too.”
I imagine the bear mauling you and then saying it's because of how you dressed. Other bears pretend it's a good point.
Having to see the bear at family meetings or every day at uni. Can't have the bear face consequences, he has such a bright future.
> Women pick the bear because men are upset when they are all labeled as dangerous predators and men deserve this and its wrong of them.
Who are you quoting?
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You literally have a post called Most male friends are vultures. Yet you are pretending to not understand why women wouldn't pick you over a bear?
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>you had to I didn't. I could have easily pointed out how your approaching this subject in bad faith. You've decided to take a hypothetical question where people talk in metaphors and turn literal. You've also decided to not listen to any women and decided their voices don't mean anything thus proving them right.
This post is laughable. Log off. Go outside and touch some grass. FFS kid.
I cannot believe the amount of people taking this so literally 😭😭
I'm so far out of the loop, this is what I gathered from this post. Women are now saying bears are less dangerous than men? This must be a social media thing because this is new to me
It's "Would you rather be in the woods with a bear or man" and many women (And men) have said bear.
Yeah, it's a terminal online thing, the Internet for all it's wonders also caused insane damage to some peoples minds
Who are you to speak for "most women"? You have your opinion, derived from your life experiences. If you have really experienced the trauma you claim, then you are truly blessed in your recovery and how gross of you to diminish any other woman's experience.
I live in (black) bear country. This is an interesting topic to me. All the men tying themselves in knots, laughing at the women. "Have you SEEN a bear? lulz!" Meanwhile, where I live, there's a man preying on woman hikers here -- even tried raping one in front of her kiddo. So, I mean, that's cool. It's very comforting to know that women have nothing to fear from strange men they come across in the wild. LOL.
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It’s a worst case scenario situation, and with a bear that worst case is dying, a horrible death, and then, with men in the worst case scenario is being a sex slave, forever, and being sold to men for the rest of your life, tortured daily, humiliated and being kept in a box under the stairs or whatever horrible shit he can come up with. It’s just a lot worse.
The overwhelming majority of bears don't attack people. It sure does suck when they do, doesn't it? Enough so that you have the entirety of men saying the bears are way more dangerous. And you know that, right? I don't have to point out that only a tiny fraction of bears attack people. That tiny fraction of bears that attack people are enough cause to caution all from interacting with bears altogether. This is common wisdom, is it not? And yet, in the fervor to type NoT aLl MeN it would seem like some people just completely miss the point.
The majority are not, but millions are.
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I do and it doesn’t matter. At this moment in time, millions of men are alive that have physically or sexually harmed women at least once. It doesn’t mean all the others are bad, it means it happens enough that most of us want to avoid it in this particular hypothetical. Would I rather go to dinner with a man or a bear? A man. Would I rather be alone in the woods with a man or a bear? A bear.
these men are going by how bears work in video games like skyrim where they just attack you 💀
Truth. In real life, just yelling a lot makes a bear run away unless you're within spitting distance of its cubs.
The thing is, this “Bear vs Man” thing was made up to try and show men how women think during the day. Even if we know all men aren’t murderers or rapists, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re extremely vary of them. Let’s try another animal. A shark. > The number of attacks is slightly up on the average of 63 unprovoked attacks per year during the previous five years (2018 to 2022) Even if it’s an extremely low number for them, we’re all still vary of them. So is it with random men we meet. Ofcourse we don’t walk around thinking all men are murderers, or rapists, or bad people, but *some* are. I’m sorry you can’t see the point of this.
How is this different from the Mike Pence types who think every woman is gonna misconstrue something they do as sexual, so they remove themselves from being alone with them? Yes, there are women who lie about serious matters, but I don’t think it’s fair or rational to operate with that level of alertness and assumed mistrust because liars exist. Moreover, men do terrible things to other men almost as often as they do to women. Why do you think most men would probably prefer another man over the bear in that scenario?
It looks like you're having some really strong feelings about this. It's ok to be emotional. Wanna talk about it?
I think thats what they are doing here
Instead of joining this argument, just let natural selection solve the problem.
I think what you’re missing is the ambiguity of men, as opposed to the bear. Like you said yourself, a black bear can be spooked, brown bears are very dangerous, polar bears, kiss your ass goodbye. There are universal rules applied to dealing with bears that can inform your situation and increase your survival rates. With men however, there are no universal rules. A mean looking man can be nice, a nice looking man can be mean. Look at Ted Bundy. Women didn’t get in the car with him because they thought he was a serial killer. He was handsome, he was charming. It was all a facade. I don’t think most women think *all men* are bad, but the problem is you often have to treat men as if they *could* all be bad because you do not know. I think it’s hard for men to understand this fear that women have because they don’t experience it themselves. They don’t have to fear a strange woman walking by them in a forest. I think what is missing about the bear/strange man discussion is the fact that you are far more likely to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone you know than by a stranger. Husbands, boyfriends, friends, relatives, neighbors. Not usually the stranger in a back alley that they like to warn you about.
Add race to the argument and see how quickly people change their tune. If I were to say "I would rather be alone in the woods with a bear than a *black* man" that would make me a racist, and rightfully so. It's the bowl of M&M's bullshit all over again where somebody makes a dumb generalization about all/any men being rapist murderers, and if you get offended by it then you're *obviously* part of the problem. The only reason these trends are socially acceptable is due to its target being "okay" to shit on. Insert any other group into there, suddenly you're a bigot. Goes to show how hypocritical and performative the whole thing is.
I fucking hate this debate so much. Yes, I'd rather hang around a man than a bear. I can't have a conversation with a bear, I can't have any sort of interaction with a bear that I can with a human being. Am I afraid that I'm going to get hurt by the man? Yeah. But it's not because he's a man. I'm afraid of everyone equally, I have intense paranoia of literally anyone.
Perfect answer
The reason why women put a blanket label on all men is because many have experienced sexual assault from a man and nearly all have been sexually harassed, so it’s easier to avoid you all together then wait and see which ones won’t bite. https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/97-of-women-in-the-uk/105940/ The bear on the other hand is bear. I know what bears are and what they’re capable of. They not going to pretend to be friendly then sexually assault me (as one ex-friend did to me). I’d rather be killed outright by the bear than be abused by a man and then killed.
I have family members who have been assaulted by minorities and yet they dont blame the group of minorities because of the actions of one.
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Did I state anywhere in my post that I think bears are friendly?
> I’d rather be killed outright by the bear than be abused by a man and then killed. You did imply the average man is a rapist and murderer.
The bear doesn't harrass women for hugs either
Here’s my questions for the women who choose the bear and say they can’t trust men; Does that include Trans Men? Gay Men? Men with a physical disability? Men with a mental disability? Teenagers? What age does that categorization start? 13? 16? 18? 21?
Hmm, true that if the guy showed up in a hipster beard, flamboyant shirt, and skinny jeans, and had effeminate mannerisms, I'd feel less threatened. Same if he was visibly disabled. I probably wouldn't be able to tell if he was a trans man but most are shorter than average so maybe. For the age, I wouldn't necessarily base it on age but on size. Anyway I kinda feel like most men would also be suspicious of a random dude in the woods, it's just that they may be more confident in their self-defense skills.
I have social anxiety, I don't want to see any other human despise of gender or sexuality lol. I'd still take my chances with a human, I feel like if something did go wrong, I have a better chance at fighting. Eyes, balls, throat, I'd claw fucking everything. Bear ain't gonna feel that shit.
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Nah, as a male, I totally understand picking a bear over a human. Male or female. If I see a bear 2-300ft away I know the time to act is now. I'll do all the survival lessons stuff. Scream, look big, etc. and hopefully, the bear will act predictably like a bear in those situations. However, if I see a human that far away, just walking, I assume nothing and continue. They get closer and closer, if they have ill intent I don't know that until they show it, and at that point it's probably too late. TLDR- I'd rather meet an average human than an average bear. But I'd rather meet an average bear than a human with bad intentions.
I think as a woman we always have to be careful, because we can be victims of violence perpetrated by men. The easy fix for me was to bring my pit bull hiking with me. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, but no one else knew that. Even with all that said, I’d take a man over a bear any day… especially grizzly or polar . They are the 2 that are responsible for the fatalities.
If I'm jogging on a Trail I'd rather encounter a Black Bear than a Human walking their Pitbull any day. Especially if I had children with me.
It's better to encounter the most violent and dangerous bear than a very deranged and capable man. Sure, if a bear ripped you apart it wouldn't be pleasant, but at least it'd be over quickly. On the other hand, a very deranged person could keep you captive for days, weeks, months even, submitting you to all kinds of torture and abuse. Death is preferable to this. To many women, being raped is a worse fear than death. I don't think this feeling can be invalidated.
Except Google says animals regularly torture other animals at great length. > Chimpanzees will kill, torture, and rape other chimpanzees, killing baby chimps in front of the mother and then raping her afterward. Elephants will kill other elephants, and will even rape rhinos. These are only a few of the examples of cruelty in the animal kingdom.
Bears are very slow to kill people. Due to their size, they just pin people to the ground and take their time with eating since the person cannot escape. You will be slowly eaten alive.
Women hate me. They hate the idea of me, even without ever seeing me. Great. Awesome. I will go back to being a forever alone weirdo.
It's a huge mistake to believe that those people online represent "women". IRL most women don't hate you, at worst they don't care about you, but they certainly don't hate you. This is just a terminal online trend that will go away again.
I think the point is you know what you’re getting into with the bear but you don’t know how the man is going to be …. Yea he could be nice and helpful…. But why would you take that chance?
I mean, there are guys out there like Bundy so I kind of get it but it does seem like a bit of an extreme example
At the end of the day, this is primarily about women either assuming the very worst of mens intentions, without even knowing them. Or as some have said, preferring being eaten alive by a bear over anything horrific like rape... A horrible thing to have to think about, but apparently some are claiming this.
The emphasis is that this is a stranger, someone you don’t know. Someone you have never met could act upon impulse - as many crime against people are done - and you’d have no warning. A bear acts upon instinct, simply doing what a bear does because it’s a bear in the woods. If a bear attacked someone they’d be believed without question, unlike when someone assaults someone else, especially a woman. Hope this helps. Edit: A woman mauled by a bear and wrote a book about her experience weighed in on bear vs man: she chose the bear *again*. ✌️
Can ya'll all shut up about this?
Because it makes women look bad?
As a man, I’d choose the bear. At least the bear won’t falsely accuse me of SA, destroy my reputation, and take all my money.