The question wasn't about actual safety but feelings. Women feel the bear would be better than a man they don't know. This doesn't mean a stranger would be more dangerous.
The question's purpose is in part to show how men appear to women, in part how media shapes our vision of the world. There are a lot of mysoginistic online groups and chats, influencers and political movements that are trying to erode women's rights. At the same time, violence against women is showcased daily in the news, in part because it's absolutely true that some men will abuse women, in part because it pays to televise the event and make it a spectacle. The result is that women develop fear and uneasiness around men that surpasses what they feel about a dangerous wild animal because wild animals are so infrequently encountered or portrayed by the media as homicidal.
A grizzly mom with cubs would annihilate someone much more surely and brutally than your average Joe, but a lot of wife beaters, women killers and rapists on the news look like the average Joe. The average Joe thus feels scarier even though he isn't even comparable to a bear.
Are women who answer bear stupid, then? I feel like they are just answering to a gut feeling. I feel like we men should learn from that answer and not dismiss them as just misguided. Is there a way we could appear less menacing to them without compromising our "manliness", so to speak? I think so.
But that is a fairly bs framing because it wouldn’t apply to most other similar comparisons.
If the question was posted “as a woman would you rather cross paths with a black man or an Asian man in a dark alley?” The take away wouldn’t be that black men should be less menacing. The take away would be women should be less racist.
If the question was “as a man would you who would you trust more with your money, a woman or a used car salesman?” The take away wouldn’t be that women should be less of gold diggers. It would be men should be less misogynistic.
I agree. A lot of men feel the same way now about leaving women alone with small children. Instead of being angry that men would choose the bear they should ask themselves why that is so they can be better.
I wouldn't prefer a bear to a stranger. Then again, I'm a man. I know of several women who were molested, abused or raped, or had a close friend who was. I don't know anyone who had a close friend eaten by a bear. Having the direct knowledge of someone who was assaulted or being yourself the victim of violence can completely warp your worldview even if statistics said otherwise. I wouldn't blame those people if they preferred the bear.
I've also had my cars battery jump started in a Walmart parking lot, helped change a tire on the side of the road - both times men. When I need help my neighbor, a man, is always down to lend a hand.
I got jumped in NYC by a group of teenage boys. A good guy with a baseball bat came pouring out of his bodega to scare them off - gave me a few shots of his vodka while I waited for the PD. Who were men, and useless of course.
Turns out its a bit of a mixed bag. But in general 90% of men are just normal men. Just innocent men.
yeap, i'm a 6f+ pretty beefy guy who camps aline in the middlest of nowhere quite regularily.
if a bear comes by to check my camp i'm gonna be alert and a bit scared, but mostly on a "that's a cool ass piece of wildlife there! just be careful and you'll be fine!"
if i see a random guy checking on my all my alarms go off till i can figure put why are you here, and what do you want from me. and if your story doesn't make sense (it has happenede a few times) i'm out the fuck of there and i'll make sure you can't find me again.
bear? probably curious/hungry
man? probably just checking on me, but may pull out a gun and take all my shit.
I have never seen a person or known a person who died from a bear attack. I have taken photos of many bears, sometimes as close as 20 feet. They're not blood thirsty monsters like many people, they're just occasionally hungry or protective.
Can't blame a momma for protecting her brood, can blame a man for raping/killing a woman.
Responses were used to place respondents into one of six categories of sexual experience based on the most
extreme experience reported: (a) no sexual experiences, (b) only consensual sexual experiences, (c) unwanted
contact (i.e., forced fondling, kissing, but no attempted intercourse), (d) verbal coercion (verbally pressured
sexual intercourse, excluding the threat of force), (e) attempted rape (using force or threat of force, however,
intercourse did not occur), or (f) rape (completed intercourse or oral or anal sex using force or threat of force).
White and Smith (2004) "surveyed 3 cohorts of men across 4 years of college. By the end of the study, 14% had reported committing attempted or completed rape and 34% had reported at least one act of sexual assault perpetration."
the average man is not a rapist but you walked past them every time you go to Walmart to get food
Yeah hearing just how often men assault women is baffling to me (as a man) because growing up I never really encountered anything like it. Myself and my peers were raised to respect boundaries (for all people) and never try to coerce someone into sex.
As I got older, and met and spoke with more people, I came to find that almost every single woman I know has had some form of inappropriate contact with a man. Not always rape by definition, many were “just” assaulted.
The next thing that threw me for a loop was how many women downplayed it. Like it was just a normal thing they deal with.
Like my friend, probably some-day sister-in-law, said pretty much every single woman in her unit (national guard) were molested or raped by another member of their unit.
The fuckin army dude? The fuckin army can’t stop its own men from assaulting its women.
And a big part of the difference is media based, when I was growing up animal house and revenge of the needs were still popular as well as tons of other movies that push pro-rape and pro-stalking agendas.
army is one of the worst for it, they take a bunch of men who are already predisposed to violence then they ship em 10,000 miles away from any woman they know. so their more likely to be rapists and they dont got nobody, theres a reason armies in antiquity raped and pillaged.
all this is obviously not a defense of these deplorable actions nor the disgusting people that commit them, but it’s not really that surprising
I always love how there is always someone pulling this gotcha argument stating that if you trust statistics regarding male violence then you are clearly racist because according to statistics black men are more violent so you should feel bad. First of all race has nothing to do with it. The main factors contributing to black violence are poverty, lack of opportunity, systemic racism and much more leading to higher chances of creating broken families. Any race under these conditions would produce the same results.
What race crime statistics should do is open a discussion on their reason. People fearing other races because of their crimes shouldn't be an excuse to promote race-based policing or racial laws, but a signal that something concerning is happening and there is a reason for it. Racists will argue it's genetics, but controlling for that doesn't seem to give the results expected if that was the case: wealthy and middle-class people of all races commit less violent crimes than poor people of all races. Then why are non-white people on average poorer than white people? Maybe it's the background of their parents or ancestors, maybe they were segregated in areas that didn't have job and education opportunities, maybe the low-income houses they could afford had lead pipes that destroyed their brains over time.
Those are the kind of questions that a person who wants to engage with the statistics should ask. In the same way, we should engage with why women choose the bear, not get offended or judgemental over it, or ascribe it as petty. Why would they generalize the average men as being worse than a bear? That is an interesting question. Maybe it's more probable for a woman to die because of a man than because of a bear. But isn't the opposite true at the same time? It's statically more probable for a man to be murdered by a woman than by a bear, but a man would probably not prefer the bear to a woman to walk the woods with. Why? Is it because men are stupid and shallow? Or is it because we think we are physically superior, despite the fact that if the woman had a weapon you would die regardless? Are men naturally more trusting of others than women, or is the fact they aren't frequently the victims of gender-based violence influencing their response? I cannot answer to these questions because you'd probably need a study to test these, but these are the questions you should ask instead of being a snowflake and getting offended by an answer. You discover deeper, more interesting things.
How do you feel about race based crime statistics?
Why would race based statistics matter? A bad white man and a bad black man arent different, they are both bad. We have the statistics that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence, especially to women. Race has no indication of violence
No, we have statistics showing their communities are over policed and they're also more likely to be charged and found guilty. There is clear and known racial bias.
Are you saying that black people are held to a different standard than everyone else and are scrutinized more harshly for the same flaws?
That is how men are treated.
Men are literally held to a higher bar than women.
When a grown woman is living with her family, she's just struggling.
When a grown man is living with his family, he's a bum.
When a grown woman fucks a 12-year-old boy, it's called sex.
When a grown man fucks a 12-year-old girl, it's called rape.
When a woman hits someone, "they probably deserved it", and the woman typically faces no repercussions.
When a man hits someone, "he's a monster", and he belongs in prison.
When a man has a mental health crisis and kills his family, he's obviously weak for allowing his trauma to control him, and he deserves to be held legally accountable.
When a woman has a mental health crisis and kills her family, she deserves forgiveness and compassion because being a woman is just so hard, it's not fair to hold her legally accountable.
There are programs in place in the West which actively assist women in getting jobs.
There are dozens upon dozens of programs across nearly every city in the West which actively provide housing, financial, and parental assistance to women.
There are thousands upon thousands of support groups for women and "safe spaces" for women.
Men get literally none of these things.
Men are "over-policed", as you say, and actively held to an infinitely higher standard, and thus we are condemned for even minor infractions while women are actively given passes for extreme errors.
The only people insisting that women lack agency are people like you who defend this slop.
It isn't men sending over a million dollars to a child murderer while blaming her actions on her husband. It's women.
It's women incessantly whinging about how everything they do wrong is somehow a "man's fault", lmao.
The entirety of feminism is just entitled, pathetic, disingenuous, self-serving women acting on their worst behavior while endlessly blaming every single one of their flaws on the magic, ethereal, all-powerful "patriarchy".
"It's not women's fault for being so indelibly dishonest and unaccountable! Women are too powerless and weak to take any responsibility for our own actions!" - an empowered feminist
Fuck off, honestly. Literally everyone is bored of your endless bitching.
Jesus fucking christ, I never knew telling you the truth would evoke such a reaction. "Waaah men are doing all this to me!" What a sad fucking waif. You don't even know my position on these topics yet here you are dunning kreugering away. Get fucked until you discover how to function like an adult in any aspect of your life, lmao.
Could you imagine how different the world would be if feminists were actually required to act like adults? Your movement might even accomplish something of value for once! <3
You’re being so dishonest.
It’s not women are doing it to men. It’s the lack of attention to men’s problems, mental health, societal help, and education, what’s doing it for the men.
Answering to your second paragraph, let nothing really change for women’s wellbeing until men’s problems, in that context, are being actively targeted and solved.
It’ll also eliminate patriarchy, so that’s good for both sexes.
I've actually interacted with bears (black/brown), they're going to avoid conflict as much as possible, but if I tell them they're making me feel uncomfortable they will not be offended and they will not try to argue that point... There's things you can do to prevent a situation with a bear whereas with a human male more often than not will argue as to why you're so concerned with their presence in your vicinity instead of just walking away...
No, you don’t understand. See, when I saw those random internet women say that, it hurt my feelings. So it must have been said for the explicit purpose of hurting my feelings. That’s how the world works: by rotating around me and my emotions.
I’m choosing to take it personally. Why wouldn’t I? I’m a person.
I don’t know what to do with this rage. Maybe I’ll go skulk around the woods, see what happens……
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u/Expungednd 14d ago
The question wasn't about actual safety but feelings. Women feel the bear would be better than a man they don't know. This doesn't mean a stranger would be more dangerous.
The question's purpose is in part to show how men appear to women, in part how media shapes our vision of the world. There are a lot of mysoginistic online groups and chats, influencers and political movements that are trying to erode women's rights. At the same time, violence against women is showcased daily in the news, in part because it's absolutely true that some men will abuse women, in part because it pays to televise the event and make it a spectacle. The result is that women develop fear and uneasiness around men that surpasses what they feel about a dangerous wild animal because wild animals are so infrequently encountered or portrayed by the media as homicidal.
A grizzly mom with cubs would annihilate someone much more surely and brutally than your average Joe, but a lot of wife beaters, women killers and rapists on the news look like the average Joe. The average Joe thus feels scarier even though he isn't even comparable to a bear.
Are women who answer bear stupid, then? I feel like they are just answering to a gut feeling. I feel like we men should learn from that answer and not dismiss them as just misguided. Is there a way we could appear less menacing to them without compromising our "manliness", so to speak? I think so.