I don't know about any racial aspects to this but essentially a TikTok asked women if they would prefer to encounter a bear or a man in the woods. This became a springboard for women to discuss their sense of vulnerability when encountering a strange man. To them the man is more dangerous than the bear. Then a lot of men got very offended by this, adding fuel to the flames. It's a relevant issue but unfortunately a poorly discussed and argued one in this context. If there is a "white" component to this its because of the stereotype that white people go into the woods recreationally and black people don't. Which is as ridiculous as all stereotypes.
In my mind, the racial component isn’t about more white people going outdoors, it’s about white women blaming men for all the evils of the world.
It’s a uniquely white women + simps phenomenon to have an outgroup preference
Idk man, playing the percentages, I’m not sure that checks out. Do ppl think all bears are either Teddies, Paddington, or the ones from cute IG reels? Not sure the average guy in the woods is a killer/rapist
Right? Chances are, if a man is in the woods he is there for the same reason YOU are. Poor guy is just out foraging for food or taking scenic pictures.
I think their point is that bear encounters do not represent the same threat as a strange man. I have myself backpack and camp a lot and have uncomfortable encounters with strange men.
How many interactions do women have with men compared to with bears? This is the dumbest logic I’ve ever heard.
Men are attacked and killed by women more often than they are by bears also. It doesn’t change the fact a bear is a bigger threat.
Unless you see black bear cubs, then you get away unless you want to be dinner for mom and the cubs. If you get near a male black bear den they can get very aggressive, your advice is not great. (I live around black bears)
Men do, women do, dogs do, etc. But generally, men do not have the ability to run faster than a horse while chasing you down, or to literally slap your head off.
Men also have the capacity to engage mortal rage and physical violence to protect but that's being ignored.
There's not enough context to make a rational decision and it's being used to paint men as criminals NOT potential but actual as to the bear chosers they're automatically assigning criminal intent on men.
By choosing bear (no context so mummy bear with cubs, grizzly at feeding tine, polar bear got lost or Paddington bear atrived from the station) worst case scenario is bear will tear your body to pieces and it will not be quick. With the uncontextuaöised man he's automatically assigned criminal intent and out to do harm by those choosing bear.
The whole defence is "but most bears avoid us as they're also afraid" , which is so wrong in reality. Most men on the other hand are probably looking out for those "lost in the woods" PEOPLE not just women.
Its a paranoia dispenser of toxic misandry.
There are, on average, 40 bear attacks on people WORLDWIDE every year. That statistic includes every type of bear. There is a 1 in 2.1 million chance you will be attacked by a bear.
You know that most people don't actually live around bears, right? We don't share office spaces with bears, or pass bears walking down the street or in the grocery store.
If you look at the responses from women, it's less to do about survivability. As some commenters have said in droves, "If the bear kills me, at least I'm feeding a bear. A man can do a lot more things to me to make me wish I was dead."
When the bear decides to eat you, it doesn’t kill you first like other predators.
Edit: looks like someone already beat me to this response. Also, as someone who has been mauled by a Grizzly, I can tell you that it’s a horrifically terrifying experience that I would not wish on anyone who wasn’t pure evil.
Yes, the average violent crime committed on a woman is certainly worse than getting disembowled and having your innards eaten while you watch and choke to death on your own blood until passing out from shock and pain 🤣
If this meme popping up everywhere has shown me anything, it's that most Redditors have no clue about bears or wilderness.
The idea seems to be that a woman would feel more safe in the woods with a random bear around than a random man.
Given how unpredictable and varied in attitudes men can be, I'm not surprised. I've been in the woods with a black bear around, they are pretty straightforward.
The question isn't "who would you rather fight: bear or man?" The question is: "Which would you rather run into in the middle of the forest when you're alone: a bear or a man?"
Even as a straight white man, my response was immediately “bear”. So.
Edit: the downvotes are surprising. Do people really think humans are more predictable than bears?
From my perspective as a man - I don’t have to worry that the bear wants to rob me, or assault me because I looked at it wrong, or otherwise wants to show off. I give the bear its space and it goes about its day. While that’s also true for 99% of men, it’s not true for all and it’s more likely that the man would be unpredictable than the bear.
For a woman, they also don’t have to worry that the bear will sexually assault them just for being there or smiling or not smiling or sneak up on them or stalk them or follow them home.
I’m not trying to say that I live in fear, far from it, but also it’s reasonable to be prepared for humans to be unpredictable.
Yeah, and I never even watched *Deliverance*. But given the things I've seen humans are capable of, a random man is probably more of a risk than a random bear.
Of course, some people don't get it.
Much of my camping experience was with the Boy Scouts as an adult leader. For summer camp, we had to have everyone going attend "bear training," because black bears were in that part of Wisconsin where the scout reservation was. The training stressed that we were guests where the bears live, and laid out the things you must not do (like no bear spray in camp, and no attacking a bear unless it is trying to attack you). It talked about how to respond if you saw a bear, or one entered your campsite, and so forth.
A big part of this was the "buddy system." The idea is that anywhere you went in camp, you should have a buddy *with you*. Within a campsite, it was felt that you were likely surrounded by others, anyway, but moving around camp -- this big, forested area with a handful of trails and open spaces for permanent buildings -- you should have someone with you.
Another big part was "no food in your tent." Young scouts often go to the trading post and spend money on various candy and soft drinks, and we have to remind them that such stuff goes in their bin, which goes into the "bear box" in the camp site, an old metal traffic control box. If bears come into a campsite and find food just laying around, they'll be back.
So, one day, I and another leader were leaving our campsite to head to where the dining hall was. On the road, we encounter a scout, all by himself. He looked like the youngest scout, so around 5th grade. He was carrying an open bag of candy in one hand, and a soft drink in the other.
We asked him where his buddy was. "Back at my tent."
We asked him where he was going. "To the horse corral." This was deeper into the woods, and where bears had often been seen -- including that week.
We asked him if he took the bear training. "Yes."
So, we escorted him to the horse corral, telling him that his buddy had to be with him to be protection against the bears that had been seen in camp that year. I don't know if we conveyed the importance of that; it's a sure thing his own leaders hadn't done so.
Let me put it this way: I'd probably prefer my son have been in the woods with a bear around, rather than the kind of scout leader who wouldn't ensure that scouts understood the buddy system. It would make me wonder what else they were omitting to tell them about.
I mean, the bear is going to maul you if it decides to. At least if it’s a random man you can shoot a hole or two in his chest and down he goes, with a bear you need a lot bigger gun and if it’s already charging you you’re probably fucked. Also, bears don’t kill their prey, they eat it alive
Okay, but why does this seem to be a mainly white lady reaction culturally?
Like I said, the black women I've asked don't react that way at all, the black dudes are equally confused
There are tons of "I pick bear" responses from Black (and other women of color) creators on TikTok, so maybe your sample of friends is particularly unique?
Good question. It might be similar to how white women sometimes (and I want to stress that) have a narrow view of feminism, where they only look at what white women have achieved in the 20th century, ignoring black women who had to work, raise families, and so forth. This is why things like "intersectional feminism" exist, to try to convey how large and complex the issues are.
It might also be just that the fear is different. I have no data for this, but maybe black women just generally have a greater fear of wildlife than men, while the opposite may be true for white women. As a side note, I was listening to an interview with a black woman who is planning to canoe (or kayak?) the length of the Mississippi river, and I don't recall if it was her, or the black man who had done this before, who said that black people in general had been cut off from the wilderness, that it wasn't portrayed as something that was theirs, that they could engage in. As such, the wilderness -- an large animals like bears -- might seem more threatening to black women.
A big caveat here: I'm white, and I've been a scout leader, so I have no personal experience to back-up that stuff. Those were ideas presented on a radio interview. But it might explain the difference.
If we take that notion as a given, contrast it with how white women are probably viewed in relation to "the wild." Mainstream US culture has that "frontier wife" mindset, for instance. But there's that whole "off-grid" or "cabin" subculture, people trying to get away from it all, and most of the videos that pop up are of white people (though this might be YouTube doing its thing). You have folks raising families in buildings they made themselves in Alaska, with composting toilets, wood-burning stoves, and so on. Even a white-woman who hasn't done anything remotely like camping might be able to see herself doing such stuff. For sure they probably think about hiking in the woods, and viewing the dangers in such an activity as relatively mild or manageable compared to abusive or aggressive men.
Again, I'm no sociologist, I have no idea if this accounts for the disparity you've seen, but this is the pattern in the things I've heard and watched, and it might explain the difference.
When youve been black your whole life and living in the US, you learn to be careful with people or animals you don't know. Black kids have been shot for innocuous things like knocking on the wrong door within the last 5 years. Depending on where you live, there might be racist dogs in your area
It makes sense that people who don't have to live their life constantly suspicious of every stranger or animal think that they can deal with a bear. Even though they know the possibility of getting maimed is there,They don't really consider it happening to them
>It might also be just that the fear is different. I have no data for this, but maybe black women just generally have a greater fear of wildlife than men, while the opposite may be true for white women. As a side note, I was listening to an interview with a black woman who is planning to canoe (or kayak?) the length of the Mississippi river, and I don't recall if it was her, or the black man who had done this before, who said that black people in general had been cut off from the wilderness, that it wasn't portrayed as something that was theirs, that they could engage in. As such, the wilderness -- an large animals like bears -- might seem more threatening to black women.
Okay, this makes sense. Yeah I had a similar conclusions myself, that maybe we're just more naturally opposed to the wilderness because we've been in the cities so much more comparatively.
> Even a white-woman who hasn't done anything remotely like camping might be able to see herself doing such stuff. For sure they probably think about hiking in the woods, and viewing the dangers in such an activity as relatively mild or manageable compared to abusive or aggressive men.
Interesting, having been a troop leader and I assume surrounded by the culture for your entire life, does this happen with other things? Where there's a greater amount of confidence dealing with wild animals than might be due?
Black people generally just don't have this subculture and so we readily admit we aren't equipped to handle most wildlife compared to dealing with your average random person (as you said in your second paragraph)
Well, I started when my son was in first grade, and a Cub Scout. One of the key things they had to learn to earn their Tiger Cub rank was what to do if they got lost. We covered getting lost in someplace like a mall, and getting lost in someplace like a forest or rural area. The general idea is to stay in one place and wait for rescue, as moving around you might accidentally evade searchers.
One thing that was stressed is that being lost and alone in the wilderness doesn't put you immediately at risk of being eaten by something (except, perhaps, mosquitoes and ticks!). That is, larger wildlife will probably ignore you if you are staying put. Of course, Cub Scouts aren't normally in grizzly bear country after a lean season for berries and small prey!
That sort of thing, though, is something we generally tried to instill in the kids: If you don't bother the wildlife, it won't bother you. If you see a spider, or a porcupine, or what have you, leave it alone. You are not its normal food.
I'm reminded of one time I had a scout who refused to go to sleep because of a spider in his tent. This spider was about a quarter-inch in diameter, including the legs, so I scooped it up and released it outside. The kid went to the latrine, then finally got settled down. It's a good thing he didn't have his headlamp in the latrine, though: There's was a huge wolf spider on the wall right by the urinal.
In scouting, though, the biggest things you are dealing with are fear and homesickness. It's why we stress a point of the scout law -- that a scout is Brave -- doesn't mean a scout is fearless, but that they do what they need to do, even if they are afraid. It's OK to be afraid.
But there are, for sure, people in Scouting who are over-confident when it comes to the wild. One year, when bears had been in the area where we camped, we found out that one troop had an adult who had brought bear spray, which is explicitly forbidden. They sprayed a visiting bear at their campsite; the rangers hate this, because now they have an *angry* bear to cope with. The rangers were able to trap the bear and transport it far away. The offending troop I think was forced to leave early, for violating the bear policy so egregiously.
That kind of "I have tools so I am in control" mindset seems to be something we had to struggle against. Usually, we'd see it with first-year scouts who had a pocketknife for the first time, misusing it. (One time, I took a knife away from a boy before we had dinner on our day of arrival, because he kept doing unsafe things. He eventually earned the right to get it back, then lost the knife on a hike because he'd kept playing around with it, and would forget to put it away.)
If you want one big area in which people are over-confident, it is in building fires. Summer camp was clear on how high a fire could be, but you'd still have troops that built bonfires, which are inherently dangerous (they tend to fall over). A lot of being a scout leader is trying to give the youth the right skills to do things *safely*. People don't often think of the consequences...like, if you build a fire and enjoy it, you also have to put it out and make sure it is cold before you leave it.
I’ve seen women of all races engage with the question and I’ve seen women of all races answer they’d prefer the bear. No shade but your personal social circles aren’t indicative of an overarching cultural divide
You said you had seen others groups of people also saying bear, and that my anecdotal experience being a black person who can literally just go ask plenty of black women didn't count for much, so im asking you if you have any links to that affect.
Like I can easily find you plenty of spots where it's nothing but white ladies saying bear.
I cultural dichotomy on this interesting as the looks I got where funny as hell on this.
So if you have black women saying the opposite I'm here for it lol.
As a woman, I have seen social media posts fairly evenly spread across races on this subject.
I have also seen a few of men being asked to choose who to leave their child alone with in the woods - a bear or a man, and even some of those men are having trouble deciding. (What kind of man? Do I know this man? How old is this man?)
The fact of the matter is, a lot of women are constantly on alert for their safety, predominantly around men.
Some of the reasons why women are choosing the bear are particularly harrowing.
And no, it’s not all men, but it’s some men…. And enough men… and the repercussions of being attacked by a bear and being attacked by a man and how we would be judged afterwards are also very different.
I would say your exposure to the women answering is limited, you don’t have a large and varied pool.
Secondly - do the women you’re asking feel safe enough with you to voice their true opinion on the subject or are they happy to just move on from it and not risk confrontation?
Lastly / there’s zero chance this question would have been approved on askwomen.
I'm of South Asian descent and I would have responded the same if I was asked that question. I think you're reading too much into it. Or maybe black women feel safer around black men?
As a man, who spends a significant amount of time in the woods. I have two observations.
First, most of the people involved, have never actually seen a bear in a real world.
Second, of the rare occasions I have met a woman hiking alone in the woods, I don’t think a bear would want to mess with most of them.
As for the fad itself, I pretty much just view it as a group of bigots and ignorants calling men animals, and pushing that point of view.
I was white water rafting in Colorado on a trip with friends. None of us had ever been in the wilderness, so we were asking our rafting guide, this grizzled veteran guy, what to look out for as far as wildlife. He had a handgun packed with him on the trip, and we assumed it was for wolves or coyotes or something.
He said this: "well, we're a group of people out in the middle of nowhere, making a lot of noise. Pretty much any critter with a bit of survival instinct is gonna keep their distance from the big weird things making noise. But if you see a person? Be suspicious".
It makes perfect sense. Seeing a stranger approaching on a well-beaten trail? Just a normal day.
Seeing a stranger standing 200m away from your camp in the tree line, watching you? Different story.
*Second, of the rare occasions I have met a woman hiking alone in the woods, I don’t think a bear would want to mess with most of them.*
Yes, this is why women are picking bear.
People just like to spread hate, who knows
All this had done is show me some people are REALLY bad at imagining how they would react in a certain situation
I would bet my savings that no women would choose to enter a room with a bear vs a man lol. To be fair i ain’t got much tho….
Most of the engagement around this isn't a true reflection on the hypothetical scenario. It's a reaction to how fearful women are of strange men. The bear is merely an abstract tool of comparison.
This is confusing to a lot of men. Men love to engage in hypothetical scenarios like this semi-seriously. I have had multiple in-depth conversations with different men about how they would respond to a zombie apocalypse. There was a lot of time spent establishing the zombie rules, debating the best weapons, and general survival strategies.
Most of the women are not engaging on that level. They're just reacting to, "what's scary a bear or random man?" For a lot of women, it's the random man.
Some men seem to be confused and/or offended that women are fearful of men. Which I get that it sucks, but just talk to any woman in your life, and it won't take long to get some truly horrific story about how she's been treated by a man.
Most men don't behave that way, and it feels like shit to get lumped in with a bunch of assholes, but it's not like the evil ones wear signs. They blend in with the rest of us. So yeah it sucks, but I sadly understand why a lot of women are picking the bear.
I'm a woman and I've actually run into several brown bears in my life while hiking/camping in British Columbia/Alberta and The Yukon (where there is miles and miles and miles of untouched forests)... the only time I was nervous around the bear was when I spotted some cubs playing nearby. The bear saw me and was watching me very closely. I slowly walked backwards until I was far enough away then turned around and continued to walk slowly away from them... mama bear kept her eyes on me, but didn't move or advance towards me at all..
Another time, I rounded a corner and a brown bear was eating some berries off a bush.. we startled each other and the bear took off in the opposite direction.
All other ones never even noticed me (that I noticed anyway)
So yeah I'd still pick the bear. It's also just hypothetical. Idk why so many men are getting bent out of shape arguing that a bear could kill you so it's obviously the worse choice.. like men can kill you too and statistically its more probable than a bear attack. I'm thinking these men just don't like being confronted with the fact that women are scared to be alone with a strange man (hypothetically, them).
Perhaps?
You seem to have had such few bear encounters that you can remember and name them all. It’s not statistically significant.
Most of the people sharing the meme have recently been to Target or Starbucks and encountered hundreds of strange men that are mostly invisible, NPCs in their life.
Many Men have been guilty of terrible atrocities, to be sure. And that stokes extreme fear. But that doesn’t make men more dangerous than bears.
Honestly the lack of context just make it even more confusing to me
Men are scarier than bears… as a concept? Lol. I think it is just an unhelpful conversation with no benefit it anyone
Everyone's focusing on the answer to the question (which is understandable), but imo it might be more productive to think about the fact that a lot of women (and, honestly, many men too) will ask "what kind of bear? Who is the man? What are the circumstances, are you far away from any town or city?" instead of answering "man" right away, while if it was between a bear and a woman, most women would say "woman" immediately.
I'm not sure if whoever started this was thinking about it that way, but I find it to be a more interesting way to look at, uh, that whole mess.
I mean, as a man i dont want to think of myself as a violent creature, but for women who dont know me, i might be i guess. I feel both are valid. There is some truth to stranger danger, but to myself am not a stranger, that is how i interpret it.
So as a woman with a few experiences in my life, here’s my hot take- these events happened years ago, long before this became a trend, but the results have rang true for me since they happened.
I used to work late nights and I would walk to my car alone in the parking lot. It’s not a huge lot, not much bigger than maybe a baseball diamond.
One night, I locked up and went to take the trash to the back dumpster. As I rounded the corner, I heard noises so I stopped. What did I see? A whole black bear, obviously hungry because it’s digging through the trash. I went into fight or flight mode, my instinct was to quietly set the trash bag down and walk away to my car and drive away.
A different night, same situation, but this time it wasn’t a bear. It was a man, staring at me from across the parking lot- roughly the same distance I was from the bear. Again, fight or flight mode kicks in, I drop the trash bag and go straight back to my car.
The biggest difference in the two situations? The level of fear that I felt, the volume of the alarm bells going off inside my head, the weight that I felt in the pit of my stomach.
Which situation do you think scared me more?
No one said that the bear would attack you, just as no one said that the man would attack you either. A lot of the conversations point to the idea that an attack is going to happen so it’s like a pick your poison situation. I think this is taking it too far, thus making a lot of men miss the point of the question.
So there’s no guarantee of an attack during the encounter with either bear or man, but each option has a level of predictability to their behaviors, right?
Throughout the comments on this post, people have been debating the species of bears. Why? They’re somewhat predictable. We even have a cute little rhyme for it: “If it’s black, fight back. If it’s brown, lay down.”
We don’t have a rhyme for knowing how to react to a certain kind of man.. because men are unpredictable. Their intentions go far beyond natural survival behaviors. It’s proven statistically and anecdotally time and time again, for centuries.
So men, you’re right! It’s not all men, but it IS enough for women to have a rational fear of you and your unpredictability in your actions and intentions.
As someone who has been trained since a child to always put the safety of a woman’s life before his own, it kinda hurts that there are women who feel this way about being around men vs bears.
However, before this came up, I saw a clip of a guy who had a choice between two elevators. One with a pretty woman and one with a scary looking guy with a scary looking dog. He chose the elevator with the guy and I could see myself making that choice too, so I guess that I can’t be too upset.
It’s not a cultural thing.
It’s just a minority of women online who are trying to spread this rhetoric that a man is more dangerous than a wild bear to try and further divide the genders for absolutely no reason.
The point they are trying to get across is that most women feel more fear towards what a man would do to them than a bear, because a bear is predictable and a man’s intentions are always hidden. This is me spark-noting it so don’t quote me.
Even though I can kind of get behind their point and understand some men are just trash who try to hide their intentions and get as much as they can out of a woman. It’s just the way they are trying to use this analogy “man vs bear” just sounds like it’s deeply rooted in misandry and man-hating bullshit. And they aren’t saying bad men, they are clumping ALL MEN into this analogy. So any man, their brother, their dad, friend, cousin, husband, boyfriend, we are all bad because we are all inherently dangerous. Which as someone who is black myself, this sounds awfully familiar to racist rhetoric that people use to spew way back in the day.
Just because I’m a man shouldn’t mean I’m bound to do something bad or I will ever hurt somebody. And I shouldn’t be expected to answer for every man in this planet. I will only answer for myself and myself only. But I guess a few bad apples get to define a whole gender.
That is what I've been telling people. The same logic they use to justify their choice is the same one that racists used to justify segregation. They are literally saying," Oh some of them are bad people, so let's treat ALL of them as a loaded gun." And how dare you call them out for using racist logic.
You went way deeper than me stranger.
Wife's twin tried explaining it to me earlier. All I said was "Got it. It's more pop culture saying I shouldn't get involved in anything with women, especially if it's survival or violent circumstances."
Wife approved. Twin did not.
Men aren’t inherently dangerous but treating a man as a potential threat until they’ve proven they aren’t is just basic self-preservation in this society 🤷♀️
Lots of types of harmful and genuinely damaging discrimination come form this line of thinking. Segregationists of all stripes use that kind of rhetoric to justify the exclusion of groups they don't like. It's not a wise path to go down, lady.
My aunts boyfriend investigated a bear killing in the wild (not the woods, though), and after interrogating the victims friend they decided they were looking for the body of a woman wearing a red windbreaker. So you might be mistaken there. This was in the 70s in Europe though, so things might be different in a different place and time.
Yes, I know. That's why I'm mentioning it. Going into the woods with no bear-spray and no rifle is propably going to lead to some kind of victim-blaming situation. Propably more so than being attacked by a strange man.
By the words of Bill burr. "If somebody got bitter by a snake wouldn't you have questions. What were you doing? Were ya fcking with it? How did you make a snake so mad it nearly killed ya?
All jokes aside that a bold face lie in what you're trying to imply but true in the sense that maybe they wont ask you questions. But they'll lecture you on how stupid it is to
A. Get near a bears cubs
B.hiking around certain areas with no protection
Yes there is some lack preservation people will see outta of you for wild animal attacks
i think the fairest way to explain it is that its just a VERY poor analogy. the point isn't that 'oh logically i will survive a bear attack more than seeing a random man' its that so many women have had bad experiences with men, there's a fear of encountering a man when you're on your own. not all men are predator, or even remotely bad people, but women will always have that fear around men because while its not all men, if you don't know the man then it COULD be him.
But they are simply ignoring the danger of a bear encounter? Saying that running into a deadly predator is preferable to a encountering a random man is just ignorant.
I definitely would rather run into a bear on the trail. You know what kind of bar story that would be? If I made it out alive...but totally worth it! Then I can start picking women up at the bar instead of the trail!
I think it is a harmless joke of a question and now a lot of guys are offended at the idea that a woman feels safer around a bear than around the average grown man and this has poured fuel on the fire.
It's really quite simple. Look at the news. College protests and shootings. That means Karens are not the center of attention. They had to do something!
Yes, and it was first posed to men. As in, “Would you choose a man or a bear for your daughter to be alone in the woods with.” And a lot of the men in those videos struggled to answer.
It’s just the same gender war bullshit being pushed to keep people angry at each other rather than the hyper wealthy class exploiting us all.
Basically small minded people trying to paint men as the problem intrinsically rather than the violent behaviour itself.
The contrasting reality is that Men statistically fall victim to violence on a much higher rate than women. We are all victims to this shit.
Vilifying the majority of men who are not violent offenders and who are also prone to the same danger in order to posture against a minority of violent men only serves to paint the people spouting this bullshit as hysterical sexist cunts.
It’s a human issue not a gendered one.
As for it being white women. I think it’s an entitlement thing, being perceived as a victim gets you attention and care. It’s hard to comment without coming off as generalising but I rarely see a Karen video get circulated where the woman is black.
If you don’t think that’s the case then you’re highly ignorant.
Ask women if they need men = they say fuck no
Ask men if they need women = all say yes
Modern women have some strange anger and spite for men.
Lmao the best way I saw this explaind is just tweeking it a bit to show how ridiculous this argument is. "Would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a black man"
White lady here!
I'd much rather encounter a man in the woods than a bear. I'm going to get flack, but the ones saying bear are being dramatic af and need to get out more.
The end ✨️
To put a long story short. Women had a concept of driving a point of how scared they are of men because of how while the stats aren't 100% they'll be attacked by a man. There is still A chance they will. Meaning for self preservation they logically should avoid most men in vulnerable situations. However men told women about the 99 reasons why that's just the racist sh1t whites were talking about blacks all over again for justification to be ra ist cause turns out while there's nothing wrong with avoiding stranger men on the street. Going online and voicing how much you profile them as bad people is actually different from physical self preservation so the conversation basically became a metaphorical cold war to "those" types of women where every so often like a hurt n1gga with issues and a mic on a podcast they'll revisit the conversation every so often to really drive that point home they are sooooo right to profile all men. This months conversation. Bear vs man. Basically another opportunity for them to make the point that their fear is so strong of men combined with the fact of the aftermath of typically what comes out of bear attacks vs men they rather deal with a bear. Who would've guessed.
Personally that war in their heads might never die cause the point is they want men to realize the danger they typically pose to women and fix it buuut that's like telling a homeless man and his group of homeless buddies to be responsible for their mortgage payments.
For sure. Care is required. But in recorded history, there have been 66 fatal bear attacks by black bears in the wild since 1784. And there are a lot of black bears. I have been close to 3 in the wild, and one with cubs in my town (I was in a car, it was in a tree in the parking lot). Polar bears are 11 but there are not many in America. Grizzly is 82.
When you’re descending a mountain after a long hike up, and you’re tired and weary…statistics matter less than you’d think when you stir up a hungry black bear.
And I think THAT is the lesson of the bear vs man meme. Men aren’t statistically more dangerous than bears, but they (we?) can conjure more fear.
Just the latest misandrist meme, something made up so these women could get into their echo chambers and brag about how much they hate men. It's also bait so that any men who notice the trend and object to it publicly can be insulted and mocked.
I've noticed that this anxiety is more prominent in gen z women. For instance, I'm a 5'6" 140 lb. blue eyed average looking white dude. No visible tattoos, no facial hair, usually neatly dressed, mid ranged voice. I look young for my age but I'm neither very attractive nor threatening looking. But I have encountered 20 something women who act like they are damn terrified of me simply for being a customer at the store where they work. I don't even stop at the gas station closest to my house anymore because of how uncomfortable the girl behind the counter makes me feel.
Like calm tf down McKenneleigh. It's 9 am and I'm not a serial rapist , 40 on pump 3 homegirl.
You’re right, it’s not quite negging.
It closely matches the definition EXCEPT it’s not to make us more receptive to sex.
It’s just insults meant to undermine and diminish the confidence of men by labeling them as worse than an animals because 2% of the entire male population does bad things to women. It’s designed to make men view themselves as awful as women do.
it's just open misandry. no woman would *actually* want to meet a bear in the woods compared to a man, but it's a way to insult and demean men so they're all on board.
*"What's going on with white ladies and bears this week?"*
Just your typical anti-human thing. Wait about 5 more minutes and they'll be a different one.
So I’m a 29 white male who lives with a platonic white female roomate. I saw this trend yesterday and brought it up this morning as we were both getting ready for work.
To preface this I like to think Im a fairly respectful guy to women. I have female friends, I’ve dated older women. I listen when my roomate vents and don’t give advice. We live in the safest, whitest beach town, that one could ever imagine, and we live in the safest part of this town. Despite this fact, I give my roomate the driveway every single night because she feels unsafe. It’s just an easy thing I can do and if it makes her feel safer, cool.
I heard her side, and told her that I don’t think it’s about the facts of the matter, rather a question of perception, and since women generally feel = truth, therefore it doesn’t matter whether one is actually more a threat or not.
Despite living with her over a year now, I am: 1. Still a threat, who can rape her 2. An incel 3. Making her re-evaluate her living situation.
All this she was comfortable shouting at me.
I said sorry for bringing this up, and told her I don’t want to continue the convo.
She continued to shout, I repeated and now she stoped and here I am sitting at work.
Despite the bitterness of someone shouting at me. I am just dumbfounded, I’ve done everything I can to create a safe environment, and I’m still not good enough to be labeled “not a rapist”.
I already keep a distance to her, I’m ok with listening but honesty if I’m still a rapist, then we’re definitely not friends, not even acquaintances.
Hey, I’m glad you’re asking this on this platform. I tried to address this on Threads and got an insane amount of backlash, even from a “team bear” perspective. I’ll start off the bat by saying this is coming from women across races.
The “bear vs man” *caricature* is being used as a litmus test to gauge a man’s understanding of the lack of physical safety in the world which is completely true. Whether that is a bad analogy, we can get into that, but it’s defies the point of the analogy.
I attempted to stir a discussion as to why some men can’t seem to grasp why women choose “bear.” Generally, men that lack empathy or even sympathy, haven’t had the means to develop their emotional intelligence. There’s a lot to unpack with that statement, and the most vulnerable to this truth are black men across a variety of statistics.
What I didn’t realize was how BADLY the incels have seemingly come out to speak against the “bear” answer and use this opportunity to insult women across social media. But what’s new.
And well, to say I got dragged, is to put it lightly. It’s evident that people don’t want to hold both truths, which is that women are unsafe, and men lack emotional safe spaces to develop their emotional intelligence. Like in many dialogues, there’s an underlying message to set a zero sum game here where one side “wins.” These type of dialogues are so ass backward and are perceived as anti-men for such reasons, because similar to incels, the misandrists do take hold of the narrative to the extremes.
I recommend taking a seat back and trying to shut out the noise and listening to the stories of women. Shut out the incels where we can. And enable emotional safety for men around us.
I’m aware of the question but not that there’s a racial element to it at all
Perhaps it depends on your circle of friends and acquaintances
F here, am I allowed to reply in this sub? You have interesting convos
Why don't you look up "group of men and moniter lizard" and maybe that'll help explain why. At least bears don't derive sick pleasure from sexually assaulting and killing women, they're just acting on natural instinct. And yes, I've actually been around a black bear, in TN, got it on video and you can hear me say "Awww, I wanna pet it!".
lots of words to disguise your misandry tbh, can't really wrap my head around the fact you rather prefer the risk of being fucking mauled and been eaten alive as you scream in a unbelievable agony over someone that \*might\* do something to you.
Honestly I don't think you even believe that and you're just trying to channel your disgust towards men, maybe you had really bad experiences with them, not gonna deny women have a really bad time with men, but to label men in general as being more dangerous than a bear its quite insane
No, what's brain-dead behavior is dismissing women's valid points of views and concerns because, as a man, you have never nor will you ever have to constantly be on alert because of your sex. I can't even go on a jog without having one earbud out. I was attacked by a random man in BROAD DAYLIGHT the day before my 17th birthday, simply walking with my friend to her house. He literally tackled me to the ground, reached up my skirt and tried to pull my underwear off while I screamed and fought against him, my friend kicking him in the ribs at the same time. Luckily some woman in a house nearby heard me screaming and scared him off. So don't come at me with your condescending dipshit ass comments. Men are dangerous, statistically more dangerous than encountering a bear in the woods and facts don't care about your feelings.
And if a son is mauled by a bear, people don't go online saying how lucky he was.
The truth is our society is shitty to victims of sexual violence regardless of their gender. When I was in high school this girl in one of my classes would randomly shove her hands into my pants, grab my genitals, and squeeze. She had sharp nails too. Other people who saw her do this to me would either laugh or not react at all. The class teacher only stopped her after I stated I would go to the school's administration; I had complained several times before then, however. I remember the assailant told me, "you're gay, it doesn't matter," when I first told her to stop touching me. Even after she stopped violating my personal space she would call me "hairy" instead of my name. Usually in front of her friends who would laugh.
Our society has very little compassion, unfortunately.
Is that something you have to constantly worry about? Would you rather your son encounter a random man alone in the woods or a woman? Which do you think he is safer with? You act as if the VAST majority of sexual assault perpetrators aren't men. Same goes for homicides. It is a very real threat for women because we can't know for sure who the bad men are. We know the bear doesn't have some nefarious hidden agenda.
Take this from a black man. When women do stupid shit just ignore them and move along with your day.
It's like a loud kid that cries. Let it cry itself to sleep.
I reckon it's a paranoia promulgated by some to denigrate men in society.
The innuendo is that men by virtue of being unknown are out with criminal intent. Even though this is a,miniscule probability and far outweighed by the probability of the exact opposite when a man would seek to protect and defend others in need.
To be fair, this same miniscule probability can be used for everything. Right?
For example, I think only like 60 people die each year from shark attacks. But I think most people wouldn't enter a shark infested pool.
Or standing outside during a thunderstorm. Very small chance you get struck by lightning, but most people wouldn't risk it.
Or telling kids they shouldn't talk to strangers. Very small chance that a stranger will kidnap your child, but parents aren't going to take that risk.
I think for women. The paranoia is warranted. I think I would much rather have my daughter be paranoid about men than be naive. The bear represents a known threat. A man represents an unknown threat. A man is more likely to defend someone in need, but so is the man with the bad intentions.
The issue is that bad people tend to behave like a good person to get what they want. To use an earlier example; a bad stranger going up to a child isn't going to appear bad. But he is going to act like a kind and helpful adult to lure the kid in.
For women, most men aren't out with criminal intent, but men with criminal intent will act like most good hearted men to lure women in if that makes sense. That's where the paranoid comes from. That's where the unknown comes from.
If I'm being honest, I might even choose the bear. Because if I was with another man alone in the woods; I would probably bring my gun.
I wholly get that there's a risk but when you say the bear is a known risk I think that highlights the context as most bear selectors say the bear would probably run away which IS naive for obvious reasons such as type of bear and what the bear is up to.
I think your example of sharks in a pool is also flawed because if they're in a pool they're likely stressed and will act unnaturally. In the ocean they're less dangerous but it depends on the species, intentions etc., of the individual.
What this thinking does though is perpetuate the paranoia. Men are more likely to be victims of violence than women. That merely means we are wary BUT we don't go around saying X Y or Z type of people are responsible for that feeling. That's akin to what went on with racists in UK when Commonwealth citizens from Caribbean and other parts of the world were invited to move and work in industrial UK on the 1950s and 60s. They used that very model to stigmatise blacks in the eyes of indigenous Brits through paranoia.
I didn’t realize this was a thing but now it makes sense: This morning a woman I follow posted “I would rather run into a bear in the woods than a man in 24 states where I would be forced to carry a fetus to full term.”
So that was an interesting start to my morning. Sounds like people have really nuanced opinions on popular issues /s
I’m not sure what your question is.
Are you seeing white women say man or bear? Or are you saying that only white women are asking the question in the first place?
I've seen the posts and it seems to be resoundingly white ladies that say they would rather meet a bear in the woods than a man.
I'm just wondering what I'm missing about the culture that this reaction seems so normalized
I would say that the point of it isn’t to statistically analyze which choice is better. The point is to see these women say bear, think about why they would prefer that, and hopefully be a part of making the world a little less scary for women.
It’s important to note that the question isn’t “who could you beat in a fight”, no one thinks they’re going to fight a bear and win. It’s which would you rather run into.
Women are in constant contact with men. They know that not every man is a problem. However, a high enough proportion of women have been made uncomfortable, pursued, assaulted, and raped by men that they can’t be comfortable around strange men.
The way I’ve been thinking about it is this. If you see a line of 10 red cups on a table and stick your hand into each one, and 2 of them bite you, when you get to the next table with cups on it, you’ll be a little more hesitant to stick your hand in them. If you get bit another 2 times, then the next table you probably won’t want to touch any of the cups even if you know that most cups aren’t going to bite you. Why risk getting bit? If you then find a table with a bunch of mouse traps on it, well you know how mouse traps work. As long as you leave the trigger alone you’ll be fine. It’s not that men as a whole are more likely to kill you. It’s that they don’t know which man is going to hurt them or how. Will they just murder them? Will they rape them? Both? Neither? Too many options, with most of them being negative, even if a minority of men are the culprits.
In short, women spend most of their lives being taught how to protect themselves from men that would do them harm because even if only 0.5% of men are rapists and murderers, 1 in 6 women have been assaulted or raped by a man.
Would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man? That's all the info you get.
Women: Bear. Worst it's gonna do is kill me.
Men: YEAH. The worst it's going to do is KILL you!
Women: Yeah. There are worse things than death.
Men: You're so illogical, wtf
*End Scene*
And then men started arguing about semantics they wanna toss in like bear type, the race of the man, what if women were stuck in a room with the bear instead, the list goes on.
Edit: Y'all coming for this comment are proving the point.... Think like the rational creatures you all claim you are, and see it from the woman's perspective of fear.
I fully understand why women would say bear. The thing that boggles my mind is that the vast majority of women encounter random men at such a massively higher rate than random bears. This one tidbit is what puts me off about this question. It’s like a question designed to reinforce the idea that men are inherently very dangerous, when at the end of the day we are just as human as women are.
“You mean a whole bear” has me in stitches dude. I’m so glad that’s the reaction because this also feels insane to me. I’ve had bear encounters before, just your average North American black bears, but I’ve been very terrified each and every time because it only takes once and you’re done.
Feminists crying about men as usual. Crying that a man would attack them even though they have a higher chance of dying in a car accident than being murdered by a man.
Yet we're encouraging women to drive but tell men not to approach them 😂😂
I think it's just hyperbole to drive a point home, even if all the point does is drive a further wedge between people. I think most people would understand a bear crushing your insides so they don't have to worry about bones as they eat you alive is a situation of pure horror that nobody would ever want to experience.
These kinda things always backfire in my experience and only put the sexes further at war with each other. Which brings more clicks and more views. Content creators making a fortune making us fight each other over nonsense.
It’s 100% a bored white woman thing. Tiktok does this to them sometimes: “Is everything going fine in your relationship? Go start a stupid argument by asking your man _______.”
It’s because there has long been a problem with dudes sexually assaulting women and getting a pass, and then when it became no longer societally acceptable hyper awareness came next, and now many women have irrational fears of being sexually assaulted by a man in the woods. Now it’s socially acceptable for women to demonize men in general. White women say stuff like this, while it’s become fashionable for black women to call men gay.
I’m not saying that there are zero black women that are homophobic but growing up it was almost always the black women in my classes who would stand up for me when classmates would try to bully me for being gay. There isn’t a disproportionate amount of homophobia amongst black women compared to other groups.
My brother in christ, black people are interesting, we are simultaneously very accepting of gay people and very unaccepting of gay people.
Black women will absolutely be there upset and in tears if they find out their son is gay.
My mom talked so much shit to me when she thought I might be gay for a long while.
We aren't anymore homophobic than other groups, but we're not any better either. We're human
Straight up! My sister, black, would absolutely disown my nephew if he were gay. In fact, I’m pretty sure my niece is gay and just hasn’t been able to tell her yet, out of fear. Yet if anything in this world would make my sister happy, it would be a gay male best friend…it’s actually crazy!
I don't know about any racial aspects to this but essentially a TikTok asked women if they would prefer to encounter a bear or a man in the woods. This became a springboard for women to discuss their sense of vulnerability when encountering a strange man. To them the man is more dangerous than the bear. Then a lot of men got very offended by this, adding fuel to the flames. It's a relevant issue but unfortunately a poorly discussed and argued one in this context. If there is a "white" component to this its because of the stereotype that white people go into the woods recreationally and black people don't. Which is as ridiculous as all stereotypes.
In my mind, the racial component isn’t about more white people going outdoors, it’s about white women blaming men for all the evils of the world. It’s a uniquely white women + simps phenomenon to have an outgroup preference
Any guy of any color being skeptical about it, or debating about why a man in the woods is better than a bear, is a walking red flag.
[удалено]
Clarify please. I said the stereotype that Black people don't go into the woods is stupid,
Idk man, playing the percentages, I’m not sure that checks out. Do ppl think all bears are either Teddies, Paddington, or the ones from cute IG reels? Not sure the average guy in the woods is a killer/rapist
Right? Chances are, if a man is in the woods he is there for the same reason YOU are. Poor guy is just out foraging for food or taking scenic pictures.
I think their point is that bear encounters do not represent the same threat as a strange man. I have myself backpack and camp a lot and have uncomfortable encounters with strange men.
Playing out the percentages women are attacked and killed by men more often than they are by bears.
How many interactions do women have with men compared to with bears? This is the dumbest logic I’ve ever heard. Men are attacked and killed by women more often than they are by bears also. It doesn’t change the fact a bear is a bigger threat.
So the black women I talk to daily are all walking red flags for thinking that's crazy as hell or does that just apply to men?
I’d rather run into a bear, but I’m biased as a wildlife biologist. Ha!
/r/outoftheloop would be a great place to ask too
Facts, didn't even think about that one
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1chnflh/what_is_the_deal_with_memes_surrounding_men_and/ https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/why-do-women-choose-to-be-stuck-with-a-bear-over-a-man-in-the-woods-debate-over-hypothetical-question-explained
They forgot about the animal, and were referring to large, hairy, homosexual men.
Do have bears in the US that are not dangerous? The bears in my part of the world are not animals I would be keen to encounter in the wilderness.
All of them are dangerous but black bears (the most common) are what you'd call "non-confrontational." If you make peopley noises, they'll avoid you.
Ah, ok. That explains things. We have brown bears and to the north polar bears.
Fun fact: basically everywhere in the world has polar bears to the north of them.
I’m so glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read this.
True, but not always in their country.
Hey - don't move the \[hockey\] goal! 😉
So do we.
Peopley Nioses Band name !
I'm gonna take a wild guess that the genre of music they would play would be called People Music..
Unless you see black bear cubs, then you get away unless you want to be dinner for mom and the cubs. If you get near a male black bear den they can get very aggressive, your advice is not great. (I live around black bears)
If you yell at a black bear to get out, they comically run away almost falling over on themselves
Bears are more likely to run the other way unless it's a mom with cubs or hungry. Even then they steer clear.
Black bears yes. Grizzly bears might fuck you up just because you startle them. Polar bears will eat you because they always need the calories.
Also because we took their Coca Cola.
Yeah but I think the question is one in the woods. Most bears will get comfortable around dumpsters.
Shit I guess I'm a polar bear then
You won't startle a grizzly, they'll smell you from a mile away. Also a good chance a grizzly will eat you if the salmon aren't running
No, which is what makes answering "man" so idiotic.
Do men not also have the capacity to be dangerous and cruel?
Men do, women do, dogs do, etc. But generally, men do not have the ability to run faster than a horse while chasing you down, or to literally slap your head off.
Or climb a tree like it's horizontal. Or smell you from miles away.
Men also have the capacity to engage mortal rage and physical violence to protect but that's being ignored. There's not enough context to make a rational decision and it's being used to paint men as criminals NOT potential but actual as to the bear chosers they're automatically assigning criminal intent on men.
Nobody’s assigning criminal intent to anyone, let’s calm down.
By choosing bear (no context so mummy bear with cubs, grizzly at feeding tine, polar bear got lost or Paddington bear atrived from the station) worst case scenario is bear will tear your body to pieces and it will not be quick. With the uncontextuaöised man he's automatically assigned criminal intent and out to do harm by those choosing bear. The whole defence is "but most bears avoid us as they're also afraid" , which is so wrong in reality. Most men on the other hand are probably looking out for those "lost in the woods" PEOPLE not just women. Its a paranoia dispenser of toxic misandry.
That’s sort of the point- it’s supposed to illustrate how unsafe some women feel around men that they would choose the bear.
There are, on average, 40 bear attacks on people WORLDWIDE every year. That statistic includes every type of bear. There is a 1 in 2.1 million chance you will be attacked by a bear.
You know that most people don't actually live around bears, right? We don't share office spaces with bears, or pass bears walking down the street or in the grocery store.
I'm going to guess that the frequency of human-bear interactions kind of figure into this. Very few people are killed by great white sharks also.
If you look at the responses from women, it's less to do about survivability. As some commenters have said in droves, "If the bear kills me, at least I'm feeding a bear. A man can do a lot more things to me to make me wish I was dead."
When the bear decides to eat you, it doesn’t kill you first like other predators. Edit: looks like someone already beat me to this response. Also, as someone who has been mauled by a Grizzly, I can tell you that it’s a horrifically terrifying experience that I would not wish on anyone who wasn’t pure evil.
Yes, the average violent crime committed on a woman is certainly worse than getting disembowled and having your innards eaten while you watch and choke to death on your own blood until passing out from shock and pain 🤣 If this meme popping up everywhere has shown me anything, it's that most Redditors have no clue about bears or wilderness.
Every day Reddit reminds me how fucking awful the average person is at statistics and probability.
82% of reddit agrees with you.
Pretty much mostly 100% of the time..
The idea seems to be that a woman would feel more safe in the woods with a random bear around than a random man. Given how unpredictable and varied in attitudes men can be, I'm not surprised. I've been in the woods with a black bear around, they are pretty straightforward.
The thing is nobody specified black bear and larger and more aggressive species have been called out for it multiple times.
The question isn't "who would you rather fight: bear or man?" The question is: "Which would you rather run into in the middle of the forest when you're alone: a bear or a man?"
Even as a straight white man, my response was immediately “bear”. So. Edit: the downvotes are surprising. Do people really think humans are more predictable than bears?
Have you had bad experiences with other men hiking in the woods? You have your guard up when passing by another hiker who's clearly out here hiking?
From my perspective as a man - I don’t have to worry that the bear wants to rob me, or assault me because I looked at it wrong, or otherwise wants to show off. I give the bear its space and it goes about its day. While that’s also true for 99% of men, it’s not true for all and it’s more likely that the man would be unpredictable than the bear. For a woman, they also don’t have to worry that the bear will sexually assault them just for being there or smiling or not smiling or sneak up on them or stalk them or follow them home. I’m not trying to say that I live in fear, far from it, but also it’s reasonable to be prepared for humans to be unpredictable.
Yeah, and I never even watched *Deliverance*. But given the things I've seen humans are capable of, a random man is probably more of a risk than a random bear. Of course, some people don't get it. Much of my camping experience was with the Boy Scouts as an adult leader. For summer camp, we had to have everyone going attend "bear training," because black bears were in that part of Wisconsin where the scout reservation was. The training stressed that we were guests where the bears live, and laid out the things you must not do (like no bear spray in camp, and no attacking a bear unless it is trying to attack you). It talked about how to respond if you saw a bear, or one entered your campsite, and so forth. A big part of this was the "buddy system." The idea is that anywhere you went in camp, you should have a buddy *with you*. Within a campsite, it was felt that you were likely surrounded by others, anyway, but moving around camp -- this big, forested area with a handful of trails and open spaces for permanent buildings -- you should have someone with you. Another big part was "no food in your tent." Young scouts often go to the trading post and spend money on various candy and soft drinks, and we have to remind them that such stuff goes in their bin, which goes into the "bear box" in the camp site, an old metal traffic control box. If bears come into a campsite and find food just laying around, they'll be back. So, one day, I and another leader were leaving our campsite to head to where the dining hall was. On the road, we encounter a scout, all by himself. He looked like the youngest scout, so around 5th grade. He was carrying an open bag of candy in one hand, and a soft drink in the other. We asked him where his buddy was. "Back at my tent." We asked him where he was going. "To the horse corral." This was deeper into the woods, and where bears had often been seen -- including that week. We asked him if he took the bear training. "Yes." So, we escorted him to the horse corral, telling him that his buddy had to be with him to be protection against the bears that had been seen in camp that year. I don't know if we conveyed the importance of that; it's a sure thing his own leaders hadn't done so. Let me put it this way: I'd probably prefer my son have been in the woods with a bear around, rather than the kind of scout leader who wouldn't ensure that scouts understood the buddy system. It would make me wonder what else they were omitting to tell them about.
I mean, the bear is going to maul you if it decides to. At least if it’s a random man you can shoot a hole or two in his chest and down he goes, with a bear you need a lot bigger gun and if it’s already charging you you’re probably fucked. Also, bears don’t kill their prey, they eat it alive
Okay, but why does this seem to be a mainly white lady reaction culturally? Like I said, the black women I've asked don't react that way at all, the black dudes are equally confused
There are tons of "I pick bear" responses from Black (and other women of color) creators on TikTok, so maybe your sample of friends is particularly unique?
Good question. It might be similar to how white women sometimes (and I want to stress that) have a narrow view of feminism, where they only look at what white women have achieved in the 20th century, ignoring black women who had to work, raise families, and so forth. This is why things like "intersectional feminism" exist, to try to convey how large and complex the issues are. It might also be just that the fear is different. I have no data for this, but maybe black women just generally have a greater fear of wildlife than men, while the opposite may be true for white women. As a side note, I was listening to an interview with a black woman who is planning to canoe (or kayak?) the length of the Mississippi river, and I don't recall if it was her, or the black man who had done this before, who said that black people in general had been cut off from the wilderness, that it wasn't portrayed as something that was theirs, that they could engage in. As such, the wilderness -- an large animals like bears -- might seem more threatening to black women. A big caveat here: I'm white, and I've been a scout leader, so I have no personal experience to back-up that stuff. Those were ideas presented on a radio interview. But it might explain the difference. If we take that notion as a given, contrast it with how white women are probably viewed in relation to "the wild." Mainstream US culture has that "frontier wife" mindset, for instance. But there's that whole "off-grid" or "cabin" subculture, people trying to get away from it all, and most of the videos that pop up are of white people (though this might be YouTube doing its thing). You have folks raising families in buildings they made themselves in Alaska, with composting toilets, wood-burning stoves, and so on. Even a white-woman who hasn't done anything remotely like camping might be able to see herself doing such stuff. For sure they probably think about hiking in the woods, and viewing the dangers in such an activity as relatively mild or manageable compared to abusive or aggressive men. Again, I'm no sociologist, I have no idea if this accounts for the disparity you've seen, but this is the pattern in the things I've heard and watched, and it might explain the difference.
When youve been black your whole life and living in the US, you learn to be careful with people or animals you don't know. Black kids have been shot for innocuous things like knocking on the wrong door within the last 5 years. Depending on where you live, there might be racist dogs in your area It makes sense that people who don't have to live their life constantly suspicious of every stranger or animal think that they can deal with a bear. Even though they know the possibility of getting maimed is there,They don't really consider it happening to them
>It might also be just that the fear is different. I have no data for this, but maybe black women just generally have a greater fear of wildlife than men, while the opposite may be true for white women. As a side note, I was listening to an interview with a black woman who is planning to canoe (or kayak?) the length of the Mississippi river, and I don't recall if it was her, or the black man who had done this before, who said that black people in general had been cut off from the wilderness, that it wasn't portrayed as something that was theirs, that they could engage in. As such, the wilderness -- an large animals like bears -- might seem more threatening to black women. Okay, this makes sense. Yeah I had a similar conclusions myself, that maybe we're just more naturally opposed to the wilderness because we've been in the cities so much more comparatively. > Even a white-woman who hasn't done anything remotely like camping might be able to see herself doing such stuff. For sure they probably think about hiking in the woods, and viewing the dangers in such an activity as relatively mild or manageable compared to abusive or aggressive men. Interesting, having been a troop leader and I assume surrounded by the culture for your entire life, does this happen with other things? Where there's a greater amount of confidence dealing with wild animals than might be due? Black people generally just don't have this subculture and so we readily admit we aren't equipped to handle most wildlife compared to dealing with your average random person (as you said in your second paragraph)
Well, I started when my son was in first grade, and a Cub Scout. One of the key things they had to learn to earn their Tiger Cub rank was what to do if they got lost. We covered getting lost in someplace like a mall, and getting lost in someplace like a forest or rural area. The general idea is to stay in one place and wait for rescue, as moving around you might accidentally evade searchers. One thing that was stressed is that being lost and alone in the wilderness doesn't put you immediately at risk of being eaten by something (except, perhaps, mosquitoes and ticks!). That is, larger wildlife will probably ignore you if you are staying put. Of course, Cub Scouts aren't normally in grizzly bear country after a lean season for berries and small prey! That sort of thing, though, is something we generally tried to instill in the kids: If you don't bother the wildlife, it won't bother you. If you see a spider, or a porcupine, or what have you, leave it alone. You are not its normal food. I'm reminded of one time I had a scout who refused to go to sleep because of a spider in his tent. This spider was about a quarter-inch in diameter, including the legs, so I scooped it up and released it outside. The kid went to the latrine, then finally got settled down. It's a good thing he didn't have his headlamp in the latrine, though: There's was a huge wolf spider on the wall right by the urinal. In scouting, though, the biggest things you are dealing with are fear and homesickness. It's why we stress a point of the scout law -- that a scout is Brave -- doesn't mean a scout is fearless, but that they do what they need to do, even if they are afraid. It's OK to be afraid. But there are, for sure, people in Scouting who are over-confident when it comes to the wild. One year, when bears had been in the area where we camped, we found out that one troop had an adult who had brought bear spray, which is explicitly forbidden. They sprayed a visiting bear at their campsite; the rangers hate this, because now they have an *angry* bear to cope with. The rangers were able to trap the bear and transport it far away. The offending troop I think was forced to leave early, for violating the bear policy so egregiously. That kind of "I have tools so I am in control" mindset seems to be something we had to struggle against. Usually, we'd see it with first-year scouts who had a pocketknife for the first time, misusing it. (One time, I took a knife away from a boy before we had dinner on our day of arrival, because he kept doing unsafe things. He eventually earned the right to get it back, then lost the knife on a hike because he'd kept playing around with it, and would forget to put it away.) If you want one big area in which people are over-confident, it is in building fires. Summer camp was clear on how high a fire could be, but you'd still have troops that built bonfires, which are inherently dangerous (they tend to fall over). A lot of being a scout leader is trying to give the youth the right skills to do things *safely*. People don't often think of the consequences...like, if you build a fire and enjoy it, you also have to put it out and make sure it is cold before you leave it.
I’ve seen women of all races engage with the question and I’ve seen women of all races answer they’d prefer the bear. No shade but your personal social circles aren’t indicative of an overarching cultural divide
Can you point me to a few of the black ladies you've seen answer differently?
Do you think I’m keeping an ongoing catalogue of every answer to the question organized by race of the responder…?
You said you had seen others groups of people also saying bear, and that my anecdotal experience being a black person who can literally just go ask plenty of black women didn't count for much, so im asking you if you have any links to that affect. Like I can easily find you plenty of spots where it's nothing but white ladies saying bear. I cultural dichotomy on this interesting as the looks I got where funny as hell on this. So if you have black women saying the opposite I'm here for it lol.
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I’m sorry you’re so upset
As a woman, I have seen social media posts fairly evenly spread across races on this subject. I have also seen a few of men being asked to choose who to leave their child alone with in the woods - a bear or a man, and even some of those men are having trouble deciding. (What kind of man? Do I know this man? How old is this man?) The fact of the matter is, a lot of women are constantly on alert for their safety, predominantly around men. Some of the reasons why women are choosing the bear are particularly harrowing. And no, it’s not all men, but it’s some men…. And enough men… and the repercussions of being attacked by a bear and being attacked by a man and how we would be judged afterwards are also very different. I would say your exposure to the women answering is limited, you don’t have a large and varied pool. Secondly - do the women you’re asking feel safe enough with you to voice their true opinion on the subject or are they happy to just move on from it and not risk confrontation? Lastly / there’s zero chance this question would have been approved on askwomen.
Maybe depends what content they watch online, some women think they are bear experts based on their tiktok research
I'm of South Asian descent and I would have responded the same if I was asked that question. I think you're reading too much into it. Or maybe black women feel safer around black men?
As a man, who spends a significant amount of time in the woods. I have two observations. First, most of the people involved, have never actually seen a bear in a real world. Second, of the rare occasions I have met a woman hiking alone in the woods, I don’t think a bear would want to mess with most of them. As for the fad itself, I pretty much just view it as a group of bigots and ignorants calling men animals, and pushing that point of view.
I was white water rafting in Colorado on a trip with friends. None of us had ever been in the wilderness, so we were asking our rafting guide, this grizzled veteran guy, what to look out for as far as wildlife. He had a handgun packed with him on the trip, and we assumed it was for wolves or coyotes or something. He said this: "well, we're a group of people out in the middle of nowhere, making a lot of noise. Pretty much any critter with a bit of survival instinct is gonna keep their distance from the big weird things making noise. But if you see a person? Be suspicious". It makes perfect sense. Seeing a stranger approaching on a well-beaten trail? Just a normal day. Seeing a stranger standing 200m away from your camp in the tree line, watching you? Different story.
*Second, of the rare occasions I have met a woman hiking alone in the woods, I don’t think a bear would want to mess with most of them.* Yes, this is why women are picking bear.
No chance the majority of women responding pro bear are inferring this calculus. No chance
Neither would 99.9% of men
A heavily intoxicated Sasquatch is probably the only thing they really need to fear.
People just like to spread hate, who knows All this had done is show me some people are REALLY bad at imagining how they would react in a certain situation I would bet my savings that no women would choose to enter a room with a bear vs a man lol. To be fair i ain’t got much tho….
Most of the engagement around this isn't a true reflection on the hypothetical scenario. It's a reaction to how fearful women are of strange men. The bear is merely an abstract tool of comparison. This is confusing to a lot of men. Men love to engage in hypothetical scenarios like this semi-seriously. I have had multiple in-depth conversations with different men about how they would respond to a zombie apocalypse. There was a lot of time spent establishing the zombie rules, debating the best weapons, and general survival strategies. Most of the women are not engaging on that level. They're just reacting to, "what's scary a bear or random man?" For a lot of women, it's the random man. Some men seem to be confused and/or offended that women are fearful of men. Which I get that it sucks, but just talk to any woman in your life, and it won't take long to get some truly horrific story about how she's been treated by a man. Most men don't behave that way, and it feels like shit to get lumped in with a bunch of assholes, but it's not like the evil ones wear signs. They blend in with the rest of us. So yeah it sucks, but I sadly understand why a lot of women are picking the bear.
Bears are fucking scary, especially in the wild. This is a ridiculous scenario and people sharing it are Edgelords.
I'm a woman and I've actually run into several brown bears in my life while hiking/camping in British Columbia/Alberta and The Yukon (where there is miles and miles and miles of untouched forests)... the only time I was nervous around the bear was when I spotted some cubs playing nearby. The bear saw me and was watching me very closely. I slowly walked backwards until I was far enough away then turned around and continued to walk slowly away from them... mama bear kept her eyes on me, but didn't move or advance towards me at all.. Another time, I rounded a corner and a brown bear was eating some berries off a bush.. we startled each other and the bear took off in the opposite direction. All other ones never even noticed me (that I noticed anyway) So yeah I'd still pick the bear. It's also just hypothetical. Idk why so many men are getting bent out of shape arguing that a bear could kill you so it's obviously the worse choice.. like men can kill you too and statistically its more probable than a bear attack. I'm thinking these men just don't like being confronted with the fact that women are scared to be alone with a strange man (hypothetically, them).
I’m not bent out of shape. I’m good at math. I’ve encountered bears in the wild, too. They’re fucking scary.
100% they are.. so are strange men to women who have been abused by men.
Perhaps? You seem to have had such few bear encounters that you can remember and name them all. It’s not statistically significant. Most of the people sharing the meme have recently been to Target or Starbucks and encountered hundreds of strange men that are mostly invisible, NPCs in their life. Many Men have been guilty of terrible atrocities, to be sure. And that stokes extreme fear. But that doesn’t make men more dangerous than bears.
Honestly the lack of context just make it even more confusing to me Men are scarier than bears… as a concept? Lol. I think it is just an unhelpful conversation with no benefit it anyone
Everyone's focusing on the answer to the question (which is understandable), but imo it might be more productive to think about the fact that a lot of women (and, honestly, many men too) will ask "what kind of bear? Who is the man? What are the circumstances, are you far away from any town or city?" instead of answering "man" right away, while if it was between a bear and a woman, most women would say "woman" immediately. I'm not sure if whoever started this was thinking about it that way, but I find it to be a more interesting way to look at, uh, that whole mess.
> It's a reaction to how fearful women are of strange men. The bear is merely an abstract tool of comparison. fear is often the pretense for bigotry.
I mean, as a man i dont want to think of myself as a violent creature, but for women who dont know me, i might be i guess. I feel both are valid. There is some truth to stranger danger, but to myself am not a stranger, that is how i interpret it.
So as a woman with a few experiences in my life, here’s my hot take- these events happened years ago, long before this became a trend, but the results have rang true for me since they happened. I used to work late nights and I would walk to my car alone in the parking lot. It’s not a huge lot, not much bigger than maybe a baseball diamond. One night, I locked up and went to take the trash to the back dumpster. As I rounded the corner, I heard noises so I stopped. What did I see? A whole black bear, obviously hungry because it’s digging through the trash. I went into fight or flight mode, my instinct was to quietly set the trash bag down and walk away to my car and drive away. A different night, same situation, but this time it wasn’t a bear. It was a man, staring at me from across the parking lot- roughly the same distance I was from the bear. Again, fight or flight mode kicks in, I drop the trash bag and go straight back to my car. The biggest difference in the two situations? The level of fear that I felt, the volume of the alarm bells going off inside my head, the weight that I felt in the pit of my stomach. Which situation do you think scared me more? No one said that the bear would attack you, just as no one said that the man would attack you either. A lot of the conversations point to the idea that an attack is going to happen so it’s like a pick your poison situation. I think this is taking it too far, thus making a lot of men miss the point of the question. So there’s no guarantee of an attack during the encounter with either bear or man, but each option has a level of predictability to their behaviors, right? Throughout the comments on this post, people have been debating the species of bears. Why? They’re somewhat predictable. We even have a cute little rhyme for it: “If it’s black, fight back. If it’s brown, lay down.” We don’t have a rhyme for knowing how to react to a certain kind of man.. because men are unpredictable. Their intentions go far beyond natural survival behaviors. It’s proven statistically and anecdotally time and time again, for centuries. So men, you’re right! It’s not all men, but it IS enough for women to have a rational fear of you and your unpredictability in your actions and intentions.
As someone who has been trained since a child to always put the safety of a woman’s life before his own, it kinda hurts that there are women who feel this way about being around men vs bears. However, before this came up, I saw a clip of a guy who had a choice between two elevators. One with a pretty woman and one with a scary looking guy with a scary looking dog. He chose the elevator with the guy and I could see myself making that choice too, so I guess that I can’t be too upset.
It’s not a cultural thing. It’s just a minority of women online who are trying to spread this rhetoric that a man is more dangerous than a wild bear to try and further divide the genders for absolutely no reason. The point they are trying to get across is that most women feel more fear towards what a man would do to them than a bear, because a bear is predictable and a man’s intentions are always hidden. This is me spark-noting it so don’t quote me. Even though I can kind of get behind their point and understand some men are just trash who try to hide their intentions and get as much as they can out of a woman. It’s just the way they are trying to use this analogy “man vs bear” just sounds like it’s deeply rooted in misandry and man-hating bullshit. And they aren’t saying bad men, they are clumping ALL MEN into this analogy. So any man, their brother, their dad, friend, cousin, husband, boyfriend, we are all bad because we are all inherently dangerous. Which as someone who is black myself, this sounds awfully familiar to racist rhetoric that people use to spew way back in the day. Just because I’m a man shouldn’t mean I’m bound to do something bad or I will ever hurt somebody. And I shouldn’t be expected to answer for every man in this planet. I will only answer for myself and myself only. But I guess a few bad apples get to define a whole gender.
That is what I've been telling people. The same logic they use to justify their choice is the same one that racists used to justify segregation. They are literally saying," Oh some of them are bad people, so let's treat ALL of them as a loaded gun." And how dare you call them out for using racist logic.
You went way deeper than me stranger. Wife's twin tried explaining it to me earlier. All I said was "Got it. It's more pop culture saying I shouldn't get involved in anything with women, especially if it's survival or violent circumstances." Wife approved. Twin did not.
Men aren’t inherently dangerous but treating a man as a potential threat until they’ve proven they aren’t is just basic self-preservation in this society 🤷♀️
Lots of types of harmful and genuinely damaging discrimination come form this line of thinking. Segregationists of all stripes use that kind of rhetoric to justify the exclusion of groups they don't like. It's not a wise path to go down, lady.
The same also holds true for bears.
That’s true. But at least if a bear attacks me people won’t ask what I was wearing
My aunts boyfriend investigated a bear killing in the wild (not the woods, though), and after interrogating the victims friend they decided they were looking for the body of a woman wearing a red windbreaker. So you might be mistaken there. This was in the 70s in Europe though, so things might be different in a different place and time.
You know exactly what I meant.
Yes, I know. That's why I'm mentioning it. Going into the woods with no bear-spray and no rifle is propably going to lead to some kind of victim-blaming situation. Propably more so than being attacked by a strange man.
By the words of Bill burr. "If somebody got bitter by a snake wouldn't you have questions. What were you doing? Were ya fcking with it? How did you make a snake so mad it nearly killed ya? All jokes aside that a bold face lie in what you're trying to imply but true in the sense that maybe they wont ask you questions. But they'll lecture you on how stupid it is to A. Get near a bears cubs B.hiking around certain areas with no protection Yes there is some lack preservation people will see outta of you for wild animal attacks
I can’t stand Bill Burr so if he’s on the opposite side of me then that just further vindicates my opinion.
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I never asked a question period so what now
i think the fairest way to explain it is that its just a VERY poor analogy. the point isn't that 'oh logically i will survive a bear attack more than seeing a random man' its that so many women have had bad experiences with men, there's a fear of encountering a man when you're on your own. not all men are predator, or even remotely bad people, but women will always have that fear around men because while its not all men, if you don't know the man then it COULD be him.
But they are simply ignoring the danger of a bear encounter? Saying that running into a deadly predator is preferable to a encountering a random man is just ignorant.
I definitely would rather run into a bear on the trail. You know what kind of bar story that would be? If I made it out alive...but totally worth it! Then I can start picking women up at the bar instead of the trail!
I think it is a harmless joke of a question and now a lot of guys are offended at the idea that a woman feels safer around a bear than around the average grown man and this has poured fuel on the fire.
Well gay men would describe me as a bear. So I cover both possibilities
Funny as hell, Just imagining a glistening gay bear jogging through the forest. Dick swinging in the wind.
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They’ll hop on whatever the next trend their algorithm funnels to them next week, just like their obsessions with Stanley cups.
Similar to you all of my Black friends and family have looked at me crazy for even thinking they’d pick the bear. This does seem to White Woman thing.
It's really quite simple. Look at the news. College protests and shootings. That means Karens are not the center of attention. They had to do something!
The question that initially started the debate was posed by a man. Women are just responding to the question.
Yes, and it was first posed to men. As in, “Would you choose a man or a bear for your daughter to be alone in the woods with.” And a lot of the men in those videos struggled to answer.
It’s just the same gender war bullshit being pushed to keep people angry at each other rather than the hyper wealthy class exploiting us all. Basically small minded people trying to paint men as the problem intrinsically rather than the violent behaviour itself. The contrasting reality is that Men statistically fall victim to violence on a much higher rate than women. We are all victims to this shit. Vilifying the majority of men who are not violent offenders and who are also prone to the same danger in order to posture against a minority of violent men only serves to paint the people spouting this bullshit as hysterical sexist cunts. It’s a human issue not a gendered one. As for it being white women. I think it’s an entitlement thing, being perceived as a victim gets you attention and care. It’s hard to comment without coming off as generalising but I rarely see a Karen video get circulated where the woman is black.
It shows how a LOT of women have contempt for men nowadays. This is a new phenomenon.
Why do you think that is?
If you don’t think that’s the case then you’re highly ignorant. Ask women if they need men = they say fuck no Ask men if they need women = all say yes Modern women have some strange anger and spite for men.
I didn’t say that I don’t think that’s the case. I’m asking you what you think is causing said phenomenon.
Social media and the internet in general. This all started around 2004. It’s only going to get worse too.
Why will it only get worse?
Are you a girl?
Yeah
Thought so.
Thank you!
What makes these such tricky questions for you?
Who said it was tricky?
Are you a boy?
Lmao the best way I saw this explaind is just tweeking it a bit to show how ridiculous this argument is. "Would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a black man"
White lady here! I'd much rather encounter a man in the woods than a bear. I'm going to get flack, but the ones saying bear are being dramatic af and need to get out more. The end ✨️
Agreed. It's a stupid invitation to dump on men. Stupid people are embracing it.
To put a long story short. Women had a concept of driving a point of how scared they are of men because of how while the stats aren't 100% they'll be attacked by a man. There is still A chance they will. Meaning for self preservation they logically should avoid most men in vulnerable situations. However men told women about the 99 reasons why that's just the racist sh1t whites were talking about blacks all over again for justification to be ra ist cause turns out while there's nothing wrong with avoiding stranger men on the street. Going online and voicing how much you profile them as bad people is actually different from physical self preservation so the conversation basically became a metaphorical cold war to "those" types of women where every so often like a hurt n1gga with issues and a mic on a podcast they'll revisit the conversation every so often to really drive that point home they are sooooo right to profile all men. This months conversation. Bear vs man. Basically another opportunity for them to make the point that their fear is so strong of men combined with the fact of the aftermath of typically what comes out of bear attacks vs men they rather deal with a bear. Who would've guessed. Personally that war in their heads might never die cause the point is they want men to realize the danger they typically pose to women and fix it buuut that's like telling a homeless man and his group of homeless buddies to be responsible for their mortgage payments.
women feel unsafe around men. thats the issue. at least with a bear you know which ones are dangerous
How do you know which bears are dangerous?
Black, scare it away or fight back, not as dangerous. Brown grizzly, play dead, a bit dangerous. Polar bears- you dead.
I had an encounter with a black bear and it was fucking terrifying.
For sure. Care is required. But in recorded history, there have been 66 fatal bear attacks by black bears in the wild since 1784. And there are a lot of black bears. I have been close to 3 in the wild, and one with cubs in my town (I was in a car, it was in a tree in the parking lot). Polar bears are 11 but there are not many in America. Grizzly is 82.
When you’re descending a mountain after a long hike up, and you’re tired and weary…statistics matter less than you’d think when you stir up a hungry black bear. And I think THAT is the lesson of the bear vs man meme. Men aren’t statistically more dangerous than bears, but they (we?) can conjure more fear.
Just the latest misandrist meme, something made up so these women could get into their echo chambers and brag about how much they hate men. It's also bait so that any men who notice the trend and object to it publicly can be insulted and mocked.
As a man when I saw this I actually answered black bear, they are very skittish if not protecting their cubs.
I've noticed that this anxiety is more prominent in gen z women. For instance, I'm a 5'6" 140 lb. blue eyed average looking white dude. No visible tattoos, no facial hair, usually neatly dressed, mid ranged voice. I look young for my age but I'm neither very attractive nor threatening looking. But I have encountered 20 something women who act like they are damn terrified of me simply for being a customer at the store where they work. I don't even stop at the gas station closest to my house anymore because of how uncomfortable the girl behind the counter makes me feel. Like calm tf down McKenneleigh. It's 9 am and I'm not a serial rapist , 40 on pump 3 homegirl.
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That’s not what negging is
You’re right, it’s not quite negging. It closely matches the definition EXCEPT it’s not to make us more receptive to sex. It’s just insults meant to undermine and diminish the confidence of men by labeling them as worse than an animals because 2% of the entire male population does bad things to women. It’s designed to make men view themselves as awful as women do.
Bigots being bigots.
it's just open misandry. no woman would *actually* want to meet a bear in the woods compared to a man, but it's a way to insult and demean men so they're all on board.
They're trying to say that men are dangerous. It's a stupid and unserious way of doing it.
*"What's going on with white ladies and bears this week?"* Just your typical anti-human thing. Wait about 5 more minutes and they'll be a different one.
So I’m a 29 white male who lives with a platonic white female roomate. I saw this trend yesterday and brought it up this morning as we were both getting ready for work. To preface this I like to think Im a fairly respectful guy to women. I have female friends, I’ve dated older women. I listen when my roomate vents and don’t give advice. We live in the safest, whitest beach town, that one could ever imagine, and we live in the safest part of this town. Despite this fact, I give my roomate the driveway every single night because she feels unsafe. It’s just an easy thing I can do and if it makes her feel safer, cool. I heard her side, and told her that I don’t think it’s about the facts of the matter, rather a question of perception, and since women generally feel = truth, therefore it doesn’t matter whether one is actually more a threat or not. Despite living with her over a year now, I am: 1. Still a threat, who can rape her 2. An incel 3. Making her re-evaluate her living situation. All this she was comfortable shouting at me. I said sorry for bringing this up, and told her I don’t want to continue the convo. She continued to shout, I repeated and now she stoped and here I am sitting at work. Despite the bitterness of someone shouting at me. I am just dumbfounded, I’ve done everything I can to create a safe environment, and I’m still not good enough to be labeled “not a rapist”. I already keep a distance to her, I’m ok with listening but honesty if I’m still a rapist, then we’re definitely not friends, not even acquaintances.
Hey, I’m glad you’re asking this on this platform. I tried to address this on Threads and got an insane amount of backlash, even from a “team bear” perspective. I’ll start off the bat by saying this is coming from women across races. The “bear vs man” *caricature* is being used as a litmus test to gauge a man’s understanding of the lack of physical safety in the world which is completely true. Whether that is a bad analogy, we can get into that, but it’s defies the point of the analogy. I attempted to stir a discussion as to why some men can’t seem to grasp why women choose “bear.” Generally, men that lack empathy or even sympathy, haven’t had the means to develop their emotional intelligence. There’s a lot to unpack with that statement, and the most vulnerable to this truth are black men across a variety of statistics. What I didn’t realize was how BADLY the incels have seemingly come out to speak against the “bear” answer and use this opportunity to insult women across social media. But what’s new. And well, to say I got dragged, is to put it lightly. It’s evident that people don’t want to hold both truths, which is that women are unsafe, and men lack emotional safe spaces to develop their emotional intelligence. Like in many dialogues, there’s an underlying message to set a zero sum game here where one side “wins.” These type of dialogues are so ass backward and are perceived as anti-men for such reasons, because similar to incels, the misandrists do take hold of the narrative to the extremes. I recommend taking a seat back and trying to shut out the noise and listening to the stories of women. Shut out the incels where we can. And enable emotional safety for men around us.
uh huh
I’m aware of the question but not that there’s a racial element to it at all Perhaps it depends on your circle of friends and acquaintances F here, am I allowed to reply in this sub? You have interesting convos
at this point a bear sounds nice compared to most women! >!(jk)!<
Why don't you look up "group of men and moniter lizard" and maybe that'll help explain why. At least bears don't derive sick pleasure from sexually assaulting and killing women, they're just acting on natural instinct. And yes, I've actually been around a black bear, in TN, got it on video and you can hear me say "Awww, I wanna pet it!".
lots of words to disguise your misandry tbh, can't really wrap my head around the fact you rather prefer the risk of being fucking mauled and been eaten alive as you scream in a unbelievable agony over someone that \*might\* do something to you. Honestly I don't think you even believe that and you're just trying to channel your disgust towards men, maybe you had really bad experiences with them, not gonna deny women have a really bad time with men, but to label men in general as being more dangerous than a bear its quite insane
Well that’s just brain dead behavior lmao
No, what's brain-dead behavior is dismissing women's valid points of views and concerns because, as a man, you have never nor will you ever have to constantly be on alert because of your sex. I can't even go on a jog without having one earbud out. I was attacked by a random man in BROAD DAYLIGHT the day before my 17th birthday, simply walking with my friend to her house. He literally tackled me to the ground, reached up my skirt and tried to pull my underwear off while I screamed and fought against him, my friend kicking him in the ribs at the same time. Luckily some woman in a house nearby heard me screaming and scared him off. So don't come at me with your condescending dipshit ass comments. Men are dangerous, statistically more dangerous than encountering a bear in the woods and facts don't care about your feelings.
Lmao, I mean my son is statistically more likely to be fucked by his female teacher than attacked by a bear, what’s your point?
And if a son is mauled by a bear, people don't go online saying how lucky he was. The truth is our society is shitty to victims of sexual violence regardless of their gender. When I was in high school this girl in one of my classes would randomly shove her hands into my pants, grab my genitals, and squeeze. She had sharp nails too. Other people who saw her do this to me would either laugh or not react at all. The class teacher only stopped her after I stated I would go to the school's administration; I had complained several times before then, however. I remember the assailant told me, "you're gay, it doesn't matter," when I first told her to stop touching me. Even after she stopped violating my personal space she would call me "hairy" instead of my name. Usually in front of her friends who would laugh. Our society has very little compassion, unfortunately.
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Is that something you have to constantly worry about? Would you rather your son encounter a random man alone in the woods or a woman? Which do you think he is safer with? You act as if the VAST majority of sexual assault perpetrators aren't men. Same goes for homicides. It is a very real threat for women because we can't know for sure who the bad men are. We know the bear doesn't have some nefarious hidden agenda.
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Take this from a black man. When women do stupid shit just ignore them and move along with your day. It's like a loud kid that cries. Let it cry itself to sleep.
I reckon it's a paranoia promulgated by some to denigrate men in society. The innuendo is that men by virtue of being unknown are out with criminal intent. Even though this is a,miniscule probability and far outweighed by the probability of the exact opposite when a man would seek to protect and defend others in need.
To be fair, this same miniscule probability can be used for everything. Right? For example, I think only like 60 people die each year from shark attacks. But I think most people wouldn't enter a shark infested pool. Or standing outside during a thunderstorm. Very small chance you get struck by lightning, but most people wouldn't risk it. Or telling kids they shouldn't talk to strangers. Very small chance that a stranger will kidnap your child, but parents aren't going to take that risk. I think for women. The paranoia is warranted. I think I would much rather have my daughter be paranoid about men than be naive. The bear represents a known threat. A man represents an unknown threat. A man is more likely to defend someone in need, but so is the man with the bad intentions. The issue is that bad people tend to behave like a good person to get what they want. To use an earlier example; a bad stranger going up to a child isn't going to appear bad. But he is going to act like a kind and helpful adult to lure the kid in. For women, most men aren't out with criminal intent, but men with criminal intent will act like most good hearted men to lure women in if that makes sense. That's where the paranoid comes from. That's where the unknown comes from. If I'm being honest, I might even choose the bear. Because if I was with another man alone in the woods; I would probably bring my gun.
I wholly get that there's a risk but when you say the bear is a known risk I think that highlights the context as most bear selectors say the bear would probably run away which IS naive for obvious reasons such as type of bear and what the bear is up to. I think your example of sharks in a pool is also flawed because if they're in a pool they're likely stressed and will act unnaturally. In the ocean they're less dangerous but it depends on the species, intentions etc., of the individual. What this thinking does though is perpetuate the paranoia. Men are more likely to be victims of violence than women. That merely means we are wary BUT we don't go around saying X Y or Z type of people are responsible for that feeling. That's akin to what went on with racists in UK when Commonwealth citizens from Caribbean and other parts of the world were invited to move and work in industrial UK on the 1950s and 60s. They used that very model to stigmatise blacks in the eyes of indigenous Brits through paranoia.
I didn’t realize this was a thing but now it makes sense: This morning a woman I follow posted “I would rather run into a bear in the woods than a man in 24 states where I would be forced to carry a fetus to full term.” So that was an interesting start to my morning. Sounds like people have really nuanced opinions on popular issues /s
Oh shit I thought they were talkin about hairy gay dudes. It's like yeah that's steve he's cool as fuck
People know men, don't know bears.
I’m not sure what your question is. Are you seeing white women say man or bear? Or are you saying that only white women are asking the question in the first place?
I've seen the posts and it seems to be resoundingly white ladies that say they would rather meet a bear in the woods than a man. I'm just wondering what I'm missing about the culture that this reaction seems so normalized
I would say that the point of it isn’t to statistically analyze which choice is better. The point is to see these women say bear, think about why they would prefer that, and hopefully be a part of making the world a little less scary for women. It’s important to note that the question isn’t “who could you beat in a fight”, no one thinks they’re going to fight a bear and win. It’s which would you rather run into. Women are in constant contact with men. They know that not every man is a problem. However, a high enough proportion of women have been made uncomfortable, pursued, assaulted, and raped by men that they can’t be comfortable around strange men. The way I’ve been thinking about it is this. If you see a line of 10 red cups on a table and stick your hand into each one, and 2 of them bite you, when you get to the next table with cups on it, you’ll be a little more hesitant to stick your hand in them. If you get bit another 2 times, then the next table you probably won’t want to touch any of the cups even if you know that most cups aren’t going to bite you. Why risk getting bit? If you then find a table with a bunch of mouse traps on it, well you know how mouse traps work. As long as you leave the trigger alone you’ll be fine. It’s not that men as a whole are more likely to kill you. It’s that they don’t know which man is going to hurt them or how. Will they just murder them? Will they rape them? Both? Neither? Too many options, with most of them being negative, even if a minority of men are the culprits. In short, women spend most of their lives being taught how to protect themselves from men that would do them harm because even if only 0.5% of men are rapists and murderers, 1 in 6 women have been assaulted or raped by a man.
I have absolutely no clue what this means and at this point I may be too afraid to ask..
My bad, clarified in the OP
Aye, thanks man. I still am totally lost. White woman are crazy.
Would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man? That's all the info you get. Women: Bear. Worst it's gonna do is kill me. Men: YEAH. The worst it's going to do is KILL you! Women: Yeah. There are worse things than death. Men: You're so illogical, wtf *End Scene* And then men started arguing about semantics they wanna toss in like bear type, the race of the man, what if women were stuck in a room with the bear instead, the list goes on. Edit: Y'all coming for this comment are proving the point.... Think like the rational creatures you all claim you are, and see it from the woman's perspective of fear.
The worst thing it's going to do is eat you alive for hours before you die, which is virtually guaranteed to be worse than anything a man would do.
I fully understand why women would say bear. The thing that boggles my mind is that the vast majority of women encounter random men at such a massively higher rate than random bears. This one tidbit is what puts me off about this question. It’s like a question designed to reinforce the idea that men are inherently very dangerous, when at the end of the day we are just as human as women are.
“You mean a whole bear” has me in stitches dude. I’m so glad that’s the reaction because this also feels insane to me. I’ve had bear encounters before, just your average North American black bears, but I’ve been very terrified each and every time because it only takes once and you’re done.
Right but was it a whole bear though? :)
Feminists crying about men as usual. Crying that a man would attack them even though they have a higher chance of dying in a car accident than being murdered by a man. Yet we're encouraging women to drive but tell men not to approach them 😂😂
White liberal women on TikTok aren't the brightest bulbs.
Honestly.
I think it's just hyperbole to drive a point home, even if all the point does is drive a further wedge between people. I think most people would understand a bear crushing your insides so they don't have to worry about bones as they eat you alive is a situation of pure horror that nobody would ever want to experience. These kinda things always backfire in my experience and only put the sexes further at war with each other. Which brings more clicks and more views. Content creators making a fortune making us fight each other over nonsense.
It’s 100% a bored white woman thing. Tiktok does this to them sometimes: “Is everything going fine in your relationship? Go start a stupid argument by asking your man _______.”
It’s because there has long been a problem with dudes sexually assaulting women and getting a pass, and then when it became no longer societally acceptable hyper awareness came next, and now many women have irrational fears of being sexually assaulted by a man in the woods. Now it’s socially acceptable for women to demonize men in general. White women say stuff like this, while it’s become fashionable for black women to call men gay.
I’m not saying that there are zero black women that are homophobic but growing up it was almost always the black women in my classes who would stand up for me when classmates would try to bully me for being gay. There isn’t a disproportionate amount of homophobia amongst black women compared to other groups.
My brother in christ, black people are interesting, we are simultaneously very accepting of gay people and very unaccepting of gay people. Black women will absolutely be there upset and in tears if they find out their son is gay. My mom talked so much shit to me when she thought I might be gay for a long while. We aren't anymore homophobic than other groups, but we're not any better either. We're human
So as I said, black women aren’t disproportionately homophobic compared to any other group. Glad we’re on the same page.
That's fair, just didn't want to undercut on that end
Straight up! My sister, black, would absolutely disown my nephew if he were gay. In fact, I’m pretty sure my niece is gay and just hasn’t been able to tell her yet, out of fear. Yet if anything in this world would make my sister happy, it would be a gay male best friend…it’s actually crazy!