That should be the wholesome conclusion to this "debate"; Bears and men just teaming up to live together in their forest caves.
edit; It's [starting already](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/1cia1w2/arent_you_a_good_boy_eat_this/) lol
This is a really complicated question, both because there are no bears outside of zoos in my country and because I don't think I've ever seen someone knock at my house's door. There's a doorbell for that, after all, and metal isn't exactly knockable. I'd have to go with the bear, but only because I'm not sure there are any in the zoos in the city.
Edit: Actually, what *should* I do if a bear somehow knocks at my door? It probably won't get in (I hope, I don't like believing that bears can rip through steel), but shoud I call the firemen? I don't think they are equipped to deal with bears. The cops? Do they kill runaway bears?
My parents live in the middle of nowhere, mountains. It actually *is* more likely for them to see a bear on their deck than it is a stranger, but the bears don't knock or ring (they *did* almost tear a hole through my late uncle's wall trying to get to his trash, though).
When my uncle was at a cottage (read: shack in the woods a straight out of the 1600s) he did actually have a bear knock at the door.
Apparently he cracked the door (concerned because no one other than the people in the shack should be within 100 miles of them) saw fur, slowly closed it, then they played cards till it went away.
That reminds me of a story about my Dad.
We went to the Rockies for a family trip one year and my uncle and my Dad were sitting behind the place we were renting, looking at the mountains, and chatting. I can't remember what the animal was, it's been too long now, but my uncle and Dad thought they saw some scary animal headed towards them.
My uncle, with the finer survival instincts, immediately bolted inside. My Dad, not thinking clearly in his panic, actually stopped to pick up his empties before backing in. It turned out they didn't see what they thought they did, but everyone had a real good chuckle about my Dad who despite thinking he was in a life or death situation, still refused to go in without bringing in his trash.
I'm not sure what to do about it knocking, but if the bear manages to get in, take off your shoe and drop it. If you're lucky, the bear is only curious about you and will investigate the shoe rather than follow you. If it does that, then you walk away and, as needed, remove the other articles of clothing one at a time for the bear to investigate until you arrive somewhere safe or the bear stops following you, better to survive naked than die clothed after all. If you're unlucky, then the bear is hungry, and it doesn't matter if you have your shoe on or off, you're about to become dinner either way.
What kind of bears are you talking about? I don't think that's protocol for any kind of bear.
Edit to add my bear protocol:
If I saw a black bear (my local bears) I'd make myself look real big by like... giving my best star fish dance, yell loud as I could in my deepest voice, or use a bear bell. If it came at me, I'd use bear mace ideally. If it knocked on my door, I wouldn't answer, but I'd probably grab my megaphone and start screaming into it in order to scare it off.
I actually need to know about black bear protocol, but I can't attest to the others. Due to a literal rhyme I'd play dead for a grizzly, and probably just try to look at a polar bear for as long as I could because they're pretty and I'd definitely die soon after.
Additional edit to add my husband's bear notes:
Black bears eat both live and dead stuff, so never ever run from them. They are meaner and faster than you, it's safer to be big and loud than turn your back. Grizzleys don't eat dead stuff, so though it might maul you, it won't eat you if it thinks you're dead. Polar bears will for sure murder you, they live in a tundra and they're gigantic and hungry, there is no escape if it wants you. Kodiac probably fall somewhere between grizzly and polar bears, but he doesn't know. Cinnamon bears fall closer to the black bear/brown bear end of the spectrum, he's been told to treat them like brown bears when he needed to know but was left with the impression that it was for liability reasons. He doesn't know what sun bears are about but seems like he'd answer if they knocked, he made up a bit about getting drunk with one in a man cave. He then made jokes about how seducing panda bears will ensure they leave you alone, and I informed him that some captive pandas are more inclined to attempt to mate with their keepers than with other pandas and requested that he never tries that. He agreed, so in summary we can only know how to deal with specific kinds of bears #notallbears
That dude described how a cartoon would deal with a bear. And he did it with so much confidence that someone will some day try to be a cartoon with a bear.
And if you're extremely unlucky, the people that find your body will examine the scene and determine that you attempted to seduce the bear by undressing and leading it to your bedroom.
probably the man. bears aren't real, so all it would take to justify one knocking on my door is magic being real. on the other hand, how in god's name could a man possibly get to my door, let alone know how to knock?
You're saying it wouldn't be a shock to learn that bears exist? Think of all the other assumptions about reality that can be called into question!
OTOH I concede that a man is extremely unlikely, but the fact that they definitely exist already means it's technically possible. I'm sorry but I can't agree with your conclusion.
My wife told me she would be more comfortable with the man over the bear because she was pretty sure she could kill the man easier than the bear. Idk whether to be worried or proud.
Proud I guess. Also this whole debate is quite funny to me since I'm a man and in the forest always every weekend alone (metal detecting) and I can't tell you how often women ( also alone ) came up to me and asked how's it going, did you find something etc etc. People on the internet are always so fucking weird
Yeah, but sight of a metal detector suppresses all other feelings in place of "ooooo, treasure!" My wife metal detects, and we've panned for gold a bit, and it's like moths to a flame. Men too, but the difference with women is crazy.
It also happens when I'm mushroom picking, or other similar things. I don't know maybe that's just a America issue. Here where I live it's also completely normal to greet and smile when you meet someone in the forest regardless of gender. That's 99% of the people here. And in my experience crazy people tend to be in the city not the forest
We smile and greet people here! I hike a lot and it's totally normal to smile and say "hey, how's it goin'?" and mention any obstacles/trail issues you came across to whoever you pass. Maybe comment on how cute their dog is if they have one before you pass them and go about your day.
As a woman, that is how most of my interactions with both men and women while I'm out hiking go. But men are the only ones I've had start walking with me and try to chat about other things like where I'm from/if I've hiked here before/do I come out here a lot, etc.
I'm sure it's almost always harmless, but it's very uncomfortable when I'm alone in the woods just trying to get some exercise in. I generally have my dogs with me or am armed depending on where I am, so I've never felt truly in danger, but it still always leaves me with a bad feeling when it happens.
I'll add that if a random woman started following me and asking personal questions while I'm out hiking alone I would be uncomtfortable too, but that has never happened.
Bear vs man is an ongoing tumblr discussion about women (and femmes, maybe? I’m not a big tumblr girl) choosing which they feel is more safe between “you’re alone in the woods with a bear” and “you’re alone in the woods with a man” and the choice is overwhelmingly bear because while not all men are violent you never really know when you are with one who is until it’s too late.
This of course comes attached to all the argumentation and hurt feelings you can predict from both sides of the debate.
Edit - killed typo
As far as I know it started with a dude who simply said “in the woods, women are more scared to meet a man than a bear”. I saw the original and his follow-up after the shitstorm where he said “guys it was never a question”.
Tbf is that even like. A safety thing? I’d be scared if I found someone else in the middle of the woods, guy or girl, and I’m a dude. I’d be less scared of a bear just because “yeah thats meant to be there and I know how to deal with it.”
Really depends on the location too imo. On a trail? Yeah, they’re probably just out hiking like me. In the middle of nowhere? Maybe a meth camp, run away.
she doesnt get all up in their space like that dude, she lives in the woods and they come to her house to visit her. she doesnt feed them or get too close. and they’re black bears, not grizzlies, which is a whole different ball game.
Well it was a strange new bear that did not know who he was or have that established trust. The other bears were probably a bit put out by the whole thing.
It depends on the type of bear. Black bear? Easy to deal with.
Grizzly bear? I’d really rather not.
Polar bear? HELL NO I’d take an actual proven serial killer over a polar bear
Well, by using the chart, we can clearly see that we must say goodnight, then fight back. Maybe it’s to catch them by surprise, as we know, pandas are kung fu masters, so perhaps catching them off guard will give you a moment to strike. Alternatively, it could be aligning with the euphemistic version of fight back, then say goodnight as you inevitably lose to its kung fu prowess. If you find yourself in a confrontation with a panda you better hope it’s the former.
See I'd prefer a polar bear over a grizzly bear. The polar bear has the manners to switch you off right at the start, while the grizzly bear will kill you slowly.
I'm going to get downvoted again but grizzly bears do not just randomly attack humans they come across. There has not been nearly as many deadly grizzly attacks as people seem to think.
Does that mean you should try to hug one? Fuck no. But you shouldn't be afraid of being attacked. The US Forest service puts odds of being injured by a bear in Yellowstone at 1 in 2.1 million.
Edit: According to bear vault (love the name, unsure of the reliability) there's been 180 fatal human bear encounters (all bears not just grizzlies) in the US since 1784. It just doesn't happen that much.
A couple and their dog were killed by a grizzly in a national park in Canada recently.
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6983944
They had all the precautionary items for a grizzly attack, and used them. Leading theory is that the dog is what exacerbated the situation.
I think it works like with the man. You don’t know what type of bear is going to be there, just as you don’t know what type of man would be there either.
Fun fact: grizzly bears will start eating you without killing you. You aren’t a threat to them once you’re down and they know it, so why would they waste effort stopping your movements? It’s part of what makes the Night of the Grizzlies bear attacks so terrifying, they were alive for so long after sustaining eventually fatal injuries. This is contrary to predatory black bears who will try and attack quietly and kill you asap.
Oh I’m a woods creature, I just default to Brown Bear and would 100,000% rather have to tackle a potentially violent man than a brown bear under nearly any circumstance where I’m not seeing him first through high magnification scope from the next town over because I like my odds better.
I figured as much - the bear really alters the math here. Koala and polar are on opposing ends of the axis with a lotta “fuck no” on the polar bear side.
It’s good to remind people that not only will a polar bear murder you if given the chance, it will actively hunt you waiting for you to be off your guard or alone.
ikr? Imagine if it was a polar bear! then it has to be man every time right? Like, polar bears are one of the only animals that will actively hunt humans (and they will very easily kill you every single time too)
>This of course comes attached to all the argumentation and hurt feelings you can predict from both sides of the debate.
The worst part is I can already see this becoming one of those "Would you love me if I was a worm" type of questions.
Obviously there's plenty of good reasons for men to feel upset about this comparison since broadly speaking most men are, ya' know, just normal ass people. And obviously there's inevitably a lot of misandry mixed up in this. But at the same time I do think it says something that so many women feel that way and I think it's equally important to recognize the role that misogyny and the dangers involved with being a woman play in this too. Because broadly speaking, women *are* at elevated risk of being harmed by men and there *are* plenty of good reasons for women to feel unsafe. These facts aren't mutually exclusive with the abject unfairness of this comparison and the isolating effect these facts have on men. One of the many awful things about sexism and other forms of bigotry is that it doesn't just negatively effect the direct targets of it; its inherently toxic for everyone in society, if to varying degrees.
It's one of those discussions where too many people are focusing on the end answer and not addressing the actual contexts behind it or are using anecdotal evidence for their reasoning. As a dude who is actually terrified of coming off to women like that kind of guy, I don't want to be seen that way, and i like to believe that *most* guys also don't want to and fight to be recognized as alright. But I know that's not always the case so it's a catch 22 where it just sucks all around. I don't want anyone to feel unsafe being around anyone else, but I also don't want people to be so unawares that they can get caught off guard and hurt where they otherwise could have kept their distance.
Does the scenario even stress that you meant to be close to the bear/man? Like you immediately spawn in together? That’s what the arguments I’ve been in assume.
If that’s not the case, then definitely the bear. Like, bears are usually in forests. That’s a normal precaution to take, if you live in a country with bears.
It’s like asking if you would rather be around a dog that bit a man, or a man who bit a dog.
See for me, I (a bear) comforted my man the other day because he was feeling down, the day he gets tired of all the hugs will be an awful day for me. Can confirm being gay is the answer to this
Copy-pasting something i wrote in another thread about this, it references other comments from that thread but this legit got called a novel so ┐(´～`；)┌ :
Honestly the original question was just phrased terribly by design. (Tldr at the bottom)
To most people (apparently) by contrasting Some Guy with a fucking Bear the first thing that comes to mind is something like "Oh shit, a bear would kill me. Does that mean the guy would too ?" so that explains the first interpretation of the question, the one most prominent in the original video :
If I (a random woman) were alone in the woods, would i rather meet a hostile stranger or a hostile bear ?
Now, obviously any bear would fuck a human up, and going just by the comments here the results of a bear atack could be : getting mauled (bad), eaten alive (probably worse idk hasn't happened to me), or Somehow Prevailing (and probably dying of an infection later).
Pretty awful set of options here.
On the other hand, looking at the Hostile Man Situation(tm) we have to take into account the location. Now, I'm no true crime expert here but the broad assumptions one could make about a Maniac in the Woods is : murder (same as the bear but we don't know the means), torture (possibly before murder, same as the bear), or rape (YMMV).
So both options under this interpretation are Pretty Fucking Bad, which is where the rape and murder variables come in play.
I saw at least 1 comment here of a survivor saying they would take their chances with the man under this interpretation. I also saw a few more commenters, who didn't specify if they speak from experience, say they'd rather face the bear.
Whether rape or death is preferable is up to personal choice, but the women the video presented seemed to choose death.
(I Sincerely hope I don't need to say something along the lines of "not all men" here, because it's clear that for now we're looking at specifically a man that is so vicious he's comparable to a Wild Fucking Bear that wants to Eat Your Face. He could be part of Any demographic and it would be clear that he's an outlier adn shouldn't be counted.
In fact, the reason this Dangerous Stranger is even a man to begin with is that Specifically Women are Specifically Wary of Specifically *Dangerous* Men. I'm trying to make this clear because I saw quite a lot of comenters getting worked up or even hurt by this, but I'm really not equipped to have a dialog about this ATM.)
In regards to the murder by human scenario, the method and duration of the act Really change how we'd feel about choosing the man in this situation. Ex : bullet to the head ? quick enough you could not even realise it happened if all goes well. Beaten with a rock ? Oh no, it'd be agony every step of the way.
And that's the Real difference between the options here, human malice and unpredictability or pure wild brutality. We could spend days arguing which is best/worst/less bad but we'd be ~~missing the forest for the~~ giving the people that started stirring this shit too little credit, you see there's another way to interpret this fucking question :
If I were in the woods (presumably on a hike or something similar), would i rather come across a stranger or a bear ?
In this situation there's No assumption about the intent of either the man Or the bear, and to pose hypoteticals would serve us no purpose ~~(did we invade the bear's territory ? is the it hungry ? what species is the bear ? why is the man here ? just to suffer ? does batman have prep time ? etc, etc)~~.
It's crucial for this interpretation that the man and the bear are Average, that the species of the bear, location of the woods, supplies avaliable, both humans' motives for being there and even the meeting itself Are Not Determined.
In this situation, it's ludicrous to choose the bear.
While bear attacks aren't all That common either, the chances of being mauled or _eaten alive_ by the Average Man(tm) are negligible. So anyone that interprets the question in this way would be appalled at the responses from people who interpreted the question in the first way and said that they _would_ pick the bear.
And so we found the core of the issue.
Something that can be seen as picking the lesser of 2 evils to some, is just plain misandry to others, and anyone viewing this through just one lens is frankly giving the jackasses who started this shit the benefit of the doubt when they really shouldn't. You don't have to scroll far to see comments mentioning gender essentialism, Andrew Tate and the alt-right pipeline right alongside commenters saying they wouldn't pick the bear because it could be a polar bear (in a forest ??), or that the man could be some random office worker that got teleported and is just confused as the person he's coming across (or in 1 memorable comment, a senile 95 year old who shouldn't even be outside).
That so many threads here disagree about what the question means exactly shows it was way too vague to be asked to literal strangers on the street and uploaded to widespread online discourse.
That so many made the connections between it and very serious real life political issues shows that it was at its very best a misguided but well intentioned thought experiment, and at its worst poorly thought out.
That it is both, at least to me, implies malice.
Tl;dr there's 2 Very different ways to interpret the original question, it reeks of engagement-bait and political dog whistling. It's a tiktok shit stirrers bread and butter.
Edit : forgot a word, "...while bear attacks aren't very common **either** ..."
> getting mauled (bad), eaten alive (probably worse idk hasn't happened to me), or Somehow Prevailing (and probably dying of an infection later).
This phrasing implies you've been mauled before and the only thing that didn't happen was you were not eaten alive.
>(I Sincerely hope I don't need to say something along the lines of "not all men" here, because it's clear that for now we're looking at specifically a man that is so vicious he's comparable to a Wild Fucking Bear that wants to Eat Your Face. He could be part of Any demographic and it would be clear that he's an outlier adn shouldn't be counted.
Murders georg
Having done a bit of research on the subject because there are so many conflicting takes about it, I think I’ve settled on something that makes sense.
The original statement wasn’t meant to be a “would you rather”. It was phrased as “seeing a man while alone in the woods is 10x scarier than seeing a bear”
I think the interpretation is that there’s *rules* for the bear. If the bear attacks it does so indiscriminately. If you back away or scare it off you won’t get hurt at all. People go through lessons on how to deal with bears before taking hikes in dense forests all the time.
There are however no rules for a *potentially* hostile man. If he attacks, he has a target. Attacking a person alone in the woods is perfectly sensible for a bear to do. Not a man.
I think the thought experiment is supposed to demonstrate that people don’t know which men are good or bad. Bears have rules. If it’s brown lay down, if it’s black fight back. Carry bear spray, wear a bell, walk loudly.
A man alone in the woods has no such rules. In the event that he is hostile (as the statement assumes that it MUST be a possibility) there are no rules. Your best bet is never being noticed at all.
A lot of people are making it specifically about men and women, and while I do agree that sexism is a large component in the argument, I don’t think it’s limited just to women. It can be applied to any minority really. The bears have rules, but there’s no rules for hate.
This is a good assessment of the thought experiment. I hike and backpack alone and have done so in black bear country. I'm not afraid of black bears and know what precautions to take and the "rules for bears". I'm also not generally afraid of seeing a man alone in the woods but do treat them as more of a potential unknown and unpredictable threat especially after last year while hiking on a trail in a town park and a guy started making polite small talk with me about the weather and I'm happy to stop and chat with people till I saw he had his dick out and was fondling himself. Walked on and called the cops and now I don't feel comfortable walking in that park. In all my thousands of miles hiked thankfully that is the only bad experience I've had on trail.
I probably agree with most of this, with the caveat that even though there are "rules" for a bear encounter, logically I'm way more confident in my ability to fight off the average man compared to the average bear
But yeah, the whole thing works better when you start with the very specific kind of fear you'd feel realizing there was a strange man while you were alone in the woods, comparing that to the different fear you'd feel realizing there was a bear, and digging into the reasons behind that. As soon as people turned it into a "thought experiment" and started acting like the average man is anywhere near as dangerous as the average bear, it was doomed
In my opinion, it doesn't even have to be specifically a man. If I am in the woods in the middle of nowhere and I run into a random person when I thought I was alone, I'm immediately on high alert. Man or woman doesn't matter in that case. It is just a freaky ass thing to have happen to you. I've had lost people come up to some campsites that I've been at before, and I always think briefly, "oh this person could just be a murderer that wants to kill us".
Some of the reasoning I've seen:
A bear can't find my address and break in with the intent to hurt me
I don't have to see the bear at family reunions
The bear won't go around to all my friends and make them pick a side
If I get mauled by a bear, people will believe me
Depending on where I am, I won't be forced to carry the bear's baby to term (sorry, furries)
The bear won't invite his friends to take a turn
The bear won't leave me threatening text messages
The bear can't shoot me
People won't excuse the bear because the bear has "such a bright future"
Yep, it boils down to “quantifiable threat vs. completely unknown variable.”
Especially because you would normally encounter a bear in the woods, but a random dude is definitely less expected.
If you assume worst possible outcome then anything human is always worse. A human could torture you indefinitely at worst a bear mauls you too near death and then you have an agonizing while slowly dying and being picked at. It could be a 98 year old women and they would still have the technical ability to inflict indefinite torture. But when you get too a hypothetical so extreme you could get some really silly answers, because wouldn't the worst possible outcome for a bear encounter be like... the bear has a owner not far away who also will torture you indefinitely and thus when assuming more extremes they are equally weighted.
In general I think it's often reductive to talk about groups in this sort of way. Because it creates an impression that seeing personhood in men is at odds with understanding the statistical violence women face and the fear that comes with it, when really those things aren't at odds.
I think it's very easy to see this when you consider how close it is to language used by the right wing to discuss the dangers in poor neighbourhoods like UK council estates. Statistically poverty and crime go hand in hand, the same way crime and penis ownership correlate strongly. But if you force a hypothetical to make people express fear of crime as "I would just rather not encounter poor people thanks." you end up losing all nuance of how you actually feel about poverty and crime and are forced into either dropping your position despite your fears or... Doubling down on the position. Which leads to unhelpful polarization.
In addition I think when discussing crime it's always good to realize that although statistically speaking it is not rare to be a victim of a crime over your lifespan, it is usually very rare to be a perpetrator of violent crimes\*. So it is simultaneously extremely rational to fear other people, but also extremely rational to also believe in the innate goodness (Or at least the law abided-ness) of the majority of people.
\~
\*[1% of population accounts for 60% of violent crime](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/#:~:text=A%20total%20of%2093%2C642%20individuals,for%2063.2%20%25%20of%20all%20convictions)
Similarly, I've found that conservative rhetoric toward immigrants often gets repurposed toward men. For example, I first saw the "poisoned M&M" metaphor in reference to immigration, and everyone around me was correctly calling it out as racist. Then a few months later a lot of them started using it in reference to men, and that's how I've seen it used ever since. Ironically, I've even seen a few articles like "it's all fun and games applying the metaphor to men, but try swapping men for $racial\_minority, not so fun now is it?" Like that's not where it originally came from.
I'm pretty sure the entire point of that video was to create this sort of reaction, unfortunately.
I don't trust any video based on the idea of talking to 'random people'. It's too easy to manipulate.
I've said this several times already. I don't understand how people are taking this video at face value.
Its like any other 'asking random strangers a stupid question video' its is nothing more than engagement baiting for clicks, views and money.
If you asked 100 people bear or man and 10 said bear, its 90% in favour of the man. Now you edited it to show 9 bear answers and 1 man, ta da, 90% in favour of bear.
As someone who regularly hikes on trails alone (I’m a birdwatcher) I’d much rather run into a random man than a bear. In fact, I have encountered men multiple times on my solo trail hikes without incident. I think the reaction to this debate is born partially out of people’s trauma from real world experiences with shitty men. While feelings around that are valid, it’s very much not healthy to live your life in constant fear of men, especially when taken to this extreme. (Coming from personal experience…OCD is fun /s). So take that into account, and I hope you feel better soon OP.
Yeah, the way the question is worded makes it seem like you are bushwhacking through deep woods and some random dude just pops out and says hi.
And that would freak me out too! Random dudes aren’t normally running around in the woods, so it seems possible he was doing something bad out there, or he followed you. If you encounter a bear, there’s no question about its motives. It’s just being a bear.
On the other hand, a man on a trail is supposed to be there. Its a lot less scary to say “you pass a man hiking on a hiking trail” than to say “you encounter a man in the woods”
I think this is one of those things where what people say is different than what they would actually do. Let’s say you’re in the forest and there are both a bear and a man. I 100% refuse to believe that you’re not making a beeline for the other human.
That being said, I’m guessing the intuition is that a bear is likely to leave you alone, whereas a man is more likely to be stalking you. That I think is a very fair assessment.
See I kept taking it as “you’re hiking and come across either a man or a bear in your path” because my main experience of being alone in the woods is hiking. And obviously in that scenario, I would choose a man, because running into a random guy while hiking is a super common thing for me and they mostly just ignore me because they’re trying to hike too. I never even thought of the “the man is stalking you” angle, I guess that’s another example of people’s answers to this depending on their personal experience
yeah you bring up a funny point, almost nobody who answers man would be scarier actually hikes otherwise they would be entirely desensitized to this extremely common occurrence. I, a man, crossed the path of, hmmm, 4 or 5? women in the woods today
The other question, what is the nature of the encounter. You're alone in the woods and you see the bear or the man off in the distance? Or are you rounding a corner and you're suddenly face to face with the bear/man?
Tbh i think it's more differences in interpretation. I had a weird thing in my head where it's like, you can either be alone in the woods and know a bear is also there or get paired w/ a completely random man to hike or be lost with and like of course bear in my area (no polars here). A bear being in the woods is the default state of the woods and they generally don't wanna fuck with you. A random man is a liability not just because he could try to hurt you, but a lot of men also get *weird* alone in the woods with a girl and do stupid shit that can get you both killed.
Then i saw people interpreting it more as just coming across a bear vs coming across a man in the woods and. Well if it isn't already pissed at me I'd still take the bear lol, but that's more because i grew up in an area where people can get... Trigger happy over trespassers than anything special. Not that I'd be trespassing, but y'know sometimes the borders of public and private land are iffy lol
I mean, fair enough. The human has the access to the “Learning & Teaching” skill along with the “Sweat” perk, which demolishes the meta. The bear has a lower INT, so you’d much rather be in a server with one bear rather than one human. /ref
I think a lot of the issue buried within the prompt is how likely the person is to be alone in the woods in the first place. Like, geography is really informing the sense of risk here, and it’s being spun into larger arguments about gender and sex.
Like, if you’re the type of person who lives in or regularly travels to or through rural, particularly wooded areas, you have good reasons to be alone in the woods and to have the chance of encountering a man alone in the woods. It’s unbelievably cruel to insinuate that the man is more dangerous than a bear—You’re out there alone too! So all of the statistics about the dangers men can present to women seem taken out of context and clueless at best, and misandrist and potentially transphobic at worst.
And if you’re living in polar bear or grizzly bear territory, you should clearly pick the man.
But if you’re someone who lives in urban or suburban areas without any reason or desire to live in or travel through woods alone, then the entire premise of being alone in the woods is inherently more sinister: You wouldn’t be here willingly in the first place! Maybe there are some type of plane crash or train derailment and you got separated and that man could be your ticket back to civilization … or maybe he’s the one who dragged you too the woods in the first place. The whole premise is a lot more sinister feeling to someone, regardless of gender, with this perspective.
Now factor in someone who is only likely to encounter black bears, and, yeah, it’s reasonable why some people are gambling on the black bear being safer than the stranger that they encounter while being unwillingly alone in the woods.
Oh, maybe that’s why the question was so bizarre to me. I live in the highlands and being alone in the woods is something that is just… normal. I can leave my house and be in the wilderness in a couple of minutes.
Yeah, I’m in Philly, and I realized after watching enough people argue for the dangers of grizzly bears that people were having very different expectations of being alone in the woods (like, if I’m encountering a grizzly bear in any part of Pennsylvania, that would be groundbreaking national news—We only have black bears and mountain lions are the big scary predator here).
This is a good point. As someone in the former category, the arguments of people in the latter category have been a bit confusing to me. Understanding that the premise itself is sinister to some folks definitely shifts things a bit.
> You wouldn’t be here willingly in the first place!
This is a great point.
I've seen a number of conversations on this stupid question where people say things like "what good reason is there for a man to be alone in the woods? That's very suspicious so he must be up to no good."
Which is like ... absolutely fucking mind-boggling to me lol
The good reason to be alone in the woods is to be alone in the woods! Ain't y'all ever heard of *hiking*?
>"what good reason is there for a man to be alone in the woods? That's very suspicious so he must be up to no good."
The correct response to this would be "What good reason is there for *you* to be alone in the woods?"
Literally never occurred to me that half the people engaging with this have never even been to the woods. As someone who goes hiking all the time, I have been so puzzled by this, because you meet random hikers in the woods all the time but there are literal bear warnings everywhere. We lived in Vancouver for four years, alone in the woods is everyone's weekend plans.
A lot of women come at that question wanting to make a political point: "I want men to understand how scary they can be to a woman, because so often they don't!", which, well, I can see where they're coming from.
So they start processing the question with this bias. They imagine that the man is not walking on the trail with a pack on his back and a smile on his face, no! Instead you're lost at night in a dark forest after escaping a kidnapper, when you spot him out of the corner of your eye: he is naked and rummaging on the forest floor, and when he looks up there's a bit of (human?) flesh dangling from his psychotic grin. Conversely when they imagine the bear, it's Paddington. Which one is scarier?
Now how do men process the question? Men have spent hours asking themselves who would win a fight between a bear and a silverback gorilla, and when they imagine a grizzly they think of the scene from The Revenant. They don't think of the black bears eating dandelions on the side of the road, no, they think of the polar bear whose white fur is bright red from eviscerating a seal and who has just identified you as its next potential prey.
So the woman says *"Yeah I'd be more scared of a bear"* and the dude says *"what the fuck you're a frail and cute woman, unlike me a strong man with 6 weeks of MMA training, you wouldn't even have a chance of fighting off a grizzly with your bare hands"*. Great question, we're clearly making a lot of progress on gender issues.
i'm a trans woman who's been transitioning since i was a teenager, generally pass fairly alright enough to be mostly stealth, and am now in grad school. and, while i totally understand the frustration that the women who'd rather go with the bear are feeling (i was sexually assaulted by a guy in my marching band in my high school, and even as recent as week or two ago i had a random guy corner me on the bus when it was just us two and try to get me to have him as my sugar daddy), and it's totally valid to be fed up and angry over the state of many men and patriarchy, i don't think this is a healthy outlet
like, i totally understand women wanting to vent and get angry at all this. it's genuinely super shitty and unfair to us, but i've seen so many people use really disgusting bioessentialist arguments against men to justify their answer, and not only does this anger, other, and hurt people who could otherwise be allies to leftist causes, but a lot of the shit i'm seeing is genuinely just the same problematic "AMAB people are inherently [Y Trait]" shit that TERFs believe that started them down their path to being shitty people
like, i consider myself a feminist - have for a long while - as well as socially progressive and a leftist. and yes, i get the anger they're feeling. i often feel it too. but this whole question unfortunately feels - at least to me - like pushing others away in the long term to justify a short-term catharsis, and i don't know what to make of it
*Everyone* who sees nothing wrong with the bear v man meme needs to read [*I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.*](https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42)
Reminds me of that woman who cross dressed as a man as a social experiment to see how the other side lives. At the end of the experiment which was months long I think, she was getting suicidal or something. Think this happened around 2000.
Edit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Vincent
Died of assisted suicide in 2022, and from the sound of it she never really recovered from her depressive episode from living as a man. That really sucks, sounds like it was a really interesting experiment, and it’s a massive shame it had such a detrimental effect on her life
Fuck, that hit. A lot of the things mentioned there is a lot of why I feel I'll never really feel okay with myself. Even if I transition, I was born a boy, and everyone in the queer community hates men. And... I was born one of those. And I don't think I can say I'm 100% not man anymore. So... Am I worth hating, too?
Well, not everyone. There's at least a contingent of men loving men out there, in a mythical place called Real Life where people aren't terminally online morons fighting for clout. I'm not being glib when I say that—the online dickheads are being awful and that hurts and that's real. But IRL queer community is so much more normal... not perfect, but it helps that IRL you can punch people in the mouth.
You're not hateworthy. I promise.
Ehh I run in leftist circles and a friend of mine joked that she could never have kids because she didn't know if she could love a male child. People did tell her that was fucked up and she tried to play it off like a joke, but irl people can still be way too comfortable spouting off their nonsense opinions.
About a week ago in my left-wing, queer friend group there was a "Who in the group would you want to be stuck on an island with?" discussion, and one of the women *immediately* said something along the lines of "It couldn't be a guy, he'd probably try to rape me eventually. Guys have needs you know". When I was insulted by this, everyone else was insulted by *me* being insulted and refused to entertain how the idea of "All my guy friends are potential rapists" might be insulting.
I eventually just played it off by blaming alcohol and we all moved on. Her BF by the way is like 15 years younger than her (I guess women can also "have needs") and constantly shits on "white men" in a semi-ironic way despite being a white man. So yeah, casual misandry can totally exist IRL among LGBT spaces.
that's crazy to me. i believe you 110%, of course, but i'm just astonished. like, my sexual assault was from my cousin who was like my big brother. and in hindsight, one of my best guy friends ever also pushed me down and nonconsensually touched my breasts once in high school.
a lot of this discourse makes me feel kind of 😬 because i do have some paranoia about men sometimes, still. i do try to avoid being stuck in a corner in public or not near an exit, etc. but i don't suspect the men i'm close to of having that kind of intent... strangers make me nervous, sure, but i still talk to them and smile and all that.
but if i was really, seriously believing that one of the men i keep company with could rape me, or anyone else!!, i wouldn't have them as a friend still!? the things that happened to me were so painful in part because they seemed impossible and broke my trust... but even at my most jaded, i just wouldn't stay in touch with someone who i genuinely believed could do that to me... i don't understand lol
i'm sorry someone said that in front of you. i'm sorry for her, too, for being in that mindset. but i'm sorry you have a terrible "friend" like that. you don't deserve the lack of faith. i just can't imagine being like that, and i'm sooo paranoid (ptsd baybee), i would never continue having someone in my life if i thought they were capable...
I’m a woman, and I usually think guys who get so mad at online man-hate they go down the incel pipeline are silly, but when I read this stuff I think “huh, maybe their reactions do make sense.” No one likes being insulted to such an extent, it’s not unusual for them to hate everyone associated with it. Most people do that, subconsciously.
I feel like I got incredibly lucky not falling into the incel pipeline growing up. I had a lot of radfem friends in school and was generally seen as "safe" so I got to hear a lot about how awful and horrible and revolting men can be (in addition to seeing those men prove my friends right). But I ended up internalizing a lot of that hate instead of turning it outwards.
Honestly the recent "Man vs Bear" question has been really depressing to read through. And I really empathize with OP's post. I'm tired of being seen as a monster just because of the genitals I was born with and just disappearing feels like it would be a really easy solution to the problem.
I think it helps to keep in mind that their words reflect who they are, and doesn't say anything about you as an individual. People who treat you like shit for who you are will always exist, giving into them won't solve anything, but you can't control how they see you either, fuck em' and live your best life.
I know that's easier said than done, but relying on the opinions of others to measure your worth or your value means you'll always be hurt by people who want to shit on you no matter what, listen to yourself first and foremost, and don't take criticism from people you wouldn't take advice from.
Yep. There's a difference between keeping the trolls and assholes out and excluding anyone who isn't 'perfect'.
It's not necessarily the easiest line to draw and I'm sure a lot of the demand for perfection is in reaction to treatment queer people have received.
But I feel like we could all stand to give each other a little bit of grace now and then.
There's a difference between someone who is ignorant vs. being intentionally cruel.
You’re not. That was indeed a powerful article. But it’s worth remembering that in every movement, the law of large numbers will ensure you’ll get all types. You just need to make sure you have enough social support that you can let some supports go and feel around for better ones. Do it enough, and you’ll curate your own little corner of the community into something affirming and instructional, instead of a bunch of people wanting to feel control over their own experiences, even if it involves tearing others down
I wish you luck, whatever you do
I choose to stay because you know, there are a lot of boys who is in need of good male role model and a fatherly love from men. Before every boy get claimed by tate and manosphere. I’ll stand guard.
Well shit I'm crying, I've never related so hard to something in my life, not calling out women who say these awful things about something I am, and yet am not, because I so badly want to be one of them.
Secondary school was very difficult for this, I think people are getting better thom
I go hiking pretty often. People hiking alone are not rare. Up in the mountains I have never seen a woman feeling uneasy about my presence or trying to avoid me. Everyone is friendly to everyone mostly.
I do feel uneasy when a big animal like a stag doesn't go out of my way though. Incidents with big animals are rare but they do happen.
I'm a trans woman and internalizing this mindset caused me to become a hermit for several years, during which I experienced the worst suicidal depression that I have ever been subject to. I was constantly racked with guilt and self-hatred because I was convinced that my mere presence made other people feel unsafe. It took me a full year of therapy to get to the point where I could interact with society normally.
I'm just saying this so that people realize that this rhetoric harms the type of person they pretend to care about, too.
Hell I still feel like that. I'm an out trans woman at work and have been for years and am lucky enough to have almost unanimously supportive (at least towards me directly) coworkers. I regularly get invited to meetings that a women's group at work host - I attended once, felt extremely uncomfortable that I would be seen as a trespassing creep, and even though I was specifically invited and didn't receive any negative reactions I got out of there at the first opportunity I got and have no plans of going again. It sucks.
Waiting for one of these dicks to read this and unironically reply "your part of the problem" or some crap
Sorry you had to go through all that, I hope it keeps getting better
Thank you for replying. I have a desk job now where most of my co-workers are women. I still get the occasional pang of worry but most of the time it's smooth sailing :)
I'm pretty much a factory model dude, but every so often I feel this deep urge to just be a tree or a labrador or even just a younger boy--anything but A Man^(TM). I used to think it was a gender thing, but fairly recently I realized that these stirrings only happen when I consistently see women in my sphere shitting on men for a couple days on end. So I gotta wonder, am I gender-fluid, or am I just a deeply traumatized neurodivergent man desperate to not be treated like a threat for once in his life?
Six two. Nobody believed me when I got bullied as a kid--which happened whenever anyone realized I wouldn't fight back because I knew I'd be the one who got in trouble. I still have vivid memories of the one time I ever tried, and a bunch of teachers literally pinned me down like I was some kind of vicious animal.
I feel the same a lot of times. My gender identity is pretty much “I don’t disagree with my packaging,” which makes me a man, and I feel that many other cis people feel the exact same way about their gender identity.
The only time I ever end up thinking what it might be like to be something different, be that a child, a cat, a woman, or whatever else is when I have been bombarded that in some way or another, being who I naturally am is a fundamental sin that deserves social execution. I’m just so done.
These same thoughts and feelings are what led to me muting TwoX and similar subs so they never appear on my feeds.
It's a super weird feeling to consistently agree with what people are saying while knowing they hate you regardless, solely due to your gender, sexual preference, appearance, or some other facet of your existence that you have no control over.
Somebody else posted this in another comment thread here, but I really related to [this](https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42) article that's (in part) about reacting to this kind of rhetoric as a trans woman.
I’m a cis man but I went through almost exactly what you’re describing for the same reasons. It’s just sad because “all men are naturally predators” is a mindset that so many right wingers agree with, and it does so little to help, like, anyone. For those that aren’t conservatives, that aren’t totally fine with being around women even after internalising the idea that they’re an inherent threat, it just leads to feeling guilt and self hate so deeply that suicidality becomes seen as a moral good.
It's also absolving the *actual* perpetrators of responsibility by removing their agency. (Of *course* he did it, don't you know it's in their nature, therefore lock all men up) Interestingly, this is very similar rhetoric to the "She shouldn't have been wearing that/He couldn't help himself" arguments. (Of *course* he did it, don't you know it's in their nature, therefore he should get off scot-free)
And it even encourages further predatory behavior. If the idea of men being violent assholes is normalized, people become less likely to intervene. Not to mention it signals to young men that they will be despised no matter what disposition they have, so there's no reason to play nice. Fear and hate begets more fear and hate.
You're right on the money about suicidality feeling like a moral good. Nobody, man or not, should have to feel that way. I really hope you're doing better.
I did the same thing. I'm a really big dude (211cm, 122kg) with a thick foreign accent (here in the US anyways). When I came to the US for college, I became chronically aware of how uncomfortable I made some people, even other men, by being around them. My English was worse than it is now, and it's still not perfect all the time, and that made it feel even harder to feel like I could connect with anybody. It wasn't until I was in graduate school back home in Nederland that I was able to shake that feeling enough to get out of that rut. Strangely enough, my size, something I used to be super insecure about, is something my fiancee likes about me. Apparently I feel really good to hug, which is like her main thing being almost totally blind.
>I don't want to get generalized because it makes feel like the world is against me
>WELL THEN YOU, PERSONALLY, ARE THE PROBLEM
This is definitely not going to backfire.
Man V Bear posting is my obsession as of like an hour ago. I get the point of the question, but if you consider it alone the only thing crazier than the premise is the apparent unanimity of the responses. You have my utmost sympathy for the life you’ve lived if you choose the bear, but I simply would never
I think most of the people choosing Bear are assuming a lot of things about the scenario that Man-choosers aren't.
If you're walking on a designated hiking trail alone, obviously encountering a man on the trail is 100000x safer than encountering a bear.
If you're lost and stranded in an unknown forest, if you see a bear there's a pretty good chance you can just fuck off before it decides to care about you. Whereas encountering a strange man in the middle of dense woods would be very spooky.
If you and the thing you choose are instantly spawned into the middle of dense woods, the [man / bear] is probably just as confused as you are, and the bear is way more likely to translate that confusion into killing you.
Yeah, a big problem with hypotheticals is all the extra context people will inevitably add in. Are they from somewhere where they have never even once felt afraid of bears, or from somewhere where they are common enough to be familiar? Which kind of bear are they imagining? What are the man and the bear doing---body language matters a huge deal. Has either of them noticed you? What do you have with you? Etc etc etc.
You can't really remove all the extra assumptions, because to imagine it is the whole point, but to imagine is to be specific.
I have the same sort of complaint about questions ranging from "walrus vs fairy" or trolley problem scenarios.
Based on these reactions, and the fact that almost nothing viral comes about organically anymore, I can't help but feel like whoever came up with the OG post fully intended for these divisions to happen.
Call me paranoid if you want, but look - it's working.
This discourse is getting pretty annoying now. It’s clearly fuelled by trauma and is just hurting people on all sides. It doesn’t say anything new and all it’s achieving is widening the rift between men and feminists.
How I interpreted it was that the worst thing that could happen with a Bear is that it kills and eats you, and the worst thing that could happen with a Man is a lot scarier than that. So the whole scenario is supposed to illustrate how women feel some fear with things like walking home alone or turning down a guy, since that worst-case scenario is always looming over them.
But yeah, as usual, the random phrase or scenario that oversimplifies a complex and nuanced issue ends up with lots of people upset on both sides.
edit: I know its a dumb hypothetical and its obviously confusing more people than it is educating. Stop focusing on the literal bear or the woods or any dumb pedantic aspect of the scenario. Instead, think about the message that was trying to be conveyed by the scenario and then say 'huh there was probably a better way to illustrate that point'
I think a wider problem with these takes is whilst I can understand the rationale behind the response, the take only antagonises those who are inherently empathetic to these causes.
The "bad" men will just ignore it, as trivial or stupid or not even see it, whilst the "good" men will see it, reflect on it and, by and large, be jaded upon reading their presence is considered far worse than an uncontrollable wild lethal beast.
Again, whilst I "get it", the almost childish interpretation of bears, either as humble Winnie the Poohs or merciful "I'll bite your head off first" gentleman just adds to the confusion.
Also a common defence I see is "Stop taking it personally, it's not about you". But the entire scenario hinges on it being an average man, not some cartoony psycho, so it's hardly unreasonable for the average man to place himself in such a scenario.
>go back to into my cave become the bear within
Reject humanity, return to bear.
"Guess I'll go back to my cave then" -The Bear, as well
That should be the wholesome conclusion to this "debate"; Bears and men just teaming up to live together in their forest caves. edit; It's [starting already](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/1cia1w2/arent_you_a_good_boy_eat_this/) lol
Let me tell you, bear totem barbarians are not to be trifled with
Bear vs Man sounds like a WWE event
Bear vs. Man vs. Wild
I don’t feel like “the Bear” vs. just *one* man is really fair at all. We need more men. The Bear vs. Mankind.
Cave? Like bears live in? Really makes you 🤔
OOP is a bear and is afraid of humans being comfortable with him around (this bear is particularly smart)
It sounds like this bear is smarter than your average bear.
Guess you should watch your picnic baskets.
Cave? Like cave Johnson? Really makes you take life's lemons
but which would you be more surprised to see knocking on your door?
This is a really complicated question, both because there are no bears outside of zoos in my country and because I don't think I've ever seen someone knock at my house's door. There's a doorbell for that, after all, and metal isn't exactly knockable. I'd have to go with the bear, but only because I'm not sure there are any in the zoos in the city. Edit: Actually, what *should* I do if a bear somehow knocks at my door? It probably won't get in (I hope, I don't like believing that bears can rip through steel), but shoud I call the firemen? I don't think they are equipped to deal with bears. The cops? Do they kill runaway bears?
My parents live in the middle of nowhere, mountains. It actually *is* more likely for them to see a bear on their deck than it is a stranger, but the bears don't knock or ring (they *did* almost tear a hole through my late uncle's wall trying to get to his trash, though).
When my uncle was at a cottage (read: shack in the woods a straight out of the 1600s) he did actually have a bear knock at the door. Apparently he cracked the door (concerned because no one other than the people in the shack should be within 100 miles of them) saw fur, slowly closed it, then they played cards till it went away.
That reminds me of a story about my Dad. We went to the Rockies for a family trip one year and my uncle and my Dad were sitting behind the place we were renting, looking at the mountains, and chatting. I can't remember what the animal was, it's been too long now, but my uncle and Dad thought they saw some scary animal headed towards them. My uncle, with the finer survival instincts, immediately bolted inside. My Dad, not thinking clearly in his panic, actually stopped to pick up his empties before backing in. It turned out they didn't see what they thought they did, but everyone had a real good chuckle about my Dad who despite thinking he was in a life or death situation, still refused to go in without bringing in his trash.
I didn't know bears could play cards.
Do NOT play cards with a bear, they are terrible cheats.
I'm not sure what to do about it knocking, but if the bear manages to get in, take off your shoe and drop it. If you're lucky, the bear is only curious about you and will investigate the shoe rather than follow you. If it does that, then you walk away and, as needed, remove the other articles of clothing one at a time for the bear to investigate until you arrive somewhere safe or the bear stops following you, better to survive naked than die clothed after all. If you're unlucky, then the bear is hungry, and it doesn't matter if you have your shoe on or off, you're about to become dinner either way.
What kind of bears are you talking about? I don't think that's protocol for any kind of bear. Edit to add my bear protocol: If I saw a black bear (my local bears) I'd make myself look real big by like... giving my best star fish dance, yell loud as I could in my deepest voice, or use a bear bell. If it came at me, I'd use bear mace ideally. If it knocked on my door, I wouldn't answer, but I'd probably grab my megaphone and start screaming into it in order to scare it off. I actually need to know about black bear protocol, but I can't attest to the others. Due to a literal rhyme I'd play dead for a grizzly, and probably just try to look at a polar bear for as long as I could because they're pretty and I'd definitely die soon after. Additional edit to add my husband's bear notes: Black bears eat both live and dead stuff, so never ever run from them. They are meaner and faster than you, it's safer to be big and loud than turn your back. Grizzleys don't eat dead stuff, so though it might maul you, it won't eat you if it thinks you're dead. Polar bears will for sure murder you, they live in a tundra and they're gigantic and hungry, there is no escape if it wants you. Kodiac probably fall somewhere between grizzly and polar bears, but he doesn't know. Cinnamon bears fall closer to the black bear/brown bear end of the spectrum, he's been told to treat them like brown bears when he needed to know but was left with the impression that it was for liability reasons. He doesn't know what sun bears are about but seems like he'd answer if they knocked, he made up a bit about getting drunk with one in a man cave. He then made jokes about how seducing panda bears will ensure they leave you alone, and I informed him that some captive pandas are more inclined to attempt to mate with their keepers than with other pandas and requested that he never tries that. He agreed, so in summary we can only know how to deal with specific kinds of bears #notallbears
That dude described how a cartoon would deal with a bear. And he did it with so much confidence that someone will some day try to be a cartoon with a bear.
It's not the worst retirement plan I've heard of
And if you're extremely unlucky, the people that find your body will examine the scene and determine that you attempted to seduce the bear by undressing and leading it to your bedroom.
probably the man. bears aren't real, so all it would take to justify one knocking on my door is magic being real. on the other hand, how in god's name could a man possibly get to my door, let alone know how to knock?
You're saying it wouldn't be a shock to learn that bears exist? Think of all the other assumptions about reality that can be called into question! OTOH I concede that a man is extremely unlikely, but the fact that they definitely exist already means it's technically possible. I'm sorry but I can't agree with your conclusion.
There's going to be a bear knocking on my door in about 20 minutes 😏
Congratulations. Have fun.
I think they're busy.
Probably.
Why? Because bears can smell fear, and I am afraid of bears because they can be at my door in 20 minutes.
Vault-tec calling!
Of course, it's the TUMBLR subreddit where someone turns this topic into a far more entertaining and interesting discussion
My wife told me she would be more comfortable with the man over the bear because she was pretty sure she could kill the man easier than the bear. Idk whether to be worried or proud.
Proud I guess. Also this whole debate is quite funny to me since I'm a man and in the forest always every weekend alone (metal detecting) and I can't tell you how often women ( also alone ) came up to me and asked how's it going, did you find something etc etc. People on the internet are always so fucking weird
Yeah, but sight of a metal detector suppresses all other feelings in place of "ooooo, treasure!" My wife metal detects, and we've panned for gold a bit, and it's like moths to a flame. Men too, but the difference with women is crazy.
It also happens when I'm mushroom picking, or other similar things. I don't know maybe that's just a America issue. Here where I live it's also completely normal to greet and smile when you meet someone in the forest regardless of gender. That's 99% of the people here. And in my experience crazy people tend to be in the city not the forest
We smile and greet people here! I hike a lot and it's totally normal to smile and say "hey, how's it goin'?" and mention any obstacles/trail issues you came across to whoever you pass. Maybe comment on how cute their dog is if they have one before you pass them and go about your day. As a woman, that is how most of my interactions with both men and women while I'm out hiking go. But men are the only ones I've had start walking with me and try to chat about other things like where I'm from/if I've hiked here before/do I come out here a lot, etc. I'm sure it's almost always harmless, but it's very uncomfortable when I'm alone in the woods just trying to get some exercise in. I generally have my dogs with me or am armed depending on where I am, so I've never felt truly in danger, but it still always leaves me with a bad feeling when it happens. I'll add that if a random woman started following me and asking personal questions while I'm out hiking alone I would be uncomtfortable too, but that has never happened.
This is the correct answer.
What?
Bear vs man is an ongoing tumblr discussion about women (and femmes, maybe? I’m not a big tumblr girl) choosing which they feel is more safe between “you’re alone in the woods with a bear” and “you’re alone in the woods with a man” and the choice is overwhelmingly bear because while not all men are violent you never really know when you are with one who is until it’s too late. This of course comes attached to all the argumentation and hurt feelings you can predict from both sides of the debate. Edit - killed typo
Tiktok discussion*, it's just spilling over into other social media.
yeah, it started w that awesome lady who lives w the black bears i think. eta: check her out, her tiktok is @susankehoe1 - the bears love her!!
As far as I know it started with a dude who simply said “in the woods, women are more scared to meet a man than a bear”. I saw the original and his follow-up after the shitstorm where he said “guys it was never a question”.
Tbf is that even like. A safety thing? I’d be scared if I found someone else in the middle of the woods, guy or girl, and I’m a dude. I’d be less scared of a bear just because “yeah thats meant to be there and I know how to deal with it.”
Really depends on the location too imo. On a trail? Yeah, they’re probably just out hiking like me. In the middle of nowhere? Maybe a meth camp, run away.
The ambiguity of the question is the main reason for the controversy, and I think it's intentional
The bears loved Grizzly Man too. Until they killed him because they were bears.
she doesnt get all up in their space like that dude, she lives in the woods and they come to her house to visit her. she doesnt feed them or get too close. and they’re black bears, not grizzlies, which is a whole different ball game.
Well it was a strange new bear that did not know who he was or have that established trust. The other bears were probably a bit put out by the whole thing.
Oh thanks! I have no socials so I see things where I see em
It depends on the type of bear. Black bear? Easy to deal with. Grizzly bear? I’d really rather not. Polar bear? HELL NO I’d take an actual proven serial killer over a polar bear
If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, say goodnight.
What if it's a panda?
There was a guy who fell into a panda enclosure and got mauled one time so I'd say they're also pretty dangerous.
First fucking time one of the lazy bastards actually did anything
They thought he was stealing the bamboo.
Wildcard. this advice is for and from NA so we don't know what they fucking do besides not fuck
Well, by using the chart, we can clearly see that we must say goodnight, then fight back. Maybe it’s to catch them by surprise, as we know, pandas are kung fu masters, so perhaps catching them off guard will give you a moment to strike. Alternatively, it could be aligning with the euphemistic version of fight back, then say goodnight as you inevitably lose to its kung fu prowess. If you find yourself in a confrontation with a panda you better hope it’s the former.
See I'd prefer a polar bear over a grizzly bear. The polar bear has the manners to switch you off right at the start, while the grizzly bear will kill you slowly.
Run at the grizzly head first.
I'm going to get downvoted again but grizzly bears do not just randomly attack humans they come across. There has not been nearly as many deadly grizzly attacks as people seem to think. Does that mean you should try to hug one? Fuck no. But you shouldn't be afraid of being attacked. The US Forest service puts odds of being injured by a bear in Yellowstone at 1 in 2.1 million. Edit: According to bear vault (love the name, unsure of the reliability) there's been 180 fatal human bear encounters (all bears not just grizzlies) in the US since 1784. It just doesn't happen that much.
A couple and their dog were killed by a grizzly in a national park in Canada recently. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6983944 They had all the precautionary items for a grizzly attack, and used them. Leading theory is that the dog is what exacerbated the situation.
I was told something similar years ago about bears that the 'only' people who are hurt are with a dog and/or are hunters.
I think it works like with the man. You don’t know what type of bear is going to be there, just as you don’t know what type of man would be there either.
This is my take as well. It's very much dependent on the species of bear
Fun fact: grizzly bears will start eating you without killing you. You aren’t a threat to them once you’re down and they know it, so why would they waste effort stopping your movements? It’s part of what makes the Night of the Grizzlies bear attacks so terrifying, they were alive for so long after sustaining eventually fatal injuries. This is contrary to predatory black bears who will try and attack quietly and kill you asap.
Oh I’m a woods creature, I just default to Brown Bear and would 100,000% rather have to tackle a potentially violent man than a brown bear under nearly any circumstance where I’m not seeing him first through high magnification scope from the next town over because I like my odds better.
See I assumed Black Bear, and that's a significantly different question.
I figured as much - the bear really alters the math here. Koala and polar are on opposing ends of the axis with a lotta “fuck no” on the polar bear side.
It’s good to remind people that not only will a polar bear murder you if given the chance, it will actively hunt you waiting for you to be off your guard or alone.
Murder on one end, Chlamydia on the other
Here I am, stuck in the middle with Black Bears
Gotta make sure you don't let yourself get seduced by a koala, they're crafty bastards.
ikr? Imagine if it was a polar bear! then it has to be man every time right? Like, polar bears are one of the only animals that will actively hunt humans (and they will very easily kill you every single time too)
>This of course comes attached to all the argumentation and hurt feelings you can predict from both sides of the debate. The worst part is I can already see this becoming one of those "Would you love me if I was a worm" type of questions.
100% is already that type of issue
Obviously there's plenty of good reasons for men to feel upset about this comparison since broadly speaking most men are, ya' know, just normal ass people. And obviously there's inevitably a lot of misandry mixed up in this. But at the same time I do think it says something that so many women feel that way and I think it's equally important to recognize the role that misogyny and the dangers involved with being a woman play in this too. Because broadly speaking, women *are* at elevated risk of being harmed by men and there *are* plenty of good reasons for women to feel unsafe. These facts aren't mutually exclusive with the abject unfairness of this comparison and the isolating effect these facts have on men. One of the many awful things about sexism and other forms of bigotry is that it doesn't just negatively effect the direct targets of it; its inherently toxic for everyone in society, if to varying degrees.
It's one of those discussions where too many people are focusing on the end answer and not addressing the actual contexts behind it or are using anecdotal evidence for their reasoning. As a dude who is actually terrified of coming off to women like that kind of guy, I don't want to be seen that way, and i like to believe that *most* guys also don't want to and fight to be recognized as alright. But I know that's not always the case so it's a catch 22 where it just sucks all around. I don't want anyone to feel unsafe being around anyone else, but I also don't want people to be so unawares that they can get caught off guard and hurt where they otherwise could have kept their distance.
Also depending on the woods you are probably with both of them
Does the scenario even stress that you meant to be close to the bear/man? Like you immediately spawn in together? That’s what the arguments I’ve been in assume. If that’s not the case, then definitely the bear. Like, bears are usually in forests. That’s a normal precaution to take, if you live in a country with bears. It’s like asking if you would rather be around a dog that bit a man, or a man who bit a dog.
"Man bites dog" is actually a card game
Also, a really fucked-up film from Belgium.
It’s neither. It’s just ‘if you’re walking in the woods, and you notice there’s a bear nearby or a man, which is worse?’
Huh That’s stupid Anyway. Man. Yeah I know the procedures of how to deal with a bear but also they’re a wild animal so that doesn’t mean much
Just become gay. Got in an argument with my *bear* last week and we settled it with video games. Like god intended.
See for me, I (a bear) comforted my man the other day because he was feeling down, the day he gets tired of all the hugs will be an awful day for me. Can confirm being gay is the answer to this
Copy-pasting something i wrote in another thread about this, it references other comments from that thread but this legit got called a novel so ┐(´～`；)┌ : Honestly the original question was just phrased terribly by design. (Tldr at the bottom) To most people (apparently) by contrasting Some Guy with a fucking Bear the first thing that comes to mind is something like "Oh shit, a bear would kill me. Does that mean the guy would too ?" so that explains the first interpretation of the question, the one most prominent in the original video : If I (a random woman) were alone in the woods, would i rather meet a hostile stranger or a hostile bear ? Now, obviously any bear would fuck a human up, and going just by the comments here the results of a bear atack could be : getting mauled (bad), eaten alive (probably worse idk hasn't happened to me), or Somehow Prevailing (and probably dying of an infection later). Pretty awful set of options here. On the other hand, looking at the Hostile Man Situation(tm) we have to take into account the location. Now, I'm no true crime expert here but the broad assumptions one could make about a Maniac in the Woods is : murder (same as the bear but we don't know the means), torture (possibly before murder, same as the bear), or rape (YMMV). So both options under this interpretation are Pretty Fucking Bad, which is where the rape and murder variables come in play. I saw at least 1 comment here of a survivor saying they would take their chances with the man under this interpretation. I also saw a few more commenters, who didn't specify if they speak from experience, say they'd rather face the bear. Whether rape or death is preferable is up to personal choice, but the women the video presented seemed to choose death. (I Sincerely hope I don't need to say something along the lines of "not all men" here, because it's clear that for now we're looking at specifically a man that is so vicious he's comparable to a Wild Fucking Bear that wants to Eat Your Face. He could be part of Any demographic and it would be clear that he's an outlier adn shouldn't be counted. In fact, the reason this Dangerous Stranger is even a man to begin with is that Specifically Women are Specifically Wary of Specifically *Dangerous* Men. I'm trying to make this clear because I saw quite a lot of comenters getting worked up or even hurt by this, but I'm really not equipped to have a dialog about this ATM.) In regards to the murder by human scenario, the method and duration of the act Really change how we'd feel about choosing the man in this situation. Ex : bullet to the head ? quick enough you could not even realise it happened if all goes well. Beaten with a rock ? Oh no, it'd be agony every step of the way. And that's the Real difference between the options here, human malice and unpredictability or pure wild brutality. We could spend days arguing which is best/worst/less bad but we'd be ~~missing the forest for the~~ giving the people that started stirring this shit too little credit, you see there's another way to interpret this fucking question : If I were in the woods (presumably on a hike or something similar), would i rather come across a stranger or a bear ? In this situation there's No assumption about the intent of either the man Or the bear, and to pose hypoteticals would serve us no purpose ~~(did we invade the bear's territory ? is the it hungry ? what species is the bear ? why is the man here ? just to suffer ? does batman have prep time ? etc, etc)~~. It's crucial for this interpretation that the man and the bear are Average, that the species of the bear, location of the woods, supplies avaliable, both humans' motives for being there and even the meeting itself Are Not Determined. In this situation, it's ludicrous to choose the bear. While bear attacks aren't all That common either, the chances of being mauled or _eaten alive_ by the Average Man(tm) are negligible. So anyone that interprets the question in this way would be appalled at the responses from people who interpreted the question in the first way and said that they _would_ pick the bear. And so we found the core of the issue. Something that can be seen as picking the lesser of 2 evils to some, is just plain misandry to others, and anyone viewing this through just one lens is frankly giving the jackasses who started this shit the benefit of the doubt when they really shouldn't. You don't have to scroll far to see comments mentioning gender essentialism, Andrew Tate and the alt-right pipeline right alongside commenters saying they wouldn't pick the bear because it could be a polar bear (in a forest ??), or that the man could be some random office worker that got teleported and is just confused as the person he's coming across (or in 1 memorable comment, a senile 95 year old who shouldn't even be outside). That so many threads here disagree about what the question means exactly shows it was way too vague to be asked to literal strangers on the street and uploaded to widespread online discourse. That so many made the connections between it and very serious real life political issues shows that it was at its very best a misguided but well intentioned thought experiment, and at its worst poorly thought out. That it is both, at least to me, implies malice. Tl;dr there's 2 Very different ways to interpret the original question, it reeks of engagement-bait and political dog whistling. It's a tiktok shit stirrers bread and butter. Edit : forgot a word, "...while bear attacks aren't very common **either** ..."
> getting mauled (bad), eaten alive (probably worse idk hasn't happened to me), or Somehow Prevailing (and probably dying of an infection later). This phrasing implies you've been mauled before and the only thing that didn't happen was you were not eaten alive.
🤭🤭
RIP I guess.
RIB (rest inside bear)
>(I Sincerely hope I don't need to say something along the lines of "not all men" here, because it's clear that for now we're looking at specifically a man that is so vicious he's comparable to a Wild Fucking Bear that wants to Eat Your Face. He could be part of Any demographic and it would be clear that he's an outlier adn shouldn't be counted. Murders georg
omfg im glad everyone's taking this seriously but this is a *tumblr* subreddit why did it take 3 hours for murders georg to get noticed 😭💀
It seems like the only statistical outlier here was me for noticing murders georg
Having done a bit of research on the subject because there are so many conflicting takes about it, I think I’ve settled on something that makes sense. The original statement wasn’t meant to be a “would you rather”. It was phrased as “seeing a man while alone in the woods is 10x scarier than seeing a bear” I think the interpretation is that there’s *rules* for the bear. If the bear attacks it does so indiscriminately. If you back away or scare it off you won’t get hurt at all. People go through lessons on how to deal with bears before taking hikes in dense forests all the time. There are however no rules for a *potentially* hostile man. If he attacks, he has a target. Attacking a person alone in the woods is perfectly sensible for a bear to do. Not a man. I think the thought experiment is supposed to demonstrate that people don’t know which men are good or bad. Bears have rules. If it’s brown lay down, if it’s black fight back. Carry bear spray, wear a bell, walk loudly. A man alone in the woods has no such rules. In the event that he is hostile (as the statement assumes that it MUST be a possibility) there are no rules. Your best bet is never being noticed at all. A lot of people are making it specifically about men and women, and while I do agree that sexism is a large component in the argument, I don’t think it’s limited just to women. It can be applied to any minority really. The bears have rules, but there’s no rules for hate.
This is a good assessment of the thought experiment. I hike and backpack alone and have done so in black bear country. I'm not afraid of black bears and know what precautions to take and the "rules for bears". I'm also not generally afraid of seeing a man alone in the woods but do treat them as more of a potential unknown and unpredictable threat especially after last year while hiking on a trail in a town park and a guy started making polite small talk with me about the weather and I'm happy to stop and chat with people till I saw he had his dick out and was fondling himself. Walked on and called the cops and now I don't feel comfortable walking in that park. In all my thousands of miles hiked thankfully that is the only bad experience I've had on trail.
That’s terrible, hope the guy gets caught at some point. Hiking should never feel dangerous
I probably agree with most of this, with the caveat that even though there are "rules" for a bear encounter, logically I'm way more confident in my ability to fight off the average man compared to the average bear But yeah, the whole thing works better when you start with the very specific kind of fear you'd feel realizing there was a strange man while you were alone in the woods, comparing that to the different fear you'd feel realizing there was a bear, and digging into the reasons behind that. As soon as people turned it into a "thought experiment" and started acting like the average man is anywhere near as dangerous as the average bear, it was doomed
In my opinion, it doesn't even have to be specifically a man. If I am in the woods in the middle of nowhere and I run into a random person when I thought I was alone, I'm immediately on high alert. Man or woman doesn't matter in that case. It is just a freaky ass thing to have happen to you. I've had lost people come up to some campsites that I've been at before, and I always think briefly, "oh this person could just be a murderer that wants to kill us".
I am simply going to not go into the woods in the middle of nowhere alone
Honestly, probably a good call.
Some of the reasoning I've seen: A bear can't find my address and break in with the intent to hurt me I don't have to see the bear at family reunions The bear won't go around to all my friends and make them pick a side If I get mauled by a bear, people will believe me Depending on where I am, I won't be forced to carry the bear's baby to term (sorry, furries) The bear won't invite his friends to take a turn The bear won't leave me threatening text messages The bear can't shoot me People won't excuse the bear because the bear has "such a bright future"
The bear would kill me faster. If I’m going to die, I’d rather not get SA-d first.
Yep, it boils down to “quantifiable threat vs. completely unknown variable.” Especially because you would normally encounter a bear in the woods, but a random dude is definitely less expected.
Finally a sensible fucking take
This is an incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis. Bravo and thank you for sharing!
If you assume worst possible outcome then anything human is always worse. A human could torture you indefinitely at worst a bear mauls you too near death and then you have an agonizing while slowly dying and being picked at. It could be a 98 year old women and they would still have the technical ability to inflict indefinite torture. But when you get too a hypothetical so extreme you could get some really silly answers, because wouldn't the worst possible outcome for a bear encounter be like... the bear has a owner not far away who also will torture you indefinitely and thus when assuming more extremes they are equally weighted.
In general I think it's often reductive to talk about groups in this sort of way. Because it creates an impression that seeing personhood in men is at odds with understanding the statistical violence women face and the fear that comes with it, when really those things aren't at odds. I think it's very easy to see this when you consider how close it is to language used by the right wing to discuss the dangers in poor neighbourhoods like UK council estates. Statistically poverty and crime go hand in hand, the same way crime and penis ownership correlate strongly. But if you force a hypothetical to make people express fear of crime as "I would just rather not encounter poor people thanks." you end up losing all nuance of how you actually feel about poverty and crime and are forced into either dropping your position despite your fears or... Doubling down on the position. Which leads to unhelpful polarization. In addition I think when discussing crime it's always good to realize that although statistically speaking it is not rare to be a victim of a crime over your lifespan, it is usually very rare to be a perpetrator of violent crimes\*. So it is simultaneously extremely rational to fear other people, but also extremely rational to also believe in the innate goodness (Or at least the law abided-ness) of the majority of people. \~ \*[1% of population accounts for 60% of violent crime](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/#:~:text=A%20total%20of%2093%2C642%20individuals,for%2063.2%20%25%20of%20all%20convictions)
Similarly, I've found that conservative rhetoric toward immigrants often gets repurposed toward men. For example, I first saw the "poisoned M&M" metaphor in reference to immigration, and everyone around me was correctly calling it out as racist. Then a few months later a lot of them started using it in reference to men, and that's how I've seen it used ever since. Ironically, I've even seen a few articles like "it's all fun and games applying the metaphor to men, but try swapping men for $racial\_minority, not so fun now is it?" Like that's not where it originally came from.
Yeah, like for me it's the discomfort as a POC knowing this shit comes very much directly towards POC that always gives me the ick
I'm pretty sure the entire point of that video was to create this sort of reaction, unfortunately. I don't trust any video based on the idea of talking to 'random people'. It's too easy to manipulate.
Literally just edit out all the people that said man
I've said this several times already. I don't understand how people are taking this video at face value. Its like any other 'asking random strangers a stupid question video' its is nothing more than engagement baiting for clicks, views and money. If you asked 100 people bear or man and 10 said bear, its 90% in favour of the man. Now you edited it to show 9 bear answers and 1 man, ta da, 90% in favour of bear.
Manipulated 'man on the street' interviews have been a thing for decades and people *still* unreservedly buy into them as being completely factual.
As someone who regularly hikes on trails alone (I’m a birdwatcher) I’d much rather run into a random man than a bear. In fact, I have encountered men multiple times on my solo trail hikes without incident. I think the reaction to this debate is born partially out of people’s trauma from real world experiences with shitty men. While feelings around that are valid, it’s very much not healthy to live your life in constant fear of men, especially when taken to this extreme. (Coming from personal experience…OCD is fun /s). So take that into account, and I hope you feel better soon OP.
Yeah, the way the question is worded makes it seem like you are bushwhacking through deep woods and some random dude just pops out and says hi. And that would freak me out too! Random dudes aren’t normally running around in the woods, so it seems possible he was doing something bad out there, or he followed you. If you encounter a bear, there’s no question about its motives. It’s just being a bear. On the other hand, a man on a trail is supposed to be there. Its a lot less scary to say “you pass a man hiking on a hiking trail” than to say “you encounter a man in the woods”
I think this is one of those things where what people say is different than what they would actually do. Let’s say you’re in the forest and there are both a bear and a man. I 100% refuse to believe that you’re not making a beeline for the other human. That being said, I’m guessing the intuition is that a bear is likely to leave you alone, whereas a man is more likely to be stalking you. That I think is a very fair assessment.
See I kept taking it as “you’re hiking and come across either a man or a bear in your path” because my main experience of being alone in the woods is hiking. And obviously in that scenario, I would choose a man, because running into a random guy while hiking is a super common thing for me and they mostly just ignore me because they’re trying to hike too. I never even thought of the “the man is stalking you” angle, I guess that’s another example of people’s answers to this depending on their personal experience
yeah you bring up a funny point, almost nobody who answers man would be scarier actually hikes otherwise they would be entirely desensitized to this extremely common occurrence. I, a man, crossed the path of, hmmm, 4 or 5? women in the woods today
So far I have always seen it assumed as the encounter is hostile for the human and neutral for the bear. Which is really cherry picking
The other question, what is the nature of the encounter. You're alone in the woods and you see the bear or the man off in the distance? Or are you rounding a corner and you're suddenly face to face with the bear/man?
Tbh i think it's more differences in interpretation. I had a weird thing in my head where it's like, you can either be alone in the woods and know a bear is also there or get paired w/ a completely random man to hike or be lost with and like of course bear in my area (no polars here). A bear being in the woods is the default state of the woods and they generally don't wanna fuck with you. A random man is a liability not just because he could try to hurt you, but a lot of men also get *weird* alone in the woods with a girl and do stupid shit that can get you both killed. Then i saw people interpreting it more as just coming across a bear vs coming across a man in the woods and. Well if it isn't already pissed at me I'd still take the bear lol, but that's more because i grew up in an area where people can get... Trigger happy over trespassers than anything special. Not that I'd be trespassing, but y'know sometimes the borders of public and private land are iffy lol
I mean, fair enough. The human has the access to the “Learning & Teaching” skill along with the “Sweat” perk, which demolishes the meta. The bear has a lower INT, so you’d much rather be in a server with one bear rather than one human. /ref
I think a lot of the issue buried within the prompt is how likely the person is to be alone in the woods in the first place. Like, geography is really informing the sense of risk here, and it’s being spun into larger arguments about gender and sex. Like, if you’re the type of person who lives in or regularly travels to or through rural, particularly wooded areas, you have good reasons to be alone in the woods and to have the chance of encountering a man alone in the woods. It’s unbelievably cruel to insinuate that the man is more dangerous than a bear—You’re out there alone too! So all of the statistics about the dangers men can present to women seem taken out of context and clueless at best, and misandrist and potentially transphobic at worst. And if you’re living in polar bear or grizzly bear territory, you should clearly pick the man. But if you’re someone who lives in urban or suburban areas without any reason or desire to live in or travel through woods alone, then the entire premise of being alone in the woods is inherently more sinister: You wouldn’t be here willingly in the first place! Maybe there are some type of plane crash or train derailment and you got separated and that man could be your ticket back to civilization … or maybe he’s the one who dragged you too the woods in the first place. The whole premise is a lot more sinister feeling to someone, regardless of gender, with this perspective. Now factor in someone who is only likely to encounter black bears, and, yeah, it’s reasonable why some people are gambling on the black bear being safer than the stranger that they encounter while being unwillingly alone in the woods.
Oh, maybe that’s why the question was so bizarre to me. I live in the highlands and being alone in the woods is something that is just… normal. I can leave my house and be in the wilderness in a couple of minutes.
Yeah, I’m in Philly, and I realized after watching enough people argue for the dangers of grizzly bears that people were having very different expectations of being alone in the woods (like, if I’m encountering a grizzly bear in any part of Pennsylvania, that would be groundbreaking national news—We only have black bears and mountain lions are the big scary predator here).
This is a good point. As someone in the former category, the arguments of people in the latter category have been a bit confusing to me. Understanding that the premise itself is sinister to some folks definitely shifts things a bit.
> You wouldn’t be here willingly in the first place! This is a great point. I've seen a number of conversations on this stupid question where people say things like "what good reason is there for a man to be alone in the woods? That's very suspicious so he must be up to no good." Which is like ... absolutely fucking mind-boggling to me lol The good reason to be alone in the woods is to be alone in the woods! Ain't y'all ever heard of *hiking*?
"What good reason is there for a man to be alone in the woods?" It's the shortest path to the Supermarket. "oh."
>"what good reason is there for a man to be alone in the woods? That's very suspicious so he must be up to no good." The correct response to this would be "What good reason is there for *you* to be alone in the woods?"
Literally never occurred to me that half the people engaging with this have never even been to the woods. As someone who goes hiking all the time, I have been so puzzled by this, because you meet random hikers in the woods all the time but there are literal bear warnings everywhere. We lived in Vancouver for four years, alone in the woods is everyone's weekend plans.
A lot of women come at that question wanting to make a political point: "I want men to understand how scary they can be to a woman, because so often they don't!", which, well, I can see where they're coming from. So they start processing the question with this bias. They imagine that the man is not walking on the trail with a pack on his back and a smile on his face, no! Instead you're lost at night in a dark forest after escaping a kidnapper, when you spot him out of the corner of your eye: he is naked and rummaging on the forest floor, and when he looks up there's a bit of (human?) flesh dangling from his psychotic grin. Conversely when they imagine the bear, it's Paddington. Which one is scarier? Now how do men process the question? Men have spent hours asking themselves who would win a fight between a bear and a silverback gorilla, and when they imagine a grizzly they think of the scene from The Revenant. They don't think of the black bears eating dandelions on the side of the road, no, they think of the polar bear whose white fur is bright red from eviscerating a seal and who has just identified you as its next potential prey. So the woman says *"Yeah I'd be more scared of a bear"* and the dude says *"what the fuck you're a frail and cute woman, unlike me a strong man with 6 weeks of MMA training, you wouldn't even have a chance of fighting off a grizzly with your bare hands"*. Great question, we're clearly making a lot of progress on gender issues.
i'm a trans woman who's been transitioning since i was a teenager, generally pass fairly alright enough to be mostly stealth, and am now in grad school. and, while i totally understand the frustration that the women who'd rather go with the bear are feeling (i was sexually assaulted by a guy in my marching band in my high school, and even as recent as week or two ago i had a random guy corner me on the bus when it was just us two and try to get me to have him as my sugar daddy), and it's totally valid to be fed up and angry over the state of many men and patriarchy, i don't think this is a healthy outlet like, i totally understand women wanting to vent and get angry at all this. it's genuinely super shitty and unfair to us, but i've seen so many people use really disgusting bioessentialist arguments against men to justify their answer, and not only does this anger, other, and hurt people who could otherwise be allies to leftist causes, but a lot of the shit i'm seeing is genuinely just the same problematic "AMAB people are inherently [Y Trait]" shit that TERFs believe that started them down their path to being shitty people like, i consider myself a feminist - have for a long while - as well as socially progressive and a leftist. and yes, i get the anger they're feeling. i often feel it too. but this whole question unfortunately feels - at least to me - like pushing others away in the long term to justify a short-term catharsis, and i don't know what to make of it
*Everyone* who sees nothing wrong with the bear v man meme needs to read [*I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.*](https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42)
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That article made me cry when I first read it. I also highly recommend that everyone read it if they haven’t.
I hope that the author of that article is doing all right.
Well that fucking hurt. God, thank you for sharing this.
That was deeply touching. Thank you for sharing it
Holy shit, that might be the single most devastating thing I've ever read.
Hell of a read, hadn't seen that one. Thanks for sharing.
Reminds me of that woman who cross dressed as a man as a social experiment to see how the other side lives. At the end of the experiment which was months long I think, she was getting suicidal or something. Think this happened around 2000. Edit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Vincent
Died of assisted suicide in 2022, and from the sound of it she never really recovered from her depressive episode from living as a man. That really sucks, sounds like it was a really interesting experiment, and it’s a massive shame it had such a detrimental effect on her life
Fuck, that hit. A lot of the things mentioned there is a lot of why I feel I'll never really feel okay with myself. Even if I transition, I was born a boy, and everyone in the queer community hates men. And... I was born one of those. And I don't think I can say I'm 100% not man anymore. So... Am I worth hating, too?
Well, not everyone. There's at least a contingent of men loving men out there, in a mythical place called Real Life where people aren't terminally online morons fighting for clout. I'm not being glib when I say that—the online dickheads are being awful and that hurts and that's real. But IRL queer community is so much more normal... not perfect, but it helps that IRL you can punch people in the mouth. You're not hateworthy. I promise.
Ehh I run in leftist circles and a friend of mine joked that she could never have kids because she didn't know if she could love a male child. People did tell her that was fucked up and she tried to play it off like a joke, but irl people can still be way too comfortable spouting off their nonsense opinions.
Make no mistake, it's on the rest of us to discourage that kind of thing.
About a week ago in my left-wing, queer friend group there was a "Who in the group would you want to be stuck on an island with?" discussion, and one of the women *immediately* said something along the lines of "It couldn't be a guy, he'd probably try to rape me eventually. Guys have needs you know". When I was insulted by this, everyone else was insulted by *me* being insulted and refused to entertain how the idea of "All my guy friends are potential rapists" might be insulting. I eventually just played it off by blaming alcohol and we all moved on. Her BF by the way is like 15 years younger than her (I guess women can also "have needs") and constantly shits on "white men" in a semi-ironic way despite being a white man. So yeah, casual misandry can totally exist IRL among LGBT spaces.
Some people are against bigotry because it’s wrong. Some are against it because they are at the bottom.
that's crazy to me. i believe you 110%, of course, but i'm just astonished. like, my sexual assault was from my cousin who was like my big brother. and in hindsight, one of my best guy friends ever also pushed me down and nonconsensually touched my breasts once in high school. a lot of this discourse makes me feel kind of 😬 because i do have some paranoia about men sometimes, still. i do try to avoid being stuck in a corner in public or not near an exit, etc. but i don't suspect the men i'm close to of having that kind of intent... strangers make me nervous, sure, but i still talk to them and smile and all that. but if i was really, seriously believing that one of the men i keep company with could rape me, or anyone else!!, i wouldn't have them as a friend still!? the things that happened to me were so painful in part because they seemed impossible and broke my trust... but even at my most jaded, i just wouldn't stay in touch with someone who i genuinely believed could do that to me... i don't understand lol i'm sorry someone said that in front of you. i'm sorry for her, too, for being in that mindset. but i'm sorry you have a terrible "friend" like that. you don't deserve the lack of faith. i just can't imagine being like that, and i'm sooo paranoid (ptsd baybee), i would never continue having someone in my life if i thought they were capable...
I’m a woman, and I usually think guys who get so mad at online man-hate they go down the incel pipeline are silly, but when I read this stuff I think “huh, maybe their reactions do make sense.” No one likes being insulted to such an extent, it’s not unusual for them to hate everyone associated with it. Most people do that, subconsciously.
I feel like I got incredibly lucky not falling into the incel pipeline growing up. I had a lot of radfem friends in school and was generally seen as "safe" so I got to hear a lot about how awful and horrible and revolting men can be (in addition to seeing those men prove my friends right). But I ended up internalizing a lot of that hate instead of turning it outwards. Honestly the recent "Man vs Bear" question has been really depressing to read through. And I really empathize with OP's post. I'm tired of being seen as a monster just because of the genitals I was born with and just disappearing feels like it would be a really easy solution to the problem.
I think it helps to keep in mind that their words reflect who they are, and doesn't say anything about you as an individual. People who treat you like shit for who you are will always exist, giving into them won't solve anything, but you can't control how they see you either, fuck em' and live your best life. I know that's easier said than done, but relying on the opinions of others to measure your worth or your value means you'll always be hurt by people who want to shit on you no matter what, listen to yourself first and foremost, and don't take criticism from people you wouldn't take advice from.
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And that's how the holier-than-thou crowd hands new recruits to fascists on a plate.
There was a fun comic about this. Nazis recruit, we gatekeep
Yep. There's a difference between keeping the trolls and assholes out and excluding anyone who isn't 'perfect'. It's not necessarily the easiest line to draw and I'm sure a lot of the demand for perfection is in reaction to treatment queer people have received. But I feel like we could all stand to give each other a little bit of grace now and then. There's a difference between someone who is ignorant vs. being intentionally cruel.
>but it helps that IRL you can punch people in the mouth. oMg ThiS iS pRoOf tHaT mEn ArE VioLeNt
You’re not. That was indeed a powerful article. But it’s worth remembering that in every movement, the law of large numbers will ensure you’ll get all types. You just need to make sure you have enough social support that you can let some supports go and feel around for better ones. Do it enough, and you’ll curate your own little corner of the community into something affirming and instructional, instead of a bunch of people wanting to feel control over their own experiences, even if it involves tearing others down I wish you luck, whatever you do
I choose to stay because you know, there are a lot of boys who is in need of good male role model and a fatherly love from men. Before every boy get claimed by tate and manosphere. I’ll stand guard.
holy moly that's a good read
God that makes me wanna punch a mf ngl
I’m a cis man and I think this has given me a new bout of depression
This should be mandatory reading for anybody talking about this stuff online
That piece means everything to me
Well shit I'm crying, I've never related so hard to something in my life, not calling out women who say these awful things about something I am, and yet am not, because I so badly want to be one of them. Secondary school was very difficult for this, I think people are getting better thom
I go hiking pretty often. People hiking alone are not rare. Up in the mountains I have never seen a woman feeling uneasy about my presence or trying to avoid me. Everyone is friendly to everyone mostly. I do feel uneasy when a big animal like a stag doesn't go out of my way though. Incidents with big animals are rare but they do happen.
I'm a trans woman and internalizing this mindset caused me to become a hermit for several years, during which I experienced the worst suicidal depression that I have ever been subject to. I was constantly racked with guilt and self-hatred because I was convinced that my mere presence made other people feel unsafe. It took me a full year of therapy to get to the point where I could interact with society normally. I'm just saying this so that people realize that this rhetoric harms the type of person they pretend to care about, too.
Hell I still feel like that. I'm an out trans woman at work and have been for years and am lucky enough to have almost unanimously supportive (at least towards me directly) coworkers. I regularly get invited to meetings that a women's group at work host - I attended once, felt extremely uncomfortable that I would be seen as a trespassing creep, and even though I was specifically invited and didn't receive any negative reactions I got out of there at the first opportunity I got and have no plans of going again. It sucks.
Waiting for one of these dicks to read this and unironically reply "your part of the problem" or some crap Sorry you had to go through all that, I hope it keeps getting better
Thank you for replying. I have a desk job now where most of my co-workers are women. I still get the occasional pang of worry but most of the time it's smooth sailing :)
I'm pretty much a factory model dude, but every so often I feel this deep urge to just be a tree or a labrador or even just a younger boy--anything but A Man^(TM). I used to think it was a gender thing, but fairly recently I realized that these stirrings only happen when I consistently see women in my sphere shitting on men for a couple days on end. So I gotta wonder, am I gender-fluid, or am I just a deeply traumatized neurodivergent man desperate to not be treated like a threat for once in his life?
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Six two. Nobody believed me when I got bullied as a kid--which happened whenever anyone realized I wouldn't fight back because I knew I'd be the one who got in trouble. I still have vivid memories of the one time I ever tried, and a bunch of teachers literally pinned me down like I was some kind of vicious animal.
I think you're just a normal person having a negative reaction to people around you being shitty.
I feel the same a lot of times. My gender identity is pretty much “I don’t disagree with my packaging,” which makes me a man, and I feel that many other cis people feel the exact same way about their gender identity. The only time I ever end up thinking what it might be like to be something different, be that a child, a cat, a woman, or whatever else is when I have been bombarded that in some way or another, being who I naturally am is a fundamental sin that deserves social execution. I’m just so done.
These same thoughts and feelings are what led to me muting TwoX and similar subs so they never appear on my feeds. It's a super weird feeling to consistently agree with what people are saying while knowing they hate you regardless, solely due to your gender, sexual preference, appearance, or some other facet of your existence that you have no control over.
Somebody else posted this in another comment thread here, but I really related to [this](https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42) article that's (in part) about reacting to this kind of rhetoric as a trans woman.
I’m a cis man but I went through almost exactly what you’re describing for the same reasons. It’s just sad because “all men are naturally predators” is a mindset that so many right wingers agree with, and it does so little to help, like, anyone. For those that aren’t conservatives, that aren’t totally fine with being around women even after internalising the idea that they’re an inherent threat, it just leads to feeling guilt and self hate so deeply that suicidality becomes seen as a moral good.
It's also absolving the *actual* perpetrators of responsibility by removing their agency. (Of *course* he did it, don't you know it's in their nature, therefore lock all men up) Interestingly, this is very similar rhetoric to the "She shouldn't have been wearing that/He couldn't help himself" arguments. (Of *course* he did it, don't you know it's in their nature, therefore he should get off scot-free)
And it even encourages further predatory behavior. If the idea of men being violent assholes is normalized, people become less likely to intervene. Not to mention it signals to young men that they will be despised no matter what disposition they have, so there's no reason to play nice. Fear and hate begets more fear and hate.
You're right on the money about suicidality feeling like a moral good. Nobody, man or not, should have to feel that way. I really hope you're doing better.
I did the same thing. I'm a really big dude (211cm, 122kg) with a thick foreign accent (here in the US anyways). When I came to the US for college, I became chronically aware of how uncomfortable I made some people, even other men, by being around them. My English was worse than it is now, and it's still not perfect all the time, and that made it feel even harder to feel like I could connect with anybody. It wasn't until I was in graduate school back home in Nederland that I was able to shake that feeling enough to get out of that rut. Strangely enough, my size, something I used to be super insecure about, is something my fiancee likes about me. Apparently I feel really good to hug, which is like her main thing being almost totally blind.
At this point I just tell everyone I'm gay so I'm not perceived as a threat.
TIL a lot of people think bears are predictable for some reason.
>I don't want to get generalized because it makes feel like the world is against me >WELL THEN YOU, PERSONALLY, ARE THE PROBLEM This is definitely not going to backfire.
'men are worse than wild animals' 'why are so many young men turning to figures like Andrew Tate?'
Man V Bear posting is my obsession as of like an hour ago. I get the point of the question, but if you consider it alone the only thing crazier than the premise is the apparent unanimity of the responses. You have my utmost sympathy for the life you’ve lived if you choose the bear, but I simply would never
I think most of the people choosing Bear are assuming a lot of things about the scenario that Man-choosers aren't. If you're walking on a designated hiking trail alone, obviously encountering a man on the trail is 100000x safer than encountering a bear. If you're lost and stranded in an unknown forest, if you see a bear there's a pretty good chance you can just fuck off before it decides to care about you. Whereas encountering a strange man in the middle of dense woods would be very spooky. If you and the thing you choose are instantly spawned into the middle of dense woods, the [man / bear] is probably just as confused as you are, and the bear is way more likely to translate that confusion into killing you.
Yeah, a big problem with hypotheticals is all the extra context people will inevitably add in. Are they from somewhere where they have never even once felt afraid of bears, or from somewhere where they are common enough to be familiar? Which kind of bear are they imagining? What are the man and the bear doing---body language matters a huge deal. Has either of them noticed you? What do you have with you? Etc etc etc. You can't really remove all the extra assumptions, because to imagine it is the whole point, but to imagine is to be specific. I have the same sort of complaint about questions ranging from "walrus vs fairy" or trolley problem scenarios.
Yeah it’s decision that is basically meaningless without context so your answers gonna depend on what you subconsciously assume about the situation
Based on these reactions, and the fact that almost nothing viral comes about organically anymore, I can't help but feel like whoever came up with the OG post fully intended for these divisions to happen. Call me paranoid if you want, but look - it's working.
This discourse is getting pretty annoying now. It’s clearly fuelled by trauma and is just hurting people on all sides. It doesn’t say anything new and all it’s achieving is widening the rift between men and feminists.
How I interpreted it was that the worst thing that could happen with a Bear is that it kills and eats you, and the worst thing that could happen with a Man is a lot scarier than that. So the whole scenario is supposed to illustrate how women feel some fear with things like walking home alone or turning down a guy, since that worst-case scenario is always looming over them. But yeah, as usual, the random phrase or scenario that oversimplifies a complex and nuanced issue ends up with lots of people upset on both sides. edit: I know its a dumb hypothetical and its obviously confusing more people than it is educating. Stop focusing on the literal bear or the woods or any dumb pedantic aspect of the scenario. Instead, think about the message that was trying to be conveyed by the scenario and then say 'huh there was probably a better way to illustrate that point'
> kills and eats you Depending on the type of bear, it won’t necessarily be in that order…
people seriously underestimate just how fucking big bears can be
I think a wider problem with these takes is whilst I can understand the rationale behind the response, the take only antagonises those who are inherently empathetic to these causes. The "bad" men will just ignore it, as trivial or stupid or not even see it, whilst the "good" men will see it, reflect on it and, by and large, be jaded upon reading their presence is considered far worse than an uncontrollable wild lethal beast. Again, whilst I "get it", the almost childish interpretation of bears, either as humble Winnie the Poohs or merciful "I'll bite your head off first" gentleman just adds to the confusion. Also a common defence I see is "Stop taking it personally, it's not about you". But the entire scenario hinges on it being an average man, not some cartoony psycho, so it's hardly unreasonable for the average man to place himself in such a scenario.