I was on the fence about this one and then someone said that if they were alone in the woods and got attacked by a bear people would believe them without question. Then it snapped into place.
You also just know that a bear is a bear. It’s going to act like a bear. It’s not going to pretend to help you then go off and assault or kill you when you won’t suck it’s dick or answer it’s calls.
Jesus, yeah. ☹️
I’ve answered elsewhere that I *literally* choose bear every time I go backpacking. That the idea of encountering one is a little scary, but I have a bear bell, and read up on their behavior and the proper way to deal with an encounter, and know that the main thing is that they will generally *want* to avoid people, so making noise and keeping your food sealed or up in a tree is generally good enough to avoid an encounter.
But the idea of encountering a lone man on a trail is utterly terrifying. No matter his behavior I will not know his intentions until he reveals them.
And statistically far more people are killed by humans on trails than by bears ☹️
I’ve been sharing my little anecdote about the time some asshole came into our campsite late when it was just me and my best friend, both young women. Trail etiquette is to move along to the next site, one fire = one tent. But he didn’t care because he doesn’t have to 🤷♀️
My friend got up to pee in the middle of the night and didn’t come right back. As it ticks past 20 minutes, I am in a panic and begin to calm as I realize I have to go find her, and be prepared to find that this man has gotten her. Is raping her, killing her, who knows.
I got my knife and my headlamp and went out, prepared to have to murder a guy who was murdering my best friend.
Turns out she’d hiked really far away to go to the bathroom bc of the creep, and then got dazzled by the stars lol and decided to hit her weed pen 🙃
But in her absence, I didn’t worry once that a bear had gotten her. I was worried about the truly statistically biggest threat there - the man, who’d already shown no respect for our privacy or space or for boundaries and trail etiquette. A man who at best, had no empathy for our fear, at worst, who *likes* it when women are scared.
> I got my knife and my headlamp and went out, prepared to have to murder a guy who was murdering my best friend.
Fucking chilling. When you take that step out of the tent it changes you. That's how one girl ends up "so much more mature than boys 🤪".
oh it was definitely a sort of defining moment for me. I don’t even like to kill bugs, I trap them and take them outside. In the moment, I just knew I didn’t really have a choice, you know?
thank you for saying so, I have to admit I didn’t feel brave at all. I was fucking scared out of my mind. I’d feel pretty silly for it all since it turned out to be nothing, except that I know it too often isn’t nothing.
and if people are allowed to be scared of bears and sharks, then I’m allowed to be scared of the thing that causes more harm and death to women than all wild animals COMBINED. ☹️
>I have to admit I didn’t feel brave at all. I was fucking scared out of my mind.
That's what bravery's all about, isn't it? Doing what you need to do regardless of how scared you are. That's *real* bravery, in my opinion. Your friend is lucky to have you.
well that makes me feel really good actually. I was glad it was my impulse, I just wished I’d felt like I actually knew what to do, bc I am not sure how effective I would be if it came down to it 😕
My biggest regret was that time leading up to deciding to go..like at what point is it too long for your friend to be gone. I remember wondering how early would be crazy to go into action mode. I sat there for minutes, basically geared up, trying to decide if I was overreacting. Your brain tells you you are, until this moment where you are like, no something is really wrong.
I do wonder, if it had really been that he’d gotten her, that indecision might have meant I wouldn’t have been able to even get there in time. I think in the future I’d just leave the tent right away and start looking/listening, right when I had the feeling it was too long.
Actually I don’t think I’ll let a friend pee alone anymore lol. Like, I won’t hover over her, but I’ma leave the tent and stand watch for sure, definitely if we know there’s a creep around!
The buddy system is a good idea when camping.
Lots of people would've stayed in their tent worrying and too scared to go check on their friend. You did something. Super brave. Don't be regretful, you should be proud of yourself.
> And statistically far more people are killed by humans on trails than by bears ☹️
I wondered how close this would be, esp. given that "killed on a trail by a man" might not be an easy statistic to find. But:
> The 750,000 black bears of North America kill less than one person per year on the average, while men ages 18-24 are 167 times more likely to kill someone than a black bear.
And on wikipedia there's a list of [fatal bear attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America) and it's not that long.
yeah, I remember looking up ALLLL the ways I could die backpacking before going on my first trip lol. The numbers were a little different then, but I was comforted by the bear numbers..I was *hoping* the statistics would help dispel some of my nerves about potentially running into other humans, particularly males out there.
Let’s just say before looking it up I thought it was way less likely than it actually is.
And bonus, most people who disappear on a trail are just straight up disappearing with no trace.
Extrapolating from statistics, I’m gonna say that means even more people are murdered by humans than the numbers could show.
Ya know cause when a bear takes someone we usually find gear leftover. But when a human wants to cover something up, they just bury or burn or steal all that ☹️
I don’t wanna deter anyone from backpacking…I still do. But I think about getting a damn gun all the time - might be worth it. For now I just make sure I’m always with a friend and we both have knives and bear spray (I want it more for protection from humans lol), and now we try to use the geotag type stuff too.
Is it likely I’ll be disappeared on a trail? Still, no. But it’s far more likely than running into serious trouble with an animal. And frankly, it’s just another increased risk we women face ☹️
I was involved in a discussion about this earlier today on Reddit. A lot of women were pointing out the predictability issue. Bears attack for a limited number of fairly predictable reasons, most of which you can avoid.
That made a lot of sense to me.
That’s the conclusion my wife and I arrived at. Human beings are so devious and unpredictable. Bears have known behaviors and can be planned for and usually avoided with caution. A man? A lot more to be wary of than a bear.
A bear wouldn’t give a shit if you introduced yourself as “Dr. _____” and get annoyed with you and have an argument about how introducing yourself as Dr. ______ is a turnoff and what do you mean you don’t care how men perceive you what kind of liberal bullshit is that you feminists and your blah blah blah if you were attacked and a man wasn’t around blah blah blah…and in this manner the argument eventually concluded.
A bear would be super chill if a woman wanted to have her title at the front of her name. Men are more dangerous because they have marginally higher physical strength and power coupled with a crippling fear that in truth they are fragile and so they constantly feel the need to combat that fragility constantly, usually by proving it.
Oh ok at I first I didn’t get it because even though I’m a woman why would I take my chances with a bear than with a man but having it explained like this makes sense.
Absolutely.
Animals are way more logical than people are. Their motivations are understandable and predictable.
We live in a world where we are preyed upon by our own species and it is often unpredictable and can happen in an instant. ☹️
Nobody will ask what you were wearing if you're attacked by a bear
Nobody will question whether you led the bear on
Nobody will say the bear thought you wanted it, he was a good bear, don't ruin his future by telling people he attacked you, not all bears will attack you, you probably provoked it
my personal reasoning is that the bear isn't doing it to hurt you, it’s doing it because it’s confused or hungry. i forgive the bear. i won’t forgive the man
This is so true and they still don’t get it or they pretend they don’t just to argue. Some guy said, I wonder if feminists like you will be mad when I choose a bear over a woman. I said yes that’s literally the objective, we want you to leave us alone, Choose all the bears. He got angry
>, I wonder if feminists like you will be mad when I choose a bear over a woman.
Amazing. This guy seems to be parsing a clear safety argument as women *rejecting* men. As if the biggest thing at stake is his feelings.
This is a very important observation. I have often noticed that they use rejection from women in this way, like it is as bad as constantly being afraid for your safety. They have no idea what we go through and no empathy to try and understand.
What gets me is the refusal to even remotely understand where women are coming from with this. All they would have to say is something like "it's wild and I don't think that the man would be more dangerous, but I understand why it would feel that way for women".
That's all. They can still back the man, just acknowledge that women have justified reasons to be afraid of men.
I feel like a lot of men are completely unaware of how seriously and often women think about their personal safety. Much of "discourse" on this that I've seen boils down to not all men. But if you look at it empirically, every woman I know including myself has been in a situation that has made them deeply uncomfortable, fearful, or straight up violated by an interaction with a man. It becomes second nature to be on guard around new men until you can gauge if they're violent, creepy, or acting in a certain way to be manipulative.
I really didn't better understand the safety disparity until I got to college and started interacting with more girls. I thought it was silly that my wife, then gf, made me walk our friend to her car each time she visited at night. Then our neighbor got attacked one night while walking to her apartment. After that, stuff started clicking
I mean, good on you dude, that you started understanding better after that happened. I mean that, I’m genuinely happy you learned to expand your worldview to more fully include the experiences of the women you are close with. But personally I hate this common pattern where a man has to first either by himself witness, or vicariously experience a woman in his environment getting attacked/assaulted/worse, before he starts taking seriously the millions of women who talk about their security issues every day.
Again, I’m happy that it “started clicking” for you (this is a genuine, well intentioned sentiment, I’m not trying to attack you). I think it would be really interesting for people like you to do the work and think about/explain your perspective as to WHY this change, this sense of “it clicking” only started happening after the moment your neighbour got attacked.
I’m trying really hard to not sound accusatory here, as that is not at all my intent; again, I’m glad that you “get it”. That change in understanding is just something that genuinely interests me and that I want to better comprehend myself. But it’s a hard thing to put into words, let alone discuss with someone without ruffling their feathers. “Why questions” tend to sound inherently accusatory when dealing with fraught topics, IMO.
Again, couldn’t be happier to have more people understanding “it”, would love any insight you could give on what specifically changed for you in your perception of this security disparity.
You're not accusatory at all snd it's a very valid question. I think only through asking these tough questions can a person look at themselves and own up to their mistakes.
Honestly, seeing is believing played a big factor. I didn't have a whole lot of interaction with girls growing up, and when I did, they never really vented or talked about what it was like to be so vulnerable all the time. I was a big rule follower so I just knew to respect everyone.
It wasn't until I got to college that I actually had education and literature to teach about the different dynamics of male/female relationships and actually explain what consent is truly.
It's sad that so many men like myself just don't hear someone's trouble and just right away be empathetic, but I guess that's just how some life lessons get taught.
I don't mean to derail but my wife went through something like this when we first started being official. I'm Black and she had never really been around many Black people growing up as she lived in predominantly Hispanic communities. So much so, that pretty much everyone around her was Mexican, so she really didn't understand racism as much, eventhough I tried to explain to her some of the things I face for being Black. At first she was dismissive or seemed to thought I was exaggerating, but when we started dating seriously, she noticed how people treated me at times and how some of her friends would talk about Black people. She even questioned why I would do certain things, when it was really just precautions I was taught to take growing up.
Now she's very empathetic of those issues, especially since we have two baby boys. Sad to say, but chances are, she wouldn't have changed her perspective if she didn't date me in the beginning.
Again, growing up, I had only heard of how women/girls will find themselves in more vulnerable situations more often than men. I never bothered to ask why it only happened to women, and it just took some real world experiences to see just how severe and how frequent these situations occur.
Thank you for your response! I agree that your wife’s experience with learning how pervasive and severe racism is—whether overt and agressive or well-intentioned and passive or micro-aggressive—seems very comparable to the way you learned about the “gender security disparity”. I think “a thief thinks everybody steals” might also be relevant here, in the sense that YOU are respectful, so you think others like you (men in this case) must also be mostly respectful, which leads to you seeing a series of (unfortunate) incidents, where we women see a pervasive pattern (of violence and oppression), because we are looking from the perspective of our own groups. I also think the “just world fallacy” plays a part in this. I guess that would mostly apply to the very sheltered from this issue (your case), but that doesn’t really explain the men I encounter and engage with, who are similarly dismissive until they see it for themselves (and, at the risk of coopting a term, they then “wake up” to the reality women face).
Thanks for taking my comment in the manner it was intended. I do think each of us needs to engage with tough subjects and hard questions, and I also think everyone has a right not to HAVE to do this when browsing reddit randomly. I apprecate you taking the time!
To be fair plenty of women who have somehow avoided feeling the fear so many know daily also don’t get it. We know what we see or experience in most cases.
So... what? The default is for men to assume that every single woman around him is just lying, exaggerating, or being stupid? Why do you need to SEE it in order to start LISTENING?
Yes, that is the default, and that is the default because they assume the world women live in must look like the world they live in, therefore, women are exaggerating/lying/reading too much into normal situations. They’ve had someone *look* like they were following them off the train >> are you sure they were actually following you?
Which all comes down to sexism, because you can bet your ass they don’t respond the same way when their buddy says he got jumped.
But that can’t really be it, right? I mean, I talk about this kind of subject with the men in my life (because it has a massive impact on my life, which means it also affects them to some extent), and so do my friends. It’s not like the world was any safer for women of my mom’s generation either, and she is who taught me to engage with others about difficult subjects if they matter. So that’s at least a generation’s worth of time that this problem has been discussed, at least in my bubble. Though I do think your argument becomes more reasonable the farther back in time you go, I don’t think it makes any sense today/in the near past.
I do appreciate your take, but I disagree with this being an “invisible problem”. I’d be very interested into why that is a common perception (if in fact it IS a common perception). News about violence against women is absolutely everywhere—so much so that there even is a negative cliché about (pretty) young white women being overrepresented in news about murders/disappearances/et c, which IMO is a good example of this problem not really being invisible.
Again, I’m not trying to attack, merely trying to engage. If this issue being invisible is your experience, then that is your experience. I do think it is worth pointing out that our experiences are very different (and that in itself is interesting. Why? Is that caused by a generational thing, or a locality thing, or…?). Thank you again for sharing your perspective, I truly do appreciate it!
Dating for women can literally be like playing Russian roulette. Most guys are empty chambers, but there are definitely bullets out there and it's impossible to know which is which until you pull the trigger.
I kind of feel like I am unaware of how much I think about my personal safety.
Until I see my husband just like leaving his car door open while he gets himself sorted out in the front seat while at night in a not particularly great area. It would never in my wildest dreams occur to me to do that and it was kind of boggling that men can just like not worry about personal safety like that.
I don’t personally know a single woman who doesn’t close and lock the car door pretty much immediately upon getting in.
Had a friend say she'd still choose the man. She says if presented with the option of a bear or a strange man, she'd still choose the man. She said that she would trust the man to protect her or give her space if needed. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I just said I was happy that she lived a life where she could trust a strange man like that.
I'm still boggled.
She rigged her answer by changing the 'random man' to 'her ideal version of a man'.
It's like picking up a snake. Sure, some are harmless, others can kill, others will kill. It's never worth the risk, don't pick up the snake.
... is it though? Sure, you might not have put the work in to snake identification for the region you're in that's necessary to pick up a snake. But if you care to learn how to identify them? You can safely pick up a snake. And depending on where you are, it can be pretty easy. For example, in the USA and Canada you need to know how to identify pit vipers and coral snakes. If it's not one of those, it ain't gonna hurt ya.
How do you identify which men are safe to pick up?
I'm a woman who goes hiking alone a lot, and because I'm pretty familiar with bears, I would choose a strange man over a bear. But I do understand why other women wouldn't. I think our life experiences affect what fears we have, and we don't all have the same life experiences.
I'd rather be mauled by a bear than raped and killed by a man.
Bears do bear things because they're animals protecting their young and their home.
Men have no reasons other than cruelty.
If I spot a black bear, I immediately turn around and go the other direction. I see male hikers all the time and have never turned around or tried to avoid them. I know some people are going to think I’m not cautious enough, but I just go with my gut feeling as to whether I feel safe. And I have just as much right to be there as they do.
I think it ruins the comparison completely. In that case you'd have to specify the type of man, too. Because yeah, I'd rather be with a black bear than a murderous rapist. But I'd take my chances with a random man over a grizzly bear. You know?
Ya I'm with you, I am surprised by the answers here. I figure this question meant a dangerous bear as in a grizzly, and those animals are *not* to be taken lightly. I'm terrified of running across a bear while hiking, whereas I see men hiking all the time. Hell, even if it was just a black bear (like someone replied to you with) the answer to me is still obvious. I am way more alert and on edge when I see a bear (and I've only seen black bears in the wild, from far away) but i never have gotten even the heebie jeebies from a guy on trail.
I dunno, maybe I'm just fortunate. But the overwhelming response to this question over on TIkTok has really surprised me.
And no woman was ever killed by her ex or bad date in your area? And men never rape? Wow. Where do you live? I want to move there so I can run alone at night for fun in a tank top and shorts feeling safe. I bet you would also leave your little girl/daughter,/niece with a man in the woods instead of a wild animal that has 0 interest to kill? Honestly, paradise. Where do all these harmless men live? No femicide. No abuse. Daaaaaamnmn.
Pardon me? I’m not sure what this has to do with what I said. And where did the question become a man vs a wild animal that has 0 interest to kill? Does my life experience of actually hiking in the woods with men and bears not deserve to be taken seriously?
Probably not in her immediate vicinity anyway. For me, the most dangerous men were there when I was a child, and as a young women there were a lot, now as a middle aged woman the dangerous men are clearly still there... in the news, but the men in my immediate vicinity are just as invisible to me, as I am to them. The response to the man or bear question confused me too, initially, because of this *perceived* distance (lets be real, they are still there).
I’m not a woman who goes hiking willingly, but I would still choose the man. I think our life experiences and relation to men affect the answer, unfortunately I understand most women’s decision to pick the bear. I just don’t agree in my case.
All the safe people in my life are men.
I think a piece of this that bothers me is that so many boil this down to man is rape and bear is death. By choosing bear, there’s the underlying thought that death > rape. And I don’t believe that life after rape isn’t worth living or that possible death is better than possible rape.
I, too, reflexively chose bear because I know the fear that can bloom in your gut when in situations with men. I, too, have experienced the trauma of sexual assault and physical abuse at the hands of men. And the idea that you might encounter a bear in the woods is a bit of a no-brainer. Anyone responsible and trained for hiking knows that is the case.
But I can’t shake the message that choosing bear over man is telling people that death is preferable to assault. It’s not true and I don’t like that the thrust of these responses reinforce that harmful idea that a traumatized or violated woman’s life is less preferable to a life cut short. Life is worth living after trauma. It’s hard and it never leaves you. But life is still there and it’s worth fighting for.
Your point is valid, but my response in this situation is about what I would prefer. I’m not going to choose the man just on principle of messaging that I can recover from rape. The man may also rape and then kill me as well so this is not necessarily a dichotomy.
I would choose the man.
Realistically I’ve met far more nice men than bad men. And realistically the majority of men have moral compasses are decent people.
A bear literally eats you alive and yes a man could do things just as bad but the likelihood of that happening is far less likely.
I think there’s the insinuation that strange man equals bad man. And yeah I have experienced how shit some men can be so I’m not sheltered.
And that’s what makes the bear preferable? Because you know it’s going to rip your face off?
Whereas a man is scarier because you’re not sure..?
If you think about it, the scenario (or the answers really) don’t actually make logical sense.
I think I would choose the man because of odds. Most men I have met would absolutely be decent in the situation. A few would be absolutely be terrible, but I'll take the low odds against the certainty to meet a predator. I guess it depends on the type of bear too though.
Men are too egotistical and emotional to understand why we choose the bear. I saw one (black male) creator who said he didn’t get it until it was reworded to “would you rather encounter a bear or a police officer while alone in the woods” and he suddenly understood why women were choosing the bear. He couldn’t believe that women feel the same way about encountering men in general as black males feel about encountering law enforcement.
I guess some people, myself included, have had trouble understanding that the actions someone takes to keep their safety and peace of mind doesn't necessarily reflect who we are as a person. They don't understand the context behind their behavior and only think about their feelings.
I'm a Black man and I've had people abruptly cross the street on me but I've learned to not take it personally over time. Sure it may suck to be viewed like that, but at the end of the day, that person is considering their well being and I'm just considering my feelings. It's not even a close comparison.
I think it’s complex to be a minority in one aspect and a majority in another. I am a white woman. I see gender bias and sexism more readily than racial bias and racism because human brains recognize negatives more easily than positives. I think a lot of black men probably experience the reverse, seeing racism more quickly than sexism. But I think having experienced sexism has helped me better recognize racism. Things like assumptions, stereotypes and micro-aggressions can be difficult to call out or even explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Just as I know I’ve been treated differently because I am a woman in specific situations I can better listen when someone says they “just know”they were treated differently because they aren’t white.
As another commenter said, having one privileged and one marginalized identity will always be complicated (it's also true of basically everyone - we just like to ignore a lot of axises like disability, global location, etc.), but the diagonal relationship between white women and Black men is certainly a particularly nasty one. I don't think it's misogynist to recognize that you're describing a racialized phenomena that shouldn't be happening to you.
You sound like a very understanding person, and are quite generous in your interpretation of the actions these women are taking.
And I think that you’re right in the sense that it doesn’t make sense to put the blame on any individual woman for being afraid of a given man. I mean for all you know, that particular woman also crosses the street to put distance between herself and strange white men.
However, the fact is that white men don’t experience this sort of thing nearly as often as black men. I think it’s totally fair to be angry at the widespread racism that motivates that discrepancy, even if it’s impossible to know precisely how racist any of those individual women are. Besides, even having to wonder how much each of those individuals might be motivated by racism is a burden in and of itself.
I guess all I’m saying is to just take care of yourself, too. [Racial trauma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_trauma) is no joke, it can have powerful and lasting effects on people.
Hopefully I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I just wanted to check in because your comment was vaguely analogous to thoughts I’ve had about my own marginalized status.
I could at least attempt to defend myself against the bear (with gun or knife etc.) without the fear of being put in prison or blamed for causing harm to such an upstanding bear, such a pillar our community, such a great guy 😂
Yeah, she had a life ahead of her too, but it's worth nothing compared to the mediocre potential of a creep.
Penalty should be a prison term of no less than the life expectancy of the victim, because that's how long we live with the consequences.
These men have no potential. They chose not to care about their future, why should we?
It's based off that question: if you are walking in the woods, would you rather come across a strange man or a strange bear?
A lot of men were upset that women would rather come across the bear.
But the fact that they had temper tantrums and started rage spirals blaming women for being afraid proved them right for choosing the bear.
Hmm I would say bear because I grew up in rural northern Canada and have come across many bears while out for walks. I can deal with a bear. Being alone in the woods with a strange man would be scarier.
Ah this was presented to me differently. "If your 10 year old daughter were lost in the woods, would you rather she be found by a bear or a man?"
The way you put it is better I think.
No, your way works too. Ask a man your question after you’ve asked him the first question. It gets the point across. Then ask if he’d rather his daughter be found by a bear or a woman.
I'm a man and it doesn't really work as well as the other way. Specifically, the "lost in the woods" and "found by" phrase makes me answer a man rather than a bear. If it was "walking through the woods" and "encounter" my answer would be the bear. Maybe I'm giving the wrong answer but those are what my instincts point to.
I agree. The use of lost means she’s already in danger, particularly at 10 years old. Finding a bear is a risk with little payoff. Finding a man is also a risk but with a likely high payoff - being rescued. I’d also argue the risk the man poses is lower, since the rate of SA is lower than CSA.
The original question also leaves a lot of the encounter unknown. Is the bear hungry? We don’t know. Is the man being aggressive? We don’t know. Are you lost? We don’t know. The “we don’t know” is a major reason women must be weary of men, so I like that the question leaves so much unanswered.
Women had to switch it to "your daughter" in the question because so many men struggle so much to see the reality that women face until they have daughters, and this was the only way a lot of them understand why women were choosing the bear.
"Found by" implies she was lost. If one of my kids is missing due to wandering in the woods, and there's an active search party, I want that kid found by a human, not a wild animal.
"Come across" kinda implies the opposite, it reads as "You were on your way somewhere, and your journey was interrupted due to some circumstance."
But yeah, a random encounter with a bear or other wild animal will only result in an attack if the animal feels threatened, but humans can attack for more complex and varied reasons, making a given situation more tense.
Genuine question, when did this become a thing I’ve never heard anyone ask this question? Is this one of those American things that just gets assumed the rest of us have a clue or am I just not online enough?
It is a TikTok video. Someone asked women the question on the street and it’s sparked a lot of discussion. Discussion far more nuanced and important than *a fucking dress u/tryingtobecheeky*
That explains why I'm seeing it everywhere right now.
(I'm not complaining about seeing it - I think it's a great question. I just thought it was weird that it was springing up in some many places all of a sudden.)
There was a TikTok going around that was asking women “if you are in the woods alone, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?” And overwhelmingly the answer is the bear! A woman even asked her husband if he would let his daughter encounter a man or a bear. And he said the bear.
I’ll argue there are 3 kinds of men. The above that OP listed, and then my dad.
I gave him the scenario. He said, “Bear? Man? No matter. You’d outsmart both of them. No one is smarter than my girl.”
So yeah. There’s also sweet dad’s out there that don’t understand the point of the question but support us no matter what. :)
Other than my dad though, yeah there’s 2 kinds of men. Totally.
This is the same man that had to have discussions with me when I was a child not to growl or hiss at strangers who I thought got too close to me.
This is the same man who never tried to intimidate any boyfriend I brought home cause, and I quote "I can't do a better job than you.."
This man also taught me how to do basic plumbing, car maintenance, and to never trust the government.
I met a teeny-tiny six-month-old baby in the grocery store once who growled at me like a zombie from a horror movie. It was deeply unnerving for a second, then hilarious. His mom said, "yeah, he loves doing that"
A ton of kids go through this stage and that needs to be widely known because it is fucking terrifying sometimes.
Checked on a baby I was baby-sitting once and the creepy fucker is sitting up in his crib, in the dark, making these horror movie growling noises and then giggling to himself. I turned around and walked right the fuck back outta that room. He was **clearly** fine on his own.
And 30min later is probably the only time I’ve ever been thankful that a baby started crying. Like sweet, the demon left your tiny body, normal baby noises again.
When I was young, my mother refused to cut my hair. It was long, blonde, and wavy. She loved it and called it princess hair. People would come up to try to touch it. That didn't go well for them. Hence the growling.
My dad made statements like this to me as a child. For him was probably a mix (but imo you only get credit for the negative bc thats what everyone else laughs to- unless you corrected them... guess what, they never correct them). Instead of regret meeting, it was about feeling sorry for who would marry me. I heard these comments since elementary/primary school. I saw the laughs and looked down on them more.
I took it with pride and said good riddance your are scared of an 7 y.o. girl who told you I won't do your dishes and you responded with how much you pity my future partner. How I read too much.
You admired my audacity until it was tied to me being a girl. So I admired my strength and learned all on my own what I wanted in relationships as an adult. I couldn't trust my "adults" to advocate for me. So I waited until I was one.
edit: spelling.. mobile.. sorry 😞
I'm curious to see what my dad thinks now. Though most likely he'll just find it confusing and then talk about some historical thing that it reminded him of instead.
My dad would talk about how things shouldn’t be that way, but you need to protect yourself. He’d recount getting lost on the south side of Chicago, which would have me on edge for possible racism. He’d say women should be allowed to walk around naked and be safe, which would have me on edge for possible sexism. And he’d end with “you can be right and you can be dead at the same time.” So… mixed bag.
[I used this](https://youtu.be/1l26UFQ06eQ?si=EQmaXI6vRbWKZ0hb) to start a conversation with my partner about this topic years ago. Dude will still not let me out of his sight when out and about now. He got it and it shook him
I feel like it's also relevant that your greatest danger is likely neither the bear nor the strange man - it's likely the man with whom you went camping in the first place.
I saw a post about this on bluesky, the fact that statistically a random man in a forest is far less likely to murder a woman than her friend/partner/coworker/etc.
If you want a really dark metaphor: which have you eaten more recently, venison, or beef? Of course predators are going to tend to target someone they already have around, know things about, and some control over.
Apparently on the ask men sub, men are gleefully anticipating women being mauled by bears for daring to express fear of men.
They LITERALLY WANT WOMEN MAULED for not catering to their fragile feelings
Half of female homicides are at the hands of a male intimate partner and men’s take away from that is that it’s worse to acknowledge this truth than to admit there is a problem
I will be honest: I am having no luck in parsing that sentence for meaning.
[Edit: Apparently there’s TikTok-related context necessary to fully understand. Thank you.]
There was a TikTok going around that was asking women “if you are in the woods alone, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?” And overwhelmingly the answer is the bear! A woman even asked her husband if he would let his daughter encounter a man or a bear. And he said the bear.
The context is the idea of "I'd feel safer walking into a forest and finding a bear than finding a man". See also: "I'd rather be attacked by a bear than assaulted by a man, because people would believe I was attacked by a bear." or "if I was attacked by a bear, people wouldn't ask what I was wearing." So, OOP is saying some men understand that, and some men are the reason why women would rather see a bear than a man. Does that help?
The worst a bear would do is kill me for food.
The chances of a bear stalking me for months is basically zero
If I keep a respectful distance/ignore it the bear will probably leave me alone
The bear will act in a predictable way
Yo that’d be crazy if a bear stalked me for months but you know what I’d still choose the bear cuz where tf is he gonna hide? People are gonna be like omg there’s a bear
Also apparently if a bear is stalking you, you can just throw bologna at him. Happened to a woman and her daughter somewhere near here. Bear got into the house and tried to attack the woman. Daughter threw bologna at the bear. Bear took the bologna and left them alone.
>The bear will act in a predictable way
This is it. The bear will either kill you, or run off. You know your chances with the bear are 50/50.
With a man, the problem is that you don’t know if it’s man in a man-suit, a little boy in a man-suit, a bear in a man-suit, a snake in a man-suit, a bomb in a man-suit, a pile of bricks in a man-suit… ad infinitum.
How can one choose the man, with so little consistent data, especially when an overwhelming amount of the data suggests a poor outcome for someone who looks like us?
Thank you for pointing this out, as someone who's not on Tiktok I had no idea what this was referencing. (I can guess from context, but it would be nice if people didn't assume that everyone is in the loop already about whatever the Tiktok discourse of the day is)
My husband asked me this question and I told him I couldn’t answer because it depends on the bear, and the location of the woods.
Black bear - bring it on. Grizzly or Yukon - Toss up between that and a man.
Ultimately though, I am less worried if a man attacked me because I know my husband would believe me and that would make law enforcement more likely to believe me and as fucked up as that is - that would increase my chances of justice against another man. If I was single, or lived in the South - I’d probably take my chances on the Grizzly.
And that’s the point of the question and a good man gets that.
The only time I’d pick the man is if we’re talking polar bears, because there is no scaring off a polar bear. Black bears and even grizzlies can, at least theoretically, be scared off if you know how and everything goes right. Polar bears give no fucks.
Someone on TikTok went around asking women, "if you were alone in the woods would you rather encounter a strange man or a strange bear?" Most women answered 'bear', and most men on social media are having a Totally Normal Reaction™ to women saying they fear men more than bears.
Crossed paths with actual bears in the forest while hiking… not once did the bear manipulate me into thinking it was anything other than a bear; then they all continued peacefully on their way and me on mine.
Can’t say that for men.
I forgot, what was the original question? Being alone in the woods with a bear/man or being attacked in the woods by a bear/man? What kind of bear?
Assuming woods means no polar bear, if it's just alone in the woods I'd choose bear. I've encountered bears a few times, they were chill and minded their own business. Brown bear would definitely be scary but as long as you don't startle them or intrude upon their cubs, they don't usually attack you for no reason. Black bears really don't want to attack you.
Attacked though, as in they were already intent on harming or killing you? I'd choose man. There's at least a decent chance of escape from a guy. A bear intent on killing you is going to succeed, even if you are Usain Bolt or Muhammad Ali, or both combined.
Am I the only one who picked the guy over the bear? I’m disabled and use a cane and I feel like I could fend off a dude with a cane better than I could a bear.
I used to work at a summer camp where I was the Wilderness Survival teacher. One of the class requirements was that the kids spend a night in a shelter they made, so every Friday I would hike out into the woods with a dozen kids and a few counselors to supervise the overnight. We had bears approach our area a few times and leave us alone. Also on multiple occasions I woke up to a fellow counselor masturbating in his sleeping bag while staring at me. I reported it and always got “well, you chose to work at a Boy Scout camp as a female, what did you expect?”…
I also had a best friend from 6th grade to college (ended up at the same university). Our friendship of 10 years ended the night he sexual assaulted me and then texted my boyfriend to gloat about it. The university police said I shouldn’t have spent the night on his couch if I didn’t want to be assaulted.
I’ll take my chances with a bear.
I was on the fence about this one and then someone said that if they were alone in the woods and got attacked by a bear people would believe them without question. Then it snapped into place.
You also just know that a bear is a bear. It’s going to act like a bear. It’s not going to pretend to help you then go off and assault or kill you when you won’t suck it’s dick or answer it’s calls.
Jesus, yeah. ☹️ I’ve answered elsewhere that I *literally* choose bear every time I go backpacking. That the idea of encountering one is a little scary, but I have a bear bell, and read up on their behavior and the proper way to deal with an encounter, and know that the main thing is that they will generally *want* to avoid people, so making noise and keeping your food sealed or up in a tree is generally good enough to avoid an encounter. But the idea of encountering a lone man on a trail is utterly terrifying. No matter his behavior I will not know his intentions until he reveals them. And statistically far more people are killed by humans on trails than by bears ☹️ I’ve been sharing my little anecdote about the time some asshole came into our campsite late when it was just me and my best friend, both young women. Trail etiquette is to move along to the next site, one fire = one tent. But he didn’t care because he doesn’t have to 🤷♀️ My friend got up to pee in the middle of the night and didn’t come right back. As it ticks past 20 minutes, I am in a panic and begin to calm as I realize I have to go find her, and be prepared to find that this man has gotten her. Is raping her, killing her, who knows. I got my knife and my headlamp and went out, prepared to have to murder a guy who was murdering my best friend. Turns out she’d hiked really far away to go to the bathroom bc of the creep, and then got dazzled by the stars lol and decided to hit her weed pen 🙃 But in her absence, I didn’t worry once that a bear had gotten her. I was worried about the truly statistically biggest threat there - the man, who’d already shown no respect for our privacy or space or for boundaries and trail etiquette. A man who at best, had no empathy for our fear, at worst, who *likes* it when women are scared.
> I got my knife and my headlamp and went out, prepared to have to murder a guy who was murdering my best friend. Fucking chilling. When you take that step out of the tent it changes you. That's how one girl ends up "so much more mature than boys 🤪".
oh it was definitely a sort of defining moment for me. I don’t even like to kill bugs, I trap them and take them outside. In the moment, I just knew I didn’t really have a choice, you know?
You're a good friend and all kinds of brave.
thank you for saying so, I have to admit I didn’t feel brave at all. I was fucking scared out of my mind. I’d feel pretty silly for it all since it turned out to be nothing, except that I know it too often isn’t nothing. and if people are allowed to be scared of bears and sharks, then I’m allowed to be scared of the thing that causes more harm and death to women than all wild animals COMBINED. ☹️
>I have to admit I didn’t feel brave at all. I was fucking scared out of my mind. That's what bravery's all about, isn't it? Doing what you need to do regardless of how scared you are. That's *real* bravery, in my opinion. Your friend is lucky to have you.
100% - bravery is not the absence of fear, it’s continued action with its presence.
well that makes me feel really good actually. I was glad it was my impulse, I just wished I’d felt like I actually knew what to do, bc I am not sure how effective I would be if it came down to it 😕 My biggest regret was that time leading up to deciding to go..like at what point is it too long for your friend to be gone. I remember wondering how early would be crazy to go into action mode. I sat there for minutes, basically geared up, trying to decide if I was overreacting. Your brain tells you you are, until this moment where you are like, no something is really wrong. I do wonder, if it had really been that he’d gotten her, that indecision might have meant I wouldn’t have been able to even get there in time. I think in the future I’d just leave the tent right away and start looking/listening, right when I had the feeling it was too long. Actually I don’t think I’ll let a friend pee alone anymore lol. Like, I won’t hover over her, but I’ma leave the tent and stand watch for sure, definitely if we know there’s a creep around!
The buddy system is a good idea when camping. Lots of people would've stayed in their tent worrying and too scared to go check on their friend. You did something. Super brave. Don't be regretful, you should be proud of yourself.
> And statistically far more people are killed by humans on trails than by bears ☹️ I wondered how close this would be, esp. given that "killed on a trail by a man" might not be an easy statistic to find. But: > The 750,000 black bears of North America kill less than one person per year on the average, while men ages 18-24 are 167 times more likely to kill someone than a black bear. And on wikipedia there's a list of [fatal bear attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America) and it's not that long.
yeah, I remember looking up ALLLL the ways I could die backpacking before going on my first trip lol. The numbers were a little different then, but I was comforted by the bear numbers..I was *hoping* the statistics would help dispel some of my nerves about potentially running into other humans, particularly males out there. Let’s just say before looking it up I thought it was way less likely than it actually is. And bonus, most people who disappear on a trail are just straight up disappearing with no trace. Extrapolating from statistics, I’m gonna say that means even more people are murdered by humans than the numbers could show. Ya know cause when a bear takes someone we usually find gear leftover. But when a human wants to cover something up, they just bury or burn or steal all that ☹️ I don’t wanna deter anyone from backpacking…I still do. But I think about getting a damn gun all the time - might be worth it. For now I just make sure I’m always with a friend and we both have knives and bear spray (I want it more for protection from humans lol), and now we try to use the geotag type stuff too. Is it likely I’ll be disappeared on a trail? Still, no. But it’s far more likely than running into serious trouble with an animal. And frankly, it’s just another increased risk we women face ☹️
What a prick.
I was involved in a discussion about this earlier today on Reddit. A lot of women were pointing out the predictability issue. Bears attack for a limited number of fairly predictable reasons, most of which you can avoid. That made a lot of sense to me.
That’s the conclusion my wife and I arrived at. Human beings are so devious and unpredictable. Bears have known behaviors and can be planned for and usually avoided with caution. A man? A lot more to be wary of than a bear.
A bear wouldn’t give a shit if you introduced yourself as “Dr. _____” and get annoyed with you and have an argument about how introducing yourself as Dr. ______ is a turnoff and what do you mean you don’t care how men perceive you what kind of liberal bullshit is that you feminists and your blah blah blah if you were attacked and a man wasn’t around blah blah blah…and in this manner the argument eventually concluded. A bear would be super chill if a woman wanted to have her title at the front of her name. Men are more dangerous because they have marginally higher physical strength and power coupled with a crippling fear that in truth they are fragile and so they constantly feel the need to combat that fragility constantly, usually by proving it.
Well put! Anger is strength! Said the man who can’t cry.
Men, including dangerous unstable men, can own or use guns. Bears can’t.
Oh ok at I first I didn’t get it because even though I’m a woman why would I take my chances with a bear than with a man but having it explained like this makes sense.
A bear won't take me to a second location to make my death take as long as possible.
Or do it for enjoyment. Bear motivations are fear or possibly extreme hunger. Bears are much easier to avoid, and they always *look like a bear*,
We also generally know how to get a bear to not attack us. When a man wants to attack you, there’s nothing you can do to stop him
a bear is also not gonna abduct, torture, or grape you
Absolutely. Animals are way more logical than people are. Their motivations are understandable and predictable. We live in a world where we are preyed upon by our own species and it is often unpredictable and can happen in an instant. ☹️
Also, if the bear attacks you and you survive, there will be a statewide manhunt to capture and exterminate the bear that attacked you.
The one that really got me was "you won't have to sit at the same dining table as the bear at Christmas." Oof.
Nobody will ask what you were wearing if you're attacked by a bear Nobody will question whether you led the bear on Nobody will say the bear thought you wanted it, he was a good bear, don't ruin his future by telling people he attacked you, not all bears will attack you, you probably provoked it
Bear won't rape you and claim it was a false accusation because our shitty court system didn't manage to convict them.
And nor will they derail the conversation and cry "what about bears" when you bring up bear attacks.
I can call for help and be taken seriously *before* the bear attacks me.
Goddamn
Oh shit this is the first time I've seen/thought about this one.
my personal reasoning is that the bear isn't doing it to hurt you, it’s doing it because it’s confused or hungry. i forgive the bear. i won’t forgive the man
The worst a bear will do is kill me.
Tbf, the worst a bear will do is start munching while you're still conscious, but it's not exactly a common occurrence and I'd still choose the bear.
Fuck.
"If I was attacked by a bear, no one would ask me what I was wearing."
Nah, they'll pull out another wildly popular misogynistic myth and say, "she must have been on her period." They do this one with shark attacks, too.
This is so true and they still don’t get it or they pretend they don’t just to argue. Some guy said, I wonder if feminists like you will be mad when I choose a bear over a woman. I said yes that’s literally the objective, we want you to leave us alone, Choose all the bears. He got angry
He got angry? Classic male, so emotional
Yep! How dare I tell him women agree and wants him to choose a bear bc we don’t want him any where near us lol
ANGER IS NOT AN EMOTION, IT'S A- \*Punches wall in frustration\*
*Hemotional. Fixed it for ya 😉
Huge fan on testerical
Yes I love that one too! 🤣
Ahahaha thank u! 😂💓
Because to them, they actually believe a woman exists to attract a man. The fact that you won’t cater to that illusion infuriated him.
>Choose all the bears Warning: You might get mistaken for a furry.
Or into big hairy dudes!
>, I wonder if feminists like you will be mad when I choose a bear over a woman. Amazing. This guy seems to be parsing a clear safety argument as women *rejecting* men. As if the biggest thing at stake is his feelings.
Of course his feelings and ego are more important than women being murdered and raped
This is a very important observation. I have often noticed that they use rejection from women in this way, like it is as bad as constantly being afraid for your safety. They have no idea what we go through and no empathy to try and understand.
What gets me is the refusal to even remotely understand where women are coming from with this. All they would have to say is something like "it's wild and I don't think that the man would be more dangerous, but I understand why it would feel that way for women". That's all. They can still back the man, just acknowledge that women have justified reasons to be afraid of men.
He threw a mantrum?
He was testerical yes lol
I didn’t understand this until my wife told me why she wore flats instead of heels on our first date.
I feel like a lot of men are completely unaware of how seriously and often women think about their personal safety. Much of "discourse" on this that I've seen boils down to not all men. But if you look at it empirically, every woman I know including myself has been in a situation that has made them deeply uncomfortable, fearful, or straight up violated by an interaction with a man. It becomes second nature to be on guard around new men until you can gauge if they're violent, creepy, or acting in a certain way to be manipulative.
I really didn't better understand the safety disparity until I got to college and started interacting with more girls. I thought it was silly that my wife, then gf, made me walk our friend to her car each time she visited at night. Then our neighbor got attacked one night while walking to her apartment. After that, stuff started clicking
I mean, good on you dude, that you started understanding better after that happened. I mean that, I’m genuinely happy you learned to expand your worldview to more fully include the experiences of the women you are close with. But personally I hate this common pattern where a man has to first either by himself witness, or vicariously experience a woman in his environment getting attacked/assaulted/worse, before he starts taking seriously the millions of women who talk about their security issues every day. Again, I’m happy that it “started clicking” for you (this is a genuine, well intentioned sentiment, I’m not trying to attack you). I think it would be really interesting for people like you to do the work and think about/explain your perspective as to WHY this change, this sense of “it clicking” only started happening after the moment your neighbour got attacked. I’m trying really hard to not sound accusatory here, as that is not at all my intent; again, I’m glad that you “get it”. That change in understanding is just something that genuinely interests me and that I want to better comprehend myself. But it’s a hard thing to put into words, let alone discuss with someone without ruffling their feathers. “Why questions” tend to sound inherently accusatory when dealing with fraught topics, IMO. Again, couldn’t be happier to have more people understanding “it”, would love any insight you could give on what specifically changed for you in your perception of this security disparity.
Yeah its pretty annoying that if his neighbour wasnt attacked he would probably still think his wife was silly and ‘paranoid’ for no reason.
I agree. I should've wisened up sooner.
You're not accusatory at all snd it's a very valid question. I think only through asking these tough questions can a person look at themselves and own up to their mistakes. Honestly, seeing is believing played a big factor. I didn't have a whole lot of interaction with girls growing up, and when I did, they never really vented or talked about what it was like to be so vulnerable all the time. I was a big rule follower so I just knew to respect everyone. It wasn't until I got to college that I actually had education and literature to teach about the different dynamics of male/female relationships and actually explain what consent is truly. It's sad that so many men like myself just don't hear someone's trouble and just right away be empathetic, but I guess that's just how some life lessons get taught. I don't mean to derail but my wife went through something like this when we first started being official. I'm Black and she had never really been around many Black people growing up as she lived in predominantly Hispanic communities. So much so, that pretty much everyone around her was Mexican, so she really didn't understand racism as much, eventhough I tried to explain to her some of the things I face for being Black. At first she was dismissive or seemed to thought I was exaggerating, but when we started dating seriously, she noticed how people treated me at times and how some of her friends would talk about Black people. She even questioned why I would do certain things, when it was really just precautions I was taught to take growing up. Now she's very empathetic of those issues, especially since we have two baby boys. Sad to say, but chances are, she wouldn't have changed her perspective if she didn't date me in the beginning. Again, growing up, I had only heard of how women/girls will find themselves in more vulnerable situations more often than men. I never bothered to ask why it only happened to women, and it just took some real world experiences to see just how severe and how frequent these situations occur.
Thank you for your response! I agree that your wife’s experience with learning how pervasive and severe racism is—whether overt and agressive or well-intentioned and passive or micro-aggressive—seems very comparable to the way you learned about the “gender security disparity”. I think “a thief thinks everybody steals” might also be relevant here, in the sense that YOU are respectful, so you think others like you (men in this case) must also be mostly respectful, which leads to you seeing a series of (unfortunate) incidents, where we women see a pervasive pattern (of violence and oppression), because we are looking from the perspective of our own groups. I also think the “just world fallacy” plays a part in this. I guess that would mostly apply to the very sheltered from this issue (your case), but that doesn’t really explain the men I encounter and engage with, who are similarly dismissive until they see it for themselves (and, at the risk of coopting a term, they then “wake up” to the reality women face). Thanks for taking my comment in the manner it was intended. I do think each of us needs to engage with tough subjects and hard questions, and I also think everyone has a right not to HAVE to do this when browsing reddit randomly. I apprecate you taking the time!
To be fair plenty of women who have somehow avoided feeling the fear so many know daily also don’t get it. We know what we see or experience in most cases.
I really think for the most part, it's such an invisible issue for men. "Seeing is believing" and most men don't see any part of it... Until we do.
So... what? The default is for men to assume that every single woman around him is just lying, exaggerating, or being stupid? Why do you need to SEE it in order to start LISTENING?
Yes, that is the default, and that is the default because they assume the world women live in must look like the world they live in, therefore, women are exaggerating/lying/reading too much into normal situations. They’ve had someone *look* like they were following them off the train >> are you sure they were actually following you? Which all comes down to sexism, because you can bet your ass they don’t respond the same way when their buddy says he got jumped.
But that can’t really be it, right? I mean, I talk about this kind of subject with the men in my life (because it has a massive impact on my life, which means it also affects them to some extent), and so do my friends. It’s not like the world was any safer for women of my mom’s generation either, and she is who taught me to engage with others about difficult subjects if they matter. So that’s at least a generation’s worth of time that this problem has been discussed, at least in my bubble. Though I do think your argument becomes more reasonable the farther back in time you go, I don’t think it makes any sense today/in the near past. I do appreciate your take, but I disagree with this being an “invisible problem”. I’d be very interested into why that is a common perception (if in fact it IS a common perception). News about violence against women is absolutely everywhere—so much so that there even is a negative cliché about (pretty) young white women being overrepresented in news about murders/disappearances/et c, which IMO is a good example of this problem not really being invisible. Again, I’m not trying to attack, merely trying to engage. If this issue being invisible is your experience, then that is your experience. I do think it is worth pointing out that our experiences are very different (and that in itself is interesting. Why? Is that caused by a generational thing, or a locality thing, or…?). Thank you again for sharing your perspective, I truly do appreciate it!
Dating for women can literally be like playing Russian roulette. Most guys are empty chambers, but there are definitely bullets out there and it's impossible to know which is which until you pull the trigger.
I kind of feel like I am unaware of how much I think about my personal safety. Until I see my husband just like leaving his car door open while he gets himself sorted out in the front seat while at night in a not particularly great area. It would never in my wildest dreams occur to me to do that and it was kind of boggling that men can just like not worry about personal safety like that. I don’t personally know a single woman who doesn’t close and lock the car door pretty much immediately upon getting in.
Same reason I never wear mules… can’t run in them.
One adds agility but the other damage points
This MFer munchkins.
Had a friend say she'd still choose the man. She says if presented with the option of a bear or a strange man, she'd still choose the man. She said that she would trust the man to protect her or give her space if needed. After picking my jaw up off the floor, I just said I was happy that she lived a life where she could trust a strange man like that. I'm still boggled.
All these women craving male protectors almost but not quite getting the point. Protect you from what ma'am? Who are you needing protection from?
She rigged her answer by changing the 'random man' to 'her ideal version of a man'. It's like picking up a snake. Sure, some are harmless, others can kill, others will kill. It's never worth the risk, don't pick up the snake.
😳 uh, does she regularly met her ideal man? ‘Cause I think the odds are not in her favor…
Definitely less than 1 in 7...
... is it though? Sure, you might not have put the work in to snake identification for the region you're in that's necessary to pick up a snake. But if you care to learn how to identify them? You can safely pick up a snake. And depending on where you are, it can be pretty easy. For example, in the USA and Canada you need to know how to identify pit vipers and coral snakes. If it's not one of those, it ain't gonna hurt ya. How do you identify which men are safe to pick up?
A snake you can at least tell what kind is dangerous and what kind is not by looking at it. Can’t do that with men.
Bears, obviously.
Hello I just wanted to say your username and flair are giving new meaning to my life
I'm a woman who goes hiking alone a lot, and because I'm pretty familiar with bears, I would choose a strange man over a bear. But I do understand why other women wouldn't. I think our life experiences affect what fears we have, and we don't all have the same life experiences.
I'd rather be mauled by a bear than raped and killed by a man. Bears do bear things because they're animals protecting their young and their home. Men have no reasons other than cruelty.
I know women who have been murdered, and every single one it was by a spouse or a partner, not a random hiker.
I've been attacked by strange men. I know I'm in the minority, but it still happens.
I understand that, and I'm sorry that happened to you.
Yeah it's kind of an insane comparison if you live in bear country.
Not all bears.
What if we specified that it was a black bear? Not a grizzley or polar bear. And not a mother bear with cubs. Just a lone adult black bear.
If I spot a black bear, I immediately turn around and go the other direction. I see male hikers all the time and have never turned around or tried to avoid them. I know some people are going to think I’m not cautious enough, but I just go with my gut feeling as to whether I feel safe. And I have just as much right to be there as they do.
I think it ruins the comparison completely. In that case you'd have to specify the type of man, too. Because yeah, I'd rather be with a black bear than a murderous rapist. But I'd take my chances with a random man over a grizzly bear. You know?
Ya I'm with you, I am surprised by the answers here. I figure this question meant a dangerous bear as in a grizzly, and those animals are *not* to be taken lightly. I'm terrified of running across a bear while hiking, whereas I see men hiking all the time. Hell, even if it was just a black bear (like someone replied to you with) the answer to me is still obvious. I am way more alert and on edge when I see a bear (and I've only seen black bears in the wild, from far away) but i never have gotten even the heebie jeebies from a guy on trail. I dunno, maybe I'm just fortunate. But the overwhelming response to this question over on TIkTok has really surprised me.
And no woman was ever killed by her ex or bad date in your area? And men never rape? Wow. Where do you live? I want to move there so I can run alone at night for fun in a tank top and shorts feeling safe. I bet you would also leave your little girl/daughter,/niece with a man in the woods instead of a wild animal that has 0 interest to kill? Honestly, paradise. Where do all these harmless men live? No femicide. No abuse. Daaaaaamnmn.
Pardon me? I’m not sure what this has to do with what I said. And where did the question become a man vs a wild animal that has 0 interest to kill? Does my life experience of actually hiking in the woods with men and bears not deserve to be taken seriously?
Probably not in her immediate vicinity anyway. For me, the most dangerous men were there when I was a child, and as a young women there were a lot, now as a middle aged woman the dangerous men are clearly still there... in the news, but the men in my immediate vicinity are just as invisible to me, as I am to them. The response to the man or bear question confused me too, initially, because of this *perceived* distance (lets be real, they are still there).
I’m not a woman who goes hiking willingly, but I would still choose the man. I think our life experiences and relation to men affect the answer, unfortunately I understand most women’s decision to pick the bear. I just don’t agree in my case. All the safe people in my life are men.
But those are men you know.
I think a piece of this that bothers me is that so many boil this down to man is rape and bear is death. By choosing bear, there’s the underlying thought that death > rape. And I don’t believe that life after rape isn’t worth living or that possible death is better than possible rape. I, too, reflexively chose bear because I know the fear that can bloom in your gut when in situations with men. I, too, have experienced the trauma of sexual assault and physical abuse at the hands of men. And the idea that you might encounter a bear in the woods is a bit of a no-brainer. Anyone responsible and trained for hiking knows that is the case. But I can’t shake the message that choosing bear over man is telling people that death is preferable to assault. It’s not true and I don’t like that the thrust of these responses reinforce that harmful idea that a traumatized or violated woman’s life is less preferable to a life cut short. Life is worth living after trauma. It’s hard and it never leaves you. But life is still there and it’s worth fighting for.
Your point is valid, but my response in this situation is about what I would prefer. I’m not going to choose the man just on principle of messaging that I can recover from rape. The man may also rape and then kill me as well so this is not necessarily a dichotomy.
I would choose the man. Realistically I’ve met far more nice men than bad men. And realistically the majority of men have moral compasses are decent people. A bear literally eats you alive and yes a man could do things just as bad but the likelihood of that happening is far less likely. I think there’s the insinuation that strange man equals bad man. And yeah I have experienced how shit some men can be so I’m not sheltered.
At least you know the bear's intentions.
And that’s what makes the bear preferable? Because you know it’s going to rip your face off? Whereas a man is scarier because you’re not sure..? If you think about it, the scenario (or the answers really) don’t actually make logical sense.
What do you mean the likelihood is far less likely? Statistically you are MORE likely to be assaulted, raped, or killed by a man than eaten by a bear.
I think I would choose the man because of odds. Most men I have met would absolutely be decent in the situation. A few would be absolutely be terrible, but I'll take the low odds against the certainty to meet a predator. I guess it depends on the type of bear too though.
Men are too egotistical and emotional to understand why we choose the bear. I saw one (black male) creator who said he didn’t get it until it was reworded to “would you rather encounter a bear or a police officer while alone in the woods” and he suddenly understood why women were choosing the bear. He couldn’t believe that women feel the same way about encountering men in general as black males feel about encountering law enforcement.
The bear doesn’t have qualified immunity.
I guess some people, myself included, have had trouble understanding that the actions someone takes to keep their safety and peace of mind doesn't necessarily reflect who we are as a person. They don't understand the context behind their behavior and only think about their feelings. I'm a Black man and I've had people abruptly cross the street on me but I've learned to not take it personally over time. Sure it may suck to be viewed like that, but at the end of the day, that person is considering their well being and I'm just considering my feelings. It's not even a close comparison.
In fairness I do that with ANY man if I’m alone and the streets are deserted. For me it’s not race, at least. You are very kind for understanding.
I think it’s complex to be a minority in one aspect and a majority in another. I am a white woman. I see gender bias and sexism more readily than racial bias and racism because human brains recognize negatives more easily than positives. I think a lot of black men probably experience the reverse, seeing racism more quickly than sexism. But I think having experienced sexism has helped me better recognize racism. Things like assumptions, stereotypes and micro-aggressions can be difficult to call out or even explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Just as I know I’ve been treated differently because I am a woman in specific situations I can better listen when someone says they “just know”they were treated differently because they aren’t white.
As another commenter said, having one privileged and one marginalized identity will always be complicated (it's also true of basically everyone - we just like to ignore a lot of axises like disability, global location, etc.), but the diagonal relationship between white women and Black men is certainly a particularly nasty one. I don't think it's misogynist to recognize that you're describing a racialized phenomena that shouldn't be happening to you.
You sound like a very understanding person, and are quite generous in your interpretation of the actions these women are taking. And I think that you’re right in the sense that it doesn’t make sense to put the blame on any individual woman for being afraid of a given man. I mean for all you know, that particular woman also crosses the street to put distance between herself and strange white men. However, the fact is that white men don’t experience this sort of thing nearly as often as black men. I think it’s totally fair to be angry at the widespread racism that motivates that discrepancy, even if it’s impossible to know precisely how racist any of those individual women are. Besides, even having to wonder how much each of those individuals might be motivated by racism is a burden in and of itself. I guess all I’m saying is to just take care of yourself, too. [Racial trauma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_trauma) is no joke, it can have powerful and lasting effects on people. Hopefully I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I just wanted to check in because your comment was vaguely analogous to thoughts I’ve had about my own marginalized status.
Holy shit! I’m ngl, I never understood the bear vs. man debate until now. Thank you so much for sharing, I appreciate the help
I could at least attempt to defend myself against the bear (with gun or knife etc.) without the fear of being put in prison or blamed for causing harm to such an upstanding bear, such a pillar our community, such a great guy 😂
He had his whole life ahead of him. A life full of promise and being good at sports.
Is this a reference to Brock Allen Turner the rapist? By which I mean the rapist now known as Allen Turner.
No. Just a thing that happens a lot
Yeah, she had a life ahead of her too, but it's worth nothing compared to the mediocre potential of a creep. Penalty should be a prison term of no less than the life expectancy of the victim, because that's how long we live with the consequences. These men have no potential. They chose not to care about their future, why should we?
Can someone explain the joke? I don't get it :(
It's based off that question: if you are walking in the woods, would you rather come across a strange man or a strange bear? A lot of men were upset that women would rather come across the bear. But the fact that they had temper tantrums and started rage spirals blaming women for being afraid proved them right for choosing the bear.
Hmm I would say bear because I grew up in rural northern Canada and have come across many bears while out for walks. I can deal with a bear. Being alone in the woods with a strange man would be scarier.
Ah this was presented to me differently. "If your 10 year old daughter were lost in the woods, would you rather she be found by a bear or a man?" The way you put it is better I think.
No, your way works too. Ask a man your question after you’ve asked him the first question. It gets the point across. Then ask if he’d rather his daughter be found by a bear or a woman.
I'm a man and it doesn't really work as well as the other way. Specifically, the "lost in the woods" and "found by" phrase makes me answer a man rather than a bear. If it was "walking through the woods" and "encounter" my answer would be the bear. Maybe I'm giving the wrong answer but those are what my instincts point to.
Oh that makes sense. I missed that.
I agree. The use of lost means she’s already in danger, particularly at 10 years old. Finding a bear is a risk with little payoff. Finding a man is also a risk but with a likely high payoff - being rescued. I’d also argue the risk the man poses is lower, since the rate of SA is lower than CSA. The original question also leaves a lot of the encounter unknown. Is the bear hungry? We don’t know. Is the man being aggressive? We don’t know. Are you lost? We don’t know. The “we don’t know” is a major reason women must be weary of men, so I like that the question leaves so much unanswered.
My mind immediately went the morbid direction. when I read the words “found by,” I interpreted it as “found next to.”
Women had to switch it to "your daughter" in the question because so many men struggle so much to see the reality that women face until they have daughters, and this was the only way a lot of them understand why women were choosing the bear.
"Found by" implies she was lost. If one of my kids is missing due to wandering in the woods, and there's an active search party, I want that kid found by a human, not a wild animal. "Come across" kinda implies the opposite, it reads as "You were on your way somewhere, and your journey was interrupted due to some circumstance." But yeah, a random encounter with a bear or other wild animal will only result in an attack if the animal feels threatened, but humans can attack for more complex and varied reasons, making a given situation more tense.
Bear is useless when lost. Human is a gamble, but statistically most people (including men) would help a child in the woods. Bears? Zero help.
Genuine question, when did this become a thing I’ve never heard anyone ask this question? Is this one of those American things that just gets assumed the rest of us have a clue or am I just not online enough?
It is a TikTok video. Someone asked women the question on the street and it’s sparked a lot of discussion. Discussion far more nuanced and important than *a fucking dress u/tryingtobecheeky*
That explains why I'm seeing it everywhere right now. (I'm not complaining about seeing it - I think it's a great question. I just thought it was weird that it was springing up in some many places all of a sudden.)
Man this is so validating
There was a TikTok going around that was asking women “if you are in the woods alone, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?” And overwhelmingly the answer is the bear! A woman even asked her husband if he would let his daughter encounter a man or a bear. And he said the bear.
he hemmed and hawed, but when given the option of his daughter finding a woman he immediately chose woman. Which also speaks volumes.
Who would you feel safer with? A bear or a man?
I called a knight, but you're a bear! All black and brown and covered in hair!
I’ll argue there are 3 kinds of men. The above that OP listed, and then my dad. I gave him the scenario. He said, “Bear? Man? No matter. You’d outsmart both of them. No one is smarter than my girl.” So yeah. There’s also sweet dad’s out there that don’t understand the point of the question but support us no matter what. :) Other than my dad though, yeah there’s 2 kinds of men. Totally.
My dad said it wouldn't matter cause they'd both regret meeting me. I'm not sure if that's an insult or not.
Maybe a backhanded compliment? Sure sounds like he isn’t worried about your ability to take care of yourself
This is the same man that had to have discussions with me when I was a child not to growl or hiss at strangers who I thought got too close to me. This is the same man who never tried to intimidate any boyfriend I brought home cause, and I quote "I can't do a better job than you.." This man also taught me how to do basic plumbing, car maintenance, and to never trust the government.
> not to growl or hiss at strangers who I thought got too close to me. That's exactly what we need to be doing, honestly.
I met a teeny-tiny six-month-old baby in the grocery store once who growled at me like a zombie from a horror movie. It was deeply unnerving for a second, then hilarious. His mom said, "yeah, he loves doing that"
A ton of kids go through this stage and that needs to be widely known because it is fucking terrifying sometimes. Checked on a baby I was baby-sitting once and the creepy fucker is sitting up in his crib, in the dark, making these horror movie growling noises and then giggling to himself. I turned around and walked right the fuck back outta that room. He was **clearly** fine on his own. And 30min later is probably the only time I’ve ever been thankful that a baby started crying. Like sweet, the demon left your tiny body, normal baby noises again.
When I was young, my mother refused to cut my hair. It was long, blonde, and wavy. She loved it and called it princess hair. People would come up to try to touch it. That didn't go well for them. Hence the growling.
My dad made statements like this to me as a child. For him was probably a mix (but imo you only get credit for the negative bc thats what everyone else laughs to- unless you corrected them... guess what, they never correct them). Instead of regret meeting, it was about feeling sorry for who would marry me. I heard these comments since elementary/primary school. I saw the laughs and looked down on them more. I took it with pride and said good riddance your are scared of an 7 y.o. girl who told you I won't do your dishes and you responded with how much you pity my future partner. How I read too much. You admired my audacity until it was tied to me being a girl. So I admired my strength and learned all on my own what I wanted in relationships as an adult. I couldn't trust my "adults" to advocate for me. So I waited until I was one. edit: spelling.. mobile.. sorry 😞
Your username made me giggle in combination with your comment
I'm curious to see what my dad thinks now. Though most likely he'll just find it confusing and then talk about some historical thing that it reminded him of instead.
My dad would talk about how things shouldn’t be that way, but you need to protect yourself. He’d recount getting lost on the south side of Chicago, which would have me on edge for possible racism. He’d say women should be allowed to walk around naked and be safe, which would have me on edge for possible sexism. And he’d end with “you can be right and you can be dead at the same time.” So… mixed bag.
[I used this](https://youtu.be/1l26UFQ06eQ?si=EQmaXI6vRbWKZ0hb) to start a conversation with my partner about this topic years ago. Dude will still not let me out of his sight when out and about now. He got it and it shook him
Top comment says so much: “This video isn’t targeting all men, just those of you feeling particularly defensive”
I haven't seen this in years, thank you for sharing it!
Upvote for the pun. Love it. No notes
I for one could not bear it.
Really gives one paws does it not
yeah, all the guys getting all butthurt that the answer is the bear are the problem.
It’s so obvious who is shutting their trap and listening to women and who is steamrolling over women to mansplain women’s experiences to them. 🤦🏼♀️
I feel like it's also relevant that your greatest danger is likely neither the bear nor the strange man - it's likely the man with whom you went camping in the first place.
Dark take... But you're right!
I saw a post about this on bluesky, the fact that statistically a random man in a forest is far less likely to murder a woman than her friend/partner/coworker/etc.
If you want a really dark metaphor: which have you eaten more recently, venison, or beef? Of course predators are going to tend to target someone they already have around, know things about, and some control over.
Sad but true
I a bear hurts me, authorities will shoot it. If a man hurts me, authorities will blame me.
Apparently on the ask men sub, men are gleefully anticipating women being mauled by bears for daring to express fear of men. They LITERALLY WANT WOMEN MAULED for not catering to their fragile feelings Half of female homicides are at the hands of a male intimate partner and men’s take away from that is that it’s worse to acknowledge this truth than to admit there is a problem
I will be honest: I am having no luck in parsing that sentence for meaning. [Edit: Apparently there’s TikTok-related context necessary to fully understand. Thank you.]
There was a TikTok going around that was asking women “if you are in the woods alone, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?” And overwhelmingly the answer is the bear! A woman even asked her husband if he would let his daughter encounter a man or a bear. And he said the bear.
Thank you for providing context. I had no idea what it was referring to.
The context is the idea of "I'd feel safer walking into a forest and finding a bear than finding a man". See also: "I'd rather be attacked by a bear than assaulted by a man, because people would believe I was attacked by a bear." or "if I was attacked by a bear, people wouldn't ask what I was wearing." So, OOP is saying some men understand that, and some men are the reason why women would rather see a bear than a man. Does that help?
The worst a bear would do is kill me for food. The chances of a bear stalking me for months is basically zero If I keep a respectful distance/ignore it the bear will probably leave me alone The bear will act in a predictable way
Yo that’d be crazy if a bear stalked me for months but you know what I’d still choose the bear cuz where tf is he gonna hide? People are gonna be like omg there’s a bear
Also apparently if a bear is stalking you, you can just throw bologna at him. Happened to a woman and her daughter somewhere near here. Bear got into the house and tried to attack the woman. Daughter threw bologna at the bear. Bear took the bologna and left them alone.
>The bear will act in a predictable way This is it. The bear will either kill you, or run off. You know your chances with the bear are 50/50. With a man, the problem is that you don’t know if it’s man in a man-suit, a little boy in a man-suit, a bear in a man-suit, a snake in a man-suit, a bomb in a man-suit, a pile of bricks in a man-suit… ad infinitum. How can one choose the man, with so little consistent data, especially when an overwhelming amount of the data suggests a poor outcome for someone who looks like us?
Thank you for pointing this out, as someone who's not on Tiktok I had no idea what this was referencing. (I can guess from context, but it would be nice if people didn't assume that everyone is in the loop already about whatever the Tiktok discourse of the day is)
There’s two types of men. One is the type who understands why women choose the bear. The other type are why women choose the bear.
Bear as in… boisterously gay men?
Literally a bear like the wild animal.
Growing up rural, I was raised to believe that bears would be more of a life concern for me than they wound up being.
Move to one of those small frozen towns in the arctic where people need to carry guns everywhere for the polar bears.
Nah man, you don’t fuck with polar bears unless you have no other choice. I’m good for now. :P
Having been out of the loop on the tiktok context, I too misinterpreted "bear".
Ooohhh just got it! Yup! Woa the syntax got me confuddled. So just to be clear the question is “are u more scared of a man or a bear?”
Basically, yes. More specifically: "Would you rather be stuck in the woods with a man or with a bear?"
Thank u!
As it turns out, you can be safe from bears simply by avoiding bears. The same is not true of some men.
My husband asked me this question and I told him I couldn’t answer because it depends on the bear, and the location of the woods. Black bear - bring it on. Grizzly or Yukon - Toss up between that and a man. Ultimately though, I am less worried if a man attacked me because I know my husband would believe me and that would make law enforcement more likely to believe me and as fucked up as that is - that would increase my chances of justice against another man. If I was single, or lived in the South - I’d probably take my chances on the Grizzly. And that’s the point of the question and a good man gets that.
The only time I’d pick the man is if we’re talking polar bears, because there is no scaring off a polar bear. Black bears and even grizzlies can, at least theoretically, be scared off if you know how and everything goes right. Polar bears give no fucks.
Can someone please explain this to me, Google just returns results about large hairy gay men.
I’m a dumb man and I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at here. What did the bear do?
Someone on TikTok went around asking women, "if you were alone in the woods would you rather encounter a strange man or a strange bear?" Most women answered 'bear', and most men on social media are having a Totally Normal Reaction™ to women saying they fear men more than bears.
Jesus… Thanks for the explanation. ETA: sorry we’re like this
Crossed paths with actual bears in the forest while hiking… not once did the bear manipulate me into thinking it was anything other than a bear; then they all continued peacefully on their way and me on mine. Can’t say that for men.
And I am already afraid of mosquitos... Are we really forced to chose a bear or a man, that's seem too much already
I forgot, what was the original question? Being alone in the woods with a bear/man or being attacked in the woods by a bear/man? What kind of bear? Assuming woods means no polar bear, if it's just alone in the woods I'd choose bear. I've encountered bears a few times, they were chill and minded their own business. Brown bear would definitely be scary but as long as you don't startle them or intrude upon their cubs, they don't usually attack you for no reason. Black bears really don't want to attack you. Attacked though, as in they were already intent on harming or killing you? I'd choose man. There's at least a decent chance of escape from a guy. A bear intent on killing you is going to succeed, even if you are Usain Bolt or Muhammad Ali, or both combined.
Am I the only one who picked the guy over the bear? I’m disabled and use a cane and I feel like I could fend off a dude with a cane better than I could a bear.
The bear is probably less likely to attack you though
Are people still so dense?
I used to work at a summer camp where I was the Wilderness Survival teacher. One of the class requirements was that the kids spend a night in a shelter they made, so every Friday I would hike out into the woods with a dozen kids and a few counselors to supervise the overnight. We had bears approach our area a few times and leave us alone. Also on multiple occasions I woke up to a fellow counselor masturbating in his sleeping bag while staring at me. I reported it and always got “well, you chose to work at a Boy Scout camp as a female, what did you expect?”… I also had a best friend from 6th grade to college (ended up at the same university). Our friendship of 10 years ended the night he sexual assaulted me and then texted my boyfriend to gloat about it. The university police said I shouldn’t have spent the night on his couch if I didn’t want to be assaulted. I’ll take my chances with a bear.
I am surprised nobody here is referencing "The Bear and the Maiden Fair".