So, I’m just assuming we’ve all seen the discussions about the bear.
Personally I feel that this is an opportunity for everyone to stop and think a little about it.
The knee-jerk reaction from many men seems to be something along the lines of “You would choose a dangerous animal over me? That makes me feel bad about myself.” which results in endless comments of the “Akchully… according to Bayes theorem you are much more likely to…” kind.
It should be clear by now that it doesn’t lead to good places.
Maybe, and I’m open to being wrong, but maybe the real message is women saying: “We are scared of unknown men.”
Then, if that is the message intended, what do we do next? Maybe the best thing is just to listen. To ask questions. What have you experienced to make you feel that way?
I firmly believe that the empathy we give lays a foundation for other people being willing to have empathy for the things we try to communicate.
It doesn’t mean we should feel bad about ourselves, but just to recognize that someone is trying to say something, and it’s not a technical discussion about bears.
What do you think?
Wildly enough… get ready for this one… I’m a chick. I took the time to say thank you so much for explaining it. But you can’t honestly genuinely tell me that you would rather be faced with a literal wild bear from actual nature, than another human being… that’s something for a therapist and not for the internet… and if you’re one of those chicks who genuinely feels that terrified of men, you need to speak to somebody because it’s not natural. And if you’re one of those chicks that gets wildly crazily madly offended to the point where they think they’d rather be trapped in a room with a wild animal with teeth and Claws that see you as food then be around another human being with an opinion, you also need a therapist, because it’s the internet. It’s not life or death… which it absolutely would be with a whole actual bear in the room.
A bear wouldn’t possibly beat or torture me or rape me. A bear wouldn’t try to kidnap me and lock me in its basement as its personal sex slave. A man might. A bear would simply try to eat me or run away, it’s predictable. But go off about how it’s totally safe to run into a strange man in the woods as a woman. 🙄
As a guy, I don’t know shit about women, but bears are absolutely famous for being unpredictable. That’s why they’re considered dangerous. Not like moose, which are dangerous for being gigantic and incredibly dumb.
Bears also love in the woods, so it’s pretty normal for bears to be there. There’s a decent chance it’s just minding its business. I wouldn’t want to be around a bear, but I also wouldn’t want to be around a man with bad intentions.
Humans are also absolutely famous for being unpredictable, fwiw
Like just rearrange your sentence… men also live on planet Earth so it’s pretty normal for men to be there there’s a decent chance it’s just minding it’s business I wouldn’t want to be around a man but I also wouldn’t want to be around a man with bad intentions do you see how shitty that sounds when you say you don’t want to be around all men? Because of men with bad intentions? All bears will eat you not all men will rape you
This means nothing. We’re talking about wild animals in their natural habitat. Most animals in their natural habitat want to be left alone. Humans are not natural prey or threats to bears, so they generally wouldn’t want to fight or hunt a human.
I think that’s something that needs to be taken up with men (because it’s impossible to pick out just the ones with bad intentions).
That’s part of the problem.
The other part of the problem is the fact that being alone in the woods and spotting a bear minding its business sounds like a normal event. Being alone in the woods and spotting a strange man sounds like an abnormal event.
Bears don’t really hunt humans. Some men do hunt women. And there’s enough of them (and it could be any man) that a lot of women are afraid of strange men.
Take it up with the men.
Another part of the problem is seeing a man in the woods and Assuming he’s a murderer instead of thinking oh maybe he’s geocaching or maybe he’s hunting or maybe he’s collecting mushrooms or maybe he’s a photographer or maybe he just likes being in the woods or maybe he’s going fishing or maybe he has a family that he’s providing for or maybe he’s an artist like there are so many other things to think of a man in the woods then oh my God this man is going to rape murder and stalk me to death I’m going to die. The ‘othering’ of men is an actual danger to society.
Men aren’t raised by bears… maybe we should take it up with the women who are raising the men.
Lmao, so you’re just sexist, huh?
Sounds like everyone on this thread is… men aren’t inherently fucking dangerous just because you are scared of them
…yikes. Have fun living in your world. So glad I don’t live there.
I see you’re one of the 2/3 of women who haven’t been sexually assaulted by a man. That’s good, I’m glad for you. But, as a man and in view of those statistics, I have to say it’s entirely justified for most women to prefer the bear.
That there is not true as well… I’ve been assaulted more than most. I’ve been a sex worker. But I’ve also been in the woods and seen what an actual bear looks like and did not fucking stick around. It’s a bear… I don’t know what everybody doesn’t get about that it’s a bear.
Alright, so I’m on team “alone in the woods with a bear”, but since you want to talk statistics, let’s talk statistics and the heteronormativity embedded in your statistics.
The figure I’m familiar with is that 1/4 of women have been sexually assaulted. Maybe you have a figure that says 1/3, that’s fine. But crucially, these figures do not say who did it. What you’ve made is an assumption that women only get sexually assaulted by men. Personally, I think that the vast, vast majority of sexual assaults on women are done by men. But not all. I don’t believe you can transfer those two statistics - women sexually assaulted and women sexually assaulted by a man - 1:1.
Let me explain where I’m coming from. Half of transgender and nonbinary people have been sexually assaulted. That’s double the number of women! This factor, double, is consistent across sources I’ve seen that investigate both figures with the same methodology. You might have a source that says 1/3 of women are sexually assaulted, that’s fine, but the ones that investigate rates for both women and trans people say it’s twice as many trans people.
I could go ahead and assume, if I wanted, that half of all trans people have been sexually assaulted by a cis person. That’s the same assumption you made that 1/3 or 1/4 of women have been sexually assaulted by a man. But it’s a bad assumption. I know lots of trans people who’ve been sexually assaulted, and most of the time it was by a fellow trans person. You see, trans people have our own community that’s isolated from the cisgender dating scene as a matter of safety, and that means isolated, lonely people let their guard down around fellow transes and the victims can’t get away from their abusers, nor are trans friends of trans abusers willing to give up a social network in which the abuser is embedded. It’s messy and disgusting and it wouldn’t be a problem if cis people just accepted us, but it’s where we are. I would be wrong to assume all rapists of trans people are cis people.
And I read way too deep into your comment and got a vibe that you were making the assumption that all sexual abusers of women are men. You probably don’t actually think that and didn’t mean to make any kind of implication along those lines. So I’m just leaving this comment as a general reminder not to use heteronormativity to inform our statistical analyses.
and it’s entirely justified for a devout religious person to avoid sin.
and i will think they are an asshole if they go around telling me how sinful and awful i am for not believing what they believe.