Important clarification/FAQ
I am not calling to coddle or excuse the behavior of bigoted men in any way!
I am calling to be kind and understanding to young men (often ages 10-20) who are very manipulable and succeptible to the massive anti feminist propaganda machine. Hope this clarifies that very important distinction. :)
Very good comments that express key points:
- Detailed summary of the situation if you're wondering what's going on
- The rhetorical value of the bear hypothetical and what this means for you
- One example of why the long-term rhetorical value of the hypothetical is poor, in the context of intersectionality
- What does disenfranchisement mean in this context?
- The importance of not asking women to tone down their expressions of fear and frustration
- "But why can't they just say it nicely?"
- The importance of participation in kindness toward young men, specifically outside the context of people speaking their experiences
Edit: This post has now been removed and restored twice. I want to encourage you all:
Be decent to one another
I think this post is a valuable thing given the current state of the Fediverse, please don't fuck it up for us by being toxic in the comments.
Those young men should also choose the bear. If we explained that to them, and why, maybe the next generation wouldn't need to.
I mean, I'm a man getting to the point where I'm entering the "No longer young" decade, but I'd take the bear. People are less predictable than bears. I don't want to be isolated from civilization with ANY stranger.
It's exactly this. A bear is a bear. Known quantity. Likely to leave you alone, and you're in his space. A man? Possibly fine. Possibly gonna do some bad stuff. Why is he even there? Who knows!
People are really bad at risk calculations. Bears just aren't that risky by comparison.
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bears/safety.htm
Somebody on youtube really needs to do a skit where a woman treats a random dude in the woods the same way they would a real bear encounter.
Women receive more training on men safety. Keys in hand between their fingers. Eyes averted. Never walk alone. Don't go out at night. Cross the Street if men are coming. Cover your drinks. Cross your legs. Don't dress provocatively. Don't reject them outright.
Women are on high alert all the time. That's why the bear threat is meaningless to them.
I think you're misunderstanding the point of the meme then
Not really. It's saying to soften the language. I disagree. I say explain the language and why that level of anger is justified. The boys will quickly realize and be told that it's not about them. They'll likely also be just as mad at the s*** that goes on.
Kids are smart. If you tell them that women would pick a bear because a small percentage of men rape a large percentage of women, they'll get that.
Women: "men are horrible rapists"
Men who are not rapists: "hey that's pretty insulting"
Women: "oh not you, you're one of the good ones"
Men who are not rapists: "oh well in that case please proceed with your sexism"
??
Dogs bite people. Never pet a dog you don't know.
Outlets shock people. Always check the fuse is off at the circuit breaker.
Men are strong and brave. We draft them for war.
You're hearing a sound bite and jumping to conclusions because your brain thinks it's about you and gets defensive. It's not about you. Not everything is about you. That's was the hardest thing for me to learn as a generic white dude. Some things aren't about me, aren't for me, and that's ok.
I feel like you are overlooking the fact that bears are dangerous too! Yeah, you will probably be fine. But you might get mauled. I don't think anyone is arguing there is zero risk to being alone in the woods with a random man. It's a question of which is more dangerous. The original bear vs man statement is so vague that it's hard to answer scientifically but I maintain my original stance that most women who were alone in the forest with a random bear would choose to switch to a random man once they realized what that felt like.
I think what many men, myself included, find rather upsetting is the assessment of the risk men represent by feminists. If someone said "I would rather jump out of an airplane with a trash bag for a parachute than fly next to a Muslim" that would be offensive to Muslims. Even if you tried to justify that statement with your reply above... it would still be offensive.
Let's assume, though it's silly, that death is inevitable in the scenario. A bear isn't going to torture you or rape you. It's a quick death. Can man guarantee me the same?
Making some weird race comparison is racist because someone's race doesn't dictate their maximum cruelty. However, their species does.
But if there were some religion where you only got into heaven by torturing people slowly, then your analogy would be apt. Those people on a whole would have a higher maximum cruelty.
This isn't really true though? Bears aren't cold calculated killers. If you were to fully accept death, slit your own carotid, whatever, sure, that would work, you'd die within like the next thirty seconds, whatever, which, I guess you could do in either scenario really, so, kind of a moot point. But bears, man, getting attacked by a bear is brutal. I dunno how many post-bear attack victims you've seen but it's not pretty or quick. Bears will bat at you with their claws defensively if you try to defend yourself at all, down to the bone, they'll put their weight on top of you and crush in your ribcage making it extremely hard to breathe and impossible to scream, leading to internal bleeding, and then when you're incapable of movement because your spinal column is crushed and the adrenaline starts wearing off, it drags you off where it can start gnawing on you and ripping out your entrails.
Bear attacks are pretty horrifying, getting attacked by wildlife is no joke. I feel like a lot of people don't have firsthand knowledge, but the bears, they are grisly.
Most countries literally have laws against that, they're just not applied to straight white men😂
Dogs bite people. But better to pet a dog than a lion.
Outlets shock people. I'd rather use an electric heater than set a fire in my house.
This is the bear meme. It's not about the thing. It's about the comparison.
Honestly I think if you gave them the same choice, they'd pick bear too. Bear or a man who has on average 75% more muscle mass and 90% more strength than you. He is also 93% likely to be gay. Now you might be in the forest with your nice and normal gay neighbor and have a totally lovely time! Or you might get one of those gay priests who just want to rape you repeatedly. Which do you pick? Man or bear?
That's a lot closer to the choice women are making.
Source on average difference of male to female strength https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205132404.htm
What the fuck is any of this
it's a poorly framed joke about gay subculture, in which a "bear" is a big burly hairy gay dude.
Many do. Why is why we have MGTOW and Andrew Tate
How are they choosing the bear? Both of those are actively hostile towards women, they don't just "go their own way" to chill with the bear
Choosing the bear is how one starts on either path. Then they get manipulated by hate spreaders and fraudsters.
Because...men....make up ~80% of all murder victims, in addition to 90% of the perpetrators? According to the UN's 2019 homicide study?
That's why men fall into frothing inceldom and whatever Andrew Tate is doing? Because they share statistically just as much risk regarding other men as women face from men, just for a predominantly different crime?
Because that's why they need to be choosing the bear, and that just doesn't sound right...
You're using the bear analogy wrong. If the bear analogy was about statistics, they'd choose the human because statistically speaking, many, many more people are helpful than harmful. Especially compared to a dangerous wild animal.
People pick the bear because they themselves have been hurt too many times or have heard of people being hurt too many times. There is a perception that the bear is safer.
That can go both ways. And often people choosing the bear can be in a vulnerable state, which the likes of Andrew Tate preys on.
By its nature, there can't be an "if." Any conversation based around assessed probability of violence will at some point necessarily revolve around violence statistics. One cannot make an accurate decision otherwise, and it would cease to be any sort of statement at all. Would you rather choose between gleeps or glorps.
You're not incorrect in the other points you're making. I highly appreciate them, they're well said, and you come off like you've given this considerable thought and attention. But the perception is there because it's also a reality. The stories everyone has or knows someone who has are not fairy tales far away wherever they film the news and, statistically speaking, a random bear in the vicinity is leagues more predictable than a human, less aggressive as a result, and less dangerous should it become aggressive on account of the possibility of rape and torture.
Given the choice -- while it isn't nearly as likely from an animal that doesn't know what humans are and mostly wants to avoid the whole mess as much as I do if allowed -- I would also elect to be killed by the bear. That should be giving people pause and encourage them to reflect on the current dynamic and what can be done to fix it, and I would charitably like to think that it does. I've also met people before and they tend to dig in when they hear things they don't already agree with instead of becoming as curious as they should, but I'd like to think that it does, at least for one person.
The way one deals with bears does not work for men, because there IS no reliable way to deal with men should they turn aggressive. Not even pepper spray, if they've experienced it before or are just particularly plucky that day. You're supposed to run afterwards because your assailant can and will fight through it in much the same way a bear will not. I learned both these facts at about the same age, and I'm angry about that, and I'm angrier that there's not a women in my family, or even a woman that I know, that hasn't been assaulted at least once and/or subsequently murdered.
Your standing argument about the whole deal, if I understand it, boils down to, "Yes, but how many men didn't rape you when they could have? Talking about your experiences is making them more likely to choose that path themselves out of insult, but probably if you're nice enough they'll rape you less." ...And I'm hoping you can see how that thought process sounds insultingly unhinged as well as being a little bit to the left of the point.
In painting it as only an overactive perception, you don't sound in my opinion like you think it's as pervasive as it actually is, or that it should be the center of the problem. Your trick of the light is my maternal grandmother, whose crime scene got me interested in forensics. My mom. Her friend, killed after the divorce went through. My best friend when she was eight. Me.
I already know the risks, and I usually don't get a say in whether I'm going to experience them. And yet, whenever I or anyone else ask why we as a society consider it completely normal to sell and carry Man Spray, more men than one would hope are going, "Violence? What violence? What you need to do is let your guard down around me specifically. I don't like it. You wouldn't want to keep making me upset."
In regards to Andrew Tate, my understanding is his followers flock to him (and similar ideologies) because he makes them feel like they belong somewhere, gives them a checklist to follow defining what success looks like, and someone to blame. His draw is the utter blowing emotional wasteland men are trapped in, still expected to be soulless robotic workers but bereft of the worth their role as Man Of The House used to have.
The role a lot of them were raised to fill doesn't exist anymore. A lot the things they were taught to value, women can provide for themselves if they even want those things at all. Can't ask for help with the crushing weight of it, because they either fear being or absolutely have been rejected for daring to try. Can't carry it alone, you'll shoot yourself eventually.
Their needs are very real, and a severe problem. The way they've tried to cure it isn't even a mistake, it's just that the group they turned to for belonging happened to be predatory.
That said, the statement, "Women are so used to being assaulted and beaten to death that they lowkey never stop scanning for threats and would like to know: what if y'all stopped that?" and the statement, "men are so isolated and emotionally under-served that they buy muscle cars and perhaps tiki torches about it" are still two very different things. I'd say one of those groups isn't meeting with violence nearly as often as the other, but they are. That's the problem.
What if we looked at why people keep picking the bear and took stock of what needs to be done? No... we'll just have more rage again. We had rage for dinner last night.
Woah woah woah, hold the fuck on for two fucking seconds.
First of all, as I said before, this shit goes both ways. Men do this too.
Secondly, I did NOT say that using our perceptions is a bad way to make decisions. Multiple experienced incidents and multiple stories can create a perception of danger, and that perception may be wrong at times, but it can also be dead on at critical moments. It is a survival tactic that serves people well in general.
Ah, sorry, I took it for granted that we were on the same page about it being irrational. Taking the worst experience you've ever had, and expecting it to happen all the time, is a trauma response. It's understandable, but it is in no way reasonable. I wish we could acknowledge that without women claiming we're dismissing their lived experiences.
It's a bit more complicated than simply taking the worst experiences someone has ever had.
Every experience, every story from friends, every story in the news, heck even portrayals in fiction, contribute to someone's perception of an event, object, person or even group.
Now place yourself in the position of your average woman. You hear rape stories on the news, probably known a few people that have been SA'd if it hasn't happened to you personally, and you've almost certainly had a few close calls at least. Are you telling me you wouldn't have your guard up?
Having your guard up is understandable and perfectly rational. Implying that all or most men are rapists is not rational at all. Saying that the average man is more dangerous than a bear is not rational at all. It's no more rational than someone who gets mugged by a black man suggesting that black people are criminal thugs.
Replace sex with race and you see how bad the viewpoint is.
I agree with your general point but I don't think these things are really comparable or exchangeable in any way. Or at least, not in that kind of way of like, word search, replace, kind of thing. More complicated than that, for the fact that they exist together and not separately. The whole like, white women accusing black men of being rapists in order to get them lynched because they're racist, thing, that exists on the same continuum, as a phenomenon, as the like, classic stats of male on female SA. Even on a larger scale the like, using female sexuality and purity as a way to justify racism is a thing that exists on the same continuum. I dunno, I guess I'm just advocating for things to be more complicated than just like the word search replace shit, which I see quite a lot, and I think it misses the point a little bit. Still agree with your general point though.
yes, very true very true, your core point is true