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is the man or bear thing rhetorically or optically the perfect feminist meme that is beyond criticism? no.
but is it leaps and bounds better at getting men to understand the material consequences of patriarchy on the physical and emotional health of women than that stupid “kill all men” meme from last decade? definitely.
New thing I thought of, new idea, on top of all the other shit, about like, women vs man vs bear, right. If you choose the man, the chances that the average woman can outrun the average man I think are pretty high. I think the psycho outlier males maybe skew that stat a little bit, but I think on average, the chances are pretty good, and if I remember right, women can even, on average, run for longer than the average man. I dunno about faster, so the initial chase would probably matter more there, but, yeah. On the other hand, you can't outrun a bear, since they can get up to like 40-50 miles per hour and can pivot and maneuver way better on account of their quadripedaliness.
So I think probably that should be a good factor in the decision making, on top of all the other stuff.
Okay but now that I've got you locked in, I think I want to like. The hypothetical, the meme, is interesting, because it's obviously bait, right? Like it's obviously just something that's meant to be divisive but "illustrative", or something. It's not really successful at being illustrative and inspiring empathy, and as this meme posts, reading bell hooks would probably be a better maneuver for most men, or just like, engaging with a woman's experience of the world generally in good faith, or like, treating them like they're smart fellow human beings instead of just bringing up some counterpoint every five minutes that the chick's already thought of, and then instead of bringing it up as like a good faith question they bring it up in a way where it's like primed to treat the woman's stupid. But I dunno, maybe people just don't know how to talk, really. Small talk, sure, but real talk, no way.
Uhhh, but what I was saying, the original meme is bait, right? And it's so obviously bait that it sort of, I think, inspires two separate reactions. One treats the meme seriously because it's so absurd, right. Usually the male response, right, the idea is that we've never really had to think "oh do I take a man on this hike so I can feel more safe, or do I go alone, who can I trust to go along with me", right, the thought process would be more along the lines of like "who do I take on this hike". Existing in a male as default state, the idea is maybe that men are going to be less predisposed to gendered thinking because they don't need to think that way out of self-preservation, or culturally ingrained bias, or whatever. This doesn't mean they aren't biased, right, but it's sort of like, the white dude that's got a lot of racist notions floating around but then they don't realize it, it's implicit. So there's like, not good faith engagement, but like just total acceptance of the premise as an absurd notion to be toyed around with, right, sort of along the lines of, as I've heard another commenter say, along the lines of "what animal could I take in a fight" kind of discussions.
I think then women are maybe more likely to, on the opposite side of what I just said, actually relate more to the premise, treat it less as absurd maybe, or maybe understand more that it's meant to try to illustrate a point or get at something, and then with their responses they're going to do the same. Try to use their responses to get at something or illustrate some principle rather than just being like "oh I dunno I could probably take a bear in a fight" level shit. Like no shit that's not what they're getting at.
So, I dunno, in conclusion, the meme was primed to be bait from the onset, and, it's never not going to be bait, and, from the way social media works, the bait engagement is encouraged, the bad faith engagement is encouraged, yadda yadda. I think I will say, to put on my meme criticism hat for a moment, of this meme, this meme either operates on the assumption that someone will google bell hooks, or that someone already knows who she is, so that's kind of, narrowing the audience to those who already know, and probably don't need it as much. I'd probably go with like a bell hooks' book passage or quote which is both productive in itself for people to hear, and can maybe also drive traffic towards a book of hers. Maybe make the talking head quote that passage and then the chad soyjack can pog up on hearing it or be crying or whatever. Also I'd probably replace the "black woman" soyjack with a bell hooks specific soyjack, but that might be too high effort.
Also looked up bell hooks while writing this, didn't know she was dead as of 3 years ago, RIP to a real one, that sucks.
The initial expression of the poll regarding the bear hypothetical was categorically not intended as bait, but rather a sincere reflection of women's lived experiences.
The further out from the onset of the trend we get, yes, I agree with being more critical of those using this meme to get a rage reaction. However, while it is not the perfect rhetorical feminist meme, it is crucial to ensure that women are not silenced or even asked to soften their language when they speak out against sexual assault and rape culture.