Man vs. Bear: How are so many men missing the point?
I had planned to let the question of “Man or Bear” pass me by, but it seems to have taken hold in the current zeitgeist and generated a heated discussion.
(As a completely unnecessary aside, zeitgeist is simply a wonderful word — I know there is a “right way” to translate words but zeitgeist deserves a lazy mistranslation. Zeit is German for time and Gheist means ghost or spirit, so zeitgeist definitely means “time ghost” as far as I am concerned.
I love words.)
In case you are blissfully unaware of the issue, a trend began on Tiktok, where all modern trends seem to begin, posing a question to different people. Women were asked if they would rather find themselves in the woods with a random man or a bear. Fathers were asked if they would rather their daughter was alone in the woods with a random man or a bear.
In almost all scenarios people, especially women, have been choosing bear over man and this has led to a gobsmacking number of men completely missing the point of the hypothetical and showing the world exactly why so many women would rather a bear.
Predictably, there have also been plenty of men who have rushed to fall all over themselves in an attempt to display their toxic masculinity publicly over the issue.
For example, there have been many men who have seen it necessary to mansplain that, actually, bears are quite dangerous because they have teeth and claws and such.
Well done guys, you’ve shown incredible levels of wisdom and respect for others by making it clear that you think women are too stupid to know what a bear is.
Just a stunningly hot take.
You can’t act in a very obvious, implicitly misogynistic way and then claim to not be a misogynist, you just can’t.
There have also been the men responding by saying they hope that women get F***ed by a bear or murdered for daring to feel that a bear is less of a threat than a random man.
This is supposed to convince women that men are less of a threat by… openly being a threat and wishing harm upon them?
Another display of unparalleled genius and wisdom, bravo guys.
I am no big fan of man-bashing in general, but so often so many of you embarrass the hell out of me. There are a lot of you that make all men look like stupid, violent thugs because you can’t keep your moronic thoughts to yourself and it has got to stop.
Who wouldn’t choose bear?
There are a whole pile of reasons that I am struggling to see what a lot of these men are aiming for when taking offense at women’s choice.
One thing that I am finding difficult to understand is why it should be strange that a woman would rather encounter a strange bear than a strange man.
I, as a man, would also choose bear virtually every time and I have significantly less to fear from random men than most women do.
Bears are fairly simple, predictable animals — if you do not give them a reason to harm you they are likely to ignore you or feel spooked by your presence and leave. Men, on the other hand, are hard to read. Most of them may indeed be harmless, but you cannot count on every man being equally harmless because we know for a fact that they aren’t all that way.
Check the statistics anywhere on the planet: If a man, woman, or child is going to be threatened, attacked, tortured, murdered, or raped, it is almost always going to be perpetrated by a man. Every single human being on this planet has infinitely more to fear from men than they do from bears.
Bears kill out of fear or desperation.
Men kill for perceived slights.
Men kill for rejection or embarrassment.
Men kill for a difference of opinion.
Men kill to make a point.
Men kill for fun and pleasure.
Men kill for profit or status.
Men kill for any one of a million different reasons, and killing isn’t the worst thing that a man can do to you.
I would much rather be mauled to death by a bear than tortured by a human.
I’m far more afraid of a random, potentially unhinged, man than I am of a hungry bear and, again, as a man I have less to fear from other men when compared to the vast majority of women. I do not walk around in fear of the people around me, but if I were walking in the woods I would be a lot more cautious upon encountering some random man than some random bear going about its business.
I feel like the people getting offended about women choosing the bear are either in denial of just how dangerous and deadly men often prove to be to women, or are failing to truly think the question through.
A long history of abuse with no simple solution.
Women have been suffering physical, emotional, and sexual violence at the hands of larger, stronger men for arguably all of human history. Denying this simple, obvious fact does no good for anyone.
Some men wonder why women seem to have an almost instinctive fear of men; I suggest that this might have something to do with millennia of being taught to fear men, not through some feminist conspiracy but rather the very real horrors that some men visit on women. If dangerous men were removed from the equation, most women would have very little to fear in their day to day lives, some men manage to represent the greatest threat that most women will ever have to deal with.
I was careful to say “some men” because I know there are a horde of people out there waiting to leap in to scream “Not me! Not all men!”
I know you’re there because you are always there. I can understand where you are coming from because yes, not me, I am not one of those men, how dare anyone suggest that I might be.
The argument is not about all men, it is about how there are enough men that abuse women to ruin things for everyone.
There are enough bad apples out there that the vast majority of women have had multiple frightening, uncomfortable, or outright dangerous and harmful encounters with men.
Those bad apples have spoiled the entire bunch. Once you’ve bitten into a “moldy apple” (or a few dozen, as some women have) you might find yourself losing your appetite for apples or looking at every apple with suspicion, as a potential mouthful of moldy, disgusting mush. If you are a good man, or a good apple, and are upset with women that they view you with suspicion, you are angry at exactly the wrong people.
Women are the same as men in that they do not want to be hurt, you cannot blame them for the fact that there are too many men that teach women that even safe-looking men can be very frightening and dangerous.
Women aren’t the problem in this equation.
The other major factor is that there is, unfortunately, no easy way to screen for these bad apples and identify them ahead of time.
“I’m a nice guy, why won’t she give me a chance?”
I’m sure we have all seen an argument along these lines and given it relatively little thought, heck maybe you’ve even said this line once or twice yourself. What seems to be ignored so often is the fact that the last three men to abuse that woman probably used the same line, probably claimed to be a good guy who deserved a chance and turned out to not be such a good guy after all.
Women are, depressingly, most likely to experience violence at the hands of a man they know and trust; a family member, a friend, a lover, a husband.
Abusers are almost universally known to think of themselves as “good guys” and call themselves such to anyone who asks.
They learn what kinds of words and actions make you look safe and trustworthy so that they can disguise themselves and approach their intended victims under the persona of a “nice guy.”
Can you really blame a woman for not trusting your word when taking people at their word has bitten her so many times before?
Can you blame women for being cautious and distrustful when pick up artists and serial cheaters have learned to say the right things, to act like they support women, to talk up how trustworthy and good they are only to drop the mask and reveal the monster once it is too late for her to get away?
Can you really blame them for the fact that bad men often look and act the exact same way as good men, right up until they don’t anymore?
A little predictability is good
The reason so many women are choosing the bear is because with a bear you know exactly what you are dealing with. The bear is going to act like a bear and do bear things, it is predictable and can be “trusted” to only get violent with you if you present a threat.
A random man might be the sweetest, gentlest man you’ve ever encountered, he might be the kind of person who would lay down his life without a second thought to help someone else.
More likely though, he could be someone who acts like a sweet and gentle man until he is certain that he has a woman isolated and alone before dropping the act and making his selfish intentions known.
The danger of a bear is fairly predictable and that predictability brings with it a certain sense of power and safety, you know what to expect and how to keep yourself reasonably safe. The danger of a man is often highly unpredictable; perhaps there is no danger, perhaps there is an emotional risk because he is a cheater, perhaps there is a risk to your life because he is the kind of man that loves to watch a woman suffer — you cannot possibly know until it is often far too late.
If we want women to be less fearful and distrustful of men, we need to put in the effort to explicitly teach boys and men to do better. We need to explicitly teach them that women are equals and should be treated as such, with all the respect and consideration they afford to other men.
We need to stop making excuses for molesters, rapists, and abusers; no one is ever “asking for it” no matter how they are dressed or where they are or what time of night it is.
Most of all, we need to take accusations seriously and ensure that we are punishing the bad apples. We need to weed out all the worst examples of masculinity so that men can be seen as predictably safe and trustworthy.
The knee-jerk reaction many men seem to have to this suggestion is to claim that it is giving women too much power, that it is putting men at risk of false accusations and having their reputation tarnished.
I feel like this is very telling — If you truly aren’t part of the problem, then you should have nothing to fear.
If you are one of the many men that seem to fear #MeToo or any suggestion that we should hold men accountable for their actions, I have to ask:
What did you do (or are still doing) that you don’t want us to find out about?
What exactly is it that you have to be afraid of?
