About the bear...
About the bear...
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?
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Yeah I absolutely still don't understand what this supposed Bear meme thing is.. like I guess some girl chose to be in a room with a bear instead of in a room with a man? Was it just a meme? I have no idea what is going on or why everyone is so upset about it it seems like something to just divert attention away from something else
A bear is a known a danger and really doesn’t care about you unless you piss it off. In fact, loud noises might just scare it away even if a brown bear.
While most men are probably safe enough to have around, enough are unsafe or just generally give off that vibe that women don’t want to be alone with them and a loud noise won’t scare them away. You might “know” you’re safe but they have zero reason to trust you.
Sure she might get someone who wants to work together to be mutually safe and will make efforts to leave her be otherwise, but she might also get someone who stands just a bit too close, who starts trying to “help” just a bit physically, or even who starts to get frustrated when they don’t get some kind of reward for just being some minimum level of decent. And if they’re really unlucky they get someone who just sees the isolation of the situation as an opportunity.
The bear is a known quantity. The man could be anything and there are far too many examples of every part of the spectrum. At least the bear won’t sexually assault her even at the worst.
Well that's just ridiculous.. a bear is a wild animal who will fucking maul you to death and eat you and doesn't care about you at all ... a man is a human being, and human beings can be reasoned with.. I don't knoooooowwwwww........ this whole thing just, again, sounds like a way to get the masses riled up about something that really doesn't matter and doesn't really even make any kind of logical sense really in the grand scheme of things... it just seems like something to argue about for argument's sake.. it's a good debate topic but that's about it.. be it resolved that men are worse than bears?? LOL I don't know whole thing is kind of silly to me.. but thank you so much for your explanation of it
I like how they took the time to explain it extremely well as to why us women feel this way, and your response was simply "lol nah that's bullshit".
I'd much rather run into a bear in the woods than run into a man like you in the woods.
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
men also live on planet Earth
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.
don't want to be around all men? Because of men with bad intentions?
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.
.....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.
It's rage bait. It just a polarizing content meant to rile up the masses and make us argue and bicker. It takes some societal grievances and amplifies them needlessly.
There's plenty of polarizing content, especially online. I think it's a good idea to talk about how we react to it. There are reactions which amplify the polarization, but perhaps also reactions that bring people together in understanding each other? At least I hope so. I just don't know what is best, to ignore suspected bait, to argue a point, to listen, to call out bad faith actors. I don't know.
Well it sure worked haha even on Lemmy good old social conditioning
It's just a way to illustrate how a lot of women feel around men. No one is actually going into the woods to meet a bear.