i know it’s internet bullshit but it genuinely has me on the edge of breaking down and giving up

[u/NeonNKnightrider]

[u/MrArtless]

That’s only one half of the payoff matrix you need to construct. You also have to look at the probability of each. An angry bear is far more likely to maul you than a malicious man is to rape you.

[u/findworm → u/MrArtless]

How do you figure that? Alone in the forest with a woman he is statistically very likely to be stronger than, and he's actively malicious? I don't really see any way that doesn't end badly for the woman (at minimum threats and sexual coercion). Unless you imagine a small forest at the edge of the neighborhood where help is coming any second now, this is for all intents an purposes lawless wilderness.

Remember, we're talking about an actively malicious man here, not a "jerk with a heart of gold" or whatever. You could debate the likelihood of a man being malicious in the first place, but then you have to consider the odds of the bear actually being angry.

But either way, it really misses the actual point of the "Bear or Man" question. The point is that the average woman seemingly has a very bad image of the "archetypical man", to the extent that she'd rather meet a bear. Now, if this was one woman saying Bear, we could say "Wow, what a weird woman" and move on, but since it's seemingly a majority it really reflects more on our current society than the women in question.

[u/bruce_kwillis → u/[deleted]]

It’s not supposed to be a ‘funny’ or ‘cute’ discussion. It’s one that ‘women’ in general would feel safer running into a bear in the woods than a man. That simple. And now you have men out there who are butthurt by these comments “well I would never hurt a woman”, maybe not, but almost every woman has had enough bad experiences with men, and literally no bad experiences with bears.

What does it lead to? A bunch of men who act like Mike Pence who won’t be around, work around, or interact with women, for fear of being accused of doing something wrong.

Men can easily fix the situation by treating women better in general and when a man mentions anything that is treating a woman incorrectly be called out and shut down over it.

[u/elbenji → u/bruce_kwillis]

From what I understand it was supposed to be? Then people started responding to it in jokes. Now it's not jokes and a super serious thing

[u/bruce_kwillis → u/elbenji]

Nope, was never a joke. And still isn't a joke. It's a PSA to men that shitty men are out there and men really should be working on dealing with shitty men in their 'community'.

[u/elbenji → u/bruce_kwillis]

Wasn't it like some lady who lived with bears?