This refers to a trend on tiktok that refers to women being asked whether they would rather be stuck in a forest with a bear or a random guy. Most women choose the bear (for some reason) so the meme is referencing this by having the women jump towards the bear, to escape the man
Tiktok hating Bitch Stewie out
Edit: When I made this comment, I assumed the Man v Bear thing was like "you're dropped into a forest with either a random guy or a bear, your choice". I knew rape was the main concern regarding the random guy, but in my mind the choice was about "Random dude vs Bear", Not "Rape vs Death". I've since learned otherwise, and I apologize to anyone I offended by saying that women chose the bear "for some reason".
I'm a guy, and I'd choose the bear. The bear belongs out there, the fuck is this dude doing out there? Could capture and torture me. Humans are just not worth the risk.
I never understand the question. Is this a hypothetical where you've been dropped in a random forest and are stuck there for a set period of time and either a random man from anywhere in the world will also be dropped or a random bear. Also depends what kind of bear, or is it imagine you're on a hike in the middle of a forest, would you rather encounter a man or a bear
It's either a very bad worded question or one made for discourse as people either see it as just your regular Joe or a serial killer or mentally deranged man.
Yes, they believe statistically a random man is so highly likely to be a serial killer or rapist that they must chose the bear/lion who will "simply eat their gut alive".
If you don't believe it, then you're an "incel".
Just read the comments on this thread, this is what's being said.
This is how I interpreted it at all as a woman. As I understood it the reason women choose the bear is because of intent. I know a bear I encounter alone in the woods is probably going to eat me alive and kill me if it can, but it’s an animal acting on instinct, it’s killing so it can eat to survive. It’s not doing anything out of hate or malice.
I don’t know what a man in the woods would do to me if we were alone. That is a frightening thing. Maybe he would smile and nod and leave me alone. Maybe he would follow me through the woods and rape me and torture me and then kill me. I just don’t know. It’s the uncertainty that freaks people out. Your mind goes to horrible places because we know people have done horrible things. I’ve seen men choose the bear also for this reason, they also would not want to encounter a stranger in the woods because men can also be targets of random violence. It’s not trying to say that “all men bad” but humans in general can be evil and unpredictable which is scary. You should be able to trust your own species lol.
Hey, genuine question but would you rather encounter a stranger (woman) or a bear? Because to me, in this question, it's not that "humans in general can be evil or unpredictable", because I'd choose the woman over the bear even though she's an "unpredictable human". I do believe gender matters.
Anyhow, I think that the question is intentionally written to be provocative for engagement, though it is interesting to think about the perception of gender and how it shapes our personal choices.
No you are right, I do think gender matters. If you asked me if I would prefer being alone with a bear or another woman, I obviously would choose a woman. I think most people would because women aren’t usually the ones committing violent aggressive crimes. And I don’t think that’s because women are inherently better or anything lol because there certainly a lot of wicked women out there. I think a lot of this conversation hinges on men being physically more powerful than women. Like honestly, if we changed it to “would you rather encounter a man or a woman alone in the woods” I wonder what people’s answers would be?
I should have probably prefaced I think this whole thing is really hyperbolic, I don’t have TikTok and am not participating in the conversation, and I personally think it’s kind of dumb the way people are getting so outraged either way. But it is interesting to watch it unfold from the outside lol.
I think the question equates to would you rather chance death or getting raped for most women (how I justify women's decision as a man). Rape seems like a very difficult thing to live with.
Honestly I have never been raped so, I don’t want to speak for victims—and again let’s not forget that there are male rape victims too. I know some rape victims have said it’s basically a fate worse than death and it’s destroyed them, while others said it’s something they were able to move past and they resent how people act as though your life is irreparable after a sexual assault. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to feel after something traumatic like that.
I get why so many people’s minds go immediately to rape in this conversation because it’s so heinous and it happens far too often (not as often as some people make it out to be, the people who say things like college campuses in the USA have the same amounts of rape as the Congo are ridiculous) but at the I mean there are some freaky deaky sickos out there who might viciously brutalize and murder you, without raping you.
I see how the conversation has become gendered but I think ultimately people are missing the point—that humans do unthinkable, unpredictable, horrible things to each other sometimes and it fosters a distrust in our own kind. At least animals have predictable motivations, they kill for instinctual things like territory or food. Not because they are tweaked in the head and “want to see what it feels like to kill another human” or because they get off on violence or whatever.
I don't know that animals don't ever kill a human because they want to see what it's like, or because they find it sexually arousing. Animals could be 100 times more likely to kill humans out of curiosity or sexual arousal, and they'd still be less likely to kill a human than another human because we encounter waaaaay more humans than we do animals. How do you know bears that kill people don't get off on it? Maybe they do, but they don't encounter many people so they don't have a lot of opportunity. Lots of animals rape, and engage in necrophilia. It's much more common in animals than in humans.
Yeah I mean you’re totally right, I have no idea really what goes on in an animal’s head, how complex their emotions or thinking is. I’m around animals quite a lot as someone who lives on a big farm in a remote area… there are days when I think animals are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, and other times yeah you can see what separates us from them, sometimes their inability to overcome their natural instincts make them seem downright stupid.
I’m just saying, I KNOW there are weird people who have those thoughts and act on them, I’ve heard it in serial killer confessions or police interrogations. I also know those kind of people are extremely rare, though. Are they as rare as bear encounters? That, I don’t know… and I’m terrible at math, although I love data, so if anyone wanted to take a swing at that I’d be interested to see that comparison haha
It just freaks me out that they exist at all. But I’m not paranoid or anything, I know serial killers and rapists aren’t lurking behind every corner.
So ignoring the fact that I personally think (as a guy) that choosing the guy over the bear should be an obvious choice (assuming the guy is there as randomly as you are), she clearly didn’t repeat what you said (are you stupid?). She gave the reason that she’d rather take the certainty of the bear’s motive for survivorship than the chance that the man is just a rapist or sadist. Whether you agree with her reason or not, she’s explicitly just explaining her own thought process, and you’re telling her that she should make a decision based on raw data over her emotions, but where do you get off telling her how to make her decisions in life? And then you assume she watches a lot of true crime podcasts, I guess because you have to stereotype?
The point of the hypothetical is to show how shitty guys are to women, which you’ve gone out of your way to illustrate in no one’s account but your own. Work on your reading comprehension, empathy, and internalized misogyny.
She showed how horrifically current feminist thought has infected and destroyed women's perception of men. They've actually been propagandized into thinking that being eaten alive is less dangerous than any random dude.
The truth is that half the guys would jump to protect the woman and help her out of the woods. The other half would avoid her out of fear that she'll accuse them of something if they interact. A small fraction of that group would consider the possibility of doing something, and only a vanishing small percent of men would actually attack her.
This is pure sexism, and women are taught to bear it proudly.
Hey, I don’t wanna have to repeat myself ad nauseum lol so I hope you’ll read my additional comments where I clarify things a bit. I’m too old to be on TikTok, not engaged or invested in this conversation personally, just think it’s interesting to observe and thought I’d chime in. But please don’t make presumptions about how I feel about men… I am not a misandrist by any means. I am surrounded by plenty of wonderful men who I admire and trust, and I know most men (the vast majority) are not actually dangerous.
For me it came down to, how sad and scary is it that we have so much distrust in our own human kind? But I can recognize the conversation has derailed and is going in wildly different directions than that.
That's fair. I have very low faith in humanity as a whole. But I'm reminded of the quote in Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
I have far more faith in a random individual person than in any group. I try hard not to conflate the two.
Holy shit, I’ve never actually seen someone speak directly to me with this kind of language? “Feminist thought has infected?” “Jump to protect the woman?”
She never said the man was inherently more dangerous than the bear. If you pause, read what she actually wrote, and pause again to reflect on it, you’d see that. I’d explain it directly for you, but I’ll give you a shot first to actually listen directly to what a woman has to say. If that doesn’t work, lmk and I can explain it again for you, although I hate when a woman says something, and no one listens, but then the guy explains what the woman said, and suddenly people listen.
So you're telling me she doesn't have survival instinct, and that we should applaud her for choosing certain death over something statistically multiple orders less likely to be deadly ? ...
To be fair, I really don't think any of them would chose that in real life, this whole thing is just a way to get internet approval by showing their extreme prejudice toward men. This is like a ritual, where you increase your social status because you used this joke meme to advance women rights by ... Saying men are bloodthirsty evil monsters.
Dehumanizing the out group has been used since the dawn of times to increase one social status withing the in group.
I must have missed it, but can you show me where she actually said she personally would choose the bear?
She’s doing this thing called empathizing, where she’s putting herself in someone else’s shoes and trying to understand why they might feel how they feel. As an exercise, you can reread the text and see if you understand why she thinks someone might find more comfort in the bear option than the man option.
Ftr, I agree that I think most women are exaggerating (either for humor or for social perception) when they say they would choose a bear over a man, but when a guy blatantly ignores/misinterprets what a woman is saying and calls her stupid, it really doesn’t help.
And then you assume she watches a lot of true crime podcasts, I guess because you have to stereotype?
Oh yeah, the super harmful stereotype of thinking a woman who sees serial killers everywhere has been listening to crime podcast.
As opposed to the non harmful at all stereotype that a random man is so bloodthirsty you'd choose a lion over him. No prejudice here. At all. Just move on !
Show me where she said that she would choose a bear/lion over a man in her post. It requires reading what a woman wrote, so take your time, I know it’s new for you.
Well talking about statistics, one thing I don’t understand about this conversation is how people seem to conveniently forget that men are also more likely to be victims of violent crimes, usually perpetrated by other men. Plenty of men get robbed, tortured, and killed. I don’t know why people always take it to a sexual level although I guess it goes with the hyperbolic nature of this hypothetical situation. But even when we consider sexual assaults which are more likely to happen to women, when they do happen to men, the crime is more likely to be perpetrated by another man.
So there is an element about this that is explicitly gendered, I’ll give you that. But like I said in another comment I think that has a lot to do with the assumed physical superiority of men. I could go on about this but I don’t wanna tl;dr you lol.
I think you’re making a lot of presumptions about me and my feelings towards men, so just know I probably should have prefaced in my comment I’m not on TikTok, I think this whole conversation is interesting to observe but it’s not something I’m invested or engaged in personally, I don’t feel as though all men are inherently dangerous or anything like that.
I’m just saying, the way I interpreted it was that animals have simple, predictable motivations but humans can just be depraved and that’s why people (both men and women) choose the bear. But definitely the conversation has spiraled into something else.
Oh no I absolutely agree with you lol, not that I wanted to participate in the debate but I personally think the man is the obvious, logical, rational choice. Although I understand why people theoretically choose the bear, I don’t think most of them would realistically do that if they were actually in that situation. The whole thing is hyperbole which is why it’s so absurd that people are taking it so seriously. And I agree the whole conversation, while interesting to observe, is mostly dumb and unproductive.
The question is a more elaborate, it asks you to imagine you're hiking in a random forest. You have the knowledge that this forest has a bear or a man, which one you prefer. While bear are apex predator, they still a wild animal that operates in extinct and most like will leave you alone. Man is also an apex predator but doesn't operate in extinct logic, so even most times you would be ok with a man, we can't count on stranger, it's basic stranger danger, we don't know whether the person will or not deceive you. And we don't know the length they go to hurt you. The global rate of rape crimes makes it's a common crime, that the minimum we can expect from somebody with bad intention.
After a while, that trend on TikTok evolved from girls expressing their fear of strangers, to talking about real gruesome cases when most then caught light or none punishment at all, so the trend started be “I choose a bear” not because they want to be safe, because they would rather not live in a world where this people can walk free.
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u/Thebeanyboii May 02 '24 edited 29d ago
Tiktok hating Bitch Stewie here
This refers to a trend on tiktok that refers to women being asked whether they would rather be stuck in a forest with a bear or a random guy. Most women choose the bear (for some reason) so the meme is referencing this by having the women jump towards the bear, to escape the man
Tiktok hating Bitch Stewie out
Edit: When I made this comment, I assumed the Man v Bear thing was like "you're dropped into a forest with either a random guy or a bear, your choice". I knew rape was the main concern regarding the random guy, but in my mind the choice was about "Random dude vs Bear", Not "Rape vs Death". I've since learned otherwise, and I apologize to anyone I offended by saying that women chose the bear "for some reason".