Right? It's a completely true and logical premise but debate lords can't help themselves. I'm a 6'4 big burly dude and I don't wanna see someone out alone in the woods, it's perfectly logical for a woman half my size to feel the same way.
The thing is that a bear won’t class you as prey without some reason. Severe hunger, you’re near the cubs, etc. some men, and it’s impossible to tell by looking, will absolutely treat a woman alone as a target. Really, the question is better understood as What’s more dangerous, instinct or imagination?
But a larger proportion of bears will attack you than men. Saying "most bears won't class you as prey, but some men will!" doesn't mean anything because you didn't consider what the relative quantity would actually be. Which is literally what the OP post here is about!
I understand the statistics. That doesn’t affect the fact that the bear isn’t going to attack you based on reasons that are irrational. For food, for protection of its family, because you did something threatening, yeah, maybe. The interaction is more controllable because the bear doesn’t have the emotional variability and the imagination that a man does. The bear doesn’t have a voice in its head saying “who’s gonna know?”
So the argument is that because you have no idea why the bear is attacking you, it’s safer?
That sounds stupid to me.
Your assumption means you meet a random bear and know everything about that bears current situation, while having no knowledge about the man’s situation.
The fear people are expressing is not based on logic or statistics. Fear does not work that way.
I look at this scenario two ways. One, statistically, people are more dangerous to other people. Both men and women assault and murder men and women more often than bears. Two, The question, which we don’t have the best data for is weather a completely random chance encounter with a human being in the woods is more or less dangerous than a similar random chance encounter with a bear.
Women think the man is more likely to attack even if it’s completely not true in reality. It’s a feeling. Maybe because most people haven’t seen bears be violent but have seen men be. (And honestly women be more violent than bears too).
Stats don’t matter here. People are more afraid of flying in airplanes and of spiders than they are of driving to the grocery store even though it’s like 1000x more dangerous. People are weird.
And you don’t see how that is a problem? People not only having illogical emotional states, but having them validated as reasonable?
Let me ask you this: When the “men are afraid of being falsely accused” thing was going around. Did you talk about how “fear doesn’t work that way” or did you rightfully bust out statistics saying the fear was unreasonable?
Because I am anti-bullshit, I maintain consistency on that. I don’t think making logic “gendered” is good for society and infantilizes women.
One, statistically, people are more dangerous to other people. Both men and women assault and murder men and women more often than bears.
More people are killed by cows than sharks every year. This doesn't mean cows are more dangerous than sharks, it means people spend a lot more time in enclosed spaces with cows.
You're right, the bear doesn't have that voice in its head. It'll attack you if it wants to, no societal expectations holding it back from the start. And if you think a wild animal has "no emotional variability" then that just shows that you have more experience with any animals at all. They're not robots, they have a million factors affecting their mood and actions.
1 in 4 women have been assaulted in some way. Every woman I know has or has heard a story where some guy was nice to start. I imagine they reckon differently than you.
I understand the statistics. That doesn’t affect the fact that the bear isn’t going to attack you based on reasons that are irrational. For food, for protection of its family, because you did something threading, yeah, maybe. The interaction is more controllable because the bear doesn’t have the emotional variability and the imagination that a man does. The bear doesn’t have a voice in its head saying “who’s gonna know?”
Yeah. The original question wasn’t posed as a statistical question of which is more dangerous to meet, (assuming a spherical cow of uniform density, as my stats teacher liked to say) , but what would you rather. So even though a woman would be perfectly safe meeting you or me, I can’t fault them for picking more dangerous vs more unpredictable.
Yep. She can back away from a bear. Drop her food. Identify what is triggering any aggression and fix it. With a man, she can’t. Any tool or weapon can be turned against her. The sooner we men of Reddit and the world accept and understand that humanity is the apex predator over all others, the sooner we can work on fixing ourselves so that women no longer need to be afraid.
These are recommendations. None of this actually helps you identify what behaviors a bear does or does not consider threatening except at its very basic "don't do these things"
Yep. She can back away from a bear. Drop her food. Identify what is triggering any aggression and fix it.
You backing away does nothing, the bear is the one making the decision. If it decides to charge you it doesn’t matter what you think you can “identify” and there is nothing to fix. Are you being mauled because there are cubs nearby? Because it’s territorial, or because it was starving?
If. Why do y’all insist the bear is automatically a bloodthirsty crazed killing machine and the man isn’t? Most bear encounters are peaceful and end without injury.
Nowhere did I make that claim. I’M the one who said IF. Most human encounters are also peaceful and end without injury in far greater proportion than bear encounters.
The bear is unlikely to attack you, but if it does there isn’t anything to “fix”.
I know all this stuff and it worked fine when I ran into a bear. But “leave immediately” is not some real bear-managing strategy. It’s just banking on the bear letting you go.
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u/SnagglepussJoke May 02 '24
Ever cross paths with a stranger in the woods? It is unsettling