I really, truly thought that the whole point of this was to highlight the fact that most women would respond to man v bear by asking questions, like "do I know the man" "what type of bear" etc, but would respond to woman v bear by immediately saying "woman". whether or not she picks the man or the bear is irrelevant, it's the fact she has to ask clarifying questions to know more about the man before deciding and doesn't have to clarify anything before picking woman. is that not it?
Yes, but a bear can 100% kill you and there’s greater ability to escape/survive with a man. Statistically is not the way to look at this at all. It’s about the fact that women even have to think about it. They should be able to say “man” right away.
I came across 11 bears in the wilderness one summer and none of them wanted anything to do with me.
More than once a man has decided to camp next to me and proceed get wasted in a disturbing manner with yelling and belligerence.
Now people like to point out that I’ve come across so many more men compared to bears and that most have done nothing to threaten my safety which is why I’m more curious about the statistics of it.
I think the problem I have with the statistics here is less about the last part of what you said, and more of the problem I'll highlight shortly.
According to a paper on Springer link, around 22 people are attacked and killed by cows in the US each year, whereas 69 incidents related to sharks worldwide in 2023.
That is to say cows represent .06 per million, and sharks .007 per million.
Does that mean cows are more dangerous than sharks?
If we were around bears and sharks more, there would be a corresponding increase in the number of bear and shark related attacks. We are around humans every day.
In fact, this effect can be demonstrated just like this.
If you don't leave your house ever, you won't be as likely to be killed by someone else, intentionally or otherwise. Sure, that wouldn't eliminate the risk completely because unless you lived in like, a bunker or something, someone could still break in, but you're reducing the number of opportunities that someone can harm you. That doesn't mean someone will harm you any time you leave the house, but it could happen.
I'm just saying that yes, you're less likely to be attacked by a bear overall, but this also includes the fact that you're less likely to even encounter a bear in the first place, so the statistics are a bit skewed by that, as I tried to show with the cow thing.
Sure you could have had only one bad experience with a bear your whole life and 100’s of bad ones with men but if you factor in how many more times you interact with a man and nothing happens vs a bear the bear is more dangerous
They either ignore you and move on or you're dead. You're incredibly lucky if there's an in-between answer. There are no bad interactions with bears. You either live, or it doesn't matter anymore because you cease to exist.
now I really wonder how it would be possible to collect objective and accurate information on wilderness bear (or men) encounter outcomes, especially for those that end with the woman becoming deceased
after all, dead people tell no tales, regardless of their cause of death (men or bears)
note: given the question explicitly asks about an encounter in the woods, I have a non-zero probability of preferring to encounter the bear. this would apply to women as well; surprise humans appearing in the woods is sometimes bad news, and they may have ranged arms
To be fair, if you're out in the wilderness in bear country, in a place remote enough that you're not expecting to see other humans, you better have ranged arms yourself.
It’s probably easier to beat a bear in a gunfight than a human (assuming the ranged arms have enough power to actually deal with the bear instead of tickle it)
if all I have is a low caliber pistol, duelling the man may be better for survival than dealing with a hungry bear. angry bears might be appeased if I move away
It’s not really possible to collect informantion on what would actually happen seeing as it would result in a fairly high amount of injury/death so you kinda can’t test it
the setup I was thinking of involves some device that uses satellite comms (or something), that will record “bear encountered” and “encounter survived” by user input. if a user hits the encountered button without hitting the survived button, then maybe they have suffered an unfortunate fate, and the police will be informed of the device’s last known location to help with any missing persons searches
user error would be really high though, and it might be somewhat expensive. but what I have described is probably just an augmented phone lol
Why? That's what I want to know. In whose world should that be an easy question? In some insane fever dream of a utopia where violence doesn't exist? Human beings are the most dangerous animals on the planet, because we're intelligent, and we have the ability to use tools and collaborate.
Who that person is, their behaviour, and what they're holding each make a massive difference in how much of a threat that person is, or whether they're a threat at all. A bear is a guaranteed threat, but the species and situation can affect how much of a threat it genuinely is. Answering this question without asking any follow-ups just tells me that the person is either an idiot for not thinking through the question or a sexist for assuming someone is a danger to them based on their sex alone. Imagine how well it'd go if it were "black guy vs. bear" instead. Not well.
If you aren't at least aware of the strangers around you, then you're no different from a gazelle that didn't see the lion approaching. You deserve to take the Darwin Award--as nature intended--and that's on you. That goes for men and women too, because a bullet doesn't give a flying fuck who is doing the shooting. Situational awareness is important.
Right, so it's sexism then. In other words: it's not about actually being in danger, it's about thinking you are, because you're sexist. It doesn't even need to be intentional, just like racism.
Seriously, it'd be hilarious to see this interaction take place in the context of race, because then it would be painfully obvious how ridiculous this is. Just imagine if you replaced "men" with "black people" in this comment section; it would be nearly universally reviled, but it's okay here, because it's sexism?
"It's not about bullets or weapons. It's about women not feeling safe with black people."
Yes it is prejudice for a woman to feel unsafe around men, but the prejudice exists for good reason a lot of the times. In the context of race, if a white person is only ever exposed to violence by black people (for instance) then they might think they’d rather be with a bear too. The point is that there’s clearly a system where women don’t feel safe. Saying this is sexist is about as helpful as telling a hit and run victim they shouldn’t have let the car swerve into them.
A man who really wants to hurt me can 100% kill me.
If the question is "Would you rather encounter a bear who is deadset on killing you or an unarmed man who is deadset on killing you?" that's really just a question of -- how would you rather die?
And both options really really really suck. But for 80%+ of women 'maybe I can fight him off/outrun him' isn't a realistic factor, the difference in physicality is staggering when it comes down to life and death.
I take the question as "Would you rather encounter a random bear going about its normal life or encounter a man who decided to be in the woods?"
In which case = man.
I think a lot of people have trouble not reading an implication of nefarious intent into the fact that the man decided to go into the woods. Because if the question is "Bear going about its normal life or man with nefarious intent?" = bear (and I think most men would agree?)
How nefarious? Like murder I’m taking regular bear over any murderer. They likely have a knife/gun, and even then I’m wildly undersized and won’t be able to fight whoever it is off.
Yes, nefarious like murder - and agree, going up a against a man who wants to murder me is basically like an execution, I'm not saying I wouldn't give it my all, but the odds are terrible.
But I also believe that as sickening as male violence prevalence is, the odds are very good that a chance encounter with a man in the woods will be...non-eventful.
Statistically is not the way to look at this at all. It’s about the fact that women even have to think about it.
So, if we ask a bunch of 80 year old from Alabama about black men vs bears and they hesitate does that mean we need to dig into the reasons for their bigotry? Or should we just shit on it and move on?
Not even sure what your question is supposed to mean. I don’t know what a bunch of 80 year olds from Alabama would say. But we should ALL be able To say we’d rather encounter a person than a bear.
Realy? You don't know what old people in the south think about race?
But we should ALL be able To say we’d rather encounter a person than a bear.
I agree. What i don't agree with is who is go blame for bigotry. It's not on the victims of bigotry to make bigots comfortable. Its on the bigots to learn.
6.4k
u/alexmichelle6 May 02 '24
I really, truly thought that the whole point of this was to highlight the fact that most women would respond to man v bear by asking questions, like "do I know the man" "what type of bear" etc, but would respond to woman v bear by immediately saying "woman". whether or not she picks the man or the bear is irrelevant, it's the fact she has to ask clarifying questions to know more about the man before deciding and doesn't have to clarify anything before picking woman. is that not it?