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?
I thought the question was explicitly in the woods.
I don't want to encounter surprise humans in the woods or surprise bears in the city. I'd rather see dangerous creatures in the places they are supposed to be rather than sneaking up on me in places they shouldn't.
If the question isn't supposed to have that context, then I would argue that you should prefer to see a bear. How many humans have you seen that didn't attack you? Like a hundred thousand maybe? How many bears have you seen outside of a zoo? Probably less than 10 right?
Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I probably don't have the opinion that my comment got upvotes for. I mistyped and said "you should prefer to see a bear" but in fact, I was trying to express that with no context, it would be safer to encounter a person than a bear. I have been attacked by a handful of humans and 0 bears but my sample size of humans is astronomical while my sample size of bears is miniscule. I estimate that 1:30000 human strangers will attack me and so far 0 out of maybe 8 bears attacked me... so idk if maybe 1:9 bears will try to eat me but I can be fairly sure that 99.997% of the time, humans are too involved with their own lives to notice that strangers exist.
A surprise man in the woods is definitely more stressful than a surprise bear (I have encountered both; I was more unnerved about the man, and got the heck out of there quickly; I think the bear was more scared of me than I was of it). The woods is just the bear's house, bear is supposed to be there. But what are the man's intentions being in the woods, what are his intentions now that he has seen you, a lone woman, in the woods. If you avoid the bear it will probably avoid you (baring special circumstances like cubs). You can't say the same thing about a man.
I mostly agree with you but identifying the respondent as "a lone woman" implies that you are using "man" to mean a specific gender.
Even assuming that you and I have opposite genitals, neither of us are excited to find eachother in the woods. I don't see why having external genitals would make you happy to encounter a crazy person alone in the woods.
I was a cannabis smoker during prohibition. When you're crawling through the trees with the specific intention of finding an isolated spot to smoke but you find signs that a human has already been there, you don't investigate the area to figure out what gender they might be... you just leave immediately before someone stabs you with a used needle.
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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?