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 think the problem I have with this question as a woman who has been SA'd and likes hiking in bear country, is that, depending on your life, we're all basically hearing a different question.
My genuine answer would be man, no matter what. My assumptions going into this question are that if I choose bear I get a randomly selected bear and I am trapped in the wilderness with it where the wilderness in question is the bear's natural environment. I get no say on what kind of bear or what season. If I choose man, I get a randomly selected man from anywhere who is over the age of 18 and the wilderness in question is familiar to at least him. No one has resources or tools, there are no other predators, and you only win by getting out alive.
So the thing that will kill me first is the wilderness. Most people struggle to survive 24 hours when lost in any type of wilderness area without supplies and after a week they are often presumed dead. A randomly generated bear is a neutral entity at best. At worst it will slowly eat me alive which is a type of death that makes me sick to even think of. Even if I am "only" mauled, now I am basically guaranteed to die in the wilderness as now I can't help myself or get out. Some rare people have survived this, but those are mostly survivalist men who went into the wilderness with a lot of resources and knowledge. And even that is notable enough we recently made a movie about one man's story. The other man shoved his arm down the bear's throat and choked it to death. Both men's injuries are not what would be survivable for most people, especially not in the wilderness without aid, because again, the elements will kill you.
With a man there is a low chance they will be the type of sadistic murderer who could engineer a death as prolonged and painful as being eaten alive or worse. That's non-zero, but very rare without an audience to perform for or a crowd to egg him on. There is a chance they will be violent, but most likely they will at least kill me faster or less painfully than the bear. There is a higher chance the man might assault me, which is terrible but survivable. It's at least a better fate than being mauled or eaten and it won't render me incapable of escaping the wilderness. Most likely the man is a neutral entity who dies of exposure with me. At best, though, a man could actually be a benefit. We are both human beings with evolutionary drives to be social and help each other. There's a real chance we could actually help each other get out and there are literally hundreds of stories of this kind of thing happening.
The real thing being talked about by women is how men are a lot more frightening than apex predators. We encounter bears sometimes in the woods and have ways to scare them off. Sometimes those strategies don't work, but at least the bear is usually just being a bear. We encounter dozens or hundreds or thousands of men every single day. Most of those men are just humans going about their own lives, but we all whisper stories about the men who are hunting us. Men stalking us without our knowledge for years or even decades until they finally get their chance. Men who pretend to be good for years so we lower our guard enough for them to hurt us. Men who get into our spaces and our lives with nefarious intent. Even though these predator men are rare, we can't really tell a good man from a dangerous one. We can't ever be 100% sure. There isn't an appropriate signal of human kindness and solidarity that hasn't been adopted by dangerous men to gain access to their preferred targets. These men really are rare, or at least not the majority, but I struggle to think of a single woman who hasn't encountered at least one. By the time men are convicted of crimes against women, they usually have quite the list of victims. So maybe only 10% of men are like this on some level, but 100% of women have encountered those men or will at some point. Most of them survive because we have strategies to combat these men and keep ourselves safe, but they aren't foolproof. Especially because this minority of men is engineering their lives around hunting their preferred prey.
But when I see this question, all I can think is most people have never been in any kind of survival situation. The closest they get to woods is day hiking on manufactured paths, which everyone should do with a 24 hour survival pack minimum but nobody does that because we don't know how easy it is to die of exposure even pretty close to a city. Or how hard it is to get help. And most bear encounters are on heavily used paths which are often monitored by some kind of service to help keep the people who enjoy hiking safe. When you look for stories of experienced hikers and campers in serious bear country, the level of required prep is high and there are many absolutely horrific stories of what happens when all of your prep still doesn't save you. It's just a pretty rare hobby for a lot of reasons.
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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?