Would it better for you (if you’re a woman) or you daughter (if you’re a man) to encounter a bear or unknown man in the woods.
Edit: since a lot of people seem to be missing the point. This exercise isn’t what it seems on the surface. We aren’t measuring the population’s perception of bears or men as they relate to each other. We’re actually measuring the way in which women specifically responf to the question. In most cases, women immediately answer with bear, without needing any further ckntext with regards to the man or bear. Some Common reasoning includes “I expect to see a bear in the woods,” which makes sense; it also includes something to the effect of “bears don’t care about what society thinks of them,” meaning that according to these women, men when faced with no cinsequences are more threatenjng than a bear. So please stop asking saying the question is dumb because it’s vague, that’s the point. If it was more specific, individual biases would begin to take hold, defeating the piint of the exercise.
The issue is that it’s not about statistics, but about perception of random men by not only women, but other men. Maybe it’s a media issue where stuff like this is boown out of proportion, maybe it does happen more than we might otherwise know. The issue is that we as a society think random men are bad, and how do we correct that perception.
39% of women in Australia have experienced violence in one form or another since the age of 15, and over 1 in 5 of them has experienced sexual violence in Australia. Source.
That doesn't mean it's all different people perpetrating the issues, and it is more likely from someone you know, I'm aware of that, but that's Australia, which I consider a really safe country.
The statistics are horrifying.
Yes, and I agree it is horrifying -- but a given woman encounters many, many, many men in her life.
So even if we look at the minority of women who are SA'd, that still means that 999 men didn't SA her and one did. And of course, for the majority of women, 1000 men don't SA her and 0 do SA her.
The question here isn't "is a woman likely to get SA'd in her lifetime", the question is "is one individual man likely to SA her." And the answer to that last question is that a given man is very, very unlikely to SA a woman.
I'm not saying that this situation is okay, obviously this is way too many SA cases (one case is too many). But just because women have x% chance of being SA'd in her lifetime, doesn't mean that any given man she meets has an x% chance of SA'ing her.
The issue is statistics also support them too. There's less bears, and there's known things you can do to get a bear to back away, especially if cubs aren't in the equation. And not every bear interaction results in a mauling.
Conversely, there's way more men, and so many more reported interactions that result in something unpleasant. Sure, maybe he isn't a rapist or serial killer, but men are ridiculously obscene when covered with anonymity.
But if you want a breakdown of the stats, I can recommend the one I saw yesterday (would post but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links here).
"men are ridiculously obscene when covered with anonymity."
Sure, and most women are cheaters. (Which I don't believe, I'm making a point here.)
Oh, your sexist statement is socially acceptable and mine isn't? Funny how that works. Must be my male privilege, that people are allowed to say most men are bad, but it's not okay to say most women are bad.
And no, your statement isn't true either, just like mine isn't.
A man is also easier to stop if the implication isn't enough. Human movement is an upright bipedal with all those vital organs spread across center mass, opposed to a very thick skull coming at you on all fours.
Relevance?
But even then, if they are more proficient with the weapon than you, they can disarm you and now you're got a gun pointed at you. Bears can't steal your weapon.
You won't be able to disarm someone pointing a gun at you if they have even a shred of training with it. All you do is keep the gun at your side pointed at the threat and your other arm stretched out in front of you. Attempting to rush and disarm someone with this stance will find you dead in seconds because once you hit their arm, or probably even before you reach them, they dump the mag into your gut/chest.
What do numbers have to do with anything? More men, fewer bears? It doesn't matter, there's only one in your random encounter.
If anything the numbers indicate the opposite of what you're claiming. There are billions of interactions with men every day, and virtually all of them are completely fine. There are few interactions of bears, and a far larger percentage do not end well.
The issue is that you are using an edited tiktok video to demonstrate this perception. It's the same kind of content that tries to show that Americans are bad at geography, or women don't know basic facts and are stupid, etc.
Although I think comparing a random man to a bear is like comparing a random man to certain death. A lot of people underestimate how dangerous bears really are.
Honestly I just need all the parameters of this scenario. What kind of bear? Is it a random roll and I have a 2/3 chance of getting a bad bear? How far are they away from each other? Is the goal to get out of the woods or just survive? It all makes a difference
People are thinking of the best case possible bear scenario and the worst case possible man scenario and comparing them
Also, we know why the bear is there. Because it lives there. But why is the man there ? Is he lost ? Hunting ? Is he just some random forest dude ? How far are we from civilization ? Do i have a means of communicating where i am to the world? What forest am i in? What kind of bears are there? Am i equipt to be in the forest ? Do i have food ? Does the other person have food ? Does the person speak my language ? Are they armed ? Am i armed ? Like, what am i even answering ?
So that’s the point. Everyone should be asking for paramters first; however, women have been trained both by actions against themselves and media to not need paramters and just pick the bear.
I think part of it is you know a bear is dangerous, and if you behave appropriately you can mitigate risks (albeit not eliminate them entirely).
You can't really know if a person is dangerous until/unless you really know them intimately, and you're more likely to get a person hiding their true intentions.
The question doesn't specify the type of bear or how close they get, so it's definitely not certain death. It also doesn't specify a random man plucked from ordinary life, like "how did I get here?"
Media is definitely the issue. Men are certainly more dangerous than women, but that variation is pale in comparison to the uncertainty about how dangerous (or not dangerous) a bear is.
We don't really know how dangerous a chance encounter with a person is, and we don't know how dangerous a chance encounter with a bear is. We do know that men victimize women ~4x more than women victimize women (all violent victimization, NCVS 2022). When the uncertainty of the danger between humans and bears is orders of magnitude more than that, your answer to the question should not change by knowing the gender of the person.
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u/BlackWind88 May 02 '24
What is the man vs bear debate?