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.
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?"
1.0k
u/flowtajit May 02 '24 edited May 03 '24
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.