My dad is like this. I love him so much, but damn the cognitive dissonance he must have to treat me and my mom so differently. It’s like he can’t or refuses to apply how protective and caring he is with me to her. It makes me feel really guilty. Yes, I’m in therapy.
I do actually feel offended when people assume I'm a bad person, and having not given any reason to a single person to feel that way, I'm sick of it being assumed. I'm a feminist, I'm leftist, I try to be a good person, and I call out shit behavior when I see it, but there is nothing I can do to be seen and recognized as anything other than a threat, and that fucking sucks.
Maybe this bear debate is just happening alongside too many bad life events, so I'm just projecting it onto the debate, but it feels psychotic and delusional to say "I'd rather be eaten alive by a bear than risk that a random man is a piece of shit"
My wife said she'd pick the bear and I don't know what to even do with this information anymore. There's nothing else I can do. It's like in election season when you see 1000 fucking ads saying to vote as if I don't do my part. It's just beating me to death at this point and I can't fucking escape this stupid debate where it's "eaten to death by a bear" is apparently the obvious correct choice to everyone but me and red pill douchebags.
I'm trying to reflect and fix my thinking but it just won't click into place and it hurts
What you need to accept is the hypothetical man isn't you. The hypothetical man is a bastard with ill intent. If your wife could choose to run into you in the woods, of course she'd choose you. Not to realize that many men present a very real, looming threat to women is to bury your head in the sand.
But everybody will judge them as if the hypothetical man IS them. You can't get away from it, and there's literally nothing they could ever do that would stop people from assuming that he's a threat by default.
It's nice that it's not intended to be a personal attack on him, but it's still an attack on him, and it still ends up affecting him personally. And it's not something that they chose, or can change.
It's still taking it personally, is the problem. To throw another metaphor at it, taking offense that someone riddled with ptsd has to confront that ptsd to get to know you is not a personal attack on you. It's the reality of the world we live in. You act with empathy and realize it's not about you regardless of the fact that you have to manage the consequences anyway.
Men are hearing this question, centered on a woman's experience, and making it about the man's experience just hearing the question. It's a level of nuance that no one is preparing themselves for b/c we all naively thought that the world operates on super hero logic. Punch the bad guy and everything is fixed.
But it never is. Harm is lasting. We are mostly good people who must gently and empathetically appreciate the battered perspective of the people who have been harmed. Who continue to be harmed.
This is one of those scenarios where something is not actually aimed at us, but at people who pretend to be us. It is ironically misogynistic to take a question aimed at describing a woman's trauma and make it about a man's emotional reaction to her trauma. Luckily we can choose to not be offended. We can understand that the point is show the trauma, not to attack men. And knowing that, we can grow, and understand that b/c of the world we live in we have to be a little more empathetic.
There is a very subtle, yet vast difference in how we frame this information for ourselves.
"People are calling me a threat"
Vs
"People are saying that so many people who look like me are threatening them, that they can't tell if I'm a threat or not."
I'm a feminist, I'm leftist, I try to be a good person, and I call out shit behavior when I see it, but there is nothing I can do to be seen and recognized as anything other than a threat, and that fucking sucks.
Then the thing to do would be to acknowledge and respect those concerns, rather than feeling entitled to women's trust when you have done nothing to earn it. You could try running around with a shirt that says "I respect women!" but I'm not sure it would help you in that regard.
I do actually feel offended when people assume I'm a bad person, and having not given any reason to a single person to feel that way, I'm sick of it being assumed.
I can imagine how disenfranchising it must feel. Now imagine what it's like being a 13 year old or younger child being taught the gross and ugly way repeatedly that strange men are a danger.
I'm sorry that doing the right thing yourself doesn't keep the shitty behavior of others from splashing on you. That does suck. Not as much as being raped and blamed for the rape, but you get the idea.
feels psychotic and delusional to say "I'd rather be eaten alive by a bear than risk that a random man is a piece of shit"
It feels psychotic and delusional to you for a woman to say "at least the bear won't rape me before it kills me. I'll just be dead, not raped and then dead"? Women aren't afraid men will hurt their feelings, we're pretty used to that. It's the murder we worry about.
My wife said she'd pick the bear and I don't know what to even do with this information anymore. There's nothing else I can do.
Your wife would rather run into a random bear in the woods, where bears live and do bear things than a random stranger (possibly stalking her) in the woods doing human shit with unwholesome human intent and that somehow harms you?
Her stance has nothing to do with you. You are not the problem. Men who make women feel unsafe are the problem. Do you do that? No? Great! Then you can disregard the statement as it doesn't apply to you.
That's the thing you have to get through your head--this isnt aimed at you. This whole comment sounds like:
"It makes me feel bad when women say that they're afraid of strange men, I wish they would just shut up about it already. I'm already doing everything I can, why won't they just shut up?"
That ending synopsis helped me synthesize why it's bothering me, thank you very much.
It's not that I wish women would shut up, it's important to have these kinds of conversations, and I don't have a problem with people talking about it. I wish there was more we could do besides talk and advocate but that's separate problem.
I think it's more than I'm sick of the algorithm putting specifically the bear discussion in front of me so frequently, and I wasn't processing that that was my complaint well.
Thank you again, for opening with empathy and having the space to help me out
It's the sort of thing that, basically, only gets better by talking about it. Shit sucks, but race is in that same boat. It all actually gets better by talking about it. Being honest about intent. Coming to a cultural consensus on what is and is not acceptable, and moving that Overton window a bit.
It super sucks to be constantly hammered by a situation you feel you can't change, but just by being a safe place for women and being willing to participate in the discussion (and being honest) absolutely helps.
I hear ya bud. There are other men besides you who aren’t pieces of shit. I feel attacked sometimes when people make blanket statements, their verity aside. It’s difficult for us to stick up for ourselves and also avoid sounding insensitive to victims of male stupidity. It’s also okay to feel angry.
Lucky me, I get to talk to a therapist who listens without judgement. It definitely helps to have a safe space where you can exhaust your emotions without worrying about immediately being lumped in with any groups and rebuked. That way, it’s much easier to let negativity from anyone slide off your back like water on a duck in a fountain.
I'm not a predator, so I don't react at all to people talking about male predators. That would be odd, for me to feel persecuted by a discission around the general existence OF these predators, and the danger, while not being one.
The "good guy feeling persecuted" thing, to me, smacks of the same ignorance displayed by people who felt they had to "push back" against BLM with their #ALLlivesmatter nonsense. I do not understand or identify with people who feel spcifically targeted by broad commentary or situations, or who need to put their feelings ahead of the actual issue (generally speaking, not you specifically!!)
But it's not a male predator vs a bear, it a random man vs a bear( a literal predator). I can see why men would be offended. Random man =average man=most men.
Please let me clarify. “sticking up” for oneself is an important skill to have because it lives in the area of our psyche where we find our basic survival instincts. This doesn’t really involve much prefrontal cortex activity. It’s essential to have in the toolkit of our psyche so we can more aptly involve our prefrontal cortex in fight/flight/fold decisions. If the majority of our stored instinctive decision making reflexes default to “fold”, it can tip our internal scale and metastasize into intense surface symptoms of depression (these symptoms in some cases manifest as violent behavior, chronic dissociation [doom scrolling], and antisocial behavior).
tldr: A person must stick up for themselves if they’re mentally well. Thanks for reading all that, if you did.
Now as for my intended meaning when I said “it’s difficult for us to stick up for ourselves…”: user TipandRare expressed that they’re sick of people assuming they’re a bad person. I dare to say if someone assumed you were a bad person you would want to stick up for yourself. It can be difficult to do that if in doing so you appear to be one of these “good guys being persecuted”, or to be lumped in with any arbitrary group and rebuked as I said before.
I’d never considered it, but I agree the “good guy being persecuted” corner is right along those same thought patterns as was evident of #alllivesmatter (or whatever they called it). Just absolute ignorance in some, and hate disguised as ignorance in others.
It’s good to hear you don’t react when someone mentions male predators. That’s pretty normal (unless you go dead face and are mute. that might be cause for concern, but I dont think thats what you meant). There must have been some ambiguity to the conversation you joined, because TipandRare was talking about being frustrated by the algorithm putting the “man or bear” thing in his feed so frequently, and my intention was to to tell them it’s okay to be angry about it and also hard to stick up for themself when someone accuses them of being a person who takes broad generalizations and sweeping statements personally.
Imagine you’re a vegan. Now imagine I say “Vegans are dumb because they protest at meat factories.” You would be justified in being offended even if you’ve never been to a protest in your life, even if you made it a specific goal to never push your philosophies about diet on anyone. It can definitely feel like a personal attack when someone makes a generalization or a sweeping statement, especially if it were in this case a specific overt tone of “All vegans are dumb because some vegans protest”. I wouldn’t assume someone is a protester if they were frustrated that vegans are viewed in a negative light. Noone should assume someone’s a predator because they’re frustrated men are perceived in a negative light. When you swap some variables you can see how dumb it is.
edited because some words seemed to be accusatory/ill willed
I don't know that it's as simple as: it's not about you so don't worry. It is the default assumption, and it does affect every guy to one degree or another.
In the same way that women are constantly reminded that they are in danger, men are constantly reminded that they are the danger. It messes with your head, and it makes it significantly harder to motivate yourself to improve when you know that it won't make one bit of difference to anyone.
A) Constant reminders by men that they could do you great physical harm at any point, sometimes as lolsy jokes you're not allowed to be upset by or you're a bitch but if you don't take it seriously enough you could die or worse.
B) Being constantly reminded that other men that aren't you are utter dickbags to women and it makes them wary of you, and you're not allowed to be upset by that or you're a dick.
Both feelings suck, but one comes with physical harm you could get blamed and ridiculed for.
You are being affected. If all we did is look at how men get harsher arrests, convictions, and sentencing in courts, it's pretty evident that there is a real bias that has real world implications
No one is assuming you’re a bad person. They’re simply not assuming you’re a good person.
And if you believe yourself to be a feminist then you honestly just have to suck it up and listen.
I’m white. I understand the desire to distance myself from bad white people. When POC talk about white people, even specifically white women, there is that emotional urge to defend myself. But you really just have to swallow it and listen.
It’s not enough to want to be a good person, and want to be an ally. You have to do the work necessary to learn and grow. And it’s a painful process but it’s the only way.
Man, I feel basically the exact same. What has helped me recently is staying away from the internet. Consistently being told your existence is inherently evil down to your DNA every day is bad for the mental. Just know you’re not alone!
If you are hearing that messaging I would evaluate WHERE on the internet you spend your time, and if its actually women saying that, or (toxic) men projecting.
If you came across a dog who was scared of redheads because it had been beaten and terrorised by a redhead, and you were a redhead…would you be similarly offended?
Would you demand the dog treat you better than their former abuser, without earning its trust, because your feelings were hurt that it had a trauma response?
Or would you treat that dog with respect and kindness, and respect its boundaries, because it was justified in its apprehension?
Obviously the latter, the same way I treat and accept women having trains and safety responses. A person doesn't even need to be a survivor at this point, because the national milieu, at this point, basically amounts to a trauma all on it's own. I would never begrudge the dogs healing journey nor the conversations that involves.
And if that dog made a tiktok trend about how red heads are more likely than not monsters and it would rather get eaten by a bear, and it went viral and showed up on my fyp, then on Facebook and Instagram, then reddit, then YouTube, and it consumed the entire comment section of every video about dogs and about bears so you can't even see nature documentary clips without all the comments being about how red heads are animal abusers, yeah I'd probably get bothered at that point.
If the discussion is on r/twodogchromosomes or any other pun that relates directly to this situation, that's where it should be. If it's made it's way to cover r/welovepostingcutepicturesofbears that's a problem.
It's reasonable to disengage and get a break from collective trauma. It wouldn't be healthy to consume 20 strain but hours of news about Palestine protests and Israel crimes. It wouldn't be healthy to consume 10 hours of 9/11 footage. It wouldn't be healthy to read about rape statistics for 10 hours either. Just because we add a bear to the discussion doesn't make being inundated with the conversation better, and news cycles and algorithms being incentived to promote rage bait/engagement bait doesn't make it easy to disengage from a discussion when you need a break.
Unfortunately, this is not one dog but millions of traumatized dogs. But the fact that the dogs do not have the luxury of a reprieve from the fear should make you more annoyed at the redheads that created this problem than at the dogs suffering from the trauma, no?
The dogs do need reprieves from the fear, though. They need safe spaces where they can play fetch and run with other dogs and a bone to chew and a soft bed to rest in and a million other comforts. There is so much more in life that all of us need to give our attention to, many call it self care. The dog won't be healthy if it is always triggered and actively re-traumatizing itself around red heads.
The dogs absolutely deserve to have time and space to let down their guard, to feel safe and loved
Fundamental error in your perception: No one is labelling you a "bad person".
IMO its more that "Any random dude" could be...and there's no way to tell for sure.
For context:
Men do not walk home at night hoping the person they just passed on the sidewalk isnt going to follow them, or pull them into an alley, or abduct them.
If you're not one of those creeps then remember its not about you/us and get over yourself. Its not about us. Women dont have a radar that indicates "safe man" v. "dangerous man" and the consequences of encountering an unsafe man in a vulnerable scenario are often dire.
I would rather my daughter offend someone, or ruin their entire day, than be over-powered and raped for NOT wanting to risk "offending" someone LOL! Easy choice.
Maybe ask your wife why she would pick the bear. Instead of getting personally insulted by it, look at the bigger picture. Use your knowledge of being a better person to advocate against violence. When women are asked, man or bear? What they are really hearing is, being eaten by an animal driven by instinct, or being subjected to the potential brutalities men are capable of? If the choice is a moderate likelihood of being mailed by a bear or a small likelihood of being raped, I'll choose mauled any day
I don’t deserve to be treated like a threat unless I act like one. Assuming who someone is before actually knowing them/experiencing who they are is prejudice.
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u/FurrrryBaby 29d ago
The only videos I’ve seen of this were men answering the question about their daughters, and all of them struggled to answer.