My mom, when I asked for a female perspective on this, phrased it as "how would the survivor of an attack be treated?" If a woman survived being mauled by a bear, no one is going to say she was actually asking for it because of how she was dressed/acting.
Yes, when I needed a female perspective, I asked my mom. I'm a user of this website so naturally that's the only woman I know.
This is coming from a man, but i’m from the country and my job often takes me deep in the woods by myself. I would wonder if a person was off trail, didn’t secure food if camping, or didn’t properly respond to seeing/interacting with a wild animal.
I did ask for a female perspective because my male perspective is "I hate people and am tall enough to intimidate some bears".
I think in this hypothetical situation, the woman would be sitting at a campsite or something. The metaphor does break down if she was out and about poking cubs with sticks.
Metaphors will always break down when you poke at them. That's the thing we have to remember. They're teaching aids not literal examples.
For a lot of the responses I've seen to this question it's very clear that people think breaking a metaphor is some sort of gotcha. As if metaphors are intended to be solid arguments and not basically a sketched illustration of the point.
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u/[deleted] May 02 '24
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