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Weighing in on "Man or Bear" - from a woman that left society to the Alaskan wilderness
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- Title
- A Woman Who Left Society to Live With Bears Weighs in on "Man or Bear"
- Authors
- Guest
- Published
- May 22 2024
- Word count
- 2424 words
This is honestly one of the best ways to express what's a very common experience for women, even in less wild places. I recall seeing lots of Redditors back in the day express confusion and anger about why women give out fake numbers -- it's the exact same reason. You can't just be honest and leave, but you've simultaneously got to manage his emotions as you do so. I've been fortunate enough to not have been in this situation very often myself, but it's such an incredibly common experience.
That said, I am one of the few people who picked "man" in man vs bear, but more due to my respect for the sheer ferocity and killing power of bears. If I get unlucky with the man, at least I can kick him in the nuts and run. I don't think that strat would work as well with a bear.
This was honestly the best part in an already great article. It's something too many women have to deal with, and it's not a rare occurrence. The vast majority of my interactions with men have been positive or neutral. However, I've been in situations where I've been approached by men and even when I tell them I'm a lesbian and married to a woman, some of them don't accept that as a response. At best they think I'm lying, at worst they insist because they think they can "turn" me. Each time I had to weigh how to approach the situation in a way that doesn't end up in threats, violence or sexual assault. I'm not even an option for these guys, yet somehow I still need to be careful how I respond lest I upset them and put myself in danger.
I've since changed the way I dress and I don't wear makeup anymore (not because of inappropriate men, I just feel more comfortable this way). I regularly get mistaken for a teenage boy at first glance, and a side effect I've noticed is I don't get bothered as much anymore. It's honestly a relief.
Are you saying the man has never just left after you tell him this?
Edit: I'm sorry I made this comment. I did not mean to question the validity of the parent comment. I misread the post and wanted to confirm my misreading which seemed really awful.
Expanding the quote a little bit...
Clearly she's talking about the selection of men who don't accept it as a response.
Also, perhaps consider the way you took a very narrow reading of her statement and the aggressive and absolutist nature of your question, and the way she politely corrected you? It's exactly the point of this article.
So thank you for being such a perfect example, I guess?
I’m sorry I have been away a while and missed a lot of these responses. First of all, you are right, I misread that comment and the context you pointed out is exactly what I missed. I don’t think I meant to make a confrontational comment but I was pretty surprised and shocked that this person had had this experience and I really wanted to confirm my understanding of their experience.
I can definitely see now that it does not come off that way. And I appreciate your response and everyone else’s making that clear to me.
It doesn't matter if 99% of the men leave after you tell them that, what matters is the 1% of men who don't. I think this is precisely the issue that people confront when subjects like this are brought up - people take it as an offense to them, because they view it as an attack on all men. The article carefully selects it's words to repeatedly show how this is not a "most men" problem. Most men are nice. Most men respect boundaries. The author even talks about the times she's happy to see men!
Why is your immediate response to doubt the veracity of the claim? Why do you launch into a superlative statement (never left)? Why do you feel the need to defend on behalf of all men? She's not talking about you - she's not talking about most men. She's trying to highlight the fact that it is a rare occurrence but it is not so rare an occurrence that it isn't top of mind or isn't something she hasn't experienced frequently in her life.
As an androgynous person who's been read both directions plenty of times in public, I'd like to chime in with my own similar experience, so it really drives the point home. There was a point starting a few years ago that my presentation tipped towards the feminine side in that more people started reading me as a woman than a man, and I cannot drive home enough how much these discussions matter. I've had diverse friend groups and I had heard from feminine people all my life about these problems and knew they existed and were common enough for most feminine folks to have a similar opinion on it and stories to share on the perils they'd been through. But even with all that I really underestimated how common of an occurrence it would end up being. I have more stories than I can count and it's only been a few years and I'm certainly not conventionally attractive given my proximity to androgyny.
If you come away from this with anything, I hope it's the mindset to listen a little bit closer to the people who are directly affected by this. If a lot of feminine individuals are speaking up about it, there may be more to it than you realize.
Yes most have left me alone, but there I'm speaking specifically about those who don't accept my lesbianism as a legitimate response.
Thank you for the response. I didn’t mean to be confrontational about this. Your original post was clear and I misread it. It’s not that I would not believe you but I really wanted to make sure I understood correctly (and I didn’t). I’m sorry to come across as dismissive or skeptical. I am learning more and more about the awful treatment women experience and I really appreciate everyone here taking time to explain things.
Hey it's ok, I wasn't offended. It's not always easy to convey tone in writing. Best of luck on your journey!
There are people whose mental algorithms go "already belonging to a man = claimed" and no other condition applies. It's like a very faulty boolean logic gate. So, "I'm my own person" or even "I already belong to a non-man" still returns "false" on claimed, which means execute the next part of the programing to assign this person to a man. Sometimes these people will also lack programing logic that says "divorced = no longer claimed", to dangerous results.
I've met men like this, but I've also met female elders like this who try to assign young ladies to men or else socially enforce divorced women still belong to the man.
I can't tell you how many men wouldn't leave me alone even after I told them I'm married or partnered. It happened a lot, especially when I was younger and actually went out more to social settingswith my friends, or even my partner.
I'm curious about your motivations for asking this question, and in this way. Were you actually confused? Did you think you'd caught her in a lie? Did you believe that no one had ever accepted her response and you were trying to figure out if there were other factors at play? I want to read this charitably and assume that your intentions were good and also somewhat intelligent, just not phrased well. Help me out.
I misread the comment and wanted to confirm what I thought I read. Not because I didn't or wouldn't believe the commentor, but because my understanding seemed like a really awful experience and I want to get a better understanding of what many women really go through. I have had a naive and privileged life and I genuinely want to listen to what people are going through in their lives. I did not mean to come across as so incredulous, but I absolutely see that I have.
They said that some don't accept the response, and of those a subset "at best..." While another subset "at worst.."
(This is what I get for not refreshing before responding when I get distracted)
I truly think that her deep discomfort with the societal role she found herself in has led to her being able to really clearly articulate the process of managing the social encounter with a man, I actually wonder if she's neurodivergent because of it, but either way she's very emotionally aware. It was just one of the best "takes" I've seen that explains the experience.
I'm sorry, but of course I just had to share this video.
Might work better than you thought.
lmao the way he rolls around...
I suspect if I got close enough to kick a bear in the balls, though, I'd already be in far too deep of shit.
Just distract the bear
I know this is not exactly the point of this thread, but are you really one of the few, outside of online communities?
First a disclaimer: I live in a country that's firstly objectively considerably safer than the US average (not specifically for women, but it changes the "baseline safety feeling" for everyone) and secondly doesn't have forests huge enough that a dangerous person could realistically use them to hide from society - I know the article (and the problem in general) speaks about issues with "normal" men, but I have to think that the awareness that antisocial people who want to get away form society realistically exist has to play a role as well. Here you normally expect that the people you meet in a forest are going to be above average in kindness and helpfulness.
With that said, I asked most women I know irl well enough to openly talk about their (and mine) worldviews and reasoning and none of them answered bear. A couple of women aged 50+ were either surprised to almost horrified that a significant portion of American women view men so negatively, not in a "poor men" way, but saying that is must be difficult to live like that. The closest I got from younger women was "I get what they want to say by that, but I'm never going to actually choose a bear".
However, I have no idea whether it's an online thing, where a member of feminist groups of social media is much more likely to answer bear, or whether it's cultural. Because while "women I know well enough" is obviously a biased group (although they're not conservative or "antiwoke"), when I think about it the question was not nearly as popular on social media around here either.
I think that part of it is that women who would pick "bear" are more likely to post about it in response because they have a point to make. But I also think a lot of it is dependent on who is asking the question and how the question is worded. Obviously a man asking the question is going to add some potential for the woman answering to manage his emotions (depending on how well she knows him, she might not know how he'd react). But also the framing of the man in the question can change if you specify that it's "any random man" or "a strange man" or something. And, of course, a woman's life experiences will hugely influence her answer. Someone who's never gotten catcalled may have a different perspective than someone who's been sexually assaulted in the past. Women aren't a monolith so variation is to be expected.
I will say living in a country that's safter for women than most of the US does absolutely help with my day-to-day feelings of safety and might influence my answer as well. But then I'm also trans so that probably influences my choice too.
I also think that the vast majority of people just have too little respect for bears. This is more common for people who are less likely to ever encounter a bear in real life. I recall seeing a statistic on Twitter ages ago of how many men thought they could beat a bear in a fight -- it was an absurdly high percentage. I didn't even grow up in bear country but I know enough about bear safety to know how easy it is for a bear to absolutely destroy me. So exposure to bears and bear safety might be a factor for some women (though ofc not the author of this article).
I don't think the women who are choosing bear are doing it because they don't think the bear could hurt/kill them, I think they're basing it on how likely the bear is to try to hurt them, and how effective tactics to prevent that would be. The assumption is that most bears will just leave you alone if you don't make them feel threatened or challenged and you don't seem like a good snack. You're not likely to seem like a good snack, because you're not a bear's natural prey. Unfortunately - and I agree with this sentiment - it does feel like we are natural prey for predatory men.
Realistically, the type of bear matters. A polar bear might kill you just because you're near enough to it. A black bear might run away if you make enough noise. Men are extremely varied as well, but they aren't color-coded.
Yeah, it's the idea that the bear lives there, the bear will most likely move on if you're not fucking with it or approaching it, etc. I don't deal with bears but have a healthy respect for and basic knowledge of wildlife. Like I'm definitely not fighting one off,
I might rather actually run into a man, but I'd probably have the same adrenaline response to both initially if I were caught unawares. I have a much more vivid idea of what a man can do to hurt me and it feels much more likely than a bear attacking me. Because as some men like to point out the statistics are skewed by the number of men you encounter vs the number of bears. Which.... Reflects the point. It's an emotional question, not a logical one.
There's also the consideration that some women believe they would rather be mauled/killed than raped, and bears don't actually rape people. I don't know that anyone who hasn't experienced both can actually reasonably decide between the two, but for a long time after I was raped I definitely would have picked being mauled. Even now, after time and therapy and knowing that I can be happy and whole again despite being violated that way, it's still really hard for me to say I wouldn't pick being mauled, but I also don't have the traumatic experience of being mauled influencing that decision.
At least if you were mauled people would immediately believe and sympathize with you. You wouldn't have people arguing that "aw, c'mon, he's a really good bear, he'd never do that" or "look at the way you were dressed, you clearly wanted it." There might be more physical damage to heal (though it depends on the severity of the sexual assault I guess) but I imagine it'd be easier to recover emotionally.
Absolutely. The man who raped me gave me chlamydia, and when I went to get treatment, the campus doctor was first sort of shaming me about having unprotected sex, and when I said that I always use condoms for consensual sex, she was pretty cruel about the fact that I hadn't reported it. I don't expect cruelty and shame would be factors in treating bear-inflicted bone fractures.
I'm so sorry that happened to you and shame on any doctor that treats patients with disdain and judgment. It's bad enough to go through trauma, but to have that abuse extended by the people who are supposed to help you heal is sickening.
I'm doing really well now. I only bring it up because I think it's very illustrative of your point. The bear and the man can both cause me to need medical treatment, but if it had been the bear, the doctor would have been a lot nicer.
idk, if there's one way the medical profession surprises me it's by finding ways to dismiss women's legitimate symptoms and blame her sometime. Are you sure the bear-inflicted bone fractures aren't just anxiety?
"If you just lost some weight...ಠ_ಠ
I work on campus and shitty campus medical staff are high on my shit list.
As @Axella noted that emotional aspect and the social response being different are key. Far more women have been sexually or physically assaulted or even threatened with it by men than by bears and thus the Bear answer.
I don't think that anyone actually wants to get mauled nor that the majority of women think men are all going to assault them, but the original author notes that the emotional labor, the instinctive "manage his emotions for my safety" response is exhausting.
Also thank you for trusting us with your story and I'm happy to hear you're doing better emotionally.
Oh yeah I totally get why most people answer "bear", and I don't wanna downplay that. Bears are just living in the forest, doing their thing. I just think most people severely underestimate how dangerous bears can be. The idea that they won't necessarily attack you out there bc they're just bears doing bear things is comforting... but honestly I think bears are no better than men on that front. Possibly worse, since I'm much more familiar with human body language (to say nothing of language language). The author of this article might be familiar enough with bears to have a better chance there, but I wager most other people do genuinely underestimate how dangerous even the nicer bears like black bears can be.
Of course, it's never actually been about the objective chance of danger in this scenario, it's a statement about how women feel unsafe around strange men. My getting into the dangers of bears is just me being distracted by my deference for their power.
One sec, tagging you as "deferent to bear power" 😂
I think most people in the US have primarily been exposed to black bears and not in a mama and cubs situation. And there's a bit of a Tiktok culture about white women and large predator animals (why not friend if friend shaped!) as well. And we can't stop people from getting mauled by bison trying to get a selfie either so definitely some people have a lack of preservation involved.
I do tend to see the misconceptions of "I could kill a bear/croc/tiger/whatever" more from men online much like the "I could beat Caitlin Clark in basketball" sort of statements. I haven't seen any responses to Man or Bear with a "I can fight off a bear" mostly just videos of (black) bears being shooed off porches verbally contrasted with a man following a woman who is actively telling him to leave her alone while she's walking.
Folks who have only ever lived in a city can vastly underestimate how serious nature is.
The last time I visited the Hoh Rainforest, there were signs all along the trails to steer clear of baby elk. Don't approach the baby elk, don't pet the baby elk, don't place yourself between the baby elk and a grown elk, just turn around and walk the other way.
I asked a ranger if people really do approach them, she said it happens way more often than you'd think. People will walk right up for a selfie!
Somehow the instinct to walk away from animals with built in deadly weapons doesn't develop in some people.
Because it's not an instinct, it's a learned behavior. If you've never interacted with an animal that hadn't been domesticated, all the animals in your world are friendly. It can be a rude awakening when an elk decides to stomp on you to be sure you won't bug their baby.
Thought this was a thoughtful article on the whole Man v Bear conversation that avoided fully just rehashing the arguments that started in the initial video's wake, and broke down that experience of having to manage a man's emotional state to stay safe while still acknowledging that this is because men are harmed by the patriarchy too.
I hadn't engaged with this meme (for lack of a better word) until reading this because I figured it was just another current thing to get outraged about but I couldn't agree more that it's a very thoughtful article, thank you for posting! I especially liked the way in which she frames patriarchy - a very concise phrasing of such a complicated concept:
Yeah, I mean there are a lot of people being outraged, I do find that if you're sending a woman death threats over choosing the bear you should know you're proving the point. But I think there's this undercurrent of camaraderie or, well, sisterhood (and siblinghood, I've seen a number of guys, especially queer men, jump on team Bear immediately) among those sharing their stories and I think it's worthwhile.
I expected more bear insights
Addressed in another comment
She's mostly not concerned about them it seems. The lack of further need for bear insights is because the bears aren't a particular difficulty.
Wow, I gotta remember this one.
This was a very well written piece and I really appreciate her clarity as well as warmth: men and women and everyone are all victims of patriarchy. When we tell boys that their desire for closeness is a weakness, and that their loneliness is a sign of powerlessness and undesirability, but also provide ZERO tools for them to connect with other humans to obtain this closeness, this is what drives violence.
A man is called manly even if, or perhaps especially if, he does monstrous things: in this warped view, someone who hurts children is more masculine than a kindergarten teacher, and someone who murders his wife is more masculine than a man whose wife leaves him. This is why young men are drawn to incel ideology: they are told they have to win closeness (coded as sex and domination of women) at all cost, and that if they support a sort of revolution in which society reforms into one of suppression and control of all women reduced to state meted resource, they'll finally achieve closeness and loyalty and love and companionship that they desperately crave but see no path towards currently.
This is so harmful to men. How can they achieve the closeness and relational love that all humans need and deserve when they're told that relational skills are feminine AND that femininity is weak and terrible?
"When Men Take Off Their Pants
I think it's fascinating that we can do this in comparison so, here's the same author from 4 years ago that starts with the same comparison, men and bears:
But then,
And then, as she takes a ride from a man to a promised cabin, that turns out not to be one at all, despite feeling wary about it:
Something about that breaks the tension and he laughs and she laughs and nothing else happens, but she notes how complex kindness is.
And in another blog, an interview with the founder of Sacred Cycles - which supports women who have been victims of sexual abuse getting into backcountry cycling:
I do think that last bit gets into the responses I've seen from a lot of women to the Man or Bear question:
"If a bear attacks me, I'll be believed."
"If a bear attacks me, I won't get told I deserved it."
"If a bear attacks me, my friends won't stay friends with it."
"If a bear attacks me, my mom won't keep his picture on the wall."
That story filled me with dread. It reads like a horror movie with nothing but tropes and cliche's for plot points.. thankfully she got out of it without trauma. It seems though that when compared to this new article/post, that she has learnt from it. She notes that she is not all that vigilant as a baseline (paraphrasing), but when those red flags do pop up, she now immediately goes into a mode of survival instinct.
Kind of crazy to me that she keeps traveling solo despite such a close call. What a strong person..!
I do think her feeling like she was physically capable of fighting off this man made a big difference to her in that situation. She also seems like she's better prepared now and perhaps got caught more off guard exhausted and hungry and wanting a shower and bed bad enough to risk more than usual.
The fact that on average the physical advantage lays with men feeds the safety concerns of women. It makes me think of Naomi Alderman's The Power tbh
That book is so good and I feel a little stupid for not connecting the dots to it but yes, it is the obvious comparison! Alderman does so much with such a simple concept in that novel.
Nah don't feel stupid at all. I was just piecing it together as I wrote.
My favorite part of that book was that it didn't create a perfectly enlightened society. Not because I prefer that but because humans are messy, often shitty people. And it was believable.
On a light-hearted note, a trend I'm noticing is that sexist and misogynistic comments on social media, particularly Tiktok are being responded to with "this is why we choose the bear" or more entertainingly just "Bear."
I don't like it just because it's pithy and smartass, but because it's publicly shaming the inappropriate behavior and not just allowing it to continue unaddressed, while also leaving no opening for bad faith arguments about how it wasn't that bad, just a joke, why are you so serious, lighten up, smile more, etc.
I see what you mean, and I totally sympathize, because these people calling out the wrong behavior have no responsibility to do the work of correcting it.
I can't help but feel my general aversion to pithy comments about serious topics, though. Even the whole meme of choosing a bear over a man initially made me (as a man) feel defensive and an object of reverse sexism. This motivated me to look into it more and figure out the argument behind it, but what percentage of men are that interested in introspection? How many is this going to push even deeper into their misogynistic attitudes?
I think that, overall, you're totally right. Social media is all about pithy B.S., so I should root for people making the right kind of pithy comments. I guess my point boils down to: all of this is why I favor Tildes and the nicer places on Reddit (even if I mostly lurk). People need more real conversations in their lives instead of that kind of superficial back-and-forth. Misogynistic men are victims, too, and should figure out how to overcome that. I can't imagine that relationships built on misogyny are particularly satisfying.
Sorry for getting a bit soap-boxy there. Just wasn't sure how else to come to a point!
So a black Tiktok-er did a pivot off Man or Bear which was "Black women would you rather be alone in a conference room with a white man or white woman" and many answered "White man" and boy did the white women get offended and argue, rather proving the point. I am a white (nonbinary) woman, and my response was "oh shit, a thing for me to learn."
This wasn't "reverse racism" and the black women didn't "push white women deeper into racism. The white women chose to dig into that racism themselves rather than to Listen and learn.
Men are responsible for their own emotional reactions, the fact that anger is the only acceptable expression of that is part of the larger problem, but not one that the women they're targeting with their misogyny are responsible for. As the author of this article noted, part of the "problem" is that women must often navigate managing men's emotions to stay safe and it is exhausting. Meanwhile those men digging into misogyny don't care how many women they hurt.
Why is this the fault of the women? It's not even about pithy responses, there is some real deep hurt behind the Bear comments and some real chance to tear down a bit of the system if people will listen. Similarly it isn't black women's fault they don't feel safe with white women in an office. It's racism and how that plays out between women in the workplace in particular.
I'm not unappreciative of your POV nor am I saying your emotional response was wrong. Feelings are valid it's what you do with them after and you described what I think we should all do when we find ourselves re-enacting or grabbing onto oppressive systems. I can empathize with how they got there. But I'm not going to hold anyone responsible for misogynistic men but themselves. Just like I won't blame trans folks for not being nice enough to JK Rowling. Or Black folks for white women's responses. We gotta own our own shit.
I'm definitely not blaming women for it--if I'm blaming anyone, it's Twitter for helping to foster a culture where short "gotcha" responses are acceptable, but even that isn't totally Twitter's fault. I get that it's okay; hopefully you saw that I came around to saying that I should be cheering on these "right" pithy responses. And I agree completely that people have to own their own issues and take responsibility for themselves.
I just don't think enough people are. That's on them and no one else, sure. But I'd like to see more people reaching out to these misogynistic men and giving them a hand rather than piling on more. But you're totally right--there's no reason for it to be people who have put up with similar men's B.S. If they see something idiotic and just want to say that they'd rather have the bear and move on, that's pretty understandable.
I guess it's more on people like me to reach out to these kinds of men than anyone.
Tbf it wasn't anywhere near Twitter and Laconic responses have been around since Sparta (it's the name). AND the comments I'm talking about are in response to real red flag comments - all women want to be led by their man, if women want to be independent how about we let you take the front lines for the first 30 days of the next war, that sort of shit.
I did read your whole comment, I don't think anyone has to like pithy comments and even with you coming around I don't want you to feel like you have to, but I've done my time trying to educate in the comments of those sorts of things. The one thing that got people to stop (in this case) calling me a baby murderer, was informing them that their comments were helping increase the engagement and thus monetization of the creator whose point I was supporting. They're not interested in good faith arguments, and the immediate shut down and unwillingness to engage in bad faith "debate" is the equivalent of the "not cool dude" that's a reasonable bare minimum when misogyny/racism/homophobia rears it head.
And deeper in those comments were those sisterhood/siblinghood moments I mentioned in other replies here.
I would like to know more about the dynamics informing that
The pivot video by White Woman Whisperer
Sample response
White Woman Whisperer follow up
another follow up
She continues to educate in her replies and you can seek out the duets and such with her if you like.
There were expressions of exhaustion at having to not make a white woman feel threatened or unsafe. And that given an office situation the white man will treat them as women, but the white women will not. And that the emotional fragility and hostility (white women's tears is one description of this) is exhausting to have to manage. Similar to the original article. It's a lot of commentary on white feminism and the fact that white women demand black women to be "onside" for feminism but then don't show up for racial issues.
A black man talking through it: The people I'm safest around are those I pose a danger to
His video and her stitched response are excellent.
I'm really struggling to figure out how you arrived at "misogynistic men are victims, too."
Is that in reference to them receiving pithy comments, or what you called reverse sexism? Or is that meant more in the way of "product of their circumstances," where you are assuming they were surrounded by misogynists and thus became one themselves?
Either way I really can't agree with the sentiment. People who mistreat others, or people who consider half the population to be inherently lesser than them, should expect to experience some kind of negative experience. A lot of them probably won't.
Still, that kind of mindset is a choice. The last thing that misogynists deserve is sympathy.
I'm sure I worded it wrong, but it has to be a product of their circumstances that they turned into people like that. It doesn't just happen in a vacuum. I meant it in regard to having shitty relationships with people rather than equal ones. 'Victim' is I'm sure the wrong word. I guess I just have sympathy for almost everyone; that the shittiest people are themselves unhappy with their circumstances on some level. It's their own job to figure it out, but in some way life and other people have failed them, and their response was to take it out on others rather than improve.
I'm also sure I should've kept my mouth shut. Yet sometimes I click 'post' instead of 'cancel'...
I don't mean to make you feel bad for expressing your opinion. I'm seeing now you have a lot more faith in the human race than I do, and that's definitely not a bad thing.
I totally admit that it's due to my own circumstances. I wouldn't say I've had it easy, but I'm an educated white man who owns a house (well, via a mortgage), has a nice family, had a relatively good childhood, loving parents, etc. I'm far more sympathetic to women who have to deal with misogynistic folks, but I hate the idea of writing people off. It seems like there's a lot of that on the internet and, even though it's pretty reasonable, I think it overall makes things worse.
I don't think you should feel like you should keep your mouth shut. While I can see how it might be a little confusing, I read it as you intended. Unfortunately, a lot of nuance is lost on online and I think many of our hackles go up when we read something due to how we've been conditioned through both our in person and online interactions.
I also wanted to add I think you wrote a thoughtful response, and I share the sentiment that the pithiness rubs me the wrong way. I'm ambivalent on whether it's truly productive in changing minds, and I know that it's not anyone person's job to take on that role. I certainly have given my fair share of snarky responses, particularly when I was younger, and it can be a nice stress relief, but I've come around more and more to the idea that it just doesn't really help anything.
I don't know how many times I've written out a response to something, gone back and re-read their comment, and realized that the person wasn't actually at all saying what I thought they were. I've done that so many times that I've learned to make a point of reading a second time before submitting my comment (I guess I should start reading a second time before writing a comment!) and saved myself a fair amount of embarrassment. So yes, when hackles are raised, reading comprehension sure seems to change, at least for me.
I know it's not really the point but I would have liked to hear how she deals with meeting a bear. I'm sure it's considerably less nuanced (and possibly less scary) than meeting a dodgy man - but dealing with actual bears while alone in the wilderness is surely part of her "unique perspective" on this topic. Not to minimise what she did say at all, but I have heard all that before (it's still important though, of course)
The largest predator we have in the UK is probably a badger so I don't have a lot of points of reference for this debate. Again, well aware that's not the point.
From a different bit of writing: https://bearvault.com/thank-you-wolves/
(I interpret this last line as the parents needing therapy. ) To be fair this is on the BearVault website, so she seems to prepare and then not have to worry so much about it.
Do women genuinely not realize that men can feel the same way about women? That's not a rhetorical question; from my personal experience, few women consider the idea that they might make me, a man, feel unsafe. Clearly, I can't read their minds, but none of their actions or words suggest or hint at the internal concern. They don't take small complaints or worries seriously to show that they can handle the big stuff as well. They don't ask any questions to show that actually want to know me, but are inversely certain they know me, truly understand me, without a single step of effort. Don't they know you need to make someone feel safe before you try and make them like you? But my personal experience is generally odd, so I feel wary to, well, generalize from it.
No, I think most women do realize that men can feel unsafe. But they're also impacted by patriarchal social values (it hurts everyone.)
I don't think most women are "certain" they know anyone entirely upon first meeting them, or at least not making more assumptions than men or non-binary people do.
However this discussion, and the Man or Bear analogy that started it is about women's feelings of safety. I'd absolutely support a conversation about men's safety or your personal feelings, it's just deflecting here.
I want to be very clear, I am not saying that women are incapable of understanding that men can feel unsafe in the abstract. I am saying in my personal experience many women don't seem to be socialized to consider how their specific actions might make men feel unsafe. It is an argument from solidarity; I am saying I agree with the point, I'd pick the bear over a random person.
I have and will continue to start similar conversations from a more gender open perspective, but I am not trying to talk over anyone. I am simply trying to add to it.
I follow you and in reading your other comments, I wanted to share. I've found myself very much in a space where for the first time I can physically scare my partner. Not because I've bulked up or gotten stronger but because he's paralyzed, and he's feeling a sense of fear over everything that he's never felt before. He has nearly no resilience to it, and working through that is something he's doing with a therapist and between the two of us.
But despite being the oldest myself, we didn't roughhouse and I wasn't physically abusive, nor was my sister, to our two younger brothers. So I didn't have the visceral awareness of it until recently, though I have always advocated for men to be able to be free of the patriarchal expectations (to remain quiet about abuse for example) as women.
Many women don't have that visceral feeling, because they have only experienced the other side. In the same way many men, though obviously not all, have never felt the visceral fear it sounds like you do, and like my partner does. Scaring him was up with watching him scream in pain before his surgery as the worst moments of my life. And to be clear, we've never fought physically, we rarely argue, and I didn't threaten him at all, I got frustrated at something else and raised my voice and cursed. I never want to scare him again, or anyone for that matter.
I wish that no one had to have any of this visceral knowledge. I wish no one felt "Bear" was a safer answer because no one would doubt them if a bear attacked. And I don't want you to not feel heard. Bear being an answer is a reflection of how we treat people en masse, and many people have responded to it from their own personal spaces of pain.
Of course, I think women understand that, but I think very few people in the world actually realize it. It's probably relatively uncommon for it to happen, but much more importantly, I think that--as you mentioned--socialization leads even many men who are made to feel uncomfortable by women to not actually realize what is going on. I think there are many more stories that we believe just because they're assumed as part of our society than we realize.
It sounds like "unsafe" to you is a matter of connection and relationships. Do I understand correctly? And what do you mean about small complaints, worries, and effort? Asking in good faith, hope you take it that way!
Asking because this article and the whole man vs. bear thing is about feeling unsafe in the afraid-of-being-raped and fear-of-being-murdered way, not in fearing rejection or similar things which while that sucks, if most men were to meet the average woman in the wilderness, he would in no way be physically unsafe.
Every single woman has a moment in their life where they realize just how strong men are. Maybe playfighting with a friend or partner, and then if the man suddenly uses all his strength, you become utterly shocked at just how strong most men are compared to most women - I will burst into tears out of the blue if I am held down, even if it's in a playful way, because I am powerless in that moment. If a man really put his mind to it, we have literally no way to protect ourselves to fight for our lives - at least not without weapons or something, hence why so many women carry pepper spray or have keys between our knuckles when walking alone after dark, etc.
Oh boy. You just made me remember my argument with my brother where I was so frustrated that I tried pushing him away. All he had to do was tense up, and I basically rebounded like a basketball off the backboard of a hoop. I fell/sat back down on my grandparents' guest bed, and it was such a shocking moment for me (but I still felt safe with my brother - because he is a genuinely kind person - despite the physical difference). I started laughing at how surprisingly weak I was, which made him laugh. Then the argument was just sorta... over.
That was my moment when I realized how much weaker I am, despite being only two years younger than him.
I'd say I'm mixed on your first point; most of the stuff that happened is more emotional abuse stuff, especially as an adult, not severe physical injury. I am worried about moderate violence, i.e. punches, slaps and the like.
The mixed part is related to physical violence when I was a child.
My older sister was quite violent towards me. She suffocated me to the point of blacking out on more then a few occasions. Apparently, when I was very young, she tried to hit me over the head with a brick; the only reason I have any knowledge is because my parents' thought it was funny/cute story to retell. My point being some women can still have relative power over some men, not all men are stronger then all women.
I imagine my stronger association with being the victim is because I am very weak guy, so I get it. I am really not trying to say that men aren't violent and scary, trust me I've been scared of a big, threatening guy. My point is that this conversation isn't owned by the male-perpetrator and female-victim perspective, that its one of many.
I do also just want to say I am sorry you feel so unsafe, I hope you have people you feel comfortable with.
That sounds like a very brutal way to grow up. I hope you are on a path of healing now, and likewise also have people you are comfortable with?
Definitely agree. Everything regarding societal dynamics must be seen through an intersectional lens in my opinion. This is something the author of the article does too, and comments in this thread also mention that gay men being questioned also chose the bear most of the time. However, as per usual, the wider debate is very heteronormative - and it isn't all that serious in the first place, is my impression. Like I said elsewhere, it just seems like another trend/meme to get outraged about, something algorithms pick up on to drive engagement metrics etc... ugh, I hate that I think this way lol
In any case, I totally understand your point of view on it because as an abuse survivor, you are definitely not the stereotypical scary man that gets imagined by the women in the linked tiktok video. Humans always expend the least amount of energy possible, and so it's a fact of psychology that our brains think in stereotypes, by the way. So it's not necessarily an expression of misandry nor on the other hand misogyny to think that way. But like you say, that's just one conversation of many.
Just wanted to chime in that for what it's worth I, as a woman, also believe and hold in mind that some men are also afraid of women and every kind of people can be a threat to other people, psychologically and physically and emotionally. Absolutely not all men are stronger than all women. Even physically weaker people can be violent as well.
Elsewhere on the thread I previously pointed out that there are women who enforce the patriarchy and limit women's freedom as well. It's not just that "men are dangerous and just free from danger": under the patriarchy, the powerful are dangerous and everyone else can be victimized.
Patriarchy can also help violence be hidden: perhaps you and I share the fear that if we were to be attacked, we wouldn't be believed, for different reasons. I could be "asking for it", and you could be turned around and wrongfully accused, or not believed that a smaller woman can possibly physically harm you, or else suffer societal implications as a victim.
That's the point of the article: under the patriarchy we all suffer and it allows male and female abusers and predators to get away with it
From my experience, I've heard women discuss this thoughtfully about men, but since your question made me think about it, it's been exclusively in communities that are based around consent and acceptance (kink circles, and neurodivergent friend group). I can't recall seeing women talk about it outside of that context, like with normies/more traditional people... I appreciate you sharing your experience
These are generally communities already questioning/challenging the status quo (though I've had worse luck with that in kink circles, personally, a lot of really toxic people there if your local group doesn't weed them out) and I think that is also why queer folks and other minority populations, especially those who advocate for social justice sorts of platforms can be particularly aware of the nuances of these discussions.
My Church groups, volunteering circles, parenting circles and book clubs have talked about this thoughtfully about the men and boys we love in our lives :) just throwing that in there - thoughtful and kind people exist in many places, I believe.
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She reminds me of Sol, an intrepid single female traveller that I used to follow on social media about 15 years ago. She travelled to something like 40+ countries and found work when she needed to as a bartender or a salsa dance instructor.
But along the way, she hinted that she had found more than one suitor and didnt seem to mind the attention she got, while at the same time explaining that she was on this journey to escape the normal upwardly mobile career and settled down US life she had openly rejected and left behind (If I recall she was a a well educated and well paid executive before she hit the open road).
Sol had a lot of insights as she travelled and seemed to be on the way to being the most decidedly single, most travelled women ever.
And then, after years of travel and thousands of very cool blogged experiences, she met a guy, fell in love, moved back to the US and had kids. And then all her blogs and hundreds of pics disappeared off the net.
I guess my point is, Ive seen this kind of insightful writing before, about the patriarchy and independence as a woman, but it seems that things can change pretty quickly if one falls for a man.
I feel that it is a bit strange to assume to know the specific motivations and drives of someone on social media. Lacking access to her personal story beyond what she was willing to share, how can you really say that it was just "meeting a guy"?
I can't tell you how many people I know that have done the same thing. They travel for a few years and feel free, but then life goes on and they - for any number of reasons - no longer feel it necessary or enjoyable to travel around constantly.
I'm sorry, but this is just projection. To reiterate you do not know the above woman and are assuming all sorts of things that fit in with your worldview. Rather than speculate on the motives of women who don't offer you them, why not just take the women who do at face value, instead of implying that they're all one man short of a nuclear family life?
Well, I would disagree about not knowing her. One of the reasons I followed her so closely was that she was very open about her thoughts and feelings. It was before the blatant kind of attention seeking that is common online today, because she was articulate, thoughtful, quite philosophical and obviously very intelligent. So the reason I know she quit because she found a man and domestic life is because she said so. Very clearly. That she had fallen in love and despite her younger belief that she would never give up her nomadic life and settle into a more typical urban life, that's exactly what she now wanted to do.
The posts became more sparse as she settled in. Then the first kid came along and there were only a few a year. But the second one came and they stopped. And that was that. And all her blogs disappeared, which was disappointing.
I would like to point out that women are not all the same. Just because this one woman changed her life from being single (not just independent) to being married, doesn't mean all women will. I'm sure she married someone who is just as aware and understanding of how harmful patriarchy is as she has blogged about.
My issue is not within the fact that she stopped posting because she got married, but because of the implication that doing so magically altered the way she thought about the patriarchy and so on.
People change, and sometimes they change as a result of meeting someone special. This doesn't have to be a man, it doesn't have to be marriage, it doesn't even have to be romantic. Considering I only have your second hand account of what this person wrote fifteen years ago I can't exactly go and check the facts of it myself.
It sounds to me like Sol was out in the world looking for herself and found someone that supported her in all the right ways, to the point where maybe she just didn't enjoy travelling as much as spending time with them, or a million other reasons. But again, this is the issue with anecdotal stories that are impossible to verify - none of us are Sol, memory is often imperfect, and people don't always tell the truth online even if you're 100% convinced that they are. Countering a personal story with such an anecdote comes across as trying to dismiss it as "just another Sol". I hope I just misinterpreted all of this.
Try substituting genders in that recital and see if it feels any less condescending.
And I realize that's confrontational and brusque - my apologies for the rudeness.
However, I was a "Sol", at least within the bounds of the U.S., without the public persona. I didn't stop being an independent traveler and self-managed adult after I married. Maybe fewer wild escapades, but that was more a matter of age and learned caution than choosing to be bound to my spouse's immediate vicinity.
Not a native English speaker.. can I ask what you mean by "learned caution"?
As in, I learned to be more cautious in my activities. For example, I went to a festival and took an oversized dose of 'shrooms without anyone I knew there to keep me safe. I was having a bad time, a stranger invited me into his tent. I was just barely aware enough to run away yelling when he tried to rape me. I learned that going places alone can be safe, but getting too intoxicated to take care of myself should always be avoided.
Funny adventure, in context: Not long after getting married, I went on a solo hiking trip in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I stopped at a state park campground for the night, on the way to Copper Harbor. Before pitching my tent, I used the camp's payphone to give my spouse a call (no cell service back then). While I was speaking with him, a large bear ambled up to the trash cans by the phone stand... Not wanting to worry my spouse or draw the bear's attention, I chattered pleasant loving nonsense until the bear got bored and wandered off.
I'm in a relationship with a guy - and mostly with guys, sometimes several at once, through my history, though I'm a queer non-binary woman.
Despite being with my current partner/fiancé for 12 years, and only not getting married due the inequity of disability laws, my feelings on the patriarchy and my independence haven't changed in the slightest. The two things are not related. This is pretty parasocial and I think you should rethink it.
Ive never heard the word parasocial before and honestly, I dont understand what it means in this context. Feel free to dial me in.
Parasocial relationships are the one-sided relationships that form between content creators and the consumers of that content. Podcasters, bloggers, and social media creators feel much more accessible than celebrities and it seems more common these days among those groups, or at least it is more noticed in those groups. The parasocial part is that the focus of it has no idea that the other person exists as an individual.
A woman made a drastic life decision, got older (during which time even just physically living a nomadic life gets much more uncomfortable), and made a different (I'd suggest less) drastic life decision. That isn't that odd and it doesn't say anything about women in general. Nor does marrying and having kids mean signing on to team patriarchy. And even if it did, it doesn't speak to any larger trends or to this other individual woman's life. Feeling like you can speak to her underlying motivations and that you have a particular understanding of Sol's inner life as if you had a relationship more personal than blogger and reader is parasocial. And perhaps you don't feel that way, but that's how it came off.
Edited a phrase for clarity.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt and hopefully I (and others) are misunderstanding your comment a bit. Did you mean "if one falls for a life partner" or did you really mean that you think that a man is going to eventually make the woman in the article (not Sol) completely change her life?
In any case, that sucks that Sol shut down her blog. Sounds like she had some great stuff on it, and an interesting lifestyle.
That sounds like a wonderful experience on the earlier days of the internet :)
Many wonderful things have disappeared for any number of reasons over the years. Perhaps one day she'll write a book~
I don't know if it's related at all to what you were trying to say, but when I was a younger woman and getting married, my mom and dad kept telling me over and over and over and over that many things I love and believe in will change. They told me I won't be able to keep my male friends. They told me I won't keep my career. They told me my hobbies were too active. They told me all sorts of dumb nonsense that I understand was their projection of their anxieties that I don't perfectly fit the norm and that now that I "belong to a man" I'm going to have to start fitting into the mold better, or that I'll naturally want to. They were wrong of course, but it came from a place of love, and perhaps from a place of dejected grudging acceptance. My mom was so strong, so confident and so masculine in all those ways but she couldn't beat the system at the time, and suffered greatly for it. Perhaps she also saw so many of her brave sisters worn down by the patriarchy over the decades.
But things are changing. And it's fantastic. I worry about our boys, but I think our girls are gonna do okay.