Of recent weeks the social media pages I sometimes check out have been flooded with references to a man, a bear, and a woman. And there’s lots of laughing emoticons, and comments of agreement, but NO-ONE explains what it’s about.
Please dopers, fill this numpty in. 
Manbearpig?
There is a hypothetical floating around, posed to women, that goes something like “would you rather be alone in the woods with a man or a bear?” Many choose the bear, demonstrating their general distrust and fear of men.
Some responses (perhaps mostly from men) have attempted to explain why this is an unreasonable choice. Some of these explanations lean into #NotAllMen territory and others have pointed to them as a further demonstration why women would choose the bear.
I’ll note that, like all these viral things, there’s a bunch of versions with various differences. My wife asked me the question and it was phrased as “Would you rather encounter a bear or a strange man” which (to me) rings differently than “Be alone in the woods with…” The second one can suggest that the bear is just Doing Bear Things, the former suggests confrontation.
Anyway, the overall “debate” is that women seemingly overwhelmingly pick the bear and men either say “That’s dumb because a bear is obviously more dangerous for [reasons]” or being all insulted that the woman was insinuating all men were terrible. In my case, I picked the bear, my wife said the man and I said “Huh” and went about whatever I was doing because that’s as much effort as I’m willing to put into viral TikTok/Facebook things.
Edit: A week or so before that, she asked me “When was the last time you felt threatened by a man” and I said it’s been years. She naturally had a much more recent answer. Some quick discussion revealed that we had two pretty different interpretations of “threatened”. I saw it as being moments away from throwing down, she saw it as general unease and heightened caution. Both are legitimate ways of looking at it but also explain the gulf of time between our answers. I might take extra notice of a group of dudes in a parking lot, but I wouldn’t say I was “threatened” unless they actually engage with me.
I believe I’ll play it safe and steer clear of the woods altogether. Not having access to 5G is about as much “roughing it” as I’m interested in doing with all these men and women and bears about.
I’m a guy, and after having to put up with two co-tenants in the past three years that I was moments away from throwing down with, I’d choose the bear, too.
As has been explained to me by several females, the difference is the support you get afterwards. Attacked by a bear? People will offer help, console you, maybe even raise money to offset hospital bills etc.
Attacked by a man? “What did you do to lead him on?”, “What were you wearing?”, “Maybe it was a misunderstanding”, “Did anyone else see it happen?”, “Do you have a history with this man that might help us understand why he did this for no apparent reason?” etc. etc. et-fucking-c.
There’s the “novelty factor” I think that’s not mentioned. Many people will vote for what is considered more outlandish, just for the sake of getting more attention or controversy out of it.
For instance, most people who were voting for “Boaty McBoatface” as a ship’s name weren’t doing so because they thought it was truly appropriate, they were doing so because they wanted to get a kick or a rise out of it.
You could even do a poll called “Do you want to see Joe Biden wear a pink tutu and green high heels?” and maybe 30% of Americans would vote yes, not because that’s appropriate attire but because the poll sparked intrigue.
One Reddit thread also pointed out that if the poll were, “Would you rather encounter a black bear or a black man in the woods?”, the outcome might actually be the opposite - because politics would enter the equation.
I’m sorry? Are you seeing posts where females are saying this as a joke? Because I sure as hell am not.
This doesn’t have jack to do with politics. This has to do with too many women not being believed when they say they have been assaulted by men.
That actually had zero to do with my choice. Never even considered it.
Just because somebody wrote something on reddit doesn’t mean it has any validity whatsoever, yet you repeat it as though it does. It’s an insulting accusation.
I’ll agree with this. We humans invented indoor living for good reason.
In my view, women are going to choose the bear over a man because they’ve been relentlessly browbeaten all their lives about how men are dangerous/evil/untrustworthy/etc. Not bears. If anything they are going to get an unrealistically cutesy view of bears from the media. So they suffer from fear just from being near a man, but lack that trained fear of a bear.
They only really get away with it because so few encounter bears at all, especially the more dangerous varieties. If they really weren’t afraid of bears and wandered the woods they’d be one of those people who tries to pet the cute bear cub and gets mauled for it. If you live surrounded by men and never even see a bear, you’ll inevitably be in greater danger from a man; not because men are monsters, but because they are there and the bears aren’t.
Uh, browbeaten?? No.
Spent our lives being seen as sexual playthings, and at fault if we get harassed/groped/raped? Yep.
It’s a good deal better now than it used to be, but harassment is very, very real.
Men telling us how the world works and how we just don’t understand still is also still very much a thing, and it gets old. Give me a bear any day.
My reasoning is if the bear or the man is intending to do me harm, I have a better chance (or at least I imagine I do) of scaring off or otherwise getting away from the bear than I do the man. The bear may get scared and leave, but I don’t know of any way to stop the man if he intends me harm (assuming I’m not carrying bear spray).
Women are terrified of men regardless of what the men in question do, because they are taught from childhood to look upon men as monstrous predators. Despite the fact that men are more likely to be the victims of violence than women, women are much more paranoid about it. Dysfunctionally so in quite a few cases.
And this meme has nothing to do with “groping”, it’s about the idea that men are murderous monsters. The idea that any random man is likely to kill you for no particular reason. Nobody is claiming a bear is going to grope anyone, after all.
This is total bullshit. Every female relative that I’ve asked (five total) has been sexually assaulted (some were raped) by a man at some point in their lives. Many or most women have fear towards being alone with men because so many of them have been assaulted while being alone with them.
From the CDC:
“Sexual violence is common. Over half of women and almost 1 in 3 men have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetimes. One in 4 women and about 1 in 26 men have experienced completed or attempted rape.”
You don’t see unwanted groping as a form of violence? I do. Nowhere in that meme does it talk about killing, either.
I was NEVER taught as a child that men were to be kept an eye on. I learned that through 62+ years of living as a woman in a male-dominated world.
Violence against men from women? Or from other men? OF COURSE men are more likely to be victims of violence!
You aren’t worth arguing with, your mind is made up and you won’t be able to understand anyway.
I first encountered this here on the SDMB in the Polls Only thread
and its associated Discussion thread.