Man or Bear

In the last month, there’s been a meme that’s blown up.  It began with the simple question: Would you rather your daughter be in the woods with an unknown man or an unknown bear.  It morphed into “would you rather be.”  Overwhelmingly, women have responded with “bear.”  Men have not.  

We aren’t trying to stir the water, or bash men.  We do hope this blog will invite listening to each other.  “Deb” I hear you say, “the ones who need to listen aren’t.”  This is in a way, speaking to be heard as we cover in our course, “Listen Your Way to Deeper Connections.”  Some men have heard.  We are grateful for their efforts.

Unfortunately, this is not yet all men.  In fact, a great many men have shown anger at the response of women.  This only serves to confirm women’s choice.  Statistically, bears harm very few people.  Men however, are more apt to cause harm to women.  While not all men, enough men harm enough women.  Most women have experienced some harm from men.  One man on TikTok, Luke Capasso, resorted to longer form content and a white board.  He used statistics to make the point of a 2% bear risk after eliminating polar bears, and acknowledging that pandas eat bamboo.   He also pointed out that for the most part, bears will run away provided enough warning.  He next turned to humor to point out that men are much higher risk to women.   

Real Life Man or Bear

We know of a woman who did encounter a bear in the woods.  She lived to share the story.  Her words were, “I prayed that my children would know I love them.  My next thought was at least this was an honorable death.  I always expected to die at the hands of my husband.”  Is it any wonder that women are choosing the bear?  

While some men are showing anger, others are listening to women.  They’re supportive of women’s choice of the bear.  They are using their voice to help other men understand to say, “We have to do better.”  

Some men experience the meme as a confrontation–i.e., a fight, fight with a man or fight with a bear.  It seems to them that if the bear fights a woman, the bear will inevitably win.  It is hard for men to wrap their heads around the fact that a woman would choose the odds on that death verses the negative ramifications of encountering an unknown man.  

Most men don’t realize the “they travel in packs to the bathroom” is taught early to our children for their protection.  Safety in numbers.  It’s better to be wise than to have regret.  We don’t necessarily expect problems, but also aren’t about to invite them either.  

Reasons for Man or Bear

Megan Gray posted publicly:

…But here are the top 10 reasons women have given for choosing a bear over a man:

10) No one would question me about what I was wearing if the bear attacked me.

9) No one would accuse me of liking the bear attack

 A bears motives are easier to understand.

7) A bear won't accuse me of leading them on by being nice to them.

6) I would not be forced to carry the bears babies to term in 27 states.

5) The bear will either kill me or leave me alone there are not 400 other horrible ways a bear can hurt me.

4) Bears do not traffic women.

3) A bears friends won't come out to say how nice the bear is and how attacking me is ruining its life.

2) No one will question if the bear attack really happened.

1) The bear sees me as a human being.

But here are a few others that are sad but true:

If I survive the bear attack I will not have to see the bear at family reunions.

The bear did not pretend to be my friend for months before hand.

A bear would not film it and send it to his friends.

NOW lets talk. Soooo many males are mad about this. I have seen some comments replying to a woman choosing the bear that make my skin crawl. Most of them give off vibes that tell me they are literally part of sect of men that are the reason we chose the bear. When this question was posed, man or bear, to woman 9 out of every 10 chose the bear. 9 out of every 10. We cannot agree about hair color, makeup, or Taylor Swift but we almost entirely as a gender agree about this. In fact when asked 7 out of 10 did not even take time to think the answer was instantly bear.

We understand the bear may kill us. We understand there are fates worse then dying. A bear will simply kill us or ignore us.

Statistically women are safer with bears then men sorry not sorry. In the last 4 years 7 women were killed by bears and 15 were attacked and survived. Do you wanna know the rape/murder statistics for the same time range of men killing/raping women?

We are safer with the bear.

Sorry, not sorry.

Man or Bear Allies

There are men out there, helping others to understand.  In this public post by Author Matt Cesca: 

A lot of my fellow men have really misunderstood the assignment with the whole man vs bear thing.  

Your job wasn’t to come charging in to mansplain to women why they were wrong for choosing the bear.

Your job was to listen to them about WHY they would choose the bear.  

And THEN to hold our fellow men accountable so that in the future, women would not feel inclined to choose the bear.

That was the assignment, fellas.

Perhaps one day, in the future, when men are raised with the same emotional intelligence that women are taught from childhood, women would make a different choice between unknown man or bear.  This was our hope really, in our blog post last week, Men and Emotions, which we wrote before the explosion of social media with this issue.  

In the meantime, may we have the compassion and the willingness to really listen.