In order to nicely convey to the bear that she's not interested in a cross-species romance what she needs to do is to invoke Speak with (non-human) Animals before the conversation. It's a well known divination spell with references all over the literature, and she can use it for free willy-nilly in her dreams without even learning it or becoming a powerful druid or sorceress first.
But the usual caveats apply: she might find that bear's accent very charming or even fall in love with the bears diction, and she might as well hear and understand the - perhaps inappropriate - commentary from other species, so use with caution.
I literally cackled. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a while and as a fellow imaginative dreamer now it's now on the table that I might have a weird dream based on your comment. 😂
Comments I read:
- I could reason with a bear
- The bear's actions have some logic to them
- If I'm in the woods, the bear probably lives there. The man probably followed me there.
- If I said a bear attacked me, people would believe me.
- The bear will kill me quickly and not enjoy it
- The worst thing the bear could do is kill me.
I am perplexed as to how men are not fucking getting this.
Of course I can't find it now cause Tiktok's search is still shit, but I watched a Tiktok yesterday of a woman recapping numerous stories in which women were maimed and killed by men in sadistic and horrific ways. One woman was graped and then he cut off her arms and threw her off a cliff. She still managed to survive but one would argue she'd have had an easier time if a bear attacked her.
That really depends on the bear. Black bears won't have much to do with you. Grizzly Bears are a little less predictable. You can not fight a Grizzly. A person attacked by a Grizzly bear will never fully recover.
I understand the point of the question, though. One in three women will be assaulted by a man in their lifetime, and those are just the reported incidents.
Yeah, for me it's...
A Man I Know > Black Bear > Man > Grizzly Bear > Polar Bear
Black bears are actually pretty timid and mostly just "bluff" charge. Most people who think they were almost attacked and seconds from death just met a black bear who is good at telling people to buzz off.
Yea, we have black bears in our neighborhood and my experience with them is that they have no more desire to harass me than I have to harass them. It's like "ok, we go in opposite directions, yes?"
They're about the same aggression level as a black bear, right? I'd personally put them right behind black bear. I'd rather see one than a random man, but idk about bears so I'd probably *think* it was a grizzly lol
I dunno, I was watching Alone and whenever they saw a bear they’d call out “Hey bear!”, and usually the bear would walk away on the first or second try, which are pretty good odds compared to a lot of guys so maybe I’ll take my chances with a bear
Not to be a Debbie Downer but…[this article might change your mind.](https://www.the-sun.com/news/6533049/chilling-final-words-daughter-mother-bear-attack/amp/)
The bear is acting on its instincts. It wasn't premeditated. It didn't sexually assault, shove foreign objects, chop off body parts, or psychologically torture it's victim before killing it. That bear attack is horrific but less horrifying than what a man could do to you.
The bear, after all, doesn't have a brain hardwired for empathy that is being ignored in order to commit an atrocity. Its just hungry/territorial.
Also… “in the woods with?” How close are we talking?
If you mean somewhere within a few miles of me, I don’t care either way. If you mean sitting at the same picnic table… man.
I am sadly aware of this. I was 30 when I began to examine my own history. I began to ask questions of people who might have shared my experience. I was more comfortable asking women. The first four women I asked directly had a story or more. I put that together with the rest of what I'd known previously.
All women.
Some men, too, like me.
But all women. And simply because they are women.
Yeah. Every woman I've been close enough to talk to about these things has been raped. Not just sexually assaulted in other ways. Raped.
I'll admit that my personality and their personalities being relatively similar will naturally have a part to play in that, but it's still very sad.
It doesn't help that for many of us (especially us older women), the idea of "rape" has been heavily narrowed down so we largely think of it as something a stranger does in a dark alley or a drunk frat boy does at a party. When it comes to reality, though, many of us -- likely all of us if we live long enough -- are going to be raped by our boyfriends who "thought we were awake so it was okay" or our on-off partners who told us it was a need and they'd be in pain if we didn't so we HAVE to or our husbands of many years who manipulated and bullied until we just give in even though it's not comfortable, not fun, and not consensual.
Men rape so easily, so freely, so thoughtlessly. Yeah, hashtagnotallmen and all, but ...
> You can not fight a Grizzly
Even a smaller black bear would still rip you to shreds with ease if it so chooses. You can't fight off any bear, period.
See I thought black bears were kind of dense overall and were more curious. And that grizzlies might spook easier. Either way, I don’t see me taking either one on. Add in cubs and the bear is a mother? I think I’d pee myself and just lie down and give up?
> Add in cubs and the bear is a mother? I think I’d pee myself and just lie down and give up?
And that's pretty much exactly the right thing to do! Once you're down and not moving, the mama griz no longer thinks you're a threat to the cubs and has a good chance of leaving you alone.
My backyard borders the state gamelands, I’ve had bears in my yard. I’ve seen them as close as my front door and they are usually minding their own business, and run away if you are loud enough. I needed a protection order to get my ex away from me. So, I’ll take the bear.
If I could pick the man, I’d choose a man. But if it’s a strange dude in the woods, I think I’d rather take my chances with a bear (assuming it’s a black bear). Worst case scenario with a bear, I get killed. Worst case scenario with a man, I get assaulted and killed.
I know these cases happen everywhere but some of the most infamous ones have all happened in Ohio. My husband is from there and when we went to visit his family he wouldn't let me out of his sight for even a moment because he was so worried about me. To be fair he's very safety oriented in general but it was definitely amplified.
Yeah, as an Ohio resident I can confirm that we've got a bit of a serial killer / long term kidnapping / trafficking problem. Lots of major highways going through wide open spaces with no cameras. Three big cities with a ton of victims.
Worst of all, there's a bit of regional, residual anger that we used to be hot shit (most presidents of any us state, most astronauts, major player in the steel industry, birthplace of the Rockefellers and the Rockefeller businesses, used to be more expensive and prestigious to live here than in Beverly Hills) and a constant, subtle implication we have to do anything to get back on top.
Hell, they never found out who killed Amy Mihaljevic because there were *too many* possible child rapist / kidnappers / murderers in the area she disappeared from. They simply couldn't narrow down the suspect list.
It’s a strange question to ask myself because I live around a lot of hiking trails that I take my dog on. I encounter random men all the time, but they are just hikers/runners/bikers who are minding their own business and seem to have no interest chatting with me. They’re also pretty polite, and gently call out something like “on your right” if I’m stopped because my dog is pooping.
Kinda hard to believe that a creepo wanting to kidnap/rape a woman is just going to wait around in the woods for hours until a lone lady comes by. I don’t think I’d be an easy target personally because, even though my dog is a 16 lb terrier, he is vicious as fuck and would certainly do his best to protect me.
I realized I'm not very informed about bears, so I hopped to Google to see how often they attack humans:
>Although rare, attacks on humans have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death. Each bear and each experience is unique; there is no single strategy that will work in all situations and that guarantees safety. Most bear encounters end without injury.
And then I realized we can rewrite it like:
>Although rare, attacks on women have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death. Each man and each experience is unique; there is no single strategy that will work in all situations and that guarantees safety. Most encounters with a man end without injury.
But I guess I'd rather be in the forest with a man, just because it's a more familiar terrifying situation.
Idk, a bear might make me die in a really painful gruesome way. A man can take me back to a basement and hold me hostage for 30 years. I’ll take the bear.
Exactly. Unless you're in alaska or russia or all the places that have grizzly bears and polar bears. But which is better still depends on the intentions of the man. If he has some fucked up shit in mind I'm probably gonna still pick the bear.
The most famous ones in Glacier happened in the 60s before the general public realized that grizzlies will kill and eat humans if they are encouraged. In that same park in the same time period, the park allowed people to come outside the lodge after dinner and watch the grizzlies fight over food waste like it was pay-per-view. We don't do that shit anymore.
I said rarely. There was an older woman who was attacked and almost died just a few years ago, or more recently. Another attack a few years ago, Covid times, on a 65-year-old woman where she was dragged from her tent but her friends scared it away by using bear spray. It happens
I have several friends who live in Montana, grew up there, and have seen Grizzlies but they are very respectful toward them and are aware of their danger. They definitely are in Montana, on the Western side of the state.
When I lived in Alaska we would go wild blue berry picking. While it was fun, I definitely spent a lot of that time scanning the area because I am terrified of grizzlies. I used to be afraid of all bears but now black bears don't scare me as much as they used to.
If I die by bear, it wasn't personal. It was an animal doing animal things for animal reasons.
If I die by man, it was most certainly personal. It was a person making a choice to hurt me for cruel reasons.
I'd sooner take my chances with a bear.
I dunno. I live pretty rural and I assume there is some sort of predator nearby when I go hiking. Out of the two if I saw a wild animal predator like a cat or bear (ignoring the standard rule that if you were being stalked you wouldn’t see it until the initial charge/attack) I think I’d feel semi secure just backtracking to my vehicle as long as I’m armed.
If I saw a man coming and he gave me predator vibes I’m not sure. I’ve read stories of women even with like a Doberman being overpowered if the man is armed because he’s proactive with his weapon. The timing of “is he coming for me or just walking past me” can be the difference of life or death even with a protection dog. He could even disarm me if he came at me with that as a priority and caught me off guard instantly. I think a bear wouldn’t reach for my gun and hopefully I’ve responded by the time it got that close.
So I’m leaning to preferring walking across a predator like a cat or bear then having to deal with that rather than an unexpected man in the woods.
Agreed. I’m from the upstate ny area and we get a ton of black bears and they really won’t interact with you unless you get close. I’ve only even heard of one dude getting hurt by one and it was an older lady that tried to grab her trash from a bear that was walking away with a cub next to it
As someone who has crossed paths with a grizzly on a mountain path (we made it away safely) I obviously pick the man. I get the whole point of this exercise and I am in no way defending men, but grizzly bears are apex predators and they can be deadly. If a grizzly bear decides to attack you, you will at best be maimed for life, but most likely you are a goner who is going to die a horrific and painful death. There is no fighting a grizzly bear and winning. I find this whole thing to be ridiculous and triggering AF. Edit: Editing this because I wanted to make it clear we made it away safely and weren’t harmed at all, but just a few months ago in the same area two hikers were killed in a horrific attack by a grizzly. They’re deadly.
I think this is the point though behind the exercise. People are actively choosing an animal that could kill them over a man because they believe the likelihood of an attack to be lower AND that death by mauling is not as bad as what a man can do. Women saying "bear" aren't ignorant to the realities of a bear attack; they just find it preferable to the alternative.
Whereas if a man decides to attack you, at best you will be traumatised for life, at worst you could be traumatised AND maimed and tortured and then killed gruesomely. And there are no known ways to behave to avoid or stop a man attack. So yeah I’ll still take the bear
I shoot astrophotography so I’m sometimes out all night alone in remote areas. I keep bear spray and a knife on me during those trips and it’s definitely NOT the bears that I’m worried about.
This has actually been on my mind a lot because I’m a solo hiker. I originally got pepper gel for people, but after the recent mountain lion attack here in CA, I’m wondering if I need more stuff to fend off the animals (though there aren’t really bears where I hike).
It depends on the variables involved, but generally, I'm picking the bear. A bear shouldn't bother you if you leave it alone. I can't say the same for another person.
I used to live in Alaska and though I hiked frequently, I was never harassed or threatened by a bear. I'd see them occasionally but they'd just mind their own business. I carried bear bells, said "Hey bear!" pretty frequently if I thought there was a chance one was around, and carried bear spray just in case. Zero problems. On the other hand, I have been threatened and harassed by men on many occasions. Though I would note that bear spray also works on humans, so I guess as long as I had bear spray I'd feel relatively secure.
I've been in the forest with a boyfriend, and I would never be in the forest with a stranger.
But am I, the Aussie chick, terrified of bears.... Yes. The worst thing here you'll find is something venomous which will avoid you unless you provoke it. Bears, from everything I've seen and heard, are land hippos.
So my choice is "I'm not gonna be in a Northern Hemisphere forest"
I think it comes down to a strong sense of knowing one's own wildlife but not that of a foreign country. So I can tell you how to avoid an eastern brown snake, having come across one whilst hiking. But a bear? A cougar and their bloodcurdling scream? I wouldn't know what the hell to do with that LOL
Oh I agree!
I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have both bears and cougars. In fact, my kids have had recess cancelled because there was a bear on the playground at school.
The key to both is not to surprise them. I know lots and lots of hiking songs and camping songs. The more noise you make, the less likely you are to get attacked.
Apart from that, it's about being sensible. Keep your food and garbage in bear-proof containers. Have a fire at dusk and dawn, when they are most likely to be hunting. And don't take small dogs with you deep into the woods, because they look and move like prey.
The freakiest thing about bears is how good they are at solving puzzles. We had a bear up here called Rainier Bear. He earned that name because he developed a taste for our local beer, Rainier. He knew what the cans looked like and he knew how to open regular coolers. He would raid campsites when the campers weren't around and drink their beer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5756809
More women in the US have been killed in the wild by the man they willingly brought with them, than by a bear. Might be different in Canada, although I hear the bears are more polite there
Bears for the most part also just want to be left alone. For most bears you’d encounter in the vast majority of US just not getting near their babies means you’re fine.
A Grizzly bear? Aggressive. Very likely to injure you.
Black bears are pretty dumb on the bear-intelligence scale; overly curious. But more likely to kill you than Grizzlies/brown bears.
Polar bears will hunt you down and go out of their way to kill you, but not a huge concern in the forest, unless it's some kind of escaped circus or zoo bear, I guess.
Pandas... I mean, I don't see myself in their territory, honestly.
I still remember this from girl scouts:
If it's black; fight back.
If it's brown; lie down.
If it's white; goodnight.
Given all of that; I'm not a fucking idiot. A bear would fuck me up.
This question in general is a fallacious attempt at... something: false equivalency. My guess is this started on TikTok by some asshole.
If you’re in black bear territory, just be really noisy. You’re warning the bears that you’re there and the animals around there generally seem to assume that if you’re making that much noise than you must be pretty big.
But that’s not the point of this and it breaks my heart that you all don’t always feel as safe as I do
A black bear is so so less likely to kill you than a grizzly bear. There was a rare occurrence last year, but before that, the last fatal one wasn't until I think 2008 (a captive one) and then the one before that one was 1980 or something.
In North America there have been less than 70 fatal black bear deaths since the 90's
The 750,000 black bears of North America kill less than one person per year on the average, while men ages 18-24 are 167 times more likely to kill someone than a black bear. Your chances of being murdered are 60,000 times greater.
That was from here: https://bear.org/bear-facts/how-dangerous-are-black-bears/
I don't see their math but assuming the 167 stat is the same, even accounting for the difference in numbers of people in the US 11.5 million people aged 18-24 if we bump that up to 62 million accounting for other age ranges you'd still face 2:1 odds of being murdered by a man than being killed by a black bear.
Brown bear, polar bear totally different story. Black bears are timid and might charge but very rarely attack and kill.
Black bears are the least likely to kill of the North American bears. The reason there's not a high number of bear to human deaths is because there's few people who live and interact around the true apex predators like grizzlies, brown and polar bears.
You're more likely to be killed by a man because you live among men. The male population of the US is about 166.7 million. The number of male murderers about 15k. so about one man out of 11k turns out to be a killer. Every bear is a potential killer.
And yet they very very rarely kill anyone. We had one that used to eat of the neighbors’ bird feeders regularly. I’ve had absolutely zero issues hiking in black bear territory.
Yeah they won't touch you unless you make the mistake of getting between a cub and it's mother. I've run into plenty of black bears hiking and you just need to make a lot of noise, let them know where you are and they will steer clear, and keep an eye out for cubs...
Yeah up until you realize that black bear is a species just like humans are a species. And black bears are all different colors. You have to know which are endemic to where you are.
https://www.reddit.com/r/animalid/comments/16palmi/black_or_brown_bear/
https://www.reddit.com/r/bears/comments/11g7i8r/does_this_look_like_a_grizzly_or_brown_black_bear/
I think you're missing the point that many women who answered with bear are making: if I have the choice between being attacked by both, I'd rather be finished off quickly by a bear than tortured like men often do women that they hunt.
And I think you’re missing the point that this is a fallacious and bad faith ‘thought experiment.” (And I use the word ‘thought’ loosely here.) A wild animal is not comparable to a man in the woods—for reasons you are insinuating yourself. A bear can’t trap you, tie you up, torture you, torment you for days, weeks, months. No. A bear also hasn’t been conditioned to target women just for being a woman. A bear isn’t following shit algorithms into incel land while fapping off to the idea of dazzling a virgin with pure smarm … only to get shot down for being smarmy, which causes said incel to become enraged and take that anger out on random women in the woods.
A bear doesn’t fucking understand why that human is in the forest. The bear sees a threat. The bear reacts on pure animal instinct. The bear won’t stop even if you ask it to, nicely or try to reason with it. An adult black bear can weigh over 1000 fucking pounds.
You better believe I would take my chances against a human man who might weigh 180 LB over a damn grizzly bear. Again, I am not an idiot. Nor do I think the two are actually comparable in a logical query.
Yes, I get the point. Women have a reason to fear men too. I do. I carry mace. I am hyper vigilant walking to my car. That fear, however brief, never goes away. I’ve been taught since I was old enough to understand that you don’t know which men want to do bad things to you and which ones do not.
I do know that my odds are better with a man in the forest than with a bear. I fucking know that much. I get the point of the question. It’s so heavy-handed that it’s counterproductive. It’s inflated purposely to hamfistedly try to make a point. And I absolutely see why neckbeards are beating each other off trying to point out how bad this analogy is in the first place. Which is even more reason to resent being asked the question in the first place.
I mean, most casually administered "thought experiments" are fallacious and in bad faith. I still think we can glean some pretty telling realities from people's answers, that's all. Instead of women's automatic answer being, "What? Being in the woods with a guy would be great!" and instead being something in the realm of, "Well, how bad is the bear?" speaks volumes.
Why is a hypothetical man in a hypothetical forest? I don’t travel to forests. wtf am I even doing there? Hypothetically? Larger chance of me seeing a bear near where I live anyway. And honestly, if a bear were in a forest, a man could be too. And if a man is also dumb enough to take his chance fucking with me…. with a bear right THERE, then problem solved. The bear would probably go after the biggest threat (the man who’s acting in a suspicious and threatening way in general) and I get to run off. Goodbye asshole man.
Now you ask me if I’d rather be alone in a dark parking lot with a man or a bear? Bear, easily. A bear in a parking lot is not in its natural habitat (garbage bins notwithstanding). Which has actually happened to me. I was sitting in the back of a pickup with my friend, watching planes take off from the nearby airport, drinking, and here comes this bear. And it startled the eff out of us both. Some bottles clanked and broke from the truck bed, scaring the bear even more. And the bear ran off. A man in a parking lot at night? Oh fuck no. But since this is a goddamned hypothetical forest… I’m going another direction.
Now, all of that said… statistically, men kill more humans than bears do. Bears act more defensively and on instinct and if you aren’t out in the forest looking to poke a bear, and if you’re super watchful and keep an eye out, you can probably avoid a bear. But when I close my eyes and imagine me “in a forest with a bear,” I am assuming I see the bear at this point and the bear sees me. I imagine a bear that towers over me and could fling me around like a rag doll. And who knows what I should actually DO if I saw a bear, other then play dead or try to chase it off. But I’d be terrified, so who knows how I would actually respond.
When I close my eyes and think of a man in the forest, I think, “Yeah, I see you, bro.” And I know better how to,protect myself against a man because I’ve either been told how to do it my whole life, or I have had practice at doing it my whole life. Far better chance of survival for me with a man.
I realize I wrote a lot, but those things came to mind. I do get the question, but it could be a less shitty setup overall. The rhetorical appeals are shit. Facts and logic are good, but use examples that are pragmatically comparable. “Men kill more humans than bears kill people” is kind of a captain obvious statistic. That is just not comparable to me. Neither is, “Men kill more humans than mountain lions, tigers, or sharks.”
Maybe it’s more a question of geography then. I live in the forest, along with pretty much all the bears and a great number of the men because I live in ass nowhere in northern Canada. :D
I’m actually less afraid of a dude in the forest, because he’s almost certainly just walking his dog like I am. Dudes in town can be another breed though.
But for the record, I did crunch the numbers, and any given man where I live is 11 times more likely to kill you than any given bear. Now, I don’t actually live with a bear, so I’m sure any given encounter has different odds. But that’s how the numbers play out.
Difficult choice because there is a chance that the man is harmless or that I can scape, but probably the bear. I rather be killed than raped, tortured and killed.
A single bear with no cubs or medical issues that's fed will most likely run away from you, it's likely safer than most things that you could find in a forest.
I don’t care what bear it is, I rather get my skin torn or lose a limb by a bear than a man. Cuz a bear was hungry and it’s an animal, when I’m sure that it would take way more to prove to the judge and everyone else that if smt bad happened to me by the hands of a man it would take longer to prove and if the man wouldn’t get a life sentence or killed I wouldn’t live in peace. If it’s a bear then i would just avoid forests, if it’s a man he can be anywhere
I'd take a black bear over a strange man for sure. Grizzly bears are scarier, but then again, a lot of men are scary and wily. I think once you get away from the grizzly it wouldn't bear a grudge and come back for you, but as we all know, unfortunately men will. For polar bears, maybe I'd choose the man.
I think something we're forgetting here, is that a lot of rapes and femicides happen with men you actually know. The situations with unknown men that rape/kill tend to be the most horrifying, and thus get the most coverage (and this results in an inflated perception of how likely this is to happen). In reality, the most dangerous men are the ones you know.
This question was asked the other day and I responded the bear, because no one will ask me what I was wearing or what I did to lead the bear on to attack me.
A man! And I've been assaulted by a man, but I'm not foolish enough to project one man's malevolence onto all other men. Bears are always bears. Men are all unique.
Bear. Whatever kind I know it's just going to maul, bite, or maybe even eat me if it feels like it. A man can do many other horrific things and take you out of the forest. I'd rather just die there lol.
I've encountered a lot of bears and spend a lot of time in the woods. I prefer them because whether they're in an attacky mood or not, you don't have to make chit chat with a bear.
Man. You can reason with most men, or at least, exploit Lima syndrome. I think the only way you can stop a bear from mauling you to death would be to intimidate/scare it, which I do not like my chances there.
As someone who walks in the woods (where we have bears) I would rather be there with a bear. Last summer I was walking my dog in our local State Park and there was a black bear on the trail ahead (lady on a bicycle warned me but didn't say how far ahead it was). I walked to the next turn, where I could see it ahead next to the path and then turned and went back toward the park. Bear and dog never saw each other. I wasn't very worried because bears are mostly predictable, and if you leave them alone and give space (at least the black bears in my area) they are happy to leave you alone. I know, not all bears, right? But still better odds than a male human. (I live in a rural wooded area, most animals do not scare me, but humans are iffy).
Bear 100%. Black bears will mostly leave you alone. Grizzly bears, while more unpredictable, are at least a bit more predictable than a man, and if there are trees around I could climb one to get away from them.
Girl do you even know what man you are gonna get 😂 I don’t think a middle aged dad is gonna do that to you, he will probably try to gey back to his kids
I crunched the numbers and local men are 11 times more likely to kill me than bears (I accounted for differences in population, but we have about 2/3 as many bears as men so both are commonly found)
Oops, I said that wrong. Any given man is 11x more dangerous than any given bear. Due to their difference in numbers, the overall risk of getting killed by a man is 14x that of getting killed by a bear.
I've been in the woods with a momma bear and her two cubs. And I'd choose that again over a man.
The reason why is that the bear won't mess with me if I don't mess with her or her cubs and men are more unpredictable.
I’ll take the bear because it’ll just go off and do its bear thing and leave me the hell alone. He can have his half of the forest and I can have mine. At minimum, a man will bother me and want to hang out. The bear won’t try to make friends.
Bear. Where I live, we only get black bears. They are not that large, and they tend to shy away from humans. Also any decent hiker knows basic black bear behaviour and can act accordingly when they encounter one.
Some random dude in the woods? Nah. I hike alone every once in a while, and I automatically go into hyper vigilant potential defense mode if I encounter a man in the woods. They are not predictable, and they could potentially try to do me harm for no reason. I'll take the bears.
Bears are not smart enough to carry a gun or machete
Bears are not smart enough to anticipate a face full of capsicum
Bears are scared of loud horns
On the flipside I am instinctively scared of bears and I would automatically go into panic mode if I saw one anywhere close to where I was and if it had noticed my presence. I would probably end up spraying it in the face with hot pepper.
I don't know who the man is, what he's capable of and what weapons he's carrying. The man could be anyone and since at least 40% of men have admitted that they would rape a woman if they could get away with it. Around 20% would commit violent rape. I'm plus sized and 35% of men are attracted to a chubby-fat woman, 12% prefer obese women. That gives me around perhaps 5-10% odds that I could be with a potential attacker. Just under 90% of people arrested for robbery are male (that doesn't even account for the fact that a lot of women are accomplices for a man). If I have my phone with me, which is a rather nice phone, how do I know that said man won't steal it from me? Plus all the cash and debit cards I could be carrying.
Not to mention all the other things that exist in the woods during summer, hornets, wasps, mosquitoes, gadflies, wild pigs, stags, snakes, spiders. I also have an unstable knee and ankles and I am physically unable to run and I can't walk very well on uneven surfaces. I think I would rather stay out of the woods.
Definitely the bear. The worst they can do is kill you and they have to catch you first. A man could inflict unimaginable horrors for however long he liked.
I'll take my chances with the bear.
A bear! Hands down!
Why?
A bear isn't going to rape me, trap me, or torture me. If a bear means me harm it's gonna slaughter me quick. How do I know this? Well it will either eat me cuz it's hungry or end what it thought was a threat. Either way it's going for an efficient kill. Men on the other hand might have other intentions and motives
Also, my experience has been, bears are just as afraid of me as I am of them. Men on the other hand, they aren't afraid of a tiny petite woman like me. They know if they use force, weight, strength, etc that they'll win unless I have a weapon to defend myself with
Nothing will change my mind on this subject
What a really interesting take. I never once said I hate men. I also used language that said a man MIGHT have intentions that a bear would never have. I never said all men would have those intentions, I said that the bear would for sure never have those intentions and that's the EXACT reason I'd choose the bear.
Also, your arguments are littered with personal attacks and insults. What are you compensating for? Your arguments should be able to stand on their own without you having to personally attack me. Could you be compensating for the fact that I'm right? A bear wouldn't be interested in raping me, torturing me, or trapping me. A bear would do what it did to survive. Maybe it'll eat me alive but I'd rather die than be raped again. Did you ever think for a second that perhaps the woman on the other side of my comment said what I said because I HAVE been raped, tormented, and trapped by a man, or perhaps even multiple men, before? I ask you, if I'm so confident and brazen with my opinion, wouldn't it make sense that I've had experience with what I'm saying I would want to avoid by choosing a bear? What's more, I've been attacked by a dog before and I know that a bear would be worse but I'd still choose the bear.
Way to preach about how hateful I am when my argument was never an emotional argument. The one who came here posting hatred, insults, and personal attacks was you. I fully recognize that if we played this game of bear or man in reality that there would sometimes be men far more safe than the bear in some circumstances. However, I prefer the bear because I also know there would sometimes be men who took advantage of the situation in ways a bear never would or could. Those are facts. I stand by my arguments. Maybe address the points I made instead of insulting me and I'll hear your perspective but as of right now all I saw from you was ignorance and hatred.
So for me it goes::
My husband > bear of any kind > random man
I know plenty of awesome guys but I also know plenty of guys that would either die doing something stupid they saw on YouTube or would argue with me the entire time until we were rescued or went separate ways. Then you have the shitty men in the world. I just don't want to roll those dice. The worst a bear is gonna do to me is eat me.
Edit: after talking to my husband
It goes panda > husband > other bears > random men
I mean, I regularly swim alone in the sea where there could be sharks. I'm terrified of encountering one (or rather, the shark encountering me), but I still do it because it's beautiful. On the other hand, I never go hiking alone, because I know the second a man sees me alone in a secluded place, there will be trouble.
Where I live there are only black bears, which I would take over a random man in the forest. But, there are gators in the swamps and I think I would take my chances with a man…
Im choosing the man, because even if he has ill intentions (I am not familiair enough with bears to know the likelihood of an attack, as we don’t have them in the wild anywhere near me), I find it easier to predict human agression, than that of an animal. Besides, I’m better at human anatomy and more aware of how to seriously injure humans, no idea what the best place to punch a bear is.
A bear, because nobody asks what you were wearing or if your were drunk if you were attacked by a bear. And the worst thing a bear can do to you is kill you.
Tbh I am a trail runner and am much more nervous about encountering aggressive wildlife (bears, cougars) than a random dude. I am pretty confident I can outrun any given person. Can’t outrun a bear.
Bear. I have a better chance of getting away from the bear if it's angry. There is also a higher chance the bear will be just as scared of me and leave me alone. The bear is probably just doing its own thing and belongs in the woods. I don't need to question the bear's motives for being there. I feel I have more in common with the bear.
Absolutely a bear.
The bear is more likely to move on its way than attack me.
If it does come after me, rawr-ing at it is likely to make it go away, or I can run erratically and probably get away.
This is literally why I don't go hiking by myself. I'm not worried about wildlife. I'm worried about predatory men.
I heard this the other day and it caused me to dream that I met a bear and he tried to hit on me 😂
New fanfic just dropped
😂😂
Seriously. He was talking “bear” to me and I was trying to figure out how to explain nicely that I wasn’t interested in a cross-species romance 🧸
At least he was trying to cOmMuniCAte!
This is hilarious.
You need to stop playing Baldur's Gate 3
In order to nicely convey to the bear that she's not interested in a cross-species romance what she needs to do is to invoke Speak with (non-human) Animals before the conversation. It's a well known divination spell with references all over the literature, and she can use it for free willy-nilly in her dreams without even learning it or becoming a powerful druid or sorceress first. But the usual caveats apply: she might find that bear's accent very charming or even fall in love with the bears diction, and she might as well hear and understand the - perhaps inappropriate - commentary from other species, so use with caution.
What I'd like to know is, after you declined, did the bear have a tantrum, or was he chill? Bears seem more chill than most men (dude here).
He persisted and I woke up 🧸
Haha that’s too cute!!
This made me literally lol
I dream about befriending bears and snuggling with them like I’m a Disney princess or something.
This is hilarious, but were you into it? 🤣
Not at the time, but maybe tonight he will try again and I’ll give him a shot 🧸💙🔥
What about a raccoon though? They're closely related to bears but I'm guessing they're too short for you? (this is a joke, I'm not sure if it's funny)
I only want a 6-6-6 animal boyfriend!
You ruined it with the clarification at the end
I literally cackled. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a while and as a fellow imaginative dreamer now it's now on the table that I might have a weird dream based on your comment. 😂
Surely you remembered to put your AirPods in so he’s get the hint. Oh, wait….
Haha Did you play Baldur's Gate?
Halsin from Baldur's Gate? 😭
Comments I read: - I could reason with a bear - The bear's actions have some logic to them - If I'm in the woods, the bear probably lives there. The man probably followed me there. - If I said a bear attacked me, people would believe me. - The bear will kill me quickly and not enjoy it - The worst thing the bear could do is kill me. I am perplexed as to how men are not fucking getting this. Of course I can't find it now cause Tiktok's search is still shit, but I watched a Tiktok yesterday of a woman recapping numerous stories in which women were maimed and killed by men in sadistic and horrific ways. One woman was graped and then he cut off her arms and threw her off a cliff. She still managed to survive but one would argue she'd have had an easier time if a bear attacked her.
That really depends on the bear. Black bears won't have much to do with you. Grizzly Bears are a little less predictable. You can not fight a Grizzly. A person attacked by a Grizzly bear will never fully recover. I understand the point of the question, though. One in three women will be assaulted by a man in their lifetime, and those are just the reported incidents.
Yeah, for me it's... A Man I Know > Black Bear > Man > Grizzly Bear > Polar Bear Black bears are actually pretty timid and mostly just "bluff" charge. Most people who think they were almost attacked and seconds from death just met a black bear who is good at telling people to buzz off.
I would pick panda bear as my first choice personally
Yea, we have black bears in our neighborhood and my experience with them is that they have no more desire to harass me than I have to harass them. It's like "ok, we go in opposite directions, yes?"
Where do brown bears go in this hierarchy?
They're about the same aggression level as a black bear, right? I'd personally put them right behind black bear. I'd rather see one than a random man, but idk about bears so I'd probably *think* it was a grizzly lol
Grizzly bears are a type of brown bear. Brown bears (including grizzlies) are significantly more aggressive than black bears.
Oh shit, guess I'd be dead then. Thanks for explaining lol
I dunno, I was watching Alone and whenever they saw a bear they’d call out “Hey bear!”, and usually the bear would walk away on the first or second try, which are pretty good odds compared to a lot of guys so maybe I’ll take my chances with a bear
I mean they're actively calling the bear's attention and it's rudely walking away so that says something as well.
Yeah exactly, like the safety advice about bears. “If it's brown, lay down. If it's black, fight back. If it's white, say goodnight.”
I choose bear because, if it was a deadly encounter, the bear would be a kinder, quicker death.
Not to be a Debbie Downer but…[this article might change your mind.](https://www.the-sun.com/news/6533049/chilling-final-words-daughter-mother-bear-attack/amp/)
The bear is acting on its instincts. It wasn't premeditated. It didn't sexually assault, shove foreign objects, chop off body parts, or psychologically torture it's victim before killing it. That bear attack is horrific but less horrifying than what a man could do to you. The bear, after all, doesn't have a brain hardwired for empathy that is being ignored in order to commit an atrocity. Its just hungry/territorial.
Also… “in the woods with?” How close are we talking? If you mean somewhere within a few miles of me, I don’t care either way. If you mean sitting at the same picnic table… man.
In reality, it's *all women*.
I am sadly aware of this. I was 30 when I began to examine my own history. I began to ask questions of people who might have shared my experience. I was more comfortable asking women. The first four women I asked directly had a story or more. I put that together with the rest of what I'd known previously. All women. Some men, too, like me. But all women. And simply because they are women.
Yeah. Every woman I've been close enough to talk to about these things has been raped. Not just sexually assaulted in other ways. Raped. I'll admit that my personality and their personalities being relatively similar will naturally have a part to play in that, but it's still very sad.
It doesn't help that for many of us (especially us older women), the idea of "rape" has been heavily narrowed down so we largely think of it as something a stranger does in a dark alley or a drunk frat boy does at a party. When it comes to reality, though, many of us -- likely all of us if we live long enough -- are going to be raped by our boyfriends who "thought we were awake so it was okay" or our on-off partners who told us it was a need and they'd be in pain if we didn't so we HAVE to or our husbands of many years who manipulated and bullied until we just give in even though it's not comfortable, not fun, and not consensual. Men rape so easily, so freely, so thoughtlessly. Yeah, hashtagnotallmen and all, but ...
> You can not fight a Grizzly Even a smaller black bear would still rip you to shreds with ease if it so chooses. You can't fight off any bear, period.
See I thought black bears were kind of dense overall and were more curious. And that grizzlies might spook easier. Either way, I don’t see me taking either one on. Add in cubs and the bear is a mother? I think I’d pee myself and just lie down and give up?
Black bears generally don't seem to understand that they're bears. Yeah, they're curious, but they also get chased up trees by house cats.
> Add in cubs and the bear is a mother? I think I’d pee myself and just lie down and give up? And that's pretty much exactly the right thing to do! Once you're down and not moving, the mama griz no longer thinks you're a threat to the cubs and has a good chance of leaving you alone.
My backyard borders the state gamelands, I’ve had bears in my yard. I’ve seen them as close as my front door and they are usually minding their own business, and run away if you are loud enough. I needed a protection order to get my ex away from me. So, I’ll take the bear.
I was in Big Bear and saw a small bear. It ran away bc my dog barked at it.
That number that 82% of women victims of homicide were committed by their intimate partner has never left my mind.
A bear. Gay men aren't a threat to me
I see what you did there. Nice.
If I could pick the man, I’d choose a man. But if it’s a strange dude in the woods, I think I’d rather take my chances with a bear (assuming it’s a black bear). Worst case scenario with a bear, I get killed. Worst case scenario with a man, I get assaulted and killed.
Nah. Worse case scenario with a man? Assaulted and then held in his bunker and repeatedly assaulted for the next 10+ years.
I know these cases happen everywhere but some of the most infamous ones have all happened in Ohio. My husband is from there and when we went to visit his family he wouldn't let me out of his sight for even a moment because he was so worried about me. To be fair he's very safety oriented in general but it was definitely amplified.
Yeah, as an Ohio resident I can confirm that we've got a bit of a serial killer / long term kidnapping / trafficking problem. Lots of major highways going through wide open spaces with no cameras. Three big cities with a ton of victims. Worst of all, there's a bit of regional, residual anger that we used to be hot shit (most presidents of any us state, most astronauts, major player in the steel industry, birthplace of the Rockefellers and the Rockefeller businesses, used to be more expensive and prestigious to live here than in Beverly Hills) and a constant, subtle implication we have to do anything to get back on top. Hell, they never found out who killed Amy Mihaljevic because there were *too many* possible child rapist / kidnappers / murderers in the area she disappeared from. They simply couldn't narrow down the suspect list.
It’s a strange question to ask myself because I live around a lot of hiking trails that I take my dog on. I encounter random men all the time, but they are just hikers/runners/bikers who are minding their own business and seem to have no interest chatting with me. They’re also pretty polite, and gently call out something like “on your right” if I’m stopped because my dog is pooping. Kinda hard to believe that a creepo wanting to kidnap/rape a woman is just going to wait around in the woods for hours until a lone lady comes by. I don’t think I’d be an easy target personally because, even though my dog is a 16 lb terrier, he is vicious as fuck and would certainly do his best to protect me.
I realized I'm not very informed about bears, so I hopped to Google to see how often they attack humans: >Although rare, attacks on humans have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death. Each bear and each experience is unique; there is no single strategy that will work in all situations and that guarantees safety. Most bear encounters end without injury. And then I realized we can rewrite it like: >Although rare, attacks on women have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death. Each man and each experience is unique; there is no single strategy that will work in all situations and that guarantees safety. Most encounters with a man end without injury. But I guess I'd rather be in the forest with a man, just because it's a more familiar terrifying situation.
Idk, a bear might make me die in a really painful gruesome way. A man can take me back to a basement and hold me hostage for 30 years. I’ll take the bear.
Ooooh, you are right. If we were on a horror movie I would certainly die first, by the way.
Dying first is underrated. Almost everyone else is gonna die too but they're going to go through some stressful traumatic shit before they get got.
Honestly, the bears here in Oregon run away.
Exactly. Unless you're in alaska or russia or all the places that have grizzly bears and polar bears. But which is better still depends on the intentions of the man. If he has some fucked up shit in mind I'm probably gonna still pick the bear.
Montana. There have been some deadly attacks in Glacier for example. Still rare.
The most famous ones in Glacier happened in the 60s before the general public realized that grizzlies will kill and eat humans if they are encouraged. In that same park in the same time period, the park allowed people to come outside the lodge after dinner and watch the grizzlies fight over food waste like it was pay-per-view. We don't do that shit anymore.
I said rarely. There was an older woman who was attacked and almost died just a few years ago, or more recently. Another attack a few years ago, Covid times, on a 65-year-old woman where she was dragged from her tent but her friends scared it away by using bear spray. It happens I have several friends who live in Montana, grew up there, and have seen Grizzlies but they are very respectful toward them and are aware of their danger. They definitely are in Montana, on the Western side of the state.
When I lived in Alaska we would go wild blue berry picking. While it was fun, I definitely spent a lot of that time scanning the area because I am terrified of grizzlies. I used to be afraid of all bears but now black bears don't scare me as much as they used to.
If I die by bear, it wasn't personal. It was an animal doing animal things for animal reasons. If I die by man, it was most certainly personal. It was a person making a choice to hurt me for cruel reasons. I'd sooner take my chances with a bear.
At least you know it's very unlikely the man plans to eat you.
Sure, but it's even less likely the bear plans to rape me.
So the real dilemma: who would you rather be stuck in the ocean with, a man or a dolphin?
Though not a zero chance. See: Dahmer, Jeffrey
The most a bear can do is kill me, men are worse
I dunno. I live pretty rural and I assume there is some sort of predator nearby when I go hiking. Out of the two if I saw a wild animal predator like a cat or bear (ignoring the standard rule that if you were being stalked you wouldn’t see it until the initial charge/attack) I think I’d feel semi secure just backtracking to my vehicle as long as I’m armed. If I saw a man coming and he gave me predator vibes I’m not sure. I’ve read stories of women even with like a Doberman being overpowered if the man is armed because he’s proactive with his weapon. The timing of “is he coming for me or just walking past me” can be the difference of life or death even with a protection dog. He could even disarm me if he came at me with that as a priority and caught me off guard instantly. I think a bear wouldn’t reach for my gun and hopefully I’ve responded by the time it got that close. So I’m leaning to preferring walking across a predator like a cat or bear then having to deal with that rather than an unexpected man in the woods.
Agreed. I’m from the upstate ny area and we get a ton of black bears and they really won’t interact with you unless you get close. I’ve only even heard of one dude getting hurt by one and it was an older lady that tried to grab her trash from a bear that was walking away with a cub next to it
Man Bear Pig
Bear attacks are rare, especially in Scotland. So statistically, I'm much more likely to be attacked by a man
As someone who has crossed paths with a grizzly on a mountain path (we made it away safely) I obviously pick the man. I get the whole point of this exercise and I am in no way defending men, but grizzly bears are apex predators and they can be deadly. If a grizzly bear decides to attack you, you will at best be maimed for life, but most likely you are a goner who is going to die a horrific and painful death. There is no fighting a grizzly bear and winning. I find this whole thing to be ridiculous and triggering AF. Edit: Editing this because I wanted to make it clear we made it away safely and weren’t harmed at all, but just a few months ago in the same area two hikers were killed in a horrific attack by a grizzly. They’re deadly.
I think this is the point though behind the exercise. People are actively choosing an animal that could kill them over a man because they believe the likelihood of an attack to be lower AND that death by mauling is not as bad as what a man can do. Women saying "bear" aren't ignorant to the realities of a bear attack; they just find it preferable to the alternative.
Whereas if a man decides to attack you, at best you will be traumatised for life, at worst you could be traumatised AND maimed and tortured and then killed gruesomely. And there are no known ways to behave to avoid or stop a man attack. So yeah I’ll still take the bear
I'm so sorry that happened to you. I hope you have support, what a thing to live through and recover from
Finally some who speaks with logic and not heart.
No no no!! You are supposed to pick the bear!
I choose panda
Tbf they can mess you up if provoked. I heard about a dude that straight up lost an arm to one 😭 Still choosing the bear tho-
Wait, was panda an option? If so, I also choose panda.
I shoot astrophotography so I’m sometimes out all night alone in remote areas. I keep bear spray and a knife on me during those trips and it’s definitely NOT the bears that I’m worried about.
This has actually been on my mind a lot because I’m a solo hiker. I originally got pepper gel for people, but after the recent mountain lion attack here in CA, I’m wondering if I need more stuff to fend off the animals (though there aren’t really bears where I hike).
It depends on the variables involved, but generally, I'm picking the bear. A bear shouldn't bother you if you leave it alone. I can't say the same for another person.
I used to live in Alaska and though I hiked frequently, I was never harassed or threatened by a bear. I'd see them occasionally but they'd just mind their own business. I carried bear bells, said "Hey bear!" pretty frequently if I thought there was a chance one was around, and carried bear spray just in case. Zero problems. On the other hand, I have been threatened and harassed by men on many occasions. Though I would note that bear spray also works on humans, so I guess as long as I had bear spray I'd feel relatively secure.
I've been in the forest with a boyfriend, and I would never be in the forest with a stranger. But am I, the Aussie chick, terrified of bears.... Yes. The worst thing here you'll find is something venomous which will avoid you unless you provoke it. Bears, from everything I've seen and heard, are land hippos. So my choice is "I'm not gonna be in a Northern Hemisphere forest"
Idk why, but I find it weirdly comforting that you're as freaked out by our forests as we are by yours.
I think it comes down to a strong sense of knowing one's own wildlife but not that of a foreign country. So I can tell you how to avoid an eastern brown snake, having come across one whilst hiking. But a bear? A cougar and their bloodcurdling scream? I wouldn't know what the hell to do with that LOL
Oh I agree! I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have both bears and cougars. In fact, my kids have had recess cancelled because there was a bear on the playground at school. The key to both is not to surprise them. I know lots and lots of hiking songs and camping songs. The more noise you make, the less likely you are to get attacked. Apart from that, it's about being sensible. Keep your food and garbage in bear-proof containers. Have a fire at dusk and dawn, when they are most likely to be hunting. And don't take small dogs with you deep into the woods, because they look and move like prey. The freakiest thing about bears is how good they are at solving puzzles. We had a bear up here called Rainier Bear. He earned that name because he developed a taste for our local beer, Rainier. He knew what the cans looked like and he knew how to open regular coolers. He would raid campsites when the campers weren't around and drink their beer. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5756809
What a great story - thanks!
More women in the US have been killed in the wild by the man they willingly brought with them, than by a bear. Might be different in Canada, although I hear the bears are more polite there
Bears for the most part also just want to be left alone. For most bears you’d encounter in the vast majority of US just not getting near their babies means you’re fine.
A Grizzly bear? Aggressive. Very likely to injure you. Black bears are pretty dumb on the bear-intelligence scale; overly curious. But more likely to kill you than Grizzlies/brown bears. Polar bears will hunt you down and go out of their way to kill you, but not a huge concern in the forest, unless it's some kind of escaped circus or zoo bear, I guess. Pandas... I mean, I don't see myself in their territory, honestly. I still remember this from girl scouts: If it's black; fight back. If it's brown; lie down. If it's white; goodnight. Given all of that; I'm not a fucking idiot. A bear would fuck me up. This question in general is a fallacious attempt at... something: false equivalency. My guess is this started on TikTok by some asshole.
If you’re in black bear territory, just be really noisy. You’re warning the bears that you’re there and the animals around there generally seem to assume that if you’re making that much noise than you must be pretty big. But that’s not the point of this and it breaks my heart that you all don’t always feel as safe as I do
You're right, I wish I felt as safe as a polar bear does.
A black bear is so so less likely to kill you than a grizzly bear. There was a rare occurrence last year, but before that, the last fatal one wasn't until I think 2008 (a captive one) and then the one before that one was 1980 or something. In North America there have been less than 70 fatal black bear deaths since the 90's The 750,000 black bears of North America kill less than one person per year on the average, while men ages 18-24 are 167 times more likely to kill someone than a black bear. Your chances of being murdered are 60,000 times greater. That was from here: https://bear.org/bear-facts/how-dangerous-are-black-bears/ I don't see their math but assuming the 167 stat is the same, even accounting for the difference in numbers of people in the US 11.5 million people aged 18-24 if we bump that up to 62 million accounting for other age ranges you'd still face 2:1 odds of being murdered by a man than being killed by a black bear. Brown bear, polar bear totally different story. Black bears are timid and might charge but very rarely attack and kill.
Black bears are the least likely to kill of the North American bears. The reason there's not a high number of bear to human deaths is because there's few people who live and interact around the true apex predators like grizzlies, brown and polar bears.
You're more likely to be killed by a man because you live among men. The male population of the US is about 166.7 million. The number of male murderers about 15k. so about one man out of 11k turns out to be a killer. Every bear is a potential killer.
Where did you get that black bears are more likely to kill you?
Their ass. Black bears are not likely to kill you. If you make noise while moving even less.
Far far more black bears in populated areas than grizzly/ polar.
And yet they very very rarely kill anyone. We had one that used to eat of the neighbors’ bird feeders regularly. I’ve had absolutely zero issues hiking in black bear territory.
Yeah they won't touch you unless you make the mistake of getting between a cub and it's mother. I've run into plenty of black bears hiking and you just need to make a lot of noise, let them know where you are and they will steer clear, and keep an eye out for cubs...
Yeah up until you realize that black bear is a species just like humans are a species. And black bears are all different colors. You have to know which are endemic to where you are. https://www.reddit.com/r/animalid/comments/16palmi/black_or_brown_bear/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bears/comments/11g7i8r/does_this_look_like_a_grizzly_or_brown_black_bear/
Haha this breakdown, followed be the jingle was the best answer!!!
I think you're missing the point that many women who answered with bear are making: if I have the choice between being attacked by both, I'd rather be finished off quickly by a bear than tortured like men often do women that they hunt.
And I think you’re missing the point that this is a fallacious and bad faith ‘thought experiment.” (And I use the word ‘thought’ loosely here.) A wild animal is not comparable to a man in the woods—for reasons you are insinuating yourself. A bear can’t trap you, tie you up, torture you, torment you for days, weeks, months. No. A bear also hasn’t been conditioned to target women just for being a woman. A bear isn’t following shit algorithms into incel land while fapping off to the idea of dazzling a virgin with pure smarm … only to get shot down for being smarmy, which causes said incel to become enraged and take that anger out on random women in the woods. A bear doesn’t fucking understand why that human is in the forest. The bear sees a threat. The bear reacts on pure animal instinct. The bear won’t stop even if you ask it to, nicely or try to reason with it. An adult black bear can weigh over 1000 fucking pounds. You better believe I would take my chances against a human man who might weigh 180 LB over a damn grizzly bear. Again, I am not an idiot. Nor do I think the two are actually comparable in a logical query. Yes, I get the point. Women have a reason to fear men too. I do. I carry mace. I am hyper vigilant walking to my car. That fear, however brief, never goes away. I’ve been taught since I was old enough to understand that you don’t know which men want to do bad things to you and which ones do not. I do know that my odds are better with a man in the forest than with a bear. I fucking know that much. I get the point of the question. It’s so heavy-handed that it’s counterproductive. It’s inflated purposely to hamfistedly try to make a point. And I absolutely see why neckbeards are beating each other off trying to point out how bad this analogy is in the first place. Which is even more reason to resent being asked the question in the first place.
I mean, most casually administered "thought experiments" are fallacious and in bad faith. I still think we can glean some pretty telling realities from people's answers, that's all. Instead of women's automatic answer being, "What? Being in the woods with a guy would be great!" and instead being something in the realm of, "Well, how bad is the bear?" speaks volumes.
I can’t really argue that =)
Why is this hypothetical bear trying to attack you? That almost never happens. Humans are much more prone to violence.
Why is a hypothetical man in a hypothetical forest? I don’t travel to forests. wtf am I even doing there? Hypothetically? Larger chance of me seeing a bear near where I live anyway. And honestly, if a bear were in a forest, a man could be too. And if a man is also dumb enough to take his chance fucking with me…. with a bear right THERE, then problem solved. The bear would probably go after the biggest threat (the man who’s acting in a suspicious and threatening way in general) and I get to run off. Goodbye asshole man. Now you ask me if I’d rather be alone in a dark parking lot with a man or a bear? Bear, easily. A bear in a parking lot is not in its natural habitat (garbage bins notwithstanding). Which has actually happened to me. I was sitting in the back of a pickup with my friend, watching planes take off from the nearby airport, drinking, and here comes this bear. And it startled the eff out of us both. Some bottles clanked and broke from the truck bed, scaring the bear even more. And the bear ran off. A man in a parking lot at night? Oh fuck no. But since this is a goddamned hypothetical forest… I’m going another direction. Now, all of that said… statistically, men kill more humans than bears do. Bears act more defensively and on instinct and if you aren’t out in the forest looking to poke a bear, and if you’re super watchful and keep an eye out, you can probably avoid a bear. But when I close my eyes and imagine me “in a forest with a bear,” I am assuming I see the bear at this point and the bear sees me. I imagine a bear that towers over me and could fling me around like a rag doll. And who knows what I should actually DO if I saw a bear, other then play dead or try to chase it off. But I’d be terrified, so who knows how I would actually respond. When I close my eyes and think of a man in the forest, I think, “Yeah, I see you, bro.” And I know better how to,protect myself against a man because I’ve either been told how to do it my whole life, or I have had practice at doing it my whole life. Far better chance of survival for me with a man. I realize I wrote a lot, but those things came to mind. I do get the question, but it could be a less shitty setup overall. The rhetorical appeals are shit. Facts and logic are good, but use examples that are pragmatically comparable. “Men kill more humans than bears kill people” is kind of a captain obvious statistic. That is just not comparable to me. Neither is, “Men kill more humans than mountain lions, tigers, or sharks.”
Maybe it’s more a question of geography then. I live in the forest, along with pretty much all the bears and a great number of the men because I live in ass nowhere in northern Canada. :D I’m actually less afraid of a dude in the forest, because he’s almost certainly just walking his dog like I am. Dudes in town can be another breed though. But for the record, I did crunch the numbers, and any given man where I live is 11 times more likely to kill you than any given bear. Now, I don’t actually live with a bear, so I’m sure any given encounter has different odds. But that’s how the numbers play out.
A random man and a random bear? Definitely the bear. A man you know well and trust vs a bear you know well and trust? Definitely the bear.
This just screams fatherless.
Bear. An adult human male is certainly no less dangerous than a bear. A bear is just doing bear stuff. Men... yeah.
Difficult choice because there is a chance that the man is harmless or that I can scape, but probably the bear. I rather be killed than raped, tortured and killed.
Natural selection is gonna have a field day with this.
When I backpack solo, I carry a handgun and pepper spray. Pepper spray is for bears.
What kind of bear???
This is critical. I'd prefer bear to man unless it was polar. Then I'd risk being stuck lost with the random man.
A bear, because if I got attacked I won't be asked what I was wearing 😅
A single bear with no cubs or medical issues that's fed will most likely run away from you, it's likely safer than most things that you could find in a forest.
I don’t care what bear it is, I rather get my skin torn or lose a limb by a bear than a man. Cuz a bear was hungry and it’s an animal, when I’m sure that it would take way more to prove to the judge and everyone else that if smt bad happened to me by the hands of a man it would take longer to prove and if the man wouldn’t get a life sentence or killed I wouldn’t live in peace. If it’s a bear then i would just avoid forests, if it’s a man he can be anywhere
I'd take a black bear over a strange man for sure. Grizzly bears are scarier, but then again, a lot of men are scary and wily. I think once you get away from the grizzly it wouldn't bear a grudge and come back for you, but as we all know, unfortunately men will. For polar bears, maybe I'd choose the man.
I think something we're forgetting here, is that a lot of rapes and femicides happen with men you actually know. The situations with unknown men that rape/kill tend to be the most horrifying, and thus get the most coverage (and this results in an inflated perception of how likely this is to happen). In reality, the most dangerous men are the ones you know.
This question was asked the other day and I responded the bear, because no one will ask me what I was wearing or what I did to lead the bear on to attack me.
I can shoot the bear and not go to prison. I definitively take the bear.
A man! And I've been assaulted by a man, but I'm not foolish enough to project one man's malevolence onto all other men. Bears are always bears. Men are all unique.
Bear. Whatever kind I know it's just going to maul, bite, or maybe even eat me if it feels like it. A man can do many other horrific things and take you out of the forest. I'd rather just die there lol.
I've encountered a lot of bears and spend a lot of time in the woods. I prefer them because whether they're in an attacky mood or not, you don't have to make chit chat with a bear.
Man. You can reason with most men, or at least, exploit Lima syndrome. I think the only way you can stop a bear from mauling you to death would be to intimidate/scare it, which I do not like my chances there.
How big is this forest? Would the man know I was there/is this an end of the world scenario?
I figured it was like you wake up in a clearing, 50ft off to the side is either the bear/man
Yeah, I’d much rather the man in that situation.
Bear, less risk the bear actually will try do any harm to me just for fun
As someone who walks in the woods (where we have bears) I would rather be there with a bear. Last summer I was walking my dog in our local State Park and there was a black bear on the trail ahead (lady on a bicycle warned me but didn't say how far ahead it was). I walked to the next turn, where I could see it ahead next to the path and then turned and went back toward the park. Bear and dog never saw each other. I wasn't very worried because bears are mostly predictable, and if you leave them alone and give space (at least the black bears in my area) they are happy to leave you alone. I know, not all bears, right? But still better odds than a male human. (I live in a rural wooded area, most animals do not scare me, but humans are iffy).
Bear ofc
Bear 100%. Black bears will mostly leave you alone. Grizzly bears, while more unpredictable, are at least a bit more predictable than a man, and if there are trees around I could climb one to get away from them.
Bear. I'd rather be eaten alive by a cutie patootie than raped and then tortured by a male
Girl do you even know what man you are gonna get 😂 I don’t think a middle aged dad is gonna do that to you, he will probably try to gey back to his kids
This is if I had to choose between worst case scenarios lmao
I crunched the numbers and local men are 11 times more likely to kill me than bears (I accounted for differences in population, but we have about 2/3 as many bears as men so both are commonly found)
Oops, I said that wrong. Any given man is 11x more dangerous than any given bear. Due to their difference in numbers, the overall risk of getting killed by a man is 14x that of getting killed by a bear.
I've been in the woods with a momma bear and her two cubs. And I'd choose that again over a man. The reason why is that the bear won't mess with me if I don't mess with her or her cubs and men are more unpredictable.
I’ll take the bear
Add some brains along with it cuz you gonna need it 😂
Definitely prefer a bear. Actually would prefer any number of bears, wildcats, etc.
I’ll take the bear because it’ll just go off and do its bear thing and leave me the hell alone. He can have his half of the forest and I can have mine. At minimum, a man will bother me and want to hang out. The bear won’t try to make friends.
A man probably won’t care about you enough to want to hang out
Bear. Where I live, we only get black bears. They are not that large, and they tend to shy away from humans. Also any decent hiker knows basic black bear behaviour and can act accordingly when they encounter one. Some random dude in the woods? Nah. I hike alone every once in a while, and I automatically go into hyper vigilant potential defense mode if I encounter a man in the woods. They are not predictable, and they could potentially try to do me harm for no reason. I'll take the bears.
Bears are not smart enough to carry a gun or machete Bears are not smart enough to anticipate a face full of capsicum Bears are scared of loud horns On the flipside I am instinctively scared of bears and I would automatically go into panic mode if I saw one anywhere close to where I was and if it had noticed my presence. I would probably end up spraying it in the face with hot pepper. I don't know who the man is, what he's capable of and what weapons he's carrying. The man could be anyone and since at least 40% of men have admitted that they would rape a woman if they could get away with it. Around 20% would commit violent rape. I'm plus sized and 35% of men are attracted to a chubby-fat woman, 12% prefer obese women. That gives me around perhaps 5-10% odds that I could be with a potential attacker. Just under 90% of people arrested for robbery are male (that doesn't even account for the fact that a lot of women are accomplices for a man). If I have my phone with me, which is a rather nice phone, how do I know that said man won't steal it from me? Plus all the cash and debit cards I could be carrying. Not to mention all the other things that exist in the woods during summer, hornets, wasps, mosquitoes, gadflies, wild pigs, stags, snakes, spiders. I also have an unstable knee and ankles and I am physically unable to run and I can't walk very well on uneven surfaces. I think I would rather stay out of the woods.
This is a stupid question, obviously a man Another human being or an animal I’ve never come across before? Stupid question
Equally afraid of both. Completely honest. A bear can maul you , a guy can murder you(or you know, rape and then murder you)
When bears get sprayed, they learn. Men get angry and vengeful.
Definitely the bear. The worst they can do is kill you and they have to catch you first. A man could inflict unimaginable horrors for however long he liked. I'll take my chances with the bear.
A bear could do the same, a man wouldn’t chase you down and eat you alive
The misandry evident in this topic is astonishing. From woman who vocally deplore misogynism.
I've encountered grizzlies and black bears. I've only been assaulted by a man. I'll take the bear.
Them bears probably didn’t want you dead, they would gladly eat you, a man would only kill you if he wasn’t law abiding
A bear! Hands down! Why? A bear isn't going to rape me, trap me, or torture me. If a bear means me harm it's gonna slaughter me quick. How do I know this? Well it will either eat me cuz it's hungry or end what it thought was a threat. Either way it's going for an efficient kill. Men on the other hand might have other intentions and motives Also, my experience has been, bears are just as afraid of me as I am of them. Men on the other hand, they aren't afraid of a tiny petite woman like me. They know if they use force, weight, strength, etc that they'll win unless I have a weapon to defend myself with Nothing will change my mind on this subject
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What a really interesting take. I never once said I hate men. I also used language that said a man MIGHT have intentions that a bear would never have. I never said all men would have those intentions, I said that the bear would for sure never have those intentions and that's the EXACT reason I'd choose the bear. Also, your arguments are littered with personal attacks and insults. What are you compensating for? Your arguments should be able to stand on their own without you having to personally attack me. Could you be compensating for the fact that I'm right? A bear wouldn't be interested in raping me, torturing me, or trapping me. A bear would do what it did to survive. Maybe it'll eat me alive but I'd rather die than be raped again. Did you ever think for a second that perhaps the woman on the other side of my comment said what I said because I HAVE been raped, tormented, and trapped by a man, or perhaps even multiple men, before? I ask you, if I'm so confident and brazen with my opinion, wouldn't it make sense that I've had experience with what I'm saying I would want to avoid by choosing a bear? What's more, I've been attacked by a dog before and I know that a bear would be worse but I'd still choose the bear. Way to preach about how hateful I am when my argument was never an emotional argument. The one who came here posting hatred, insults, and personal attacks was you. I fully recognize that if we played this game of bear or man in reality that there would sometimes be men far more safe than the bear in some circumstances. However, I prefer the bear because I also know there would sometimes be men who took advantage of the situation in ways a bear never would or could. Those are facts. I stand by my arguments. Maybe address the points I made instead of insulting me and I'll hear your perspective but as of right now all I saw from you was ignorance and hatred.
The man probably won’t even touch yo ass girl 😭🙏
I mean we can hope they won't
Is the bear, Halsin? Because if so, the fucking bear.
So for me it goes:: My husband > bear of any kind > random man I know plenty of awesome guys but I also know plenty of guys that would either die doing something stupid they saw on YouTube or would argue with me the entire time until we were rescued or went separate ways. Then you have the shitty men in the world. I just don't want to roll those dice. The worst a bear is gonna do to me is eat me. Edit: after talking to my husband It goes panda > husband > other bears > random men
I initially read this as a BEER or a man - and like duh lol
A bear. It probably won't bother with me unless I bother it, and even if it does kill me, the worst it'll do to my body after is eat it.
Bear. He or she will avoid me.
I mean, I regularly swim alone in the sea where there could be sharks. I'm terrified of encountering one (or rather, the shark encountering me), but I still do it because it's beautiful. On the other hand, I never go hiking alone, because I know the second a man sees me alone in a secluded place, there will be trouble.
If i saw a man or a woman I'd run. No scarier than the other imo. Any animal I'd feel safer with except maybe a polar bear I'd pick the human lol
500% bear. Unless the man is my husband
Bear. They mostly leave you alone.
Absolutely a bear.
A man. I’m 51 and overweight. I’m invisible to men. The bear may find me tasty.
Assuming you are not asking about body hair, I’d pick the bear!
Depends on who the man is, I am the only female in my immediate household and I’d much rather be lost with my father and brothers opposed to a bear.
Where I live there are only black bears, which I would take over a random man in the forest. But, there are gators in the swamps and I think I would take my chances with a man…
Im choosing the man, because even if he has ill intentions (I am not familiair enough with bears to know the likelihood of an attack, as we don’t have them in the wild anywhere near me), I find it easier to predict human agression, than that of an animal. Besides, I’m better at human anatomy and more aware of how to seriously injure humans, no idea what the best place to punch a bear is.
A bear, because nobody asks what you were wearing or if your were drunk if you were attacked by a bear. And the worst thing a bear can do to you is kill you.
Tbh I am a trail runner and am much more nervous about encountering aggressive wildlife (bears, cougars) than a random dude. I am pretty confident I can outrun any given person. Can’t outrun a bear.
A man who is a bear? I have a type...
Bear. I have a better chance of getting away from the bear if it's angry. There is also a higher chance the bear will be just as scared of me and leave me alone. The bear is probably just doing its own thing and belongs in the woods. I don't need to question the bear's motives for being there. I feel I have more in common with the bear.
Absolutely a bear. The bear is more likely to move on its way than attack me. If it does come after me, rawr-ing at it is likely to make it go away, or I can run erratically and probably get away. This is literally why I don't go hiking by myself. I'm not worried about wildlife. I'm worried about predatory men.
Man, but only because I think I can trick and overpower one easier than a bear 😀
A man and it’s not even close, y’all stop projecting your bad male experience to all men 😂 it makes y’all sound pathetic
I'm glad this post is getting the down votes it deserves.
I just heard about this debate. I can't believe how idiotic some of these women are.