The irony is that the poor behavior explains why many women would pick the bear
this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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Yeah, it's like... The fact that it's controversial is why it's controversial.
You're either willfully ignorant or you understand to some degree where the controversy is (even if you don't necessarily in your heart agree that bear is better), and can concede that there's maybe a problem with what humanity calls "masculine."
And if you're willfully ignorant, then, that's why some people say bear. And it's also a canary in the coalmine example of this form of dangerous masculinity.
Another irony is that the most dangerous bear to come face to face with is the sweet little baby bear.
Is that true?
If you're face to face with baby, Mama's behind you, and she considers you a threat to her toddler.
Most bears try to avoid you. The best thing you can do on a nature trail is be noisy, talk a bunch, make sure the bear knows you are there. Because they don't want anything to do with humans.
The second worst thing you can do is surprise a bear.
The worst thing you can do is get between a baby bear and its mom.
Lemmy honestly is not friendly or welcoming. My wife left after being attacked for any comment she made where she mentioned being a female. The man vs bear debate wasn't even around until a month or so later.
If you're not a tech savvy male and you're lurking just don't get involved. They'll belittle anyone who's isn't. You need to have PC for gaming on a Linux computer having the ability to program within Linux while running your internet through a pihole so your jellyfin server can remain hidden through the VPN. If you even ask any question about anything I said prepare to be shamed for not knowing how to already know.
I think regardless of the platform it will get ugly when topics are controversial. How ugly it gets is mostly depending on the level of moderation. It doesn't need many trolls or ill willing people to derail a discussion among hundreds of good meaning people.
We also tend to concentrate on the things we consider unfavorable. If among 100 comments 5 are sexist, these 5 will get far more attention than the other 95.
I mean, I've seen people uttering death threads on YouTube, because the YouTuber used butter in a recipe, not margarine. One of several hundred comments under that video, but the only one I remember...
If the fear for a typical woman is this bad, then we need to be better about teaching boys. I’m a pretty empathetic person, just ask my new very rapidly made female best friend. But despite the wife, and a few pretty damn close female friends, close mom, sister…. The fears expressed in my short reading on the current discussion have never been as clearly communicated, well the fear was definitely clear, but not the magnitude.
I agree with the sentiment that it’s just a bad premise. It puts everyone straight into a defensive posture, and no one learns anything when they’re trying to defend their sense of self.
On the other hand, if people are going to DMs to harass beyond the context of the heated conversation… well they ARE DEFINITELY the kind of people who are a threat, and need to be dealt with.
I literally have no clue what man vs bear is and honestly sounds like it should stay that way1
It's a thought experiment. Women are asked if they'd rather stumble upon a bear or a man in the woods. Most women choose bear. Some boys got really offended at the women's choice.
Most girls had Teddy bears so that's an obvious choice imo. They don't understand bear mauling from grizzlies or face eating polar bears
I think the point isn't that certain bear species are aggressive, it's that all bear species are unapologetically bears. They don't try to pretend they are something else. Bears are bears and they all treat humans more or less the same
The point is their only experience with bears are the cute toys and child artwork. Men in their experience were sexual predators and viewed and acted as women were prey.
"Women don't know bears can kill you because they had fluffy teddy bears growing up" is what you sound like.
What? First off, boys also have teddy bears. Most people's experiences with bears are precisely what you described as solely women's experiences.
Like what are bears in men's daily experience? I'll isolate down to North America to keep things simple.
Most men's experience with bears is identical to that of women's. Most men live in suburbs or cities, and haven't even seen a bear outside of a zoo. But most men and women know that bears are dangerous wild animals because...we have been taught that.
I don't get why women are so infantalized by men. Now I'm just imagining a father walking up to his son, telling his daughter to leave the room then telling him "bears are dangerous son, you never wanna be close to one and here's what you do to stay safe, also do NOT tell your sister this, she's a girl and doesn't need to know this because one day she'll have a husband that will protect her from the bears"
Number of female hunters vs male? Men have more encounters
And another broad generalization goes to you.
Women aren't idiots. They know what bears are. They also know what men are which is precisely why they are mostly answering the way they do.
LMAO
I don’t know how you can solve this. Lemmy has become a refuge for outcasts. Men with social/personality issues are the biggest group of outcasts. Women are much less likely to be outcasts and so have far less interest in being here.
To create an environment that is welcoming to a particular group takes a certain critical mass of people from that group. If you’re such an extremely small minority you’re going to have a very difficult time reaching that critical mass and the negative environment further discourages people from joining.
If outcasts are people who don't feel welcome in any irl or mainstream communities; women are just as likely to be outcasts. Women online can avoid outing themselves because even female oriented online support spaces get brigaded by men. There are a handful of female artists in my circle who identify as male online because they kept getting creepy dms. They still get them, of course, but less so. Less violent and rapey.
Who knows how many women are out there, lurking in the shadows, just trying to look at memes about linux and communism.
The bear scenario is the perfect division inducing shitstorm.
It’s understandable what the memes portrays the danger that women face, daily. The fact that they frequently don’t feel comfortable or even just basic safety is definitely valid and worth discussion.
However, the bear vs man thing was just the worst vehicle to induce that discussion. On one side men who may not be the most well informed about women issues; will get immediately defensive at being compared to a large animal known for tearing people apart and eating them alive.
The members of the other side who see all the angry men getting defensive at them for expressing this view and think it’s purely because they aren’t empathetic to these issue, they “hate” women or they’re marginalising what is a real and daily danger.
Of course there are actual trolls, toxic arseholes and people who have 0 interest actual discourse or understanding but fuck them, I agree ban em.
It was never going to end in a productive, calm or rational discussion and frankly I think tarring the entire of lemmy for it is equally as unproductive. I’ve seen plenty of people initially aggressive to the meme, come around. I’ve seen more and more people make light jokes about the same meme without the accusatory tone. If you want discourse theres space to do so; it just has to be done better(imo). Preferably without snark or accusatory tones.
Okay, but, speaking as a woman, we try to explain these issues nicely, with gentle terminology and a big helping of ‘not all of you, but some of you…’ and we get ignored, dismissed, belittled, or flat-out gaslit.
So, we try going for the shock value to get you to at least pay attention instead of dismissing what we say as background noise or ‘us silly little women worrying our silly little heads over nothing’. And then we get told we can’t talk like that, that it’s insulting, that no man would listen because we’re belittling them, that it ‘doesn’t foster discussion’.
Although at least you heard us say something so many of us take it as a small win…
So, honest question. How do we explain it to you, so we don’t offend you, but you actually hear us? Actually get an idea of what it means to be afraid of footsteps behind us when we go out at night? To get leered at when all we’re trying to do is get a good workout at the gym? To have men just take liberties, like touching us, grabbing us? To not want to mention that we are a woman online, especially in gaming circles, because of the sexist bullshit and dismissive attitudes that will inevitably show up and run us out of a group we just want to be in because we like the game, damnit?
To weigh the decision to even make a post like this, because I know it will be brigaded and will attract sexist jerks who will try to shout me down? Or even attract stalkers who will follow me across instances to harass me?
Please, tell me how. Because we want you to understand. We don’t want to chase people away from discussions. But it’s so hard, and gets so discouraging…
I really appreciate that you made this post. Every top-level comment here is complaining about it being "rage bait" and that the question would "never foster productive discussion." Why? Why aren't men capable of seeing the scenario, recognizing why it's necessary to say something like that, and getting over themselves just a little bit to get the point? The original question wasn't even a "not all men" thing, there's no actual reason to get mad about it enough to dismiss the dicussion. We have to be able to have a conversation where the other side is allowed to say something a tiny bit outside of our standards for what we want them to say, or we'll never have a conversation at all.
The irony is, I am seeing a lot of productive discussion? Like high key? Alongside the standard rage, trolling and harassment of course (which should be banned).
I genuinely think that, if women actually stick around, this event could be a net positive for the Lemmyverse. What's needed is just like several dozen deep breaths, some listening, and of course more effective moderation of the bad actors.
Every time I see something about that bear vs man thing it just turns into a shitload of people straw-manning the hell out of the opposing gender. The whole thing is fucking stupid.
It's almost like it was planted to make men and women mad at each other for no reason. Fuel it with bots and bad faith arguments and it's a tempest in a teapot
You know, implying that the author wrote it in bad faith is pretty much just doing a strawman.
What is this anyway ? :
“bear vs man”
Let me get yelled at and downvoted for being a trans women who explains it.
Women choose bear of men because of they encounter a bear, there substantially less likely to get harmed then a man.
That's it. Women choose bear over men because men harm women more.
Here is an excellent summary I came across: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/8694944
i blocked that "blahaj" long ago. it is a shit hole. if you continue to visit it you will get it.
Still, to be mindfull i read from your link :
x says - - tldr :
if woman alone in a forest : is she better to encounter a bear or a man ?
x says...
Okay very basically this whole thing started with a hypothetical posed to a bunch of women about which they would rather run into while alone in the woods; A random man, or a bear. A lot of women chose the bear. Reasons varied from “The worst the bear will do is kill me,” to “At least I know the bear wants to kill me,” with a general theme seeming to be that whatever tangible threat the bear posed was preferable to the uncertainty of wondering whether or not a random man would assault them.
The poster’s stated goal with the hypothetical was to get men to think about why the women were choosing the bear. Instead a lot of guys took it as a personal attack, like they were being punished for the actions of other men. Many started attacking the question, insisting that bears are way more dangerous than virtually any man. This led to a lot of dismissive responses of the criticism like “This is why women choose the bear,” or talking about women’s safety being more important than men’s feelings.
I’m simplifying a lot but that’s the basic gist of it.
op answer to x
@spujb@lemmy.cafe ((OP))
Thank you for the detailed summary.
To add the final unfortunate details, there was a recent discussion on Lemmy where women were sharing their reasons for choosing bear, which involved sharing personal stories of SA. Unfortunately, many men responded in a toxic manner, causing some women to delete their posts or accounts. Very disturbing and this is what inspired me to make this post, as it is quite reminiscent of the Catholic church sweeping SA under the rug.
my opinion :
ideally if a woman had a gun she could kill the bear without any bad consequences ... but she could not kill the man without legal risks. So ideally she would be better off encountering a bear ... though in some countries there is no problem with encountering a man (most of the time).
Regarding Man v Bear I think the topic is rather silly. Most bears aren't looking to have a meet and greet if you do come across a bear one of three things are true. It's here to eat you, it didn't leave because its a she-bear and it has cubs its protecting, or you just startled it. If any of the above is true you are at best in serious danger. If it is actually trying to prey upon you then you are probably fucked. Whereas 100% of the bears you surprise in the woods are extremely dangerous 99.99% of people you meet man or woman are just people like yourself not looking for trouble.
It's not shocking that the 99.9% of men who aren't predators waiting in the bush feel justified in feeling unfairly vilified.
My proverbial beef isn't the pointing out of how manny men are predators and that the risksfor women are non-zero; my problem more specifically is that the meme stacks handily on top of the already vexing racial profiling I deal with as a black man who's had false allegations leveled in the past and lost jobs because of the weaponization of this fear. I have already spent damn near a half century being presumed some kind of feral Mandingo rape beast purely for existing while black. The presumption of interest in all of these women like a scene out of Kentucky Fried Movie gets really old and they get super vindictive when rejected.
Yeah that’s what I found the most surprising. Even after you understand what women really mean in this thought experiment, it’s just textbook discrimination and no different than targeting certain races as a cop.
I thought as a society we all agreed that was bad but apparently it’s okay if the victims are men.
So this thought experiment does reveal sexism, the sexism against men.
It doesn't matter how much it upsets you, "hurting your feelings" will always be safer than "being raped and murdered".
Maybe it's time to shake off the insecurity and accept that if you're not doing anything wrong then you're not who women are talking about.
My feelings are far less of a concern than my personal safety. The distance between 'she was asking for it, dressed like that' and 'those n-bombs are all rapists, if a woman claims assault for any reason it's guaranteed he did it' ain't as far apart as you seem to think.
I dunno 'bout you, but I'm sure as fuck not looking to be the next Exonerated Five example. And more importantly, being as I'm inot a trigger-happy stand-your-ground state and in the same Metropolitan area where Amber Guyger feared for her life after going into the wrong fucking apartment, I sure as hell don't trust things to be made right or go smoothly the second white woman tears are involved.
Since you're replying to a 7 month old comment, I'm guessing your true opinions are even more damaged than the ones you've stated here.
I think its more or less you come in swinging most people are gonna swing back, the bear thing gave both sides a reason to 'rightfully' be angry when the question literally couldn't matter less than Lego fortnite