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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Man or bear? A viral question has spawned scary responses | |
By AJ Willingham, CNN | |
Updated: | |
10:00 AM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Another day, another hypothetical scenario tearing people apart on . | |
However, this cultural discourse has some sharp teeth. | |
The question, directed towards women, seems simple: Would you rather be | |
alone in the woods with a man or a bear? | |
While there’s no unanimous answer, a good number of women on TikTok, | |
Instagram and X have made it clear they’d prefer the bear. This has | |
sparked anger among some men online, but more than that, it has | |
snowballed into a valuable discussion about violence against women and | |
how danger doesn’t always take the shape of a wild animal on the | |
prowl. | |
It’s not actually about the bear | |
In , viewed more than 16.7 million times, an interviewer asks eight | |
women on the street whether they’d rather be stuck in a forest with a | |
man or a bear. Seven out of the eight answer, with very little | |
hesitation, the latter. | |
There are of this video, with the question asked among groups of | |
friends, to family members and partners and strangers on the street. | |
When asked why they would pick the bear, women all give some iteration | |
of the same answer: With a bear, they know what the dangers are. They | |
know, at least in theory, how to survive the encounter. | |
The comments on the previously mentioned video make that painfully | |
clear: | |
“You know what to expect from a bear.” | |
“Absolutely a bear humans are capable of so so much worse.” | |
“Bear, because If I got attacked by a bear people would believe | |
me.” | |
It’s impossible to on whether one particular man would be more | |
dangerous than one particular bear, especially since we all spend a lot | |
more of our daily existence in proximity to men than wild ursines. The | |
point of this clearly hypothetical exercise has nothing to do with | |
survival skills or being able to tell a black bear from a brown one. | |
“The fact that women would even consider hypothetical man/bear | |
questions means we have utterly failed to create a safe society,” . | |
According to data from the United Nations, almost were intentionally | |
killed worldwide in 2022. UN data also shows that across the world have | |
experienced intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence, | |
categories that include domestic violence and rape. | |
That doesn’t include sexual harassment or other situations that can | |
put a woman in fear of her life. The claims a sizable majority of women | |
parliamentarians and journalists have experienced psychological | |
violence in the public sphere — a specific statistic, but one that | |
shows how deep into a woman’s existence the threat of violence can | |
go. | |
A lot of critics are missing the point | |
People rankled by the number of women choosing to take their chances | |
with a bear have called the question “” and said it’s an excuse | |
to freely hate on men. Others, missing the point entirely, have taken | |
the opportunity to mock and belittle women in response. | |
One X post shows a cartoon of a woman telling a bear she’s glad to be | |
stuck with it “instead of a man teehee.” In the second panel, the | |
bear has violently mauled her. | |
“Help me understand the math,” . “Women said they feel safer with | |
a bear than a man. So in response you as a man decided to create | |
imagery of them being violently dissected to prove that you’re not | |
violent and are safe to be around?” | |
This kind of unintentional proof-of-theory has frustrated women who | |
feel like some men genuinely don’t understand, , what it feels like | |
to never feel entirely safe around other people. | |
A post on Instagram Threads, shared thousands of times, further | |
illustrates this gap. | |
“A woman should definitely pick the bear,” the post reads. “The | |
bear would eat her. It’s not going to help her one bit. A man she can | |
bond with to a point where he will work with her to survive in the | |
woods. If she used her feminine traits. He would hunt, building and | |
protect.” | |
It goes on, but that penultimate line, “if she used her feminine | |
traits,” spawned from people shocked at the irony. | |
A lot of detractors also seem to be misunderstanding the definition of | |
a hypothetical question. , a portal for law students, offers an | |
especially clear explanation: | |
“Hypothetical means something that is not necessarily true, but is | |
used to help explain or understand something else. It is like a pretend | |
situation that we use to learn or think about something.” | |
Men are lending their voices to the discussion | |
As much as it feels like a battle of the sexes, the “man vs. bear” | |
question is far from split along gendered lines. Many men have shared | |
their take on the situation, and come out on the side of the bear as | |
well. | |
One TikToker , a lifelong bear hunter, which he would prefer for her. | |
“You’d have a better chance with the bear,” he said, after a | |
moment of thought. Then, without a hint of irony or drama, he goes on: | |
“Because men are evil.” | |
Another user , pointing out that men (or people in general) can lie, | |
make false promises, downplay their own danger and generally be | |
predatory on a level no bear could ever be. | |
“The bear wouldn’t apologize after and promise to never do it | |
again,” he said. | |
TikTok creator and anti-misogynist educator , who claims to have | |
started the current man vs. bear debate, said he didn’t even consider | |
the question to be hypothetical. | |
He points to a video posted on , where he says, “If you’re alone in | |
the woods, seeing a man is ten times scarier than seeing a bear.” | |
“I never presented it as a ‘would you rather’ question because I | |
already knew that women were picking the bear,” . | |
Call Me BK has spent numerous videos trying to explain to men why women | |
would pick the bear, and each subsequent attempt has drawn comments | |
from people saying it’s ridiculous, hateful, illogical or worse. | |
However, some positive comments have argued that the question isn’t | |
meant to lambaste men or pick apart the potential danger of a bear | |
encounter. It is, in the way hypothetical questions are, a door to | |
something bigger. | |
“You started an important conversation,” one commenter wrote on | |
TikTok. “It didn’t just go into a debate. It led to some of us | |
mothers having important talks with our older sons. This is the kinda | |
thing that can change the future.” | |
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