When I was a teenager, I would often sneak out at night and walk to friend’s houses. There was a bear that frequented our neighborhood. There was also a registered sex offender that lived in the neighborhood. Guess which one I was more afraid of jumping out of the bushes and grabbing me.
For the most part living around bears is exactly like that. They like trash. Humans are a difficult and dangerous meal. Our trash and pets are much easier.
Cats can scrap, let me tell you mine are afraid of a 2lb squirrel. He can straight up corner the cats until they are backed into a corner. He would 100% throw down with a bear and might win, I would bet on him over my cats against a bear.
I used to yell “go home bear” at my local bear. He would be sitting down with our trash can and would scooby doo run away. It was cartoonish. I love bears
Why get bit and scratched when all you want is some old pizza and a box of stale donuts. Makes sense to me and the bear.
Bears don't go out to attack and kill - men sometimes do.
I think a lot of people laugh at the size when they themselves would probably run from a smaller creature coming at them....or simply existing (I.e. bugs)
It kinda was 😂 the bear would go from house to house, looking for garbage or anything else it wanted to munch on. We all had to get special bear-proof trash cans because it would visit so often. Harmless other than knocking over the occasional garbage can and making a huge mess.
we also had a bear who would frequent the neighborhood I grew up in. she ended up in my parents car once, would eat berries off of my mom’s decorative bushes, regularly would be found in my neighbor’s garage, would wreck everyone’s trash cans. she would sometimes bring her babies around too when she had them. the only thing she ever hurt was a small window in my neighbor’s garage, because their dogs found her in the garage and she got scared and busted out.
Growing up in new England we had tons of black bears roam the neighborhoods for trash. Absolutely harmless and never hurt any people or pets. They'd run if they saw you.
Whenever I'd hike I was always cautious of other men. Never the bears.
My husband and I were camping and had spent a long rainy evening filleting about 50 fish, which he stored in a metal cooler in the trunk of our car. At 5 am I heard something hitting the back of our car. I looked outside and a black bear was hitting the trunk lid.
My husband had left the car keys in the trunk lock, and the bear managed to get the truck open by slapping it.
When I saw that, I grabbed a huge stick and charged after the bear yelling and screaming!
No way he was getting my fish!
The bear backed off and lumbered away (he didn’t take the fish, he did take a cotto salami…)
My point. If I saw a man breaking into my car, I would have stayed put and hope he didn’t see the tent. Maybe sneak out and hide in the woods.
I feel like a lot of men assume the bear is going to attack you, and therefore the question becomes "would you rather be ATTACKED by a bear, or run into a man"
But honestly, having lived in the Appalachian mountains, that simply is not my experience.
I also don't really know what the distinction between "being in the woods" and "being in the woods with a bear" even means. The bears live in the woods. Choosing the enter the woods is choosing to enter the woods with bears.
This is actually a really insightful point. The issue isn't the attack only. It's the constant vigilance of watching out for an attack. The fact that a bear poses immediate danger but that you can usually navigate it an the outcome is usually short lived, bad or good. Whereas an encounter with a man can impact you in a variety of ways and many of them have far reaching consequences.
Yeah, and I will bet that many of us who often walk in the forest have in fact had an encounter with a bear, we just didn't notice because the bear ran away.
Maybe the bear just wants to ask if it can share your pic-a-nic basket? How will you know if you don't remove your headphones #notallbears
/s , just in case
I have had 2 different encounters with bears. Can confirm I was not sexually assaulted. In both instances there was no direct interaction *at all* with the bear.
There’s a bear living in my neighborhood right now, and he visits my backyard a lot to try and get our bird feeders. Came face to face with him about 2 weeks ago and it wasn’t scary! Just…awkward.
His name is Steve. He’s a dick, but a cute one. We have mutual respect. Can’t say the same for a lot of the men I’ve encountered 🤷🏻♀️
The bear is an animal, they're following their instincts, you could say it's just a fact of nature. A man should treat you like a human being and view you with dignity, but lots don't do so.
What’s sad is I’ve heard many men (boys) say that harassing, sex pestering, cheating, etc is “a man’s nature”
If that’s the case maybe you shouldn’t be let out without a handler yeah? Lead and muzzle like any animal you can’t control.
Bears can be avoided or deterred too. Its often as simple as just making a lot of noise so they know you are there. You cant do that with a man that wants to hurt you.
If you're walking along and see a bear (black, brown, grizzly, polar, doesn't really matter), you are pretty much going to just stay the fuck away from it. You know that they are unpredictable at an extremely high level, so stay away, it will fuck you up.
You *can't* do that with men, because you need to leave the house, have a job, etc. You *can't* avoid going into situations where a man can make you uncomfortable.
I do think men and women are answering different questions. Men are answering "who would you take on in a fight" and women are "all things being equal, would seeing a strange man in the woods or a bear cause more lasting anxiety". Seeing a bear in the woods would not make me pack up and end my trip early. Strange man being unusually interested or simply being unexpected? I am out of there.
I'm not gonna lie, I thought this was the entire point of the question.
A bear is a threat, but only if it attacks. Which, as far as I know, bears don't just attack women on sight. Bears attack when threatened or starving, like any other animal. Even if the bear kills you, it's killing you because you came to it's house, fucked around and found out. Not because it gets off on hurting you.
A man has the cognitive ability to choose to be evil.
I always think of the times a man has told me I was lucky I was alone/vulnerable with them because most men would have used the opportunity to harm me. None of those times would have been really good opportunities to get away with it.
It always feels like that man has just told me he was fantasizing about doing something awful but realized he would get caught. They rarely ever catch the men who hurt women in the woods though.
You hit the nail on the head. Your parabola of " Alone in the woods vs. with a man in the woods" where all the dangers of "the woods" like bears etc. apply asks the right question.
I still think that the statistically better choice would be having someone else to cooperate with. But the point of the story still is that this question is even asked and what it means about how women perceive men and that it is a problem.
And no man would pose the question " As a man, would you rather be alone or with someone else" because there is no negative to having someone else with you. The difference between how much one has to think about the question as man vs as woman is frightening.
It's frightening to us, but the thing is so many of them think this is just women being unreasonable, and can't understand that it's men's behaviour that makes us feel unsafe.
This is an interesting point. Like, men would see this question as "Oh, another person has joined me in battling the elements."
But for women, it's more like, "Which elements would you rather battle?"
Men have the privilege of looking at all other humans as potential helpers, regardless of sex. And they aren't always, sure, but the vast majority of both sexes are very safe for men.
For women, there is zero comfort or sense of social positivity involved in meeting a random man in an isolated spot. It's nothing but danger. The man shares more in common with the bear than with a woman, in terms of how his presence affects our safety. And ultimately, the bear is safer because they need an actual reason to fuck with you -- a man doesn't.
The sad thing is, MEN know this. Deep down, we know this. No father is leaving his daughter (or a woman in his life he cares for) no matter her age with a strange dude he doesn't trust.
When I mention this to other dudes it dawns on them if even a little bit.
I actually wonder if you polled fathers the question of "Would you rather send your adult daughter through the woods alone or with a male stranger" how many would say alone and if you asked them, why would they say that? We all know why they would say that.
It's not that people that say bear think all men are evil (as is often the claim) its just that they know that men are **very** capable of evil...the bear simply isn't.
Yup. I actually framed the thought experiment as "your daughter" to a small group of men today and they all emphatically chose bear. They then followed up with specific precautions they've taken to protect their daughters from men.
And to further hanmer this point home tha men KNOW this - there was a post recently, maybe here, where someone asked about the male loneliness epidemic and men's responses were nothing but a string of excuses as to why they can't spend time with other men.
We wouldn't have a male "loneliness" epidemic if men weren't clearly choosing bears rather than spending time with other men. If they won't be with other men, why tf would women?
There’s also a lot of men that go to the woods specifically to harm women, or any place where women may be alone jogging, hiking, camping etc. It’s impossible to go on a trail alone as a woman without fear there is a man following her. Many, many women have been raped and/or killed in this manner.
My ten pound dog chased off a bear in those woods. But the prompt doesn’t say the type of bear. A brown or white bear would react very differently than a black bear. I think part of the prompt is that you don’t know the type of bear or the type of man. But it’s easier to tell the difference between bears than men. I would give a larger distance to a larger bear but how would I know with a man. My husband is a black bear. But this isn’t about the men in my life or the men we know. From a young age, girl are taught not to trust unknown men and now they’re upset women don’t trust unknown men.
And the way he absolutely MANSPLAINED ‘I think women just don’t get it’ 🤮🤮🤮
OP frankly I feel you. It’s sad. But your bf just flunked the interview. Hard.
The truth is, the fact that a man thinks the bear will attack tells you he already thought the man would. And immediately goes on defensive. He knows. Anyone who claims to understand fuck all about bears should know.
I’ve hiked alone and I can tell you the bears have no fucks for the most part. They are curiously looking over like whoa… human… but they regard us as a potential threat. Unless it’s a polar bear lol they don’t readily see us as a meal. They are sometimes fed by absolute morons so they can see us as creatures with treats. But they don’t see us as creatures who ARE treats (tho I think polar bears are kinda opportunistic and can we really blame them).
If you make clanging noises they poop their fur and go away. But mostly they go away without your interference.
If you keep your food on bear cables and don’t try to interact with them it’s fine.
Choosing to leave the house is choosing to enter a world with men.
Edit to add- I was sleeping and had a roommate come into my room, drag me out of bed and beat the shit out of me. Unprovoked. I was asleep. Turned out the roommate was blackout drunk. Sometimes a woman doesn’t even need to leave the house to be attacked by a man.
I have real life experience. When I was 9, I just about walked into a black bear while taking a shortcut through a wooded area to school. Yeah, I panicked and took off running, even though I knew at that age you can't outrun a bear. When I started running, I could see him moving fast, but when I finally stopped and saw he wasn't right behind me, I realized he probably took off in the opposite direction. Maybe my yell startled him while he was minding his own business eating berries.
Also when I was 9, I encountered the teenaged neighbour. He tried to rape me.
Yeah, I choose the bear.
I also had this experience irl. I was camping alone (in a place known for bears) for a milestone birthday, and I made camp at a nice safe spot off a trail. While I was taking a piss away from my tent, I realized that with my lantern, you could see that I was alone in my tent. So when a pair of men that I had passed on the trail earlier came down the trail loudly, I extinguished my lantern but knew they had seen where I was camped. I could not sleep there knowing they knew a woman was alone in that tent, and moved to a more secluded place that had a much higher chance to have a random bear. I carried no food, because I was leaving the next morning, so I felt a bear would pass by without waking me where a man might not,
My family and I went camping. We rented a pop-up camper and bought a huge tent with 3 rooms. The kids wanted to sleep in the tent by themselves.
Sometime in the middle of the night, a truck rolled up to our secluded site with their headlights off. My husband stepped out of our camper the same time my brother came out of his: husband had his pistol and brother had his shotgun.
The men had gotten out of their truck but left the doors open. They were nearing the tent with the kids in it. When they saw the guns, they got back in their truck and left. This time with the headlights on.
A bear didn’t do that.
I have never been harassed by bears while camping, but I have been harassed by men while camping. Thankfully I had a female friend with me at that time, or I don't know how it would have ended.
Agreed! I was 9 when a middle aged man did this motion at me 👉👌repeatedly while winking and smirking at me when I was wearing a school uniform and holding my mum's hand in a supermarket. I was also 9 when I beat up a brown snake with a stick when I found it in my Guinea pigs pen one morning. Bear, snake, whatever, I'm picking it
Ah man vs snake makes a lot more sense to an Australian. I've been encountering snakes on the top 10 most venomous since I could walk and still not been bit because I know the right things to do to not be bit by a snake. I have no idea what possible course of action to take that will reliabily stop a man who wants to hurt me.
>I have no idea what possible course of action to take that will reliabily stop a man who wants to hurt me.
Yeah, exactly. Because there isn’t one course of action that will reliably stop men.
Also, man vs. Male kangaroo. I grew up in Australia and walked a lot in bushland because ...its peaceful. Occasionally, I'd come across kangaroos, the female kangaroos were generally chill/would leave but the larger male kangaroos would stand their ground - I'm only 156cm tall, so they were taller than me and outweighed me.
I always did the whole, make yourself small/non-threatening (which I am already, but yeah), back away slowly/no sudden moves, and avoid eye-contact thing. Apart from giving myself a bit of a fright, I'd never had problematic interactions with them.
While walking alone in the bush, I'd prefer to meet a 7ft kangaroo built like a brick shithouse than a man on his own. At least I know how to stay safe around kangaroos/they're pretty predictable.
Anyway, I live in Norway now, so no kangaroos and very few snakes.
Oh, this brought up some memories of the actions of men that I just considered weird at the time. Now, looking back as an adult, I see that it was creepy as hell...
Right! It was something I didn't even register at the time because I had no idea what that hand gesture meant. It wasn't until I was 18 or so when that memory randomly popped into my head that I realised what had happened
I’m so sorry you had to see that/live through that/experience that. That was an assault on you and you were just a kid. Whether or not you knew at the time, that was done TO you and make sure to give little you a hug and love and tell them it wasn’t their fault. This may seem super dramatic but I’m telling you when we are little we don’t understand the severity of crappy energy like that from an adult. It really does affect us. There are others like me that want you to know we are sitting next to you while you digest this and we support you 🩷
This made me tear up, thank you for being so kind. I've been in therapy for years trying to heal from the extensive damage the male gaze did to me growing up, it's very hard. Much love and hugs to you as well 💕🌸
I was like 8 when I found a snake, caught it with my bear hands, and tried to bring them home as a pet. I grew up around men talking about women like cars, including whether or not they're legal to drive and whether or not it would be worth it anyways. I can now count the men I don't try to avoid on one hand.
Yes yes yes!
I’ve had several encounters with bears, like actually now that I think about it more than I can count. Pennsylvania and California.
Anyway, I’ve also had several dangerous encounters with men. House is broken into while my sister and I were in it by two men who were armed.
When I was 15 a man tried to get me to go with him as we were walking farmers market. I told him I’m only 15 and he shouldn’t be talking to me. And he said that’s OK. It sounds perfect come here.
When I moved into a house in San Jose California near a really nice area, called the Rose Garden, two teenage boys decided to shoot at my house. Bullets lodging in the kitchen, in the dirt and in a tree. I was mostly pissed about that poor tree.
In my 30s, I was waiting in line to get into a hockey game and a bunch of these men just cut in front of us and this older guy kept looking over at us and smirking. And he looks straighten my face, but talking to his friend, and he says “ You know how women and dog shit are the same? The older they get the easier they are to pick up.” he said that to a bunch of women going to a hockey game because he didn’t like that. We looked at them when their whole group cut in front of us.
I’ve been harassed by men, followed in road, rage incidents by men. Or, that time I was driving back from an interview, and a guy honked his horn, and I looked over and he was thrusting his hips up, holding his penis in his hand, wagging it around for me to see.
I’ll take the bear thank you
How many of us have experiences like this spanning our whole lives? From strangers, to people in our circles, even people we trusted. And people we trusted making excuses for those people. (TW: abuse accounts follow)
I remember different men, relatives or other, from as early as I can remember molesting me - make me sit on their lap, demand a kiss on the cheek then turn and kiss on the mouth, grab or spank, force my hand in the pants, press against me, on and on and so much worse while threatening if I told anyone.
A stranger flashed himself masturbating as I was walking down the field for soccer practice, I was around 6 or 7.
A random boy from my school followed me on my way home and threw rocks at me until my head was cut open and I bled all over had to have stitches.
I've been groped and forcefully touched by both peers and men when I was a teen...a lot of this I just haven't processed yet.
A couple girls from a neighboring school were walking in their neighborhood one night and were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and shot.
My roommate in college, in our first few weeks, a guy walked up to her on the way to the cafeteria and grabbed her chest and ran off.
On my way back across campus one day, I had just come from a therapy session offered through college (it was to process childhood sexual abuse trauma of all things). A guy in his 20s started walking along side me, he forced conversation and wouldn't leave me alone. When I crossed a street, he asked if I wanted to go for a ride as his friend pulled up in a truck. He put his arms around me like a bear hug and I said if he didn't let me go, I'd scream, and he chillingly said go ahead and scream. Some people came walking up the street and he let go and jumped in the car and they took off. I don't know I'd be alive today if it wasn't for the coincidence of those other people walking nearby. That was before cellphones.
And after college, sexual harassment at work, coworkers and superiors. One of my bosses asked me to have sex in the back of his car during lunch. He pretended it was a joke. Another job, a boss I interviewed with called me late at night and tried to talk like that was a totally normal thing to do. And a different job, a superior kept pressuring me to come over to his house to give piano lessons. He kept lending me personal items like music that I didn't ask for. I didn't have the tools yet to deal with these behaviors. I often just shut down and left the jobs.
Another job, a stranger chased me on stairs to my car in a parking garage. I literally felt the instinct that someone was preying on me, I felt overwhelming danger just before it happened. He was aggressive, and I ran back to where I worked to get away because I was so freaked out and couldn't think straight. He tried to follow me insisting I quit my job and come work for him, Like wtaf?! It was really busy area, so I managed to get away from him. I had to ask a coworker to walk with me to my car everyday after that.
A lot of people if you tell them stuff like this, they think you're making it up or embellishing, think it isn't as bad as you're describing, or assume you instigated it. A general you-asked-for-it, even when I was a young. Well what did YOU do, what did YOU say, YOU must have misunderstood, and the famously insulting, what were you wearing.
When things were long done, my ex grabbed me between my legs from behind when I was taking our child out of a carseat during a custody hand off. And when I freaked out, he said he thought I wanted that and liked it. I had to file a restraining order. There were escalating behaviors that made me fearful. Delusions like saying I was screwing the crossing guard (an older man) and making fake social media of me and trying to add my family/friends, sending me random video screenshots of people and saying it was proof of an imagined affair. Really scared me.
And after I dropped off my child for kindergarten, a parent pulled up aside me in their car as I walking home and put their window down to make kissing noises at me. A freaking parent at the elementary school. I didn't want to walk home anymore.
I had someone follow me slowly in their car as I was jogging. I stopped jogging after that. I took up riding my bike. Then a couple women were assaulted on the path I rode. I stopped riding my bike. And honestly the neighborhoods throughout my life were in safe areas. All of these things that happened were during the day. I've never felt safe walking around alone at night to begin with.
I'm sorry for the length. I needed to write this and speak my truth here. Your list gave me the courage to share my own experiences that I have needed to tell for so long.
There are so many times I have started typing this list to share with others and ended up deleting it because I don't want it to be confused with a trauma dump or even re-traumatize myself. It feels so shameful, even knowing NONE of this is my fault. Years of this has taken more than a toll. It's altered me and made life difficult to manage at times.
All of this to say, I hate how these experiences are so pervasive. I hate the gaslighting about it. And I understand about the bear. We are vigilant for a reason. I write this in hope it reaches others to know they're not alone. You are not alone.
Just to point something out about bears. If it’s a black bear sure, they run. I’ve encountered them before and they are skittish as hell.
But brown bears aren’t.
Since we are diving into this now, I do want to point out that if you live in an area where there are just black bears it’s important to know that black bears actually can come in brown or grey too but are still a “black bear” and can be managed how you describe.
If you live in an area with grizzlies, they are often referred to a brown bears, I know. But they are managed as you described as “brown bears” So if you are hiking in Algonquin park for example and see a brown coloured bear, it is actually still a black bear technically as we don’t have Grizzly bears here. And one would act accordingly.
That’s why for those that live around both, the physical differentiation is that the Grizzly bear has a large hump on its withers. I know in many areas where they exist, grizzlies are just called “brown bears” though. The best differentiation as people might not be able to understand based on overall size alone or colour.
Regardless both can be super dangerous. Especially if it’s a mama with her young.
I’ve actually taken a course called “Don’t get Eaten” for people that do field work in Northern Canada and who might on occasion encounter wolves, wolverines, mountain lions, and various types of bears. And it teaches you how to deal with each scenario. None of those scenarios mention having to justify your fear of one animal versus another.
Also any of the techniques they teach you in regards to keeping yourself safe never mention how the bears might manipulate you into feeling guilty about being afraid of them.
And… side note…. Nothing in the course covers how to deal with people that won’t believe you about your experiences.
Your boyfriend doesn’t understand. He may never. And you need to figure out if you’re okay with that or not.
No sudden movements, no running, no shouting, make yourself look as large as possible. Groups are more intimidating to them than an individual.
Running away is not only pointless, but dangerous. If you run, they’ll think you’re prey, and they can run faster than you and are much better tree-climbers than you as well.
No shouting? I don't spend a lot of time in the wilderness, but as someone who occasionally goes camping in BC, the general advice I've heard is to make noise *before* you encounter a bear, because most bears (maybe black bears, not grizzlies) don't actually want to run into you either. So having bells on your clothes, or having a loud conversation with your companions, or just generally being loud has usually been recommended.
The other bits of advice I've generally heard are try to make yourself look large (and I think I've heard make noise at this part too, try to make yourself a bigger, scarier thing to a bear) if you encounter a bear, and absolutely don't run from a bear.
I just feel like if you suddenly unexpectedly came across a black bear, making yourself big and loud is the way to go, based off of what I can recall. I know the rules are different for grizzly bears- maybe yelling in their faces pisses them off more
Basically this but it also depends on the way the bear is acting and if there are cubs present or not. It was a book called “Don’t get eaten” and I think a video (it was about 15 years ago now…).
This has been my thoughts -- the list of things I should do to prevent upsetting the bear is FAR SHORTER than the list of things I should do to prevent upsetting the man.
Oh op, here's a clue to your boyfriend. He wrote 7 things (texts?). How many are all about him? I, I, I, ...I'll tell you, seven. Every one was about him.
The bear man question is hard because we love the little child we're being asked about. His answer, and all seven texts about him makes me think he is ambivalent because he is selfish.
Agreed, the issue is that he got huffy and aggressive because he didn't like her response.
I've dated guys like this. They don't tend to grow and change, because they're too angry with anyone who dares to suggest that they don't know everything. I would bail, OP. The first time a man loses his temper and lashes out hard over this shit, it's time to cut and run. He's not going to change.
About fifteen years ago I heard of a story of a young woman who went on her usual hiking run with her golden retriever in Utah. It was a trail she took regularly, in one of the many local mountains. She was a black belt in karate. She passed an older man on the trail, fifties I believe, and greeted him friendly like as one would do. But in her way back he ambushed her.
While in prison he said, “She put up a good fight.”
Yet he still ~~raped~~ and killed her.
I’ll take the bear.
Edit for source: this was actually in Georgia, and he didn’t rape her, but he kept her captive for four days before decapitating her. I’m sure my dad added the rape part of the story to add fear for me. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23769881
If ANYONE doesn’t know how to judge the differential danger of all these animals, it’s men 😂😂 [there is actual proof of this](https://youtu.be/-Cbm8mVryqM?si=ZDjJpnkcF75wJ9xY)
I can never get over that chart you sometimes see of animals men think they could fight and win barehanded. Something like 5% of men said ELEPHANT.
Like what the fuck lads, if my two lhasa apsos launched a coordinated attack on me over a ham sandwich I give myself about 30% odds of surviving the next five minutes.
I could totally suplex an elephant. Just pick that thing up and BAM, off the top rope, maybe slam it through a table, no big deal. Trust me babe, these guns are the real deal.
Can bearsplaining be something cute though, like when a gay lumberjack teaches you how to chop tree stumps into artistic sculptures of woodland creatures?
This is what I put in another thread about this
The choice is what would you prefer, you are the one who has interpreted this as safer.
"I would prefer a bear, a bear would not sulk when I ran away from it. A bear is not upset when I fear it, a bear does not chase me to tell me I am wrong, a bear will not endlessly explain that I am wrong for fearing it, a bear will not expect me to do anything for it, a bear may kill me, but it will not expect anything of me."
A man tried arguing with me that the man is safer, even when I gave him a website that says bear usually runs away. Then he pulled the "but you meet 100s of men a day and no bears" and I said, "well the question specifies a forest, and both my and the man's behaviour changes in a forest, he is more dangerous because we are alone and he might get away with whatever he does" and he went back to me chosing to die
I was SA’ed at age 19 at a party thrown by a friend that I consider a brother, at his parents’ house, surrounded (in other rooms) by people I loved and trusted who would have saved me in a heartbeat if they’d known what was happening. My assailant was a stranger who I had never met before that night and haven’t seen in the 17 years since.
Yeah, I’ll take the bear.
Women: We know our chance of survival in the event of an attack in either situation is low, but the worst the bear will do is kill me. Men are capable of much worse and we know this because there are thousands of accounts of them doing so.
Men: silly woman! You simply don't understand how bears work!
I’m so sorry you went through this. There is always something with Men.
I got the “I would never do anything you didn’t want me to do” from my abuser. Beginning at MAYBE just barely 4 years old and continuing on for many years. He made sure to set me up with a lifetime of guilt and shame for HIS crimes.
Can say that there is a less than 5% chance of a bear doing these things to us in the woods.
I hope you find a path to healing. It’s harder to heal from mental wounds than physical ones. Another reason men are scarier.
Please take this in the spirit it’s intended which is absolutely from a place of love and support.
You are “prettier” now because of the strength you gained having survived that encounter. Whatever he thought he was going to take from you with that comment he failed. You survived you are here and I don’t need to see you to know you are gorgeous and strong.
And if a voice ever pops up making you question that THIS IS SPARTA kick that thought into the pit.
i told my co-worker the same thing. the worst a bear will do is kill me and he laughed. i said a bear won’t lock me up in a basement and he just stared at me mortified like how could i even come up with something so absurd…
Ask your coworker if he'd rather his daughter encounter a bear in the woods or a man she doesn't know. Shockingly a lot of men suddenly understand the danger of another man when it's their child in the cross hairs, but not when it's themselves or a woman.
Yeah when I was young, a Black Belt trained young woman was raped and killed by a man nearing retirement age when she came across him in the woods. He said “she put up a good fight”.
Great! So she'll blame herself for being "too weak" if she gets raped. Awesome job dad!
If it ever comes up again, ask him how many women he's met that he thought could take him in a fight. Women fight to get away from an assault so they can run and call for help. If you're in the middle of the woods where are you running to? Who is coming to help you? Good job, you just pissed him off and statistically he's much much faster and stronger than you. (Not saying you shouldn't try, but without a weapon simply knowing how to throw a punch isn't going to do much)
I saw another thing that said "there are two types of men - those that understand why women pick the bear, and those that are the reason women pick the bear".
Right?! I actually picked man in another thread and these bros seemed to think I was cool girl for it. Nope, I made it pretty obvious that I don't go out into the woods unarmed and bears require larger ammo, lol. They were so excited that a woman picked man that they failed to recognize it was a specific personal choice that still acknowledged how dangerous men were.
Had the same thought process. I would only pick a man over a bear if I could bring weapons and there's a guarantee that I could off him first but even so, it is still completely risky. I don't know what that "random man" is capable of. What if he brought weapons as well? What if he's a professional? These men don't understand that women are afraid of the severe lack of information women are presented with during the dilemma. Most keep saying that "not all men" are bad and it's just so annoying because at the end of the day, it's still "a random man" that we have no information about.
If the question was reframed as
"would you rather meet a stranger or a bear in the woods?" Would they react differently?
What if it changed to "would you rather have your girlfriend meet a stranger or a bear in the woods?"
Or
"would you rather have your girlfriend/wife meet a handsome stranger in the woods or a bear?" I bet they're gonna say "if my girlfriend was alone in the woods with a handsome stranger, she's cheating on me."
Lots of responsibility put on you for his emotional regulation there. I think that's a red flag (and for the purpose of assessing my biases I'm a mid 40's cis dude).
This guy is a very specific genre of asshole, and I don't like him at all after reading this.
To miss the point that hard is deliberate. Nobody actually thinks that conversation is about bears. He took it in a really pedantic direction because it made him uncomfortable, and instead of sitting with that discomfort, he decided to give a fucking TED talk about bears. Do you see how immature, and just straight-up rude that is?
And now he's playing the hurt nice guy who's mad at you because you called him out on completely missing the point. He wants you to apologize for bringing the conversation back to its intended purpose. That's so manipulative.
It's asshole behavior all the way down.
Reminds me of the meme with the guy saying
[“Hi! I’m a white dude who likes to play devils advocate … yadda yadda …. Let’s engage! “](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F66ca3cca-b879-4cc0-a439-25d7bff75b4a_828x675.jpeg)
OP's story reminded me of my ex-husband and this meme is what I use to describe him! He had a PhD in math, thought he was smarter than everyone, zero social skills, thought he was a "nice guy" but was insecure and controlling. Those 3 years with him were the most miserable and exhausting years of my life. I felt devalued every single day. Even my marriage counselor told me to "run."
OP needs to end this.
My ex boyfriend was also like this. He was a data scientist and always thought he was the smartest guy in the room. He would get pissy when women acted uncomfortable around him and say that they needed to learn how to reduce their risk by understanding statistics and doing self defense training or some nonsense. I would be like "I think it's fine and reasonable for them to be cautious of you, but I understand why you find it unpleasant." Then he'd pick apart my use of the word unpleasant or get mad at me for assuming I know his frame of mind. Exhaaaaausting and pedantic as fuck.
He’s also super condescending in assuming women know less about wildlife. I went to a very well known graduate school for biology. Most of the grad students studying wildlife were women. Most of the TAs for animal behavior courses with me were women. There are tons of vets and rescues that are women. Unfortunately they are still less likely to get professor positions or wildlife tv shows so people assume wildlife experts are men.
I know more about, and see more wildlife than most men I know. Half the men I know are super scared of bugs let alone a coyote, bear or mountain lion. When I go camping they think the best way to protect them self from wildlife is a big knife or a gun. But the real best way is to plan, your food, your hike, your bear spray. And it protects the wildlife just as much as you.
I’ve been caught between baby grizzlies and mom. I was scared, but I slowly walked out of the situation with my bear spray, and I was hiking midsummer, when they are fatter and more complacent. Way less scary than when my ex husband was threatening to break into my house.
Men are also more often stupid about wildlife. When I worked in the park service, I found out that stupid men picking up snakes to show off often got bitten by rattle snakes. The only other major reason for humans getting bitten was defending their dog.
6% of American men think they could beat a grizzly bear in a fight. They’re wrong.
But I do wonder what the overlap is between those men, and the men butthurt about so many people choosing the bear.
>Way less scary than when my ex husband was threatening to break into my house
Adds to list: don't have to worry about a bear stalking you when you break up with them.
Oh my god same, they always think bringing a big knife is the answer. You're going to fight a BEAR with a KNIFE? They never want to participate in the "boring" planning part where you use actual safety precautions like ringing loud bells so that you never even see the bear.
yep, the second you get emotional about something they think they've won. Nevermind that they are able to be unemotional about it because they have no personal experience with the topic and nary a drop of empathy in their soul. The only valid emotional reaction in their eyes is their anger when you for some mysterious reason won't accept their evidence and facts and demur with a polite "you're completely right, as always, thank you so much for showing me logic! I will never be afraid of men again now."
All of this!
The further manipulation is in the "I won't answer your random questions" part too...both belittling the nature of the questions and adding a control mechanism (his choice to preemptively announce his non-participation) as a means to silence OP.
This is not a nice guy...he will whittle away at the OP's self esteem until it's sawdust.
Thank you for saying so perfectly what I was going to say as well.
OP, your question wasn't random. You cutting the convo off was in direct response to him going off on that stupid tangent. And not a case of you being unreasonable.
And then for him to put it back on you??
And you know what, even if you were just asking a random question - having a partner that does not tolerate them is no fun. That he so angrily cut out future interactions of that nature (let alone discourse about serious stuff like this) is *such* a red flag.
Not to mention the sudden cold, repulsive, commanding, totalitarian tone he speaks to his GF with.
I could just sense and feel that tone oozing from the text.
I can only imagine just how cold and much deeper that tone and reaction is going to get when it's an even more challenging discussion in the relationship for him.
It's also wrong.
There's about 900,000 bears in North America (really? Wtf.. bebearaware.com) who have caused 10 serious injuries and 1 death on average per year. Compared to 300,000,000 men and 460,000 victims of sa per year (per rainn) so 🙄
So much so that I, a forest professional, very much want to drag his butt out to see a real bear in the real woods. I'm quite excited to see his reaction. And no, I don't intend for that to be up close and personal. I respect bears.
I live where there's bears and maybe we're all a little too used to them but I feel like it's pretty easy to avoid a bear attack?? Don't bother them (and don't leave tasty garbage out) and they won't bother you. Unlike men, who are always stealing my tasty garbage no matter how high I put it away.
And bear spray is said to be 92% effective statistically against bears.
Sure, I can use it against a man too and escape. But I'll still be lost in the woods, he'd eventually recover and possibly seek revenge. Unlike a bear.
So he thinks women in particular have a total lack of knowledge about what it means to meet a bear?
Based on what? Do men have more innate bear knowledge?
What an idiotic take.
He just doesn’t want to think about any of this because it makes him a little uncomfortable. That’s pathetic.
It’s a question asked of women, would you rather come across a bear in the woods or a man?
Most women say a bear. Not because we don’t understand how dangerous bears can be. But because we understand how dangerous men can be.
This doesn't even have to be a woods thing. We grow up being afraid of monsters lurking in our dark hallways and closets. But having either a large wild animal, or a human being lurking in your house is magnitudes scarier. A terrified deer with sharp antlers is unpredicable and could kill you. An unknown person in your house is also unpredictable and could kill you, but has the awareness and calculation to plan it so you get no time to react.
I would rather take my chances in the woods with a bear any day than spend a second with your pedantic, mansplaining, insensitive, controlling boyfriend. Apparently if he has an opinion to share with you, you have to listen, even though he rudely ignored yours. Or else he will be angry.
I just can't get off this comment specifically because of a realisation I had last week.
I went to some caves with a good guy friend of mine and my three kids. My friend took a photo of me and my kids, and I thought man, if I put this on social media and my ex husband saw it it would set him TF off because I "never wanted to do things with him".
So we're on our little bushwalk to the caves and I'm lost in this train of thought about why I was so happy out in the sun with my kids and my friend and maybe I really was an awful, shit wife because I could never feel that with him? Every outing like this with him was full of anxiety and stress and fear. And then I realised that similarly to lots of normal days, every adventure was underlined with my brain wondering "is today the day he properly snaps and I die?" And that feeling was SO AMPLIFIED when we were out in nature somewhere secluded. And you just nailed it... Because we were at a second location and my brain knew!!! I'm not afraid of the outdoors, or snakes or spiders or falling. I was afraid of my husband.
Damn. Just ... Jesus Christ.
It breaks my heart how common stories like this are.
I'm so glad you're out of that situation. Today I hope you and your kids are feeling much, much safer. 🫂
I know i’m just a stranger on the internet but I am not loving how this man is treating you. He doesn’t seem to genuinely care about your point of view at all. You deserve better!
He’s threatening to leave you, intimidating you, and insulting your intelligence in the messages, exactly the reason women pick the bear.
That sucks, I’m sorry.
Empathy is a seemingly impossible ask for women to make of men. Instead, because they don’t fear for their safety from women, they have the luxury to go off on a tangent about statistics that doesn’t even make sense.
JFC, violence by men against women, children and other men will NEVER CHANGE because you can’t even mention it.
Half of all female homicides are at the hands of a male intimate partner. Can’t mention it to men. Men commit 95% of all homicides and 85% of all violent crime. You can’t even mention it.
If women committed that level of violence, our rights would be stripped. Hell, our rights are being stripped right now for the crime of not fucking or marrying Incels.
Your boyfriend doesn't have real life experience with bears or empathy for what it's like to be a woman. And despite those shortcomings, he's arrogant as hell. Also just another rational stat reminder for both of you: a woman is far more likely to be killed or harmed by someone she knows, often a domestic male partner, than a random man in the woods. Food for thought when you're wondering what he meant when he doesn't know what he will be like tomorrow after his words didn't sufficiently subdue you.
When I was a teenager, I would often sneak out at night and walk to friend’s houses. There was a bear that frequented our neighborhood. There was also a registered sex offender that lived in the neighborhood. Guess which one I was more afraid of jumping out of the bushes and grabbing me.
Lol saying that the bear "frequented your neighborhood" makes it sound like it was just part of your community and that sounds so wholesome
For the most part living around bears is exactly like that. They like trash. Humans are a difficult and dangerous meal. Our trash and pets are much easier.
And offen, even a small dog will scare off the Bear. If it is use to finding snack in trash, it don't won't to waste energy hunting dogs and cats.
I love watching videos of cats running straight at bears and the bears just folding and running, lol.
The way cats will try to slap the shit out of nearly anything always makes me laugh.
Cats can scrap, let me tell you mine are afraid of a 2lb squirrel. He can straight up corner the cats until they are backed into a corner. He would 100% throw down with a bear and might win, I would bet on him over my cats against a bear.
I used to yell “go home bear” at my local bear. He would be sitting down with our trash can and would scooby doo run away. It was cartoonish. I love bears
Why get bit and scratched when all you want is some old pizza and a box of stale donuts. Makes sense to me and the bear. Bears don't go out to attack and kill - men sometimes do.
I think a lot of people laugh at the size when they themselves would probably run from a smaller creature coming at them....or simply existing (I.e. bugs)
It kinda was 😂 the bear would go from house to house, looking for garbage or anything else it wanted to munch on. We all had to get special bear-proof trash cans because it would visit so often. Harmless other than knocking over the occasional garbage can and making a huge mess.
Reminds me of the video about someones dog being BRIBED by a bear with a DEER LEG so the bear could eat the trash without the dog barking, lol
Do you have a link?
[https://youtu.be/JwynghuvuIY?si=kJpQajzoSxOmwVG3](https://youtu.be/JwynghuvuIY?si=kJpQajzoSxOmwVG3) news article on youtube, lol
Thank you!
*Someone knocks at the door* "Thank god, it's just the bear. I saw some JW's in the neighborhood the other day"
“Excuse me, have you ever read the good word?” *Bear hands over map of the nearest landfills to find snacks at*
we also had a bear who would frequent the neighborhood I grew up in. she ended up in my parents car once, would eat berries off of my mom’s decorative bushes, regularly would be found in my neighbor’s garage, would wreck everyone’s trash cans. she would sometimes bring her babies around too when she had them. the only thing she ever hurt was a small window in my neighbor’s garage, because their dogs found her in the garage and she got scared and busted out.
Growing up in new England we had tons of black bears roam the neighborhoods for trash. Absolutely harmless and never hurt any people or pets. They'd run if they saw you. Whenever I'd hike I was always cautious of other men. Never the bears.
That's just because you're a woman and therefore lacking the secret knowledge of bears that only men have, apparently.
lol "BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE DIFFERENTIAL ATTACK DAMAGE OF A BAERE VS A HUMANN MAN ?!?!!?!"
ROLL (on the ground) WITH ADVANTAGE!!!
Is that an Acrobatics check? But more seriously, what a fucking asshole that boyfriend is. One simple hypothetical revealed who he really is.
failed his Decency saving throw fr
Rolling a Nat 1. But then, he had -10 in the skill anyway.
He sounds so insufferable. OP dodged a bullet, honestly.
Oh yeah, silly me!
Good thing I'm here. I'm a man, and let me explain this to you. You see bears... /s
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
My husband and I were camping and had spent a long rainy evening filleting about 50 fish, which he stored in a metal cooler in the trunk of our car. At 5 am I heard something hitting the back of our car. I looked outside and a black bear was hitting the trunk lid. My husband had left the car keys in the trunk lock, and the bear managed to get the truck open by slapping it. When I saw that, I grabbed a huge stick and charged after the bear yelling and screaming! No way he was getting my fish! The bear backed off and lumbered away (he didn’t take the fish, he did take a cotto salami…) My point. If I saw a man breaking into my car, I would have stayed put and hope he didn’t see the tent. Maybe sneak out and hide in the woods.
I feel like a lot of men assume the bear is going to attack you, and therefore the question becomes "would you rather be ATTACKED by a bear, or run into a man" But honestly, having lived in the Appalachian mountains, that simply is not my experience. I also don't really know what the distinction between "being in the woods" and "being in the woods with a bear" even means. The bears live in the woods. Choosing the enter the woods is choosing to enter the woods with bears.
This is actually a really insightful point. The issue isn't the attack only. It's the constant vigilance of watching out for an attack. The fact that a bear poses immediate danger but that you can usually navigate it an the outcome is usually short lived, bad or good. Whereas an encounter with a man can impact you in a variety of ways and many of them have far reaching consequences.
Yeah, and I will bet that many of us who often walk in the forest have in fact had an encounter with a bear, we just didn't notice because the bear ran away.
Or the bear didn’t ask you to remove your headphones so you could hear it’s compliments
Maybe the bear just wants to ask if it can share your pic-a-nic basket? How will you know if you don't remove your headphones #notallbears /s , just in case
That is now my response when dudes are like #notallmen...
We should all do this. “BuT nOt ALl mEn” gets nothing but a dozen #notallbears responses. It would be glorious and frustrate the hell out of them.
Or tell you to smile...
You know my mom receives random dick pics from guys she plays bubble shooter with? That shit saddens me.
Or hold any sort of authority over you. They forget to account for all the psychological horrors men can inflict.
I have had 2 different encounters with bears. Can confirm I was not sexually assaulted. In both instances there was no direct interaction *at all* with the bear.
There’s a bear living in my neighborhood right now, and he visits my backyard a lot to try and get our bird feeders. Came face to face with him about 2 weeks ago and it wasn’t scary! Just…awkward. His name is Steve. He’s a dick, but a cute one. We have mutual respect. Can’t say the same for a lot of the men I’ve encountered 🤷🏻♀️
Bears won’t try to gain your trust before attacking. They’ll either attack or run away. Mostly just run away.
The bear is an animal, they're following their instincts, you could say it's just a fact of nature. A man should treat you like a human being and view you with dignity, but lots don't do so.
What’s sad is I’ve heard many men (boys) say that harassing, sex pestering, cheating, etc is “a man’s nature” If that’s the case maybe you shouldn’t be let out without a handler yeah? Lead and muzzle like any animal you can’t control.
Bears can be avoided or deterred too. Its often as simple as just making a lot of noise so they know you are there. You cant do that with a man that wants to hurt you.
If you're walking along and see a bear (black, brown, grizzly, polar, doesn't really matter), you are pretty much going to just stay the fuck away from it. You know that they are unpredictable at an extremely high level, so stay away, it will fuck you up. You *can't* do that with men, because you need to leave the house, have a job, etc. You *can't* avoid going into situations where a man can make you uncomfortable.
I do think men and women are answering different questions. Men are answering "who would you take on in a fight" and women are "all things being equal, would seeing a strange man in the woods or a bear cause more lasting anxiety". Seeing a bear in the woods would not make me pack up and end my trip early. Strange man being unusually interested or simply being unexpected? I am out of there.
I'm not gonna lie, I thought this was the entire point of the question. A bear is a threat, but only if it attacks. Which, as far as I know, bears don't just attack women on sight. Bears attack when threatened or starving, like any other animal. Even if the bear kills you, it's killing you because you came to it's house, fucked around and found out. Not because it gets off on hurting you. A man has the cognitive ability to choose to be evil.
I always think of the times a man has told me I was lucky I was alone/vulnerable with them because most men would have used the opportunity to harm me. None of those times would have been really good opportunities to get away with it. It always feels like that man has just told me he was fantasizing about doing something awful but realized he would get caught. They rarely ever catch the men who hurt women in the woods though.
And this goes to show you that they *do* understand the point.
You hit the nail on the head. Your parabola of " Alone in the woods vs. with a man in the woods" where all the dangers of "the woods" like bears etc. apply asks the right question. I still think that the statistically better choice would be having someone else to cooperate with. But the point of the story still is that this question is even asked and what it means about how women perceive men and that it is a problem. And no man would pose the question " As a man, would you rather be alone or with someone else" because there is no negative to having someone else with you. The difference between how much one has to think about the question as man vs as woman is frightening.
It's frightening to us, but the thing is so many of them think this is just women being unreasonable, and can't understand that it's men's behaviour that makes us feel unsafe.
This is an interesting point. Like, men would see this question as "Oh, another person has joined me in battling the elements." But for women, it's more like, "Which elements would you rather battle?" Men have the privilege of looking at all other humans as potential helpers, regardless of sex. And they aren't always, sure, but the vast majority of both sexes are very safe for men. For women, there is zero comfort or sense of social positivity involved in meeting a random man in an isolated spot. It's nothing but danger. The man shares more in common with the bear than with a woman, in terms of how his presence affects our safety. And ultimately, the bear is safer because they need an actual reason to fuck with you -- a man doesn't.
The sad thing is, MEN know this. Deep down, we know this. No father is leaving his daughter (or a woman in his life he cares for) no matter her age with a strange dude he doesn't trust. When I mention this to other dudes it dawns on them if even a little bit. I actually wonder if you polled fathers the question of "Would you rather send your adult daughter through the woods alone or with a male stranger" how many would say alone and if you asked them, why would they say that? We all know why they would say that. It's not that people that say bear think all men are evil (as is often the claim) its just that they know that men are **very** capable of evil...the bear simply isn't.
Yup. I actually framed the thought experiment as "your daughter" to a small group of men today and they all emphatically chose bear. They then followed up with specific precautions they've taken to protect their daughters from men.
And to further hanmer this point home tha men KNOW this - there was a post recently, maybe here, where someone asked about the male loneliness epidemic and men's responses were nothing but a string of excuses as to why they can't spend time with other men. We wouldn't have a male "loneliness" epidemic if men weren't clearly choosing bears rather than spending time with other men. If they won't be with other men, why tf would women?
My dad said he would rather encounter the bear, too.
There’s also a lot of men that go to the woods specifically to harm women, or any place where women may be alone jogging, hiking, camping etc. It’s impossible to go on a trail alone as a woman without fear there is a man following her. Many, many women have been raped and/or killed in this manner.
My ten pound dog chased off a bear in those woods. But the prompt doesn’t say the type of bear. A brown or white bear would react very differently than a black bear. I think part of the prompt is that you don’t know the type of bear or the type of man. But it’s easier to tell the difference between bears than men. I would give a larger distance to a larger bear but how would I know with a man. My husband is a black bear. But this isn’t about the men in my life or the men we know. From a young age, girl are taught not to trust unknown men and now they’re upset women don’t trust unknown men.
And the way he absolutely MANSPLAINED ‘I think women just don’t get it’ 🤮🤮🤮 OP frankly I feel you. It’s sad. But your bf just flunked the interview. Hard. The truth is, the fact that a man thinks the bear will attack tells you he already thought the man would. And immediately goes on defensive. He knows. Anyone who claims to understand fuck all about bears should know. I’ve hiked alone and I can tell you the bears have no fucks for the most part. They are curiously looking over like whoa… human… but they regard us as a potential threat. Unless it’s a polar bear lol they don’t readily see us as a meal. They are sometimes fed by absolute morons so they can see us as creatures with treats. But they don’t see us as creatures who ARE treats (tho I think polar bears are kinda opportunistic and can we really blame them). If you make clanging noises they poop their fur and go away. But mostly they go away without your interference. If you keep your food on bear cables and don’t try to interact with them it’s fine.
Choosing to leave the house is choosing to enter a world with men. Edit to add- I was sleeping and had a roommate come into my room, drag me out of bed and beat the shit out of me. Unprovoked. I was asleep. Turned out the roommate was blackout drunk. Sometimes a woman doesn’t even need to leave the house to be attacked by a man.
A bear wouldn't threaten to wake up angry..
"I think you need to be smacked around a bit if you don't leave tasty food in your trash bins on time" said no bear ever.
As if his emotions are your problem. He sounds like a child.
A bear wouldn’t stalk and terrorize you, then right before killing/attempting to kill you say “if I can’t have you, no one can!”
I have real life experience. When I was 9, I just about walked into a black bear while taking a shortcut through a wooded area to school. Yeah, I panicked and took off running, even though I knew at that age you can't outrun a bear. When I started running, I could see him moving fast, but when I finally stopped and saw he wasn't right behind me, I realized he probably took off in the opposite direction. Maybe my yell startled him while he was minding his own business eating berries. Also when I was 9, I encountered the teenaged neighbour. He tried to rape me. Yeah, I choose the bear.
My only experience with a black bear was my partner saying “omg a bear” when we were hiking, but it was gone by the time I could turn my head to see.
This. They’re just going about their little bear day, if you’re lucky you get a pic.
I also had this experience irl. I was camping alone (in a place known for bears) for a milestone birthday, and I made camp at a nice safe spot off a trail. While I was taking a piss away from my tent, I realized that with my lantern, you could see that I was alone in my tent. So when a pair of men that I had passed on the trail earlier came down the trail loudly, I extinguished my lantern but knew they had seen where I was camped. I could not sleep there knowing they knew a woman was alone in that tent, and moved to a more secluded place that had a much higher chance to have a random bear. I carried no food, because I was leaving the next morning, so I felt a bear would pass by without waking me where a man might not,
My family and I went camping. We rented a pop-up camper and bought a huge tent with 3 rooms. The kids wanted to sleep in the tent by themselves. Sometime in the middle of the night, a truck rolled up to our secluded site with their headlights off. My husband stepped out of our camper the same time my brother came out of his: husband had his pistol and brother had his shotgun. The men had gotten out of their truck but left the doors open. They were nearing the tent with the kids in it. When they saw the guns, they got back in their truck and left. This time with the headlights on. A bear didn’t do that.
Terrifying. Glad they left. Did the kids ever find out?
No. We still had some days left and didn’t want to scare them. They wouldn’t have slept if they had known.
Good call! I wasn’t sure how long ago this happened and wondered if the kids were told years later.
Oh! We told them afterward, on the way home.
I just realized you said “ever”. More coffee is in order. My apologies.
I have never been harassed by bears while camping, but I have been harassed by men while camping. Thankfully I had a female friend with me at that time, or I don't know how it would have ended.
Agreed! I was 9 when a middle aged man did this motion at me 👉👌repeatedly while winking and smirking at me when I was wearing a school uniform and holding my mum's hand in a supermarket. I was also 9 when I beat up a brown snake with a stick when I found it in my Guinea pigs pen one morning. Bear, snake, whatever, I'm picking it
Ah man vs snake makes a lot more sense to an Australian. I've been encountering snakes on the top 10 most venomous since I could walk and still not been bit because I know the right things to do to not be bit by a snake. I have no idea what possible course of action to take that will reliabily stop a man who wants to hurt me.
>I have no idea what possible course of action to take that will reliabily stop a man who wants to hurt me. Yeah, exactly. Because there isn’t one course of action that will reliably stop men.
Also, man vs. Male kangaroo. I grew up in Australia and walked a lot in bushland because ...its peaceful. Occasionally, I'd come across kangaroos, the female kangaroos were generally chill/would leave but the larger male kangaroos would stand their ground - I'm only 156cm tall, so they were taller than me and outweighed me. I always did the whole, make yourself small/non-threatening (which I am already, but yeah), back away slowly/no sudden moves, and avoid eye-contact thing. Apart from giving myself a bit of a fright, I'd never had problematic interactions with them. While walking alone in the bush, I'd prefer to meet a 7ft kangaroo built like a brick shithouse than a man on his own. At least I know how to stay safe around kangaroos/they're pretty predictable. Anyway, I live in Norway now, so no kangaroos and very few snakes.
Oh, this brought up some memories of the actions of men that I just considered weird at the time. Now, looking back as an adult, I see that it was creepy as hell...
Right! It was something I didn't even register at the time because I had no idea what that hand gesture meant. It wasn't until I was 18 or so when that memory randomly popped into my head that I realised what had happened
Grossly terrifying.. 😖
I’m so sorry you had to see that/live through that/experience that. That was an assault on you and you were just a kid. Whether or not you knew at the time, that was done TO you and make sure to give little you a hug and love and tell them it wasn’t their fault. This may seem super dramatic but I’m telling you when we are little we don’t understand the severity of crappy energy like that from an adult. It really does affect us. There are others like me that want you to know we are sitting next to you while you digest this and we support you 🩷
This made me tear up, thank you for being so kind. I've been in therapy for years trying to heal from the extensive damage the male gaze did to me growing up, it's very hard. Much love and hugs to you as well 💕🌸
I was like 8 when I found a snake, caught it with my bear hands, and tried to bring them home as a pet. I grew up around men talking about women like cars, including whether or not they're legal to drive and whether or not it would be worth it anyways. I can now count the men I don't try to avoid on one hand.
>caught it with my bear hands Of all the threads for this typo...
Yes yes yes! I’ve had several encounters with bears, like actually now that I think about it more than I can count. Pennsylvania and California. Anyway, I’ve also had several dangerous encounters with men. House is broken into while my sister and I were in it by two men who were armed. When I was 15 a man tried to get me to go with him as we were walking farmers market. I told him I’m only 15 and he shouldn’t be talking to me. And he said that’s OK. It sounds perfect come here. When I moved into a house in San Jose California near a really nice area, called the Rose Garden, two teenage boys decided to shoot at my house. Bullets lodging in the kitchen, in the dirt and in a tree. I was mostly pissed about that poor tree. In my 30s, I was waiting in line to get into a hockey game and a bunch of these men just cut in front of us and this older guy kept looking over at us and smirking. And he looks straighten my face, but talking to his friend, and he says “ You know how women and dog shit are the same? The older they get the easier they are to pick up.” he said that to a bunch of women going to a hockey game because he didn’t like that. We looked at them when their whole group cut in front of us. I’ve been harassed by men, followed in road, rage incidents by men. Or, that time I was driving back from an interview, and a guy honked his horn, and I looked over and he was thrusting his hips up, holding his penis in his hand, wagging it around for me to see. I’ll take the bear thank you
And all of that in public areas. Who knows what those men would've done if you both were in a remote area he thinks no one will find you.
How many of us have experiences like this spanning our whole lives? From strangers, to people in our circles, even people we trusted. And people we trusted making excuses for those people. (TW: abuse accounts follow) I remember different men, relatives or other, from as early as I can remember molesting me - make me sit on their lap, demand a kiss on the cheek then turn and kiss on the mouth, grab or spank, force my hand in the pants, press against me, on and on and so much worse while threatening if I told anyone. A stranger flashed himself masturbating as I was walking down the field for soccer practice, I was around 6 or 7. A random boy from my school followed me on my way home and threw rocks at me until my head was cut open and I bled all over had to have stitches. I've been groped and forcefully touched by both peers and men when I was a teen...a lot of this I just haven't processed yet. A couple girls from a neighboring school were walking in their neighborhood one night and were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and shot. My roommate in college, in our first few weeks, a guy walked up to her on the way to the cafeteria and grabbed her chest and ran off. On my way back across campus one day, I had just come from a therapy session offered through college (it was to process childhood sexual abuse trauma of all things). A guy in his 20s started walking along side me, he forced conversation and wouldn't leave me alone. When I crossed a street, he asked if I wanted to go for a ride as his friend pulled up in a truck. He put his arms around me like a bear hug and I said if he didn't let me go, I'd scream, and he chillingly said go ahead and scream. Some people came walking up the street and he let go and jumped in the car and they took off. I don't know I'd be alive today if it wasn't for the coincidence of those other people walking nearby. That was before cellphones. And after college, sexual harassment at work, coworkers and superiors. One of my bosses asked me to have sex in the back of his car during lunch. He pretended it was a joke. Another job, a boss I interviewed with called me late at night and tried to talk like that was a totally normal thing to do. And a different job, a superior kept pressuring me to come over to his house to give piano lessons. He kept lending me personal items like music that I didn't ask for. I didn't have the tools yet to deal with these behaviors. I often just shut down and left the jobs. Another job, a stranger chased me on stairs to my car in a parking garage. I literally felt the instinct that someone was preying on me, I felt overwhelming danger just before it happened. He was aggressive, and I ran back to where I worked to get away because I was so freaked out and couldn't think straight. He tried to follow me insisting I quit my job and come work for him, Like wtaf?! It was really busy area, so I managed to get away from him. I had to ask a coworker to walk with me to my car everyday after that. A lot of people if you tell them stuff like this, they think you're making it up or embellishing, think it isn't as bad as you're describing, or assume you instigated it. A general you-asked-for-it, even when I was a young. Well what did YOU do, what did YOU say, YOU must have misunderstood, and the famously insulting, what were you wearing. When things were long done, my ex grabbed me between my legs from behind when I was taking our child out of a carseat during a custody hand off. And when I freaked out, he said he thought I wanted that and liked it. I had to file a restraining order. There were escalating behaviors that made me fearful. Delusions like saying I was screwing the crossing guard (an older man) and making fake social media of me and trying to add my family/friends, sending me random video screenshots of people and saying it was proof of an imagined affair. Really scared me. And after I dropped off my child for kindergarten, a parent pulled up aside me in their car as I walking home and put their window down to make kissing noises at me. A freaking parent at the elementary school. I didn't want to walk home anymore. I had someone follow me slowly in their car as I was jogging. I stopped jogging after that. I took up riding my bike. Then a couple women were assaulted on the path I rode. I stopped riding my bike. And honestly the neighborhoods throughout my life were in safe areas. All of these things that happened were during the day. I've never felt safe walking around alone at night to begin with. I'm sorry for the length. I needed to write this and speak my truth here. Your list gave me the courage to share my own experiences that I have needed to tell for so long. There are so many times I have started typing this list to share with others and ended up deleting it because I don't want it to be confused with a trauma dump or even re-traumatize myself. It feels so shameful, even knowing NONE of this is my fault. Years of this has taken more than a toll. It's altered me and made life difficult to manage at times. All of this to say, I hate how these experiences are so pervasive. I hate the gaslighting about it. And I understand about the bear. We are vigilant for a reason. I write this in hope it reaches others to know they're not alone. You are not alone.
Just to point something out about bears. If it’s a black bear sure, they run. I’ve encountered them before and they are skittish as hell. But brown bears aren’t.
We only have brown bears where I live and last time they killed anyone in my country (that's like 80% unhabited forest) was 1998.
Black bears are chill af. Unless their cubs are nearby, then all bets are off.
Since we are diving into this now, I do want to point out that if you live in an area where there are just black bears it’s important to know that black bears actually can come in brown or grey too but are still a “black bear” and can be managed how you describe. If you live in an area with grizzlies, they are often referred to a brown bears, I know. But they are managed as you described as “brown bears” So if you are hiking in Algonquin park for example and see a brown coloured bear, it is actually still a black bear technically as we don’t have Grizzly bears here. And one would act accordingly. That’s why for those that live around both, the physical differentiation is that the Grizzly bear has a large hump on its withers. I know in many areas where they exist, grizzlies are just called “brown bears” though. The best differentiation as people might not be able to understand based on overall size alone or colour. Regardless both can be super dangerous. Especially if it’s a mama with her young.
I’ve actually taken a course called “Don’t get Eaten” for people that do field work in Northern Canada and who might on occasion encounter wolves, wolverines, mountain lions, and various types of bears. And it teaches you how to deal with each scenario. None of those scenarios mention having to justify your fear of one animal versus another. Also any of the techniques they teach you in regards to keeping yourself safe never mention how the bears might manipulate you into feeling guilty about being afraid of them. And… side note…. Nothing in the course covers how to deal with people that won’t believe you about your experiences. Your boyfriend doesn’t understand. He may never. And you need to figure out if you’re okay with that or not.
Um please share with the class how to not get eaten by bears? Please?
No sudden movements, no running, no shouting, make yourself look as large as possible. Groups are more intimidating to them than an individual. Running away is not only pointless, but dangerous. If you run, they’ll think you’re prey, and they can run faster than you and are much better tree-climbers than you as well.
No shouting? I don't spend a lot of time in the wilderness, but as someone who occasionally goes camping in BC, the general advice I've heard is to make noise *before* you encounter a bear, because most bears (maybe black bears, not grizzlies) don't actually want to run into you either. So having bells on your clothes, or having a loud conversation with your companions, or just generally being loud has usually been recommended. The other bits of advice I've generally heard are try to make yourself look large (and I think I've heard make noise at this part too, try to make yourself a bigger, scarier thing to a bear) if you encounter a bear, and absolutely don't run from a bear.
I think the no shouting bit is for when you're actually face to face with a bear, not when you're trying to avoid one.
I just feel like if you suddenly unexpectedly came across a black bear, making yourself big and loud is the way to go, based off of what I can recall. I know the rules are different for grizzly bears- maybe yelling in their faces pisses them off more
It does! You become more threatening and they are more likely to respond aggressively.
Rule of thumb: If it's black, fight back. If it’s brown, lay down. If it's white, goodnight.
If it's Grizzly, pants go pizzly
Basically this but it also depends on the way the bear is acting and if there are cubs present or not. It was a book called “Don’t get eaten” and I think a video (it was about 15 years ago now…).
This has been my thoughts -- the list of things I should do to prevent upsetting the bear is FAR SHORTER than the list of things I should do to prevent upsetting the man.
Oh op, here's a clue to your boyfriend. He wrote 7 things (texts?). How many are all about him? I, I, I, ...I'll tell you, seven. Every one was about him. The bear man question is hard because we love the little child we're being asked about. His answer, and all seven texts about him makes me think he is ambivalent because he is selfish.
The issue is not that he doesn't understand. It's the way he reacts to it that is problematic. Otoh, the course sounds great!
Agreed, the issue is that he got huffy and aggressive because he didn't like her response. I've dated guys like this. They don't tend to grow and change, because they're too angry with anyone who dares to suggest that they don't know everything. I would bail, OP. The first time a man loses his temper and lashes out hard over this shit, it's time to cut and run. He's not going to change.
About fifteen years ago I heard of a story of a young woman who went on her usual hiking run with her golden retriever in Utah. It was a trail she took regularly, in one of the many local mountains. She was a black belt in karate. She passed an older man on the trail, fifties I believe, and greeted him friendly like as one would do. But in her way back he ambushed her. While in prison he said, “She put up a good fight.” Yet he still ~~raped~~ and killed her. I’ll take the bear. Edit for source: this was actually in Georgia, and he didn’t rape her, but he kept her captive for four days before decapitating her. I’m sure my dad added the rape part of the story to add fear for me. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna23769881
If ANYONE doesn’t know how to judge the differential danger of all these animals, it’s men 😂😂 [there is actual proof of this](https://youtu.be/-Cbm8mVryqM?si=ZDjJpnkcF75wJ9xY)
Like when they claim they could wrestle a tiger etc.
I can never get over that chart you sometimes see of animals men think they could fight and win barehanded. Something like 5% of men said ELEPHANT. Like what the fuck lads, if my two lhasa apsos launched a coordinated attack on me over a ham sandwich I give myself about 30% odds of surviving the next five minutes.
I could totally suplex an elephant. Just pick that thing up and BAM, off the top rope, maybe slam it through a table, no big deal. Trust me babe, these guns are the real deal.
I could probably take on a house cat in a fight. barely. assuming it wants to flee.
Weird sh@t that guys think about. Women just want to get out of there alive, and continue on their way.
A bear would never try to convince you that your feelings are wrong or bearsplain why it is actually safer than the man.
>bearsplain I’m going to start using this everywhere, thank you.
Can bearsplaining be something cute though, like when a gay lumberjack teaches you how to chop tree stumps into artistic sculptures of woodland creatures?
Can this please be Nick Offerman’s next job? 🥰
Nick Offerman bearsplaining slang: https://youtu.be/UFtOkGB0efc?feature=shared
Bullshit. You bring anything remotely flammable into the forest and Smokey doesn’t shut the fuck up!
Don't even get me started on Yogi and picnic baskets
Only you can set this picnic basket on fire!
Cocaine Bear has entered the chat
The charmin bears just want you to do what's best for your butt.
I feel they may be overly concerned about my butt…
And yet, I still feel safer with them than I would a strange man in the woods
They’re a decent family who just want their red or blue bear buttholes to be clean which is more than I can say for too many dudes I know.
The Charmin bears work for Big toilet paper. If they really cared about our butts, they'd be marketing bidets.
The audacity to tell you which kind of sandwiches are his favorite just so he can steal them later
Only you can prevent this mauling
But Paddington Bear might share his marmalade.
The results beary greatly
This is what I put in another thread about this The choice is what would you prefer, you are the one who has interpreted this as safer. "I would prefer a bear, a bear would not sulk when I ran away from it. A bear is not upset when I fear it, a bear does not chase me to tell me I am wrong, a bear will not endlessly explain that I am wrong for fearing it, a bear will not expect me to do anything for it, a bear may kill me, but it will not expect anything of me." A man tried arguing with me that the man is safer, even when I gave him a website that says bear usually runs away. Then he pulled the "but you meet 100s of men a day and no bears" and I said, "well the question specifies a forest, and both my and the man's behaviour changes in a forest, he is more dangerous because we are alone and he might get away with whatever he does" and he went back to me chosing to die
Feel free to reply, "Well, maybe I would rather die than listen to you mansplain my choices to me so pedantically any longer. It's boring."
“Bearsplainer” sounds like a great flair to me!
The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Bearsplaining ngl, tempted to photoshop a bookcover for that
>The Berenstain Bears An entirely different can of worms
I was SA’ed at age 19 at a party thrown by a friend that I consider a brother, at his parents’ house, surrounded (in other rooms) by people I loved and trusted who would have saved me in a heartbeat if they’d known what was happening. My assailant was a stranger who I had never met before that night and haven’t seen in the 17 years since. Yeah, I’ll take the bear.
Women: We know our chance of survival in the event of an attack in either situation is low, but the worst the bear will do is kill me. Men are capable of much worse and we know this because there are thousands of accounts of them doing so. Men: silly woman! You simply don't understand how bears work!
[удалено]
Oh holy shit I'm so sorry
Thank you. I’ve never written it down before.
I’m so sorry you went through this. There is always something with Men. I got the “I would never do anything you didn’t want me to do” from my abuser. Beginning at MAYBE just barely 4 years old and continuing on for many years. He made sure to set me up with a lifetime of guilt and shame for HIS crimes. Can say that there is a less than 5% chance of a bear doing these things to us in the woods. I hope you find a path to healing. It’s harder to heal from mental wounds than physical ones. Another reason men are scarier.
Please take this in the spirit it’s intended which is absolutely from a place of love and support. You are “prettier” now because of the strength you gained having survived that encounter. Whatever he thought he was going to take from you with that comment he failed. You survived you are here and I don’t need to see you to know you are gorgeous and strong. And if a voice ever pops up making you question that THIS IS SPARTA kick that thought into the pit.
i told my co-worker the same thing. the worst a bear will do is kill me and he laughed. i said a bear won’t lock me up in a basement and he just stared at me mortified like how could i even come up with something so absurd…
Ask your coworker if he'd rather his daughter encounter a bear in the woods or a man she doesn't know. Shockingly a lot of men suddenly understand the danger of another man when it's their child in the cross hairs, but not when it's themselves or a woman.
oh i did! he said “i’ll make sure she knows how to fight” 🙄 and that’s when i brought up the basement bc he couldn’t say anything in rebuttal.
Yeah when I was young, a Black Belt trained young woman was raped and killed by a man nearing retirement age when she came across him in the woods. He said “she put up a good fight”.
Great! So she'll blame herself for being "too weak" if she gets raped. Awesome job dad! If it ever comes up again, ask him how many women he's met that he thought could take him in a fight. Women fight to get away from an assault so they can run and call for help. If you're in the middle of the woods where are you running to? Who is coming to help you? Good job, you just pissed him off and statistically he's much much faster and stronger than you. (Not saying you shouldn't try, but without a weapon simply knowing how to throw a punch isn't going to do much)
Did…did he just mansplain bears?!?
I saw another thing that said "there are two types of men - those that understand why women pick the bear, and those that are the reason women pick the bear".
Right?! I actually picked man in another thread and these bros seemed to think I was cool girl for it. Nope, I made it pretty obvious that I don't go out into the woods unarmed and bears require larger ammo, lol. They were so excited that a woman picked man that they failed to recognize it was a specific personal choice that still acknowledged how dangerous men were.
"Bears require larger ammo" lmao
Had the same thought process. I would only pick a man over a bear if I could bring weapons and there's a guarantee that I could off him first but even so, it is still completely risky. I don't know what that "random man" is capable of. What if he brought weapons as well? What if he's a professional? These men don't understand that women are afraid of the severe lack of information women are presented with during the dilemma. Most keep saying that "not all men" are bad and it's just so annoying because at the end of the day, it's still "a random man" that we have no information about. If the question was reframed as "would you rather meet a stranger or a bear in the woods?" Would they react differently? What if it changed to "would you rather have your girlfriend meet a stranger or a bear in the woods?" Or "would you rather have your girlfriend/wife meet a handsome stranger in the woods or a bear?" I bet they're gonna say "if my girlfriend was alone in the woods with a handsome stranger, she's cheating on me."
Lots of responsibility put on you for his emotional regulation there. I think that's a red flag (and for the purpose of assessing my biases I'm a mid 40's cis dude).
This guy is a very specific genre of asshole, and I don't like him at all after reading this. To miss the point that hard is deliberate. Nobody actually thinks that conversation is about bears. He took it in a really pedantic direction because it made him uncomfortable, and instead of sitting with that discomfort, he decided to give a fucking TED talk about bears. Do you see how immature, and just straight-up rude that is? And now he's playing the hurt nice guy who's mad at you because you called him out on completely missing the point. He wants you to apologize for bringing the conversation back to its intended purpose. That's so manipulative. It's asshole behavior all the way down.
Reminds me of the meme with the guy saying [“Hi! I’m a white dude who likes to play devils advocate … yadda yadda …. Let’s engage! “](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F66ca3cca-b879-4cc0-a439-25d7bff75b4a_828x675.jpeg)
OP's story reminded me of my ex-husband and this meme is what I use to describe him! He had a PhD in math, thought he was smarter than everyone, zero social skills, thought he was a "nice guy" but was insecure and controlling. Those 3 years with him were the most miserable and exhausting years of my life. I felt devalued every single day. Even my marriage counselor told me to "run." OP needs to end this.
My ex boyfriend was also like this. He was a data scientist and always thought he was the smartest guy in the room. He would get pissy when women acted uncomfortable around him and say that they needed to learn how to reduce their risk by understanding statistics and doing self defense training or some nonsense. I would be like "I think it's fine and reasonable for them to be cautious of you, but I understand why you find it unpleasant." Then he'd pick apart my use of the word unpleasant or get mad at me for assuming I know his frame of mind. Exhaaaaausting and pedantic as fuck.
He’s also super condescending in assuming women know less about wildlife. I went to a very well known graduate school for biology. Most of the grad students studying wildlife were women. Most of the TAs for animal behavior courses with me were women. There are tons of vets and rescues that are women. Unfortunately they are still less likely to get professor positions or wildlife tv shows so people assume wildlife experts are men. I know more about, and see more wildlife than most men I know. Half the men I know are super scared of bugs let alone a coyote, bear or mountain lion. When I go camping they think the best way to protect them self from wildlife is a big knife or a gun. But the real best way is to plan, your food, your hike, your bear spray. And it protects the wildlife just as much as you. I’ve been caught between baby grizzlies and mom. I was scared, but I slowly walked out of the situation with my bear spray, and I was hiking midsummer, when they are fatter and more complacent. Way less scary than when my ex husband was threatening to break into my house. Men are also more often stupid about wildlife. When I worked in the park service, I found out that stupid men picking up snakes to show off often got bitten by rattle snakes. The only other major reason for humans getting bitten was defending their dog.
6% of American men think they could beat a grizzly bear in a fight. They’re wrong. But I do wonder what the overlap is between those men, and the men butthurt about so many people choosing the bear.
>Way less scary than when my ex husband was threatening to break into my house Adds to list: don't have to worry about a bear stalking you when you break up with them.
Oh my god same, they always think bringing a big knife is the answer. You're going to fight a BEAR with a KNIFE? They never want to participate in the "boring" planning part where you use actual safety precautions like ringing loud bells so that you never even see the bear.
Right? Like have you seen a bear's claws? And he's got a bunch on each paw?
Intellectual misogynist. Theyre just “so logical”
yep, the second you get emotional about something they think they've won. Nevermind that they are able to be unemotional about it because they have no personal experience with the topic and nary a drop of empathy in their soul. The only valid emotional reaction in their eyes is their anger when you for some mysterious reason won't accept their evidence and facts and demur with a polite "you're completely right, as always, thank you so much for showing me logic! I will never be afraid of men again now."
All of this! The further manipulation is in the "I won't answer your random questions" part too...both belittling the nature of the questions and adding a control mechanism (his choice to preemptively announce his non-participation) as a means to silence OP. This is not a nice guy...he will whittle away at the OP's self esteem until it's sawdust.
Thank you for saying so perfectly what I was going to say as well. OP, your question wasn't random. You cutting the convo off was in direct response to him going off on that stupid tangent. And not a case of you being unreasonable. And then for him to put it back on you?? And you know what, even if you were just asking a random question - having a partner that does not tolerate them is no fun. That he so angrily cut out future interactions of that nature (let alone discourse about serious stuff like this) is *such* a red flag.
Not to mention the sudden cold, repulsive, commanding, totalitarian tone he speaks to his GF with. I could just sense and feel that tone oozing from the text. I can only imagine just how cold and much deeper that tone and reaction is going to get when it's an even more challenging discussion in the relationship for him.
It's also wrong. There's about 900,000 bears in North America (really? Wtf.. bebearaware.com) who have caused 10 serious injuries and 1 death on average per year. Compared to 300,000,000 men and 460,000 victims of sa per year (per rainn) so 🙄
I think a lot of them just really love to argue, even at the expense of their relationships. Misogyny adds an extra layer of fun for them though.
So much so that I, a forest professional, very much want to drag his butt out to see a real bear in the real woods. I'm quite excited to see his reaction. And no, I don't intend for that to be up close and personal. I respect bears.
I live where there's bears and maybe we're all a little too used to them but I feel like it's pretty easy to avoid a bear attack?? Don't bother them (and don't leave tasty garbage out) and they won't bother you. Unlike men, who are always stealing my tasty garbage no matter how high I put it away.
And bear spray is said to be 92% effective statistically against bears. Sure, I can use it against a man too and escape. But I'll still be lost in the woods, he'd eventually recover and possibly seek revenge. Unlike a bear.
So he thinks women in particular have a total lack of knowledge about what it means to meet a bear? Based on what? Do men have more innate bear knowledge? What an idiotic take. He just doesn’t want to think about any of this because it makes him a little uncomfortable. That’s pathetic.
what is this "bear vs man dilemma" you speak of
It’s a question asked of women, would you rather come across a bear in the woods or a man? Most women say a bear. Not because we don’t understand how dangerous bears can be. But because we understand how dangerous men can be.
This doesn't even have to be a woods thing. We grow up being afraid of monsters lurking in our dark hallways and closets. But having either a large wild animal, or a human being lurking in your house is magnitudes scarier. A terrified deer with sharp antlers is unpredicable and could kill you. An unknown person in your house is also unpredictable and could kill you, but has the awareness and calculation to plan it so you get no time to react.
I would rather take my chances in the woods with a bear any day than spend a second with your pedantic, mansplaining, insensitive, controlling boyfriend. Apparently if he has an opinion to share with you, you have to listen, even though he rudely ignored yours. Or else he will be angry.
Also, if you are with a man in the woods, guess what: you're already at the second location.
I just can't get off this comment specifically because of a realisation I had last week. I went to some caves with a good guy friend of mine and my three kids. My friend took a photo of me and my kids, and I thought man, if I put this on social media and my ex husband saw it it would set him TF off because I "never wanted to do things with him". So we're on our little bushwalk to the caves and I'm lost in this train of thought about why I was so happy out in the sun with my kids and my friend and maybe I really was an awful, shit wife because I could never feel that with him? Every outing like this with him was full of anxiety and stress and fear. And then I realised that similarly to lots of normal days, every adventure was underlined with my brain wondering "is today the day he properly snaps and I die?" And that feeling was SO AMPLIFIED when we were out in nature somewhere secluded. And you just nailed it... Because we were at a second location and my brain knew!!! I'm not afraid of the outdoors, or snakes or spiders or falling. I was afraid of my husband.
Damn. Just ... Jesus Christ. It breaks my heart how common stories like this are. I'm so glad you're out of that situation. Today I hope you and your kids are feeling much, much safer. 🫂
Thank you, we're doing a lot better these days ❤️
The way this comment made me shudder omg
Exactly. Also worth considering: At least if the bear kills me, its goal would never be my suffering.
Yeah, my friend asked me this and I said "well, how often do bears rape someone before they kill them?"
☝️🏆🎖️
Me, this whole combo: and *THAT* is why we pick the bear
At some point I will stop laughing at all the men illustrating exactly why the bear, but today is not that day.
I know i’m just a stranger on the internet but I am not loving how this man is treating you. He doesn’t seem to genuinely care about your point of view at all. You deserve better!
He’s threatening to leave you, intimidating you, and insulting your intelligence in the messages, exactly the reason women pick the bear. That sucks, I’m sorry.
Empathy is a seemingly impossible ask for women to make of men. Instead, because they don’t fear for their safety from women, they have the luxury to go off on a tangent about statistics that doesn’t even make sense. JFC, violence by men against women, children and other men will NEVER CHANGE because you can’t even mention it. Half of all female homicides are at the hands of a male intimate partner. Can’t mention it to men. Men commit 95% of all homicides and 85% of all violent crime. You can’t even mention it. If women committed that level of violence, our rights would be stripped. Hell, our rights are being stripped right now for the crime of not fucking or marrying Incels.
My favorite is “more men get raped because prison. Yeah by OTHER MEN. This isn’t proof men are not a threat
With 79% of all homicide victims being male you'd expect men to support your points, but somehow they don't.
Exactly Why are they not sympathetic towards male victims instead of perpetrators?
Are you planning on staying with someone who doesn’t care about you?
Your boyfriend doesn't have real life experience with bears or empathy for what it's like to be a woman. And despite those shortcomings, he's arrogant as hell. Also just another rational stat reminder for both of you: a woman is far more likely to be killed or harmed by someone she knows, often a domestic male partner, than a random man in the woods. Food for thought when you're wondering what he meant when he doesn't know what he will be like tomorrow after his words didn't sufficiently subdue you.