Surely I am not the only woman who would chose the man, not the bear?

[Idpicktheman]

You know that, would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods thing?

I would choose the man.

I've hiked in the Rockies where there are bears. If you come across a bear, you have surprised and startled it. All the stories I heard of people being attacked in the Rockies were of people who have surprised bears with their appearance. I blew a whistle every couple of minutes when I hiked to make sure a bear was not surprised by my appearance. Therefore I think if I met a bear in the woods, there is a good likelihood it would attack me.

I also walk in the woods a lot in the UK as I live in a semi-rural area. I regularly come across men and they either ignore me or say hello as they pass and carry on walking their dog/ cycling/ or mountain biking.

So whilst there is a chance a man would attack me, I think the probability is that they would not.

But whilst there is a chance the bear would amble off and leave me alone, the probability is that it would attack me.

So I would chose the man.

( I realise the point of this though experiment is to show that women think this through, because both can be dangerous to them, whereas men instantly say' well, I'd chose the woman obviously' because women are not a danger to them : but I have seen a lot of women instantly saying ' the bear!' but, being literalistic about the actual answer, in all honestly, the bear is more likely to attack you than the man.)

Unless it's a teddy bear than the man is a no-brainer IMO

The ‘good men’ comment was this poster referring back to another who used this phrase. Several other posters have entered into the discussion around ‘good men’ following that post ( including me).

I’n surprised to hear an adult women say she’s never been harrassed, threatened or had a negative encounter with a man too. It was just part of the backdrop of being a young women for me, and my friends. It was just normal to have encounters with arsey men. I was just an utterly ordinary looking young woman.

I’ve been heckled / stared at / talked at / tried to make feel intimidated by men frequently in the woods but 95% of them just nod, say hello or smile. I haven’t felt scared for my life by them, just naturally far more wary than with women.

But I would be far more scared if I ran round the corner into a bear. I’m more anxious when I see (some) dogs off leads as they’ve done me more harm than men. And I’m more wary of (some) cows than men. And definitely when I think it might be a bill. If there were bears in the woods I’d carry bear spray like they do in the US or probably not go in if there were the same number of bears as men.

For "'good' men", substitute Guy Nice Guy™. We've all met those scrotes.

Why wouldn’t you want to date me? I’m a nice guy who’ll treat you well. You should give nice guys a chance and not just go for the muscly Chads who’ll mess you around.

Why are you ignoring me? You stuck up bitch! You could have had a lovely date with a nice guy, but you blew it. One day, you’ll get what you deserve.

Nailed it! Yes, these "Good Men" are cut from the same cloth as the notorious Nice Guys™️. Genuine good men aren't whining about women not validating their self-image.

There was a story about a poor Russian woman who literally got eaten alive by a bear and its cubs. She was actually on the phone to a relative as they were eating her IIRC.

Google "bear eats woman alive".

@GasPanic I want to listen to that about as much as I'd want to listen to a recording of Sarah Everard's last hours. Big difference is that she could at least call them and say goodbye.

Why would anyone want to listen to these things? An audio version of a snuff film to make women more scared of bears than men...subtle.

The victims of the Suffolk Strangler, Sarah Everard, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and the Irish woman murdered in broad daylight whilst out running were all murdered by men they didn't know and not one of those men gave his victims the chance to phone a loved one to say goodbye.

I will take my chance with the bear.

If they were the only choices, I'd rather feed a bear and her cubs' hunger than a depraved, sadistic man's hatred of women.

Talk about taking this nonsense to a new level.

I'm with @Catsmere on this.

• The bear family doesn't have free will. The man does and could choose not to abuse women, yet he does. If I am to die, I don't want him to get pleasure or satisfaction from my death.
• The man won't die if he doesn't commit rape and murder. The bear family will starve if they don't eat. If I am to die, I'd rather something good came from my death, and the bear family surviving is "something good".

In an ideal world, we'd just feed all the rapists to bears.

Do you realise how insane this thread has become? The original question was about whether people would rather meet a man or bear in the forest. It’s now reached the point where people claim to prefer to be eaten to feed a family of bears, rather than encountering a man who must undoubtedly be a rapist.

It's called "topic drift".

Most bears don't eat people. Most men aren't rapist-murderers. But there are a lot more men commiting rape-murders than bears attacking humans in the world each year.

Given the choice of being killed by a bear or killed by a man, I'd rather be killed by the bear.

So for both reasons above, I'd rather take my chance with the bear.

I find it far more insane that people are missing the original point of the meme/question, which is that women don't unanimously say "I'd rather be in the woods with a man than a bear" because of the risk men pose to us. I find it insane that some of the women who would choose the man are using words like "insane" and "misandrist" and "man-hating" to describe those of us who would choose the bear.

Way to wilfully ignore what I said. I wasn't talking about a man who might be that. I'm talking about the ones who are. As I said - if the sexual sadist, the rapist or murderer, was option one, and the hungry bears option two, and there were no other options, I'd take the bears. It's as @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia laid out so clearly.

You're also missing the point that it's not safe man vs dangerous bears in the original scenario. It's unknown man, who could be fine - or the opposite of fine. The point is men are a risk to women. We know it, they know it.

It's like that other exercise - I can't remember the source, so I'm paraphrasing - where you're given a dozen chocolates. One of them contains cyanide. Would you eat them, knowing one could kill you?

I think it's a bag of M&Ms in the example you're thinking of.

Thanks! I might be able to track it down later.

I don't really see how this is relevant to the original point. No one is saying a bear won't eat you. The point is that to a lot of people being killed is preferable to what a man / men can do you before he / they kill you. A bear won't rape me and bring his friends into the mix, beat me almost un-concious, rape me until my pelvis fractures and then strangle me. A bear won't keep me imprisoned as a sex slave. A bear won't look the other way when I'm being raped or abused. I can go on but I won't because I've made my point. It's up to you if you would rather meet a strange man or a bear in the woods but it's also up to every one else to make up their minds about it also. Arguing that people are wrong for their view because "a bear ate a woman" is pointless. 1.4 million women in the UK are victims of domestic abuse every year and they're only the ones we know about and after being a victim of rape and gang rape as well as being in a very abusive relationship, I know I would rather meet a bear. If you would rather meet a man that's your choice.

Ok, but the choice is man vs bear. Not serial killer rapist sadist medieval torturer - in which case, everyone would say bear because it's probably less brutal.

That is actually the entire point and how it came about on TikTok. Of course I would rather come up against an average friendly man than a bear but the point is you never actually know what that man is capable of.

@Maddie212 the point is you don't know what the man is like. He may very well be a rapist or murderer. Given the stats on men who admit they would commit rape if they were sure of not being caught, or admit to having committed rape as long as it's not called rape, it's not nearly as low-risk as some are making out. You have to think of the worst-case scenario.

When we say "woman or bear", we don't even have to consider the risk of rape, torture, etc because women behaving like that is about as rare as bear attacks.

When we say "man or bear", we have to consider the risk of rape, torture, etc and weigh it up against the risk posed by the bear.

The thought experiment exists to highlight the risk that men collectively pose to women because a non-negligible proportion of them like harming women.

Yes, me too but it's interesting as a thought experiment. I often hike in woods and am scared of bears as there have been fatal attacks. I have also bumped into a stranger in the woods who told me he was going to rape me. 😳 So - I would choose man over bear but that doesn't mean that I am not heartily pissed off that ever time I am on my own in the woods I think of that wannabe rapist and it taints my day.

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Give me the bear any time!

If I'm attacked and/or killed by a bear then he/she is just doing what is natural to them, I'm invading his/her privacy.

If I'm attacked/and or killed by a man it's because he's a freak with no intelligence who thinks women were only put on this earth to be the property of men!

I'll take my chance with a bear!