After a lot of thinking and reading a lot of the answers here (only considering the actually serious ones, not the ones dismissing what it means that women answer the bears or the ones that dismiss the answers of men unhappy about the comparison) I’ve come up with what bothers me of the whole situation and since you seemed to actually be really polite in the discussion and spent the effort on giving me a different point of view I wanted to post my realization and thought process with an answer for you but also hoping others will see it.
The issue we are facing with this hypothetical situation and question, “would you rather meet a random unknown man or a bear alone in the forest?”, is that instead of raising awareness of the issue, instead of trying to find a solution, it is increasing the problem, it increases and promotes the fear. Let me explain better.
The issue I feel is clearer if we change the question not to aim sexism and sexual assault, but aim it at describing racism and violence due to racism. If you are a black person (we could simplify by assuming a man, to avoid getting again into the gender differences), would you want to meet a random white guy or a bear alone in the forest? Now, black people can and definitely are suffering racism at different levels constantly, depending where they live we can say that most have been the objective of some racist behavior. If they answer “I’d rather face a bear than a random white guy” because they are afraid they are going to end up meeting a white dude that is racist and would attack them due to race, it demonstrates a big issue that there’s that fear but there’s no way around the fact that the question is racist and pushes the racism forward by increasing the fear of any random white guy when in average no white person would wish any bad to any other race (which doesn’t mean racism isn’t a big issue in society).
The hypothetical question is a sexist question the way it is made that enforces the fear of any man. We need to make this very clear. Men are not rapists by default. Men won’t assault a woman when they get a chance. When a man is not attacking a woman it is not for a lack of opportunity. That’s what this hypothetical does, it tells that the only thing needed for a random man to assault a woman is an opportunity. Way too many women suffer sexual assault, it is a problem too widespread, but not because all men do it, but because most women suffer it. The answer to the hypothetical question should be “a man, because a random man out of the whole population is nearly without a doubt not going to be a rapist”. The fact that the answer is not that, means that we as a society are failing at making half the population feel safe. See, the problem is not the answer of women, the problem is the question, the question causes more damage than anything by enforcing the fear and dividing society between men and women. Instead of dividing society between rapists, assaulters and victims. Most women are victims of sexual assault, but not only women are victims. By setting the question as man vs bear, it enforces a different type of sexism. Men that feel that sexism and raise the issue are being marked as part of the problem, as assaulters. If I feel that the question is sexist and problematic it must mean that I don’t care for women and their safety, I’m a bear too… That’s what this question is proving to me, the amount of sexism still present both ways and how unsafe women feel around unknown men.
I think that this hypothetical is dangerous, it creates division based on gender, it makes sexism a bigger issue instead of fighting it. Instead, better ways of handling this topic could be such as raising awareness of how many victims of sexual assault there are the way it was done with the #metoo tag (if I remember correctly that’s what it was called) in social networks where many victims felt empowered to come out and show how many there are. Independent of gender. Another good way to raise awareness is another thread I saw yesterday asking women what they would do if they had 24 hours where there would be no men around without consequences for them, after 24 hours they are back and all continues as usual. Most were answering that they would dress nice, even provocative, put make up, go out with girlfriends and drink, without the fear of being abused, assaulted or worse. That shows the real problem. That tells a lot about the lack of safety for women specifically without making the men that are also victims feel like part of the problem. We can tell how women feel normally, without muddling the waters by comparing men to bears, and equating victims to women and men as the problem, when men can also be victims. We need to address these issues, yes. But not like this. Not making sexism a bigger issue.