is the man or bear thing rhetorically or optically the perfect feminist meme that is beyond criticism? no.
but is it leaps and bounds better at getting men to understand the material consequences of patriarchy on the physical and emotional health of women than that stupid “kill all men” meme from last decade? definitely.
If I said ‘I would rather drink poison than go into work today’ would you calle ridiculous and do I even know how bad poisoning would hurt or even kill me?
Or would you understand that I was just voicing my dissatisfaction with having to go into work?
This is where you should probably pause and listen to the reasoning they are giving. Here is one:
Reasons varied from “The worst the bear will do is kill me,” to “At least I know the bear wants to kill me,” with a general theme seeming to be that whatever tangible threat the bear posed was preferable to the uncertainty of wondering whether or not a random man would assault them.
I understand. The way I’m seeing it is, even if it’s a 50/50 chance, she may be able to fend for herself… a bear? What? 90% chance (bears normally try to stay away from humans until you enter their territory) and she’s definitely not just going to die, but she’s going to be ripped to shreds, not to mention the type of damage a bear’s jaw can do. Easily crush bones.
I mean I get it, in uncivilized civilizations, there’s going to be some really chitty people, and chitty men are far more dangerous. So women are going to fear men in general.
Rape culture means that women who survive SA often have to go through a hellish psychosocial process wherein they must convince cops, judges, juries, friends and family that they were not “asking for it.”
This is not me talking, this is something that has been expressed to me by multiple individuals. That they would rather undergo horrific mutilation by an animal than deal with that process.
I encourage you not to laugh, but to actually self-interrogate what this means. Because so far you have only expressed that you do not, in fact, understand.
New thing I thought of, new idea, on top of all the other shit, about like, women vs man vs bear, right. If you choose the man, the chances that the average woman can outrun the average man I think are pretty high. I think the psycho outlier males maybe skew that stat a little bit, but I think on average, the chances are pretty good, and if I remember right, women can even, on average, run for longer than the average man. I dunno about faster, so the initial chase would probably matter more there, but, yeah. On the other hand, you can’t outrun a bear, since they can get up to like 40-50 miles per hour and can pivot and maneuver way better on account of their quadripedaliness.
So I think probably that should be a good factor in the decision making, on top of all the other stuff.
Okay but now that I’ve got you locked in, I think I want to like. The hypothetical, the meme, is interesting, because it’s obviously bait, right? Like it’s obviously just something that’s meant to be divisive but “illustrative”, or something. It’s not really successful at being illustrative and inspiring empathy, and as this meme posts, reading bell hooks would probably be a better maneuver for most men, or just like, engaging with a woman’s experience of the world generally in good faith, or like, treating them like they’re smart fellow human beings instead of just bringing up some counterpoint every five minutes that the chick’s already thought of, and then instead of bringing it up as like a good faith question they bring it up in a way where it’s like primed to treat the woman’s stupid. But I dunno, maybe people just don’t know how to talk, really. Small talk, sure, but real talk, no way.
Uhhh, but what I was saying, the original meme is bait, right? And it’s so obviously bait that it sort of, I think, inspires two separate reactions. One treats the meme seriously because it’s so absurd, right. Usually the male response, right, the idea is that we’ve never really had to think “oh do I take a man on this hike so I can feel more safe, or do I go alone, who can I trust to go along with me”, right, the thought process would be more along the lines of like “who do I take on this hike”. Existing in a male as default state, the idea is maybe that men are going to be less predisposed to gendered thinking because they don’t need to think that way out of self-preservation, or culturally ingrained bias, or whatever. This doesn’t mean they aren’t biased, right, but it’s sort of like, the white dude that’s got a lot of racist notions floating around but then they don’t realize it, it’s implicit. So there’s like, not good faith engagement, but like just total acceptance of the premise as an absurd notion to be toyed around with, right, sort of along the lines of, as I’ve heard another commenter say, along the lines of “what animal could I take in a fight” kind of discussions.
I think then women are maybe more likely to, on the opposite side of what I just said, actually relate more to the premise, treat it less as absurd maybe, or maybe understand more that it’s meant to try to illustrate a point or get at something, and then with their responses they’re going to do the same. Try to use their responses to get at something or illustrate some principle rather than just being like “oh I dunno I could probably take a bear in a fight” level shit. Like no shit that’s not what they’re getting at.
So, I dunno, in conclusion, the meme was primed to be bait from the onset, and, it’s never not going to be bait, and, from the way social media works, the bait engagement is encouraged, the bad faith engagement is encouraged, yadda yadda. I think I will say, to put on my meme criticism hat for a moment, of this meme, this meme either operates on the assumption that someone will google bell hooks, or that someone already knows who she is, so that’s kind of, narrowing the audience to those who already know, and probably don’t need it as much. I’d probably go with like a bell hooks’ book passage or quote which is both productive in itself for people to hear, and can maybe also drive traffic towards a book of hers. Maybe make the talking head quote that passage and then the chad soyjack can pog up on hearing it or be crying or whatever. Also I’d probably replace the “black woman” soyjack with a bell hooks specific soyjack, but that might be too high effort.
Also looked up bell hooks while writing this, didn’t know she was dead as of 3 years ago, RIP to a real one, that sucks.
The initial expression of the poll regarding the bear hypothetical was categorically not intended as bait, but rather a sincere reflection of women’s lived experiences.
The further out from the onset of the trend we get, yes, I agree with being more critical of those using this meme to get a rage reaction. However, while it is not the perfect rhetorical feminist meme, it is crucial to ensure that women are not silenced or even asked to soften their language when they speak out against sexual assault and rape culture.
I mean something can not be intended as bait, but still be bait, you know? It’s the way in which it’s framed in social media, which creates bait out of otherwise well-intentioned conversations and reactions. Strip out context, show someone this side by side with a feed of schlock about say, an ongoing war, a bunch of shitposts, whatever, and it can make it appear trivial by comparison, not worth engaging with, in good faith, you know?
I’d also say, right, like, sort of along the same lines of what I said up top about like, people not being able to have conversations anymore without making each other feel pissed off, right. Without pressing buttons, you know. Part of that communication, part of that speaking up and speaking out, is the back and forth. I think for that back and forth to exist, well, probably social media not being helpful to that is the biggest factor, but that back and forth also has to be like, a conversation. I dunno. Clarifying questions go a long way, or like, “oh what about this”, you know, kinds of things. It integrates people into the conversation more than just like, a big chicago style dump on the chest, or like.
I dunno, have you ever been in those conversations where it’s just someone kind of awkwardly venting for like 30 or 40 minutes, and then everyone else is kind of not engaging with them and is actively avoiding them? That’s sort of like the thing I want to avoid. To be clear that’s mostly the fault of the people actively avoiding or not engaging with it, for whatever trauma. I mean probably that’s better than like asking shitheel questions that cause the venting person to go off more or just get mad, but yeah, still bad to just uhh, remain silent as a response to someone talking to you. Not to say that’s what you’re saying when you’re saying like, make sure women aren’t silenced or, asked to soften their language, right, but, I guess that’s just my accompanying like, stipulation right. That conversations are two way kind of by definition, you know?
I’m also speaking in generalities right now, and yeah the bigger problem in general for sure is just that social media is kind of a context stripping machine that encourages pithy comebacks and imposes character limits and pushes human communication through image macros and other high pressure needle jets the size of a pin that can cut through diamonds.
I mean something can not be intended as bait, but still be bait, you know?
No. What you are doing here is silencing the experiences of women, whether intentional or not. Be so very careful friend. Listen to women, and just move on if you don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it. There is no excuse for tone policing the expression of people who have been violently attacked.
Awareness and advocacy may seem pointless until it precipitates in holding the oppressors accountable. Next time, hopefully, it will be even more significant.
Feminism inherently centers on the issues of women, it’s in the name, and anything that it solves for men is collateral.
We need to hear both women and men if we want actual solutions that work for all sides.
Let’s stop this division. It’s time to ditch this “women against the men’s system” in favor of “how can we be good to each other, and what we don’t know of each other’s struggles”
And for now, the popular post considering the men’s perspective was just nuked. Probably for daring to consider the other side of this.
Kinda, yes, but when we talk about intersectionality, normally it’s in the context of intersectional feminism, still.
It gets about all sorts of discriminations against women of various backgrounds, not just all people with said backgrounds. Which screws it up even more.
I said that antisexism is the actual word for describing the system of fighting discrimination of people of all genders, and we should strive for that.
We should consider male perspective along with the female look at the issue. And the former is intensively shushed.
It’s no use pretending feminism is there to care for men - if anything, women are still the centerpiece of the movement, as they always were, and it’s reflected in the name and values of it.
If you do care for men, however, maybe you should listen to the things men say on the issue, without shutting them up and then saying “oh, we care for you as well”.
I said feminism is about women, not men, and what it gives to men is collateral, not the goal.
Thereby, we need a wider antisexist framework to address issues of both women and men, and to solve issues that are two-sided by nature - gender relations often being the example.
If you want men to “become better”, you have to understand what factors make them “bad”, and how it works in their mindset. And for that, you have to delve into men’s issues. You should also demonstrate willingness to partner and reciprocate with men, and help them fight gender stereotypes, unfair treatment, and other things that women often face too.
Men, on the other hand, should join women in the initiatives that matter, and learn more about the struggle of women.
in a critical situation like this, finding another human at all is probably riskier than any animal.
most animals will just fuck off while humans will remember you and find a way to fuck you for their gain. all that in a smart way that you wont be able to stop with just a pointy stick or something.
If I was lost in the woods, a human would be more likely to have cell phone service or know the way out. And realistically, it’s just going to be some hiker or birder, which from what I’ve seen are generally welcoming groups.
most animals will just fuck off while humans will remember you and find a way to fuck you for their gain.
I gotta disagree. In my experience, most humans will also fuck off.
But its a numbers game. We meet a lot of humans and some of them provoke intense experiences that are deeply memorable. However, we almost never meet any bears.
Also, you are in a forest. It is expected to see wild animals, it is unexpected to see humans. If you were in a seemingly empty office, would you rather see another person or a fucking bear?
most animals will just fuck off while humans will remember you and find a way to fuck you for their gain.
I mean this is mostly not true, though? Without identifying information, like say, being in the forest, it’s pretty easy to lose track of someone if you both live in anything above a small sized town, and then just never see someone again.
I’m so glad to see this posted. The whole meme of bear vs man made me feel at odds and while I saw what the point was that it tried to raise it still didn’t really do a great job to me. After a lot of thinking about it and discussing it in other threads I finally understood what I feel is the issue. While the answer given by most (if not all) women is shocking and shows the feeling of uncertainty and unsafeness the question is framed in such a way that it creates division and sexism. The problem is not what women are answering, the issue is that it puts men on the other side without any more thought. It divides us into women vs either men or bears. I’m not a woman, I’m not a bear, and I don’t want to be a man seen as a danger. I understand the issue and I want to be part of the solution and create a safer world for everyone.
This whole topic wouldn’t have made me see the problem if it wasn’t for the effect that other ways to raise awareness have had in the past. For me the greatest method to raise awareness was the #metoo movement. That’s when I could see the issue and what kind of effect it has. It was a movement that didn’t automatically make me feel excluded, it was a movement that raised awareness of the victims, but it didn’t have to be only women, also men that had been victims could raise it if they felt empowered by it. It was horrifying seeing the spread of it, and then there must be all the ones that didn’t say anything. That’s a movement I can get behind, that’s the way to raise awareness. Since then I try to be more aware of the kind of behavior that creates those feelings of unsafeness for women and if I would ever notice something done by others I’d try to step up. The whole man vs bear is terrible at doing the same.
The image you posted has a good sentiment, and I don’t think it’s effective as a meme itself. What will make it stick in the viewer’s mind? To me it doesn’t have a joke and doesn’t make enough sense to convey a new insight.
You’re right, feminism is for everyone. How does the introduction of Bell Hooks explain that or prove it to the reader? Who is the new character in the bottom right corner? Their instant agreement with Bell doesn’t make sense given the preceding text.
ur confused and thats my fault sorry. by “this meme” i was referring to the man vs bear thing. the body text is about the popular in-joke going around.
First just want to reinforce I’m only commenting in the spirit of “how could this thought be propagated more effectively” and hope that comes across.
But no, I think I understood the general premise. The image you’re posting is referring to the trend of women being given a hypothetical situation where they can choose to encounter a bear or a man in the woods, right? And some men are angry that any woman would choose a bear over a man.
I took the image you posted to be an attempt to convey that it’s not unreasonable for women to do so, and also introduce people to the thought that patriarchy is harmful to both men and women. What about something like this image?
That men feel justified in telling women their opinion about it is wrong
That men are harmed by patriarchy
And at the same time take masculinity as their identity and view any systemic criticism as a personal attack
A joke about how men’s own reactions to the original thought experiment can be a good illustration why women choose the bear
Also I have to say one thing that was effective about the original post is at least for me I looked up Bell Hooks and read a little. The image I made doesn’t work in a reference to her, not sure how to do that effectively. I also think there could easily be other memes dedicated to illustrating how men are harmed by the patriarchy. It’s a complicated subject so showing it clearly would be a service.
thank you for sharing. i feel like you might not be aware of the already established format that i am using here. yours is good too and i encourage you to post it but i do find my post to be quite effective as it uses a scheme that is already familiar to most viewers.
Lol the meme is supposed to encourage you to Google those people. Bell Hooks is an excellent scholarly source on how patriarchy negatively impacts men.
How you gonna come in here and critique a meme because you don’t feel like googling tho lol.
Things like the bear makes me go do other things and care less.
Isn’t that sort of the joke? Had the original social impulse to “I’d rather meet a bear in the woods than a man” been to just shrug and walk away, virtually nobody here would have known the comment was made.
Sadly, more people want to engage with random internet rage-bait and pseudo-sociology than a fact-based, logically laid out research and policy report.
I guess. It invoked some emotion for sure, something that research and policies usually don’t. For me, I still don’t know what to do differently. I’ve heard the statistics and it’s scary and sad. I want women to be safe and equal and all that. But what’s the plan here, which path leads to a different world? Does it help if I just sit around and feel bad about myself? I don’t think so. It just alienates me from half of the human population. But what actually helps? The message I receive is mostly just “feel bad about yourself.”
But what’s the plan here, which path leads to a different world?
Do you really think someone’s going to have the answer to a question like that from a bear vs man meme lemmy thread?
One of the things I find so irritating about social media is that people pretend like we can use it to solve all of the world’s issues when in obvious reality if you think about it for a moment it’s just a time wasting spot for people to go chatter about things (and apparently get big angry a lot of the time).
Social media is a snake eating its own tail, or perhaps more accurately, a thing that disappears up its own butthole.
It’s similar to how Hollywood perceives itself at awards shows as being the center of the universe. Changing the world into a better one isn’t making a movie that blows peoples’ minds, having a music festival, and it (to an even lesser extent) isn’t writing up a catchy Lemmy / Mastodon / Facebook / Xitter / Blog post.
These things can be inspiring. Creativity is fun, and media can feel cathartic to the audience…but ultimately media in and of itself tends to change very little.
But what’s the plan here, which path leads to a different world?
It helps when people aren’t chronically alienated from one another. Growing up in a big family or in a neighborhood where you’ve got friends all along the block helps people to get to know and empathize with one another at an early age. You get to move through your moody adolescent phase surrounded by peers and see the real social consequences of being an asshole up front, rather than having anonymous channels through which you can vent your worst impulses without consequence.
But what actually helps?
Real actual socializing with other human beings. Empathy is just another kind of muscle. You gotta use it if you want to do any kind of heavy lifting. Otherwise, the occasional emotional contact with another person feels impossibly hard.
Depends what you mean by feminism if you mean feminism as equality for all then great.
If you mean feminism as you see a lot of today then maybe not. The fact you never see feminism calling out shitty, toxic female behaviour shows a lot of the picture is missing.
Holding up everything that lives under the feminism banner as infallible is dangerous. Plenty of low income white guys have been pushed aside for feminism and then told they have all this privilege for living in a place with no economic prospects and they are responsible for how the world was made before they were born.
if you see “feminists” excusing shitty behavior, call them the fuck out for it. im not holding everything under the banner of feminism infallible and you shouldn’t either.
but bad feminists don’t excuse you inserting yourself into a conversation women are having about their lived experiences. and that is precisely what you are doing.
women are expressing that they have been threatened and hurt, and you are stomping in with some vague “NUH UH a feminist was mean once or twice” to shut up those women. this is, and i don’t say this lightly, despicable.
I do. Then you normally get called sexist by other women.
Like I said you never see feminism, or almost never see, women accepting there is ever anything wrong with feminism. Women need to take more responsibility over shitty women’s behaviour.
no. men (and women) need to take responsibility for the patriarchy, which manifests especially in oppressive behavior, primarily from and benefiting men but of course not limited to such.
there’s a bit of an equivocation of two distinct meanings of “responsible.” feminism is about being a brother’s keeper type of responsibility, not about direct culpability in the actions of others.
no one is ever individually responsible for the actions of another individual. but we are all responsible to protect and look out for each other.
it’s a subtle difference but so, so important, so please read a couple times to understand.
Or if some women shaming men for not being masculine enough is patriarchy.
Or if some women asking for some sort of benefits over men is patriarchy.
If yes, the scope of “patriarchy” is so damn wide any reference to men (as in “patri-”) would be fair to be removed, and then we’d talk about antisexism in general.
Besides, can we truly talk for the case of patriarchy when the oppression comes from previous generations of men leading to issues of currently living ones? Current men are often oppressed by those measures, not empowered, and that contradicts the very notion of it.
I’m always a bit confused by this desire of women to put entire antisexism movement under the feminism umbrella no matter what.
Why is it so important? What causes this desire for women alone to lead the way? Is it some sort of power struggle, fear of men stealing the topic and pushing another agenda?
We are here, and we recognize the issues of men and, to the extent we can, the issues of women. Let us fight our fight without trying to make it about women. We talk about men, and would be happy to have a community of both men and women to solve what can’t be solved on one side.
Or if some women shaming men for not being masculine enough is patriarchy.
Very often true, yes.
Or if some women asking for some sort of benefits over men is patriarchy.
I don’t know what you are referencing but probably?
If yes, the scope of “patriarchy” is so damn wide any reference to men (as in “patri-”) would be fair to be removed, and then we’d talk about antisexism in general.
You are absolutely free to do this. :)
Besides, can we truly talk for the case of patriarchy when the oppression comes from previous generations of men leading to issues of currently living ones? Current men are often oppressed by those measures, not empowered, and that contradicts the very notion of it.
You are definitely in the right here! And these stories are often underrepresented in feminist/antisexist spaces. There is a community for this if you were interested: !mensliberation
I’m always a bit confused by this desire of women to put entire antisexism movement under the feminism umbrella no matter what.
I think it’s more of a tradition thing than anything. As in, feminism being the first antisexist theory, all other antisexist theories will find their historical roots in what feminists first described. But a valid insight.
Why is it so important? What causes this desire for women alone to lead the way? Is it some sort of power struggle, fear of men stealing the topic and pushing another agenda?
No, and this is where I encourage you to be careful. You are reading far too much into a name. See above again for what I believe is more of an occams razor explanation.
We are here, and we recognize the issues of men and, to the extent we can, the issues of women. Let us fight our fight without trying to make it about women. We talk about men, and would be happy to have a community of both men and women to solve what can’t be solved on one side.
Fully agree! I wish you the best in this and I’ll be there alongside you. ❤️
So when is a societal ill not the patriarchy? There doesn’t seem to be any delineation between what is and isn’t, so it almost seems like some sort of mysterious Satan figure
Handling this question is tricky, but I’ll give it a shot with some examples. It’s worth noting that there’s often overlap between different systems, where those in power in one area also benefit disproportionately in others. (This concept is a key part of intersectionality theory.)
Ah, gotcha, sorry my mistake. Thank you for all your help btw.
So it’s specific for when men are less disenfranchised than women? Regardless of the perpetrator of said injustice?
So looking at that other guys examples. The only one that doesn’t immediately make sense is:
Or if some women asking for some sort of benefits over men is patriarchy
And to me the only example that comes to mind is women expecting men to pay for dates? Which I think is part of patriarchy as it’s inherited from a time where women couldn’t work or had severely limited career prospects?
And other things like
Or if some women shaming men for not being masculine enough is patriarchy.
are a response to a historic lack of agency among women, requiring them to force their husbands to find success for them.
I’m not getting this one though, could you explain how this is patriarchy?
Some of this is starting to get beyond my rhetorical capacity so I won’t pretend to have answers for your questions here, I apologize.
Maybe other commenters can give you satisfactory answers, but in the meantime I’ll refer you to this book by bell hooks (free PDF). Should get you 99.9% of the way there. :)
Still, I think naming it part of feminism introduces a lot of confusion about the goals of an antisexist movement, and can be exploited by many feminists, especially radical ones, hijacking the movement and extinguishing male voices where they matter, while covering it with “it never was about males”.
I know there are masculist movements, and I’m long member of !mensliberation in particular, but they are just drowned by the embracing, extending and extinguishing hands of feminism and what remains are drops in the ocean.
Which is why I insist on not calling it feminism. Because it really isn’t and it introduces a field for manipulation.
With all that said, I will be and I am alongside feminists as well, I just want the situation to be more balanced, and want to see more reciprocation and more male voices heard, not just drowned with “we save you too, so shut up” which often sadly happens.
i have personally seen women getting harassed into deleting their comments and even accounts for expressing their lived experience under patriarchy. men literally came into their replies and brigaded them until they were forced to leave. so you are either misinformed or intentionally lying.
I was discussing this whole “safer with a bear” thing with my wife earlier, and she agreed that it was more about the bear will almost always just fuck off and leave you alone. Imo, the problem is the lack of social (third) spaces in the West, particularly anglo-North America. The only places left where you can encounter a potential romantic partner are in their home or in a place of business, and both are generally unacceptable for romantic solicitation. We’ve even managed to largely flush the Internet as a meaningful third space. So, folks are left with the choice of committing a social faux pas or being lonely, which is kind of a shit choice.
If we brought back third spaces whose sole purpose was socializing and community-building, we’d probably see stuff like the “safer with bear” sentiment disappate.
valid insight, maybe not the full picture, but still valid.
important to know that the vast majority of perpetrators of sexual violence are acquaintances of the victim, and aren’t strangers. so third spaces might certainly help, but don’t address the primary issue.
I would add though, that (a) those statistics do exclude non-violent sexual harassment (which is more likely from strangers), and (b) that sexual violence is massively underreported, especially when the perpetrator is unknown, since the chances of anything being able to be done about it are extremely low
I would agree but stipulate, unpaid third places. Third places still exist, they’re just all monetized. Hang out at the movie theater, gotta buy a ticket, hang out at a concert, gotta buy a ticket, hang out anywhere around town, you’re loitering and there’s nothing really there, hang out at the mall, everyone’s trying to sell you stuff and there’s only just stuff to buy. There’s maybe the park and the library left, which aren’t exactly the most hot of spots.
The only places left where you can encounter a potential romantic partner are in their home or in a place of business, and both are generally unacceptable for romantic solicitation. We’ve even managed to largely flush the Internet as a meaningful third space. So, folks are left with the choice of committing a social faux pas or being lonely, which is kind of a shit choice.
Combine this with the expectation that one sex is expected to do nearly all such soliciting.
I actually find it amusing that Bumble recently announced that they are no longer going to require women to make the first move because many find having to do so a burden. It’s something of an intractable problem - women don’t want the burden of having to do the approaching and potentially facing rejection but also don’t want to be approached by men they aren’t interested in (and tend to have much lower tolerances regarding the behavior of said men - a lot of behaviors that are “flirting” when done by a man they’re interested in are seen as something else entirely when done by the wrong man).
Then from the other direction you have men for who it’s largely a numbers game - many men don’t put much effort into the messages they send out on online dating services because the response rate is so low. If a large majority of your messages get no reply, it’s less psychologically painful to think about the sheer number of times you’ve been considered not worth the effort to bother turning down if you aren’t investing as much into each attempt, and if you aren’t investing much into each attempt then you can make a lot more attempts for the same time investment. Response rates are low enough and the difference in odds of success between low effort and high effort messages small enough that it impacts the entire thing pretty heavily.
is it rhetorically or optically the perfect feminist meme that is beyond criticism? no.
Honestly, I think the biggest problem with the argument is men have been having very serious discussions for probably millenia about what animals they could and could not beat in a fight. And it is implicitly known that the guy who comes in saying he could beat a bear is way up his own ass. Now here comes a meme appearing to imply that men could beat a bear in a fight, and the urge to correct is strong.
I understand and agree with the sentiment, but I also want you to know you can’t beat a bear in a fight, but will gladly discuss what animals you might win against.
Omg you re the first I see that understand that its more the urge to correct than an politic or genre idea. Thx also I could win against a cheetah I think . can I use stone or stick?
Yeah, but Cheetahs can be way bigger than you expect, up to 160 pounds. I think if it can build up enough speed and has the chance to pounce you’re gonna have the wind knocked out of you before you can do much.
Which is why framing the concept in a context that is parallel to one already very familiar to men (what animal is a bigger threat) has caused such misunderstanding.
Just in case someone else didn’t explain (or i’m the one that missed something) this meme is actually referencing the recent internet hubbub of: women were asked if they were hiking alone, would they rather run into a strange man or a bear, and many women picked the bear.
No they did not. You fail to support how it “appears to imply” anything of the sort, so the comment calling into question your understanding of the entire concept is valid.
In what way is any of this about a physical confrontation between a man and a bear?
First, please explain the original meme and its meaning, then relate that to your point.
The original meme is about women feeling they are less threatened by a bear than a strange man, the bear might leave them alone or not be aggressive where a man would be more likely to. That men can be a threat in different ways.
Separately men very often discuss what animals they could beat in a fight. This results in a misunderstanding/disconnect between “who would you feel less threatened by” and “who would win in a fight”, which I agree is not what the original meme of women “choosing the bear” is about, but it is a very similar dynamic that results in men explaining that you won’t win a fight against a bear. Which, again, is not the point of the original meme indicating a feeling that a bear might be less likely to harm or threaten you, which is why it results in people talking past each other. (Kind of like right now…)
“very often” is hyperbole, but if you’ve never had/heard of that discussion I would be surprised. But I don’t think “men are misunderstanding the question” is a crazy take.
“who would win in a fight” and “who would you feel more threatened by” are by no means two “random” subjects, they are very closely related in theme and in most situations the answers would be interchangeable. And the conflation of the two closely related topics of conversation was my entire point.
So your point is that men basically are incapable of understanding simple points AND that they then go on to “mansplain” their entirely wrong opinions on the topic?
It is implicitly known that the guy who comes in saying he could beat a bear is way up his own ass.
This is good insight into the cultural context that led into this.
I think it varies wildly individual to individual. For example, some of my personal experience/knowledge is that while I can never beat a bear, bears may be discouraged, scared, and shouted down from attacking with proper preparation and training - a luxury that women do not have against men.
Another nuance I saw someone mention is that if I get attacked by a bear, at least I’m fucking dead and I don’t have to live to deal with the psychosocial horror of having to convince a cop, judge or jury, friends or family that I wasn’t “asking for it,” underscoring the damage that a victim-blaming culture has on women.
This I take issue with. Humans present predatory behavior in much the same way as other large predators, that is they are risk averse. Through preparation and training a woman absolutely can prevent an attack by a predatory human being. Things such as not being alone, being armed, keeping situational awareness, and other basic self defense protocols.
The real problem is people not wanting to admit that humans are extremely dangerous predatory animals and one of the few that regularly kills members of its own species. Humans are horrific monsters. Full stop.
Interesting thought: if you correct someone on the capitalization of her pen name, is that in opposition with the original intent of the stylistic choice she made?
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