The number of examples I have seen of people being told to shut up about their lived experiences with sexual abuse in the past 24 hours on this platform is deeply disturbing.
I am calling on y’all to take a deep breath and listen to women for once. There is a time and place for tone policing and it’s never the very minute a woman speaks up.
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Bro I’m losing my mind. Everyone is talking about “picking the bear” and I can’t figure out what the hell any of it means 😭
Okay very basically this whole thing started with a hypothetical posed to a bunch of women about which they would rather run into while alone in the woods; A random man, or a bear. A lot of women chose the bear. 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.
The poster’s stated goal with the hypothetical was to get men to think about why the women were choosing the bear. Instead a lot of guys took it as a personal attack, like they were being punished for the actions of other men. Many started attacking the question, insisting that bears are way more dangerous than virtually any man. This led to a lot of dismissive responses of the criticism like “This is why women choose the bear,” or talking about women’s safety being more important than men’s feelings.
I’m simplifying a lot but that’s the basic gist of it.
Thank you for the detailed summary.
To add the final unfortunate details, there was a recent discussion on Lemmy where women were sharing their reasons for choosing bear, which involved sharing personal stories of SA. Unfortunately, many men responded in a toxic manner, causing some women to delete their posts or accounts. Very disturbing and this is what inspired me to make this post, as it is quite reminiscent of the Catholic church sweeping SA under the rug.
Thats exactly what a not-bear-picker would say! Disgusting!!!
I haven’t once seen that on this platform, you and I must travel very different communities.
happy for you man
as others have said the whole bear thing has really brought the losers out of the woods.
Fortunately, that was always the point. The hypothetical is stupid and makes no sense. But it really trips men up and exposes them as they rush to say “not all men” in a different way.
It’s clearly ragebait, but let’s be real here: the amount of accusations against men in general is astounding. Not the real, actual cases, but the implication that by virtue of being male I’m immediately accused of being a predator. And that’s just shitty.
I can understand that a lot of men feel very attacked by that, because a whole lot of men just try to be good people. This kind of ragebait is harmful, because it will definitely turn a bunch of men hostile towards anything feminism, since in their view, they can only lose. And that’s incredibly bad.
Any man who turns hostile to women because of a bear meme was hopeless to begin with. Feminism isn’t convincing sexist men to not be sexist, it’s educating and empowering women to stand up for themselves and stop accepting vile behaviour by vile men.
If you don’t subscribe to my kind of feminism, you’re a monster anyway.
That’s essentially your point.
It’s less about being a predator and more about taking responsibility for the power the average dude can wield over women. Women are taken less seriously and have less social authority by default in comparison to men. On top of that, most men can physically overpower most women, a fact that doesn’t care about your feelings.
Even men should respect the danger other men can pose. Most murders are men killing men, so it’s not like men are safe. Be humble, understand the dangers, and have thicker skin when people tell you unpleasant truths.
Be humble, understand the dangers, and have thicker skin when people tell you unpleasant truths.
Imagine saying that to a woman being catcalled.
Gee, I wonder if there are other groups of people who have been painted with one brush. Perhaps the is a group that is assumed to be less skilled at STEM jobs. Or another group assumed to be more prone to criminal behavior. Wouldn’t that just be something? /s
We men, especially we white men, get a fraction of the same treatment women and minorities have been getting for hundreds of years and freak out over how unfair it is. And that’s an excuse to demand everyone use kid gloves when talking about these issues?
If you’re only doing the right thing because people recognize you for it, I suggest you may not really be doing the right thing. If you’re a good person, then you should understand why the average woman may show fear and caution when encountering an unknown man.
Things like the bear meme aren’t asking about YOU. When people say “I’d rather choose the bear than a man” they aren’t saying every man. Yes, the generalization stings when you think about it being applied to yourself. But if you truly understand the issues and the hypothetical you understand that the answer isn’t about you. It’s about what women have learned to expect when encountering a man they don’t already know well enough based on prior experience
So discrimination is okay if it hits the right people?
Again, an entire group is set out to be predators for no fault of their own.
I’m portrayed as a predator, because some idiots are, and I’m supposed to view that to reflect myself, because some other people are also treated badly? That doesn’t make sense. This is purely parroting the party line, chastising oneself what an evil counterrevolutionary one is.
No positive, but tons of new hostility. Awesome. That’ll take humanity in the right direction!
Literally yes. It’s called punching up, and it’s pretty well accepted, culturally. It’s basically the only trade-off to being vastly more likely to achieve economic and societal status.
And you think that’s helpful?
We’re not talking about an enslaved group here, but women. Yes, disadvantaged in many areas, but far from being universally inferior in every aspect. If I’m punching up, you know, who I hit? Several women. Hell, my chancellor has been a woman for literally the majority of my life.
Again, what does this achieve? Hostility of those who don’t want to be put on the same level as rapists. Instead of blaming the very real predators for their very real crimes, they’re blaming every man for being a man. That’s not punching up.
You’re not listening. YOU are not portrayed as a predator. YOU need to take a backseat for the betterment of the lives of the victims of injustice. Just because something isn’t your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility to deal with it when you are in the class of people benefitting from the injustice.
As the other commentor said: punching up is very, very different than punching down.
When a specific person treats you, specifically, poorly because you’re a man, THEN you can talk about how you are not a threat, and try to convey that you are actually an ally (which is questionable based on your reactions here). But when there is a conversation about average behavior and expectations, side with the victims. You are not a victim. You do not lose more than you gain from being a man. Maybe you get weird looks when you’re solo-parenting but you still make $1 to a woman’s $0.79 or whatever the number is today for soemeone in the same job.
So please, stop focusing on yourself. It’s selfish. Try to think about the bigger picture. And yeah, take one for the team when it comes to memes about bears
Tell me, exactly, how I am not meant? I’m a man, men are portrayed as universally dangerous. How am I not implied here?
Thinking I’m not meant is wishful thinking. And it’s extremely interesting, that suddenly I’m portrayed by you as a bad guy, because I say “hey, I’m not a bad guy, why do you call me that?”. I explicitly mentioned the very real predators. But you ignored that.
And thinking like yours is exactly why there’s so much hate. I don’t subscribe to the party line, that men have to shut up and just have to accept that they are all potentially vile beasts, and thus I have to be one of the vile beasts. Don’t you see that? Do you really don’t see what you’re doing here? You’re creating the us vs them chasm. You’re alienating people because you’re just now actively accusing me of being a bad guy. And yes, it’s about me, because I’m a man and this meme is about men. I’m in it. Just like you are.
get fucking over yourself, youre what im talking about
Then tell me: how is helping anyone?
Do you seriously believe, that this changes anything to the positive?
Ya it shows how many men really are a bunch of fragile bitches and are outing themselves, its great for women.
Im a man and i know im fucking awesome so im not triggered or offended when women say they would rather be in the forest alone with a bear. Which i also completely understand because most women have had truly awful experiences with a man.
Id rather be in the woods with a bear than a man like you and im not scared of being sexually assaulted, men like you just annoy the ever loving shit out of me.
I don’t normally upvote flagrant trash talk but gotdam this is so on the nose for the issue at hand that I can’t help it. Can’t unilaterally condone the tone but if there were ever a time, place, and subject, this is it
People “don’t want to listen” because the moment anyone speaks out against the generalizations, it becomes personal attacks against them. “you are part of the problem if you don’t immediately agree with everything I say.” That’s not to say that someone is not valid for the way they feel after experiencing something traumatic like SA and having hesitation associating with or being around men, but the accusations of being the problem towards people who are innocent make people not want to support you. It’s also very “only my feelings matter” when it starts sounding like I shouldn’t be anywhere in the remote vicinity of or exist because I might be making a woman uncomfortable.
Once when I was in high school I was in the classroom alone waiting for class to start, minding my own business and not paying any attention to anyone else. A girl walked in and told me that I looked like I wanted to kill her. I didn’t even look in her direction. How dare I be quiet and mind my own business, I made her feel uncomfortable.
It’s also funny that people are saying “y’all always have to make it about you, it’s not about you so what you think doesn’t matter.” Yeah how dare I have feelings and be offended that other people make generalizations about me and start saying I’m part of the problem.
Your comment is kind of funny because it’s definitely problematic in several ways. So I’m not surprised at all that you have heard from others before that you’re part of the problem. When enough people tell you that, then maybe you should do some selfcrit instead of continuing to victimblame women for experiencing sexism 🤷
It’s funny that you assumed that “enough people told me that” from one instance that this reminded me of. I didn’t victim blame them for experiencing sexism. I said that accusing innocent people who they’ve never interacted with and generalizing statements is ridiculous. Maybe be more specific on how my comment was “problematic” instead of some vague doublespeak.
