Has the "Bear vs. Man" conundrum made you reconsider your writings?

[RetroFan]

The Chicago Bears don't appear to be particularly scary bears. For such a large city that on population alone could host two NFL franchises, the Bears have just two Superbowl appearances to their name in 1985 and 2006, and Chicago's only win in this match in 1985 is nearly 40 years ago.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Yes, you are correct in that my objective was for authors to consider how the general fear of the male gender implied by this "study" could impact their inspiration for a story or the character dynamics, conflict/resolution, or story arc. Naturally, it would be story and subject dependent.

Turns out the type of chlamydia that koalas have isn't readily transmissible to humans, so rather than digressing further I'll respond:

My stories are coloured from having been a woman in various contexts. I tend to write pretty realistic detailed stories, so the subject of female experience comes up. The first couple pages of Gas Station Guy contain various rants about being female on public transport or out late at night, that are taken directly from my 20s. (As is the gas station guy, who did mistake me for a man late at night).

In Wheelchair Bound? you have the charming elderly Prof providing guidance on request, contrasted with the arrogant 'Master' Keith who assumes any woman not with a man is in need of his penis (they're also both based on real people - the Prof would be about 110 if he's still alive, so I assume he isn't).

And various women characters have been raped or sexually assaulted, whether or not it becomes part of the story. Thinking about it, my anecdote about being at a sex event and finding an unexpected hand in my vagina, might make a good story. My mate who threw the guy out thought I only broke one of his fingers. Must try harder next time... The guy's friends thought we'd overreacted because 'he's a nice guy!'

The evidence suggested otherwise. I think this was before digital penetration became legally rape, but in any case I wanted to enjoy the rest of the night rather than deal with the police. Funnily enough, I wasn't at all interested in the guy's mates. They didn't seem to understand why.

 

[Djmac1031]

When you call it out to act like a victim, and therefore get the thread to be about you, it also takes the meaning out of it

Wait, are you seriously suggesting that women who have been victims of sexual assault "calling it out" aka talking about their experiences is ACTING like a victim?

just ACTING, huh? Faking it to make it "all about you?"

And yet somehow you consider yourself an "ally?

 

[Voboy]

The usual suspects are usual-suspect-ing.

 

[Djmac1031]

As for misogyny? It's real, it exists, its exists here

it sure does.

I've never seen anyone as singularly fixated on one woman poster here as you are.

You go out of your way, every single time, to attack her, berate her, acuse her.

Why IS that, LC? Did someone hurt your little feel feels and now your ego can't handle it?

I happen to know how you treat some people behind the scenes. SPOILER ALERT: you're NOT the Good Guy you try so hard to sell yourself to be.

You PRETEND to be an "ally" to the women authors here, but god forbid any of them express themselves in a way YOU disapprove of.

The funny part is, your hypocrisy is obvious, has been for some time.
Just no one will call you out on it.

 

[AchtungNight]

I don't think I can find a word to describe the irony of YOU telling someone they're trying to make a thread about them.

You don't control the forum, and I think last week you learned that people are catching on to your bad behavior.

And stop talking about misogyny. It's real, it exists, its exists here, but when someone who has helped perpetuate it calls it out, it falls flat. When you call it out to act like a victim, and therefore get the thread to be about you, it also takes the meaning out of it.

I have not noticed any bad behavior from Emily, but I’m not wasting more time getting into it with people on this thread. She doesn’t need my defense anyway.

 

[lovecraft68]

I have not noticed any bad behavior from Emily, but I’m not wasting more time getting into it with people on this thread. She doesn’t need my defense anyway.

If it makes you feel better, I wasn't defending you, and like you, am not going to waste time getting into it with the resident knuckle draggers in the forum who never fail to show up and show out.

But I call BS when I see it. As the expression goes, its not always the message, but the messenger that's the issue.

 

[AchtungNight]

It didn’t sound like BS to me. I was her target audience, so my judgement should count best in this particular case. Nuff said.

Almost done with the story I mentioned earlier. I plan to submit soon. It’s a mess of cliches, but it is still good for my readers imo.

 

[Djmac1031]

am not going to waste time getting into it with the resident knuckle draggers in the forum who never fail to show up and show out.

But you've got plenty of time to obsess over one particular woman's posts. That, you'll go out of your way to respond to.

Ignore my comments. I don't care. Just know I'm not the only one who sees what you're truly like.

 

[MetaBob]

When asked whether they would rather encounter a bear in the woods or a random man in the woods, most respondents (women and men), chose the bear.

I am embarrassed and disappointed to acknowledge that if I was making this choice for my wife or daughter, I would also rather they encounter the bear.

This almost universal lack of trust and fear of the human male is something that I am going to have to consider in some of the stories I am brainstorming.

What say you?

I think there are two separate questions here:

1. Which would an unaccompanied woman (or man) who is already accustomed to walking in the woods prefer? They likely frequently encounter random men on the trail, after all.
2. Which would an unaccompanied woman (or man) who does not hike prefer? To that woman (or man), a random man is more an imagined threat than real, especially when s/he is influenced by the culture surrounding hypothetical questions like this one.

What should be unquestioned is that many bears are very real threats regardless of how accustomed to the woods a hiker might be.

I have encountered several black bears on trail, and none wanted anything to do with me. Mostly, we were both surprised to encounter each other, and each time, the bear hurried away. A little noise would probably have been enough to scare them off even if the sight of me hadn't already done so. A little more noise from me before the encounters would probably have prevented those encounters. A mama bear with cubs would probably be much more trouble, and a hungry aggressive adult bear of either sex would probably be perfectly content to not pursue if you dropped some food or your pack if it contained (or smelled like) food. Griz are a much greater threat, and as for a polar bear, well, if you see one in the wild and have no secure shelter at hand, good luck to you. The advice I received when being handed a canister of bear spray before going solo backpacking into polar bear and griz country (after it was made clear to me that doing so was idiotic) was that if I were to meet a polar bear, I would be better off spraying myself than the bear: spraying the bear would just enrage it, while spraying myself would both take my mind off the fact that a frickin' polar bear was about to eat me, and/or make me taste bad enough that the polar bear might decide that eating me wasn't worth it.

Caveat: Everything you read about encountering a real bear is crap; every bear and every situation is different and all you can do is prepare for is likelihoods. Outcomes are not assured. The same is true for an unaccompanied woman (or man) encountering a random unknown man; you would be always be well advised to hike with one or more humans of either gender and/or big dogs.

I would MUCH rather encounter a random unknown man at close range in the woods than any bear. But then I'm a man, so my opinion on the subject will doubtless be dismissed even if I was explicitly included in the audience to which the question was addressed, as is the case here.

EDIT: Has this question made me reconsider any of my writings? No. I don't have any bears in any of my writing published here or elsewhere, though I do have one mountain lion, which is generally a much greater threat than a black bear, though the same advisements I've given for bears apply. Once, on a first date with a woman, I suggested that we cut through a grassy open well-lit quad (with woods on two sides) on campus one night, not thinking of what reservations she might've had and feeling perfectly safe from having done so myself many times, but she balked. That helped me understand this question a lot better, and I haven't suggested any such action since -- helping her feel safe (including from me) must be integral to the process.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That was my general impression, thank you for confirming. I believe European bears are pretty similar to the black bears you describe, too.

I interpret the question among the lines of "seeing as any individual man or bear might be batshit and aggressive enough to maim or kill you, but you don't know which ones are, which would you prefer to take your chances with?"

Maybe 1 in 1000 black bears might kill you, but the rest would simply leave you alone.

Given a man who has appeared near a lone woman on a deserted trail, I'm not going to guess at the chances of them attempting rape or murder, but the chances of the guy wanting to tag along, tell me I'm going the trip wrong, or just talking at me, is pretty damn high. Probably one in five, from experience. Even if they don't try to chat me up.

So in a definite non-grizzly wooded area, that quiet bear is looking quite tempting...

I looked up Wiki's list of fatal bear attacks, because of course Wiki has a list of fatal bear attacks. In the 2020s so far it reports one woman in the USA killed by a black bear and two in Canada. Brown bears (including grizzlies), two women in USA and two in Canada. Polar bears, one USA, none Canada. Eight women total in the whole of North America, over more than four years.

There are individual men who've killed many times that number. I'm not going to post the gruesome details here because I think most people here already know and don't need to hear it again, and most of the rest are determined not to acknowledge it, and the few who genuinely don't know can go look it up for themselves. It's not like it's hard to find out information about serial killers and mass murderers.

 

[AchtungNight]

Even with all the awful people in the world, I personally prefer to hope I meet the good ones. Or at least the neutrals.

 

[SimonDoom]

The Chicago Bears don't appear to be particularly scary bears. For such a large city that on population alone could host two NFL franchises, the Bears have just two Superbowl appearances to their name in 1985 and 2006, and Chicago's only win in this match in 1985 is nearly 40 years ago.

It should be noted, however (and I am not a Bears fan) that the Bears team of 1985 was scary by football team standards. If the question was, which NFL football team would you least want to run across under adverse circumstances, that team would rank up there. But I'd probably pick the 2000 Ravens first.

 

[KatieDoes]

I looked up Wiki's list of fatal bear attacks, because of course Wiki has a list of fatal bear attacks. In the 2020s so far it reports one woman in the USA killed by a black bear and two in Canada. Brown bears (including grizzlies), two women in USA and two in Canada. Polar bears, one USA, none Canada. Eight women total in the whole of North America, over more than four years.

There are individual men who've killed many times that number. I'm not going to post the gruesome details here because I think most people here already know and don't need to hear it again, and most of the rest are determined not to acknowledge it, and the few who genuinely don't know can go look it up for themselves. It's not like it's hard to find out information about serial killers and mass murderers.

They don’t care Women’s physical safety is secondary to men’s hurt feelings.

 

[Erozetta]

What's your favorite kind of bear? Black, Brown, Polar, Grizzly, Grizzly-Polar hybrid, Kodiak, Andean, Panda, Sun, Sloth, Teddy, or Chicago?

Owlbears.

 

[Erozetta]

Even with all the awful people in the world, I personally prefer to hope I meet the good ones. Or at least the neutrals.

The hope is always to meet the good people. The statistics show why we approach as though everyone has ill intentions until proven otherwise.

Approaching everyone as though they are good by default will lead to many deaths. There are statistics for this regarding both male and female deaths.

I met my husband online and flew over 1k miles away from home and everyone I knew to meet him. It was a huge risk even though he is one of the absolute best guys I've ever known. He didn't get offended by me being afraid of him at first (and that fear dissolved in minutes because of his actions), he backed off and let me get accustomed to him and showed in his actions regarding understanding my fear that he could be trusted.

If he had been a guy I met in the woods while injured or in need of help, and I showed fear toward him helping me, he would have continued on and contacted the authorities to get me help I could reasonably trust in that situation.

He would not stick around to try and prove that I could trust him, he would simply take actions that proved trustworthy while not being in a position to receive thanks or requiring an apology for thinking him bad. He knows his character and he knows the fear women have toward men they don't know. He doesn't take it personally because it doesn't apply to him and that wariness keeps many women alive and he knows and is thankful for that.

Good men don't need to prove they are good and the harder someone fights to prove they are good, the more I question their intent because that behavior only serves them.

And that's not to say I think you are bad man. I just think your logic in this instance is lacking because you got offended. Be secure in your knowledge that you are good and you will come across that way. Defending your goodness makes it seem insincere. Pretend good guys are *why* we are wary. Don't behave like them if you aren't one of them.

 

[SimonDoom]

I looked up Wiki's list of fatal bear attacks, because of course Wiki has a list of fatal bear attacks. In the 2020s so far it reports one woman in the USA killed by a black bear and two in Canada. Brown bears (including grizzlies), two women in USA and two in Canada. Polar bears, one USA, none Canada. Eight women total in the whole of North America, over more than four years.

There are individual men who've killed many times that number. I'm not going to post the gruesome details here because I think most people here already know and don't need to hear it again, and most of the rest are determined not to acknowledge it, and the few who genuinely don't know can go look it up for themselves. It's not like it's hard to find out information about serial killers and mass murderers.

There you go again. Bringing up facts.

 

[CyranoJ]

This almost universal lack of trust and fear of the human male is something that I am going to have to consider in some of the stories I am brainstorming.

What's mainly interesting about the thought experiment is the number of men who hesitate over the choice. It's not surprising how many women distrust men. It's instructive, however, just how many men deeply distrust other men. That's a problem, but it's understandable, especially given the number of men in the current era who are suffering from the brainrot of incel/redpill/"alpha male" ideology. (And it is suffering. Those thus afflicted almost invariably wind up alienating just about everyone in their lives and destroy their relationships with men and women alike.)

I don't take it seriously as a thought experiment much beyond that. Part of the backdrop here is that appalling numbers of both men and women seriously imagine they could take a bear in a fistfight. I'm not one of them. I at least have a plausible shot at reasoning with or physically overcoming a human, the choice isn't really close.

It's also not one that many people are actually likely to face; bear attacks are a vanishing rarity because their species' range and habitat is radically decreased from what it once was. Statistically, most of us are far more likely to face physical threats from fellow humans because there are just far more of us, living in close proximity. That's the other factor that renders the thought experiment kind of irrelevant. We're way likelier to encounter a serial killer, a mass shooter (especially for the Americans among us), a paranoid QAnonite or some other flavor of human whacko.

I already try to account for what's best and worst in people in my writing, even at its most heightened and fantasy-porny. That won't change. The specific flavouring might (for example, to reflect silly social media storms like this one). Beyond that? Meh.

 

[Erozetta]

When asked whether they would rather encounter a bear in the woods or a random man in the woods, most respondents (women and men), chose the bear.

I am embarrassed and disappointed to acknowledge that if I was making this choice for my wife or daughter, I would also rather they encounter the bear.

This almost universal lack of trust and fear of the human male is something that I am going to have to consider in some of the stories I am brainstorming.

What say you?

To answer your question:

Unless she already knew the male love interest ahead of time or was out for a one night stand, every woman I've written has initially been wary of the love interest at first. They typically get past that with some incidental interaction that allows her to lower her guard. It has always been an element in my writing for women to approach strange men with caution (unless she was confident she had the upper hand or immediate backup in the vicinity). But, I'm a woman, so that's probably why.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just don't try to steal their eucalyptus leaves

But they're not bears, like all the other native ozzie animals, they're marsupials

I would've done the "not bears" one if you hadn't, but I'm obliged to um-actually here. Australia has quite a few non-marsupial native mammals. Roughly in order of antiquity:

Monotremes (egg-laying mammals which urinate, excrete, and reproduce through the same orifice, ew). These were around before marsupials and were previously found elsewhere but have died out everywhere but Australia and New Guinea. The remaining ones are the platypus and several species of echidna.

Marsupials: lots of these though sadly some of the more exciting ones are no longer with us.

Placental mammals ("normal mammals" to the rest of the world) - by the time these evolved, Australia was an island. Not a big problem for the marine mammals (whales, dolphins, seals etc.) but it made it harder for the rest to get here. Still, some managed.

Between the northern tip of the Australian mainland and New Guinea, there are a lot of small islands in the Torres Strait. You could island-hop from Cape York to PNG without having to cross more than about 30 km at a stretch, which is close enough for bats and close enough that we do have to worry about rabies and similar viruses making across the water. Indonesia's not too far away either, and with a lot of volcanic activity there's the potential for small critters to get yeeted out to see on rafts of pumice or vegetation and very occasionally get lucky enough to wash up on Australian shores. Some rodents made it here about 1-10 million years ago so we have several species of native rats and mice.

After that, not much AFAIK until humans (about 65k years ago though, numbers subject to change) and then dingos (dog subspecies) around 5000 years ago, if that's old enough to count as "native".

 

[KeithD]

What's mainly interesting about the thought experiment is the number of men who hesitate over the choice. It's not surprising how many women distrust men. It's instructive, however, just how many men deeply distrust other men. That's a problem, but it's understandable, especially given the number of men in the current era who are suffering from the brainrot of incel/redpill/"alpha male" ideology. (And it is suffering. Those thus afflicted almost invariably wind up alienating just about everyone in their lives and destroy their relationships with men and women alike.)

I don't take it seriously as a thought experiment much beyond that. Part of the backdrop here is that appalling numbers of both men and women seriously imagine they could take a bear in a fistfight. I'm not one of them. I at least have a plausible shot at reasoning with or physically overcoming a human, the choice isn't really close.

It's also not one that many people are actually likely to face; bear attacks are a vanishing rarity because their species' range and habitat is radically decreased from what it once was. Statistically, most of us are far more likely to face physical threats from fellow humans because there are just far more of us, living in close proximity. That's the other factor that renders the thought experiment kind of irrelevant. We're way likelier to encounter a serial killer, a mass shooter (especially for the Americans among us), a paranoid QAnonite or some other flavor of human whacko.

I already try to account for what's best and worst in people in my writing, even at its most heightened and fantasy-porny. That won't change. The specific flavouring might (for example, to reflect silly social media storms like this one). Beyond that? Meh.

Just a couple of comments. I have no trouble understanding why a woman would feel more apprehensive/threatened by encountering a male stranger in a forest than another male would. That seems quite natural.

And, yes, the bear population is decreasing, but it's also being forced out of its traditional habitat and into suburbia and even some urban areas. I live on sort of an enclave private-ownership street with a major university inside a town now completely surrounding us. They are building medium-rise dorms and class buildings all around us. We have bears raiding our bird feeders and trashcans at night. This activity is increasing, not decreasing. It is really irrelevant that there are fewer of them in existence. Like deer, they are coming into built-up areas more.

 

[Britva415]

Do you really not understand that the non-rapist men and the rapist men look exactly the same?

From the very beginning I was convinced he was playing dumb. "How do you know a man is a good one? He'll tell you." I genuinely thought nobody could be that blind, naïve, clueless, etc.

Now, based on the way he has completely failed to acknowledge the flaw in that logic, I'm not convinced he was playing dumb this whole entire time. Maybe he really doesn't understand that bad guys don't come right out and say they are.

I kind of think that someone who doesn't know humankind well enough to get that probably doesn't know their own damn self well enough to honestly and truthfully be able to say "I'm a good guy."

 

[CyranoJ]

And, yes, the bear population is decreasing, but it's also being forced out of its traditional habitat and into suburbia and even some urban areas. I live on sort of an enclave private-ownership street with a major university inside a town now completely surrounding us. They are building medium-rise dorms and class buildings all around us. We have bears raiding our bird feeders and trashcans at night. This activity is increasing, not decreasing. It is really irrelevant that there are fewer of them in existence. Like deer, they are coming into built-up areas more.

An interesting point that I hadn't considered, thank you. I'm sure this is true in some communities, though I'm less sure that it has much statistical impact in the bigger picture.

 

[CyranoJ]

I would've done the "not bears" one if you hadn't, but I'm obliged to um-actually here.

This and the entire post that it kicks off just brought a huge smile to my face.

If you're not already a subscriber to Dropout.tv, I feel like you'd find it worthwhile. They have a whole show called "Um, Actually" specifically for those of our tribe. It's aces.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I looked up Wiki's list of fatal bear attacks, because of course Wiki has a list of fatal bear attacks. In the 2020s so far it reports one woman in the USA killed by a black bear and two in Canada. Brown bears (including grizzlies), two women in USA and two in Canada. Polar bears, one USA, none Canada. Eight women total in the whole of North America, over more than four years.

There are individual men who've killed many times that number. I'm not going to post the gruesome details here because I think most people here already know and don't need to hear it again, and most of the rest are determined not to acknowledge it, and the few who genuinely don't know can go look it up for themselves. It's not like it's hard to find out information about serial killers and mass murderers.

Okay, this reminds me of the statistic that "Cows kill more people than Sharks".

That's true, except people are constantly around cows, and comparatively rarely around sharks. But in general, a cow is less of a threat than a shark.

Humans are surrounded by other humans constantly, and as such, serial killers are hidden amongst us and SURROUNDED by potential victims.

Conversely, bears are almost never around humans, and we avoid them when we can. There is no statistics for "Uneventful encounters between strangers in the woods" because it would be impossible to track and rather common. How many times are people attacked in the woods by strangers?

Regardless, I would rather encounter a human, because the self defense weapon I tend to carry is intended to deal with humans... not bears (although to be fair, I'm sure I'd change my self defense weapon if I was headed into bear territory).