WomensStuff

tbf the question just doesn't lend itself to intersectional thinking, it assumes the racist "default" which of course for most people is going to mean the man is white, cis, straight, able-bodied, Western, English-speaking, etc. And honestly if the question incorporated intersectional identity, it would just further expose biases we experience about those "other" identities, for many:

• ableism implies the differently abled are weaker and thus safer and less masculine
• Blackness is perceived as hyper-masculine and dangerous
• being a trans man would invalidate their gender as a man for many and be assumed to be safer
• being a gay man would likewise be perceived as safer as the assumption is that men's predatory nature is in part sexual (which is not entirely wrong, since most of the violence women experience from men are perpetuated by their sexual partners)

If I went camping, the probability of being killed by a man is much, much higher than the probability a bear comes into my camp and kills me, simply by the numbers. And for added distress, a man is also much more likely to rape me before he kills me, whereas a bear is more likely to just maul me defensively, or less likely, to see me as food and attempt to eat me. Bears don't tend to go around killing for fun.

Ironically the video didn't mention the way differences about the bear would change the question - I have spent time around black bears and would feel very different about being around them than a grizzly bear. Even so, there have been times when I've been near a black bear that I have been so terrified out of my skin that I would have certainly preferred to be near a man in that moment instead. (Though the exact opposite happens far more frequently: that women experience moments with men when they would wish to be around a bear instead.)

Either way, both probabilities are extremely low, meanwhile violence against women by men they know is very common. This last fact explains the psychology - the reality is that a very large percent of women (one in three) have been victimized by men they know, which of course results in a generalized fear of men.

It's rational fear, rooted in real violence, but the video's point is not to gaslight women into overlooking that fear because of intersectionality, lol. They're just pointing out the way we don't even think about that. If I'm not wrong the point of the video is that feminism includes liberating men from patriarchy since it victimizes them as well.

Men being labeled as "predators" is one of those ways they are unfairly treated under a patriarchal system, it alienates them from women who fear them. Tolerance of violence against women create a situation of distrust and fear, but it's a minority of men who perpetuate the violence that creates this situation.

The man-bear question should lead people to recognize the problem is patriarchy, and that both men and women benefit from dealing with this problem.

Brilliant picture Z

the real question is whether they are also a man, lol

yes, I think this is part of why the question's answer so obvious to so many women (and why it's so confusing to men).

A man doesn't generally have the same experience women do with other men. Some men certainly will fear other men and experience male violence, but the cultural attitude is to teach men to expect this and to arise to that violence with their own competitive violence, part of patriarchal normative masculinity is the constant vying for power that happens between men.

I would fully expect some men if asked man or bear would answer the same as many women do (i.e. choose the bear as well), even if that's maybe a minority of men (who knows!).

Regardless, I think women think bears are already out in the wilderness and if they have encountered one on a hike they know it can be dangerous, but it's anomalous for them to really be a threat. Meanwhile, the threat of men is more real and constantly enforced in daily living (usually through romantic partners or family), so based on that daily lived experience it makes sense to choose bear.

But some men hear this and think narrowly about the physical capacity of a bear to do harm compared to a man, as though somehow the question were a match-up: who would you rather fight, a man or a bear? As though the question is one of lethality or force, not situational. And in that reading I could see how men might feel dehumanized by the response - are men really worse predators than a hulking giant terrifying animal with claws and teeth, are those terrifying creatures really safer than them?

This question drives a wedge between men and women because men and women have different lived experiences, and it's difficult for men to understand the way women experience the world and why they answer the way they do. If men had to live in the world as women and feel that level of vulnerability (let alone actually be victimized as women), they might understand it better - but those experiences are literally inaccessible to them.

So the problem here is really that men aren't listening and use the opportunity to flip it around and make it about how actually they are the victim here. (Which isn't entirely false, but is distorted and applied unfairly when not validating women's experiences - the reality is that we can accommodate both perspectives, we can acknowledge the way patriarchy victimizes both men and women - it's not an either or.)