Isn’t that the point though? The fact that the question was asked and rather than think “shit, could we be better?”, some men are literally seething with anger about it?
I get what you mean, but mostly disagree, the options given as the answer is too broad.
I mean, if the man was in the forest to pick berries, and focusing on that and the bear was a female bear with cubs, the situation is completely different from a man wearing a mask and sunglasses staring at the woman and a black bear crossing the path to go and sleep.
The question is too generic to draw any usable conclusions from.
The best response to seeing the answers would have been for men to just ignore it, or say that they are sad to learn the results but that the question is mostly meningless
This is still a purely theoretical choise, and since they won't face any immediate consequences from their response, they might as well use the question for their own shock factor to try and make a point.
I wonder if all women who actually had to choose between getting into a forrest alone with a bear nearby or get into a different forrest alone with a man nearby would actually pick the bear.
But I hope that no one ever has to make this choice.
I imagine that black men view the question as particularly insulting
Because we live in a country that already perceives black men as animals.
So seeing so many women recently affirm that perception likely is extremely isolating. Because this is the sort of ideology that gets black men murdered
Because white tears cause black scars. As Emmitt Till found out
When men are seen as threats, this translates into the murder of men, particularly those who are in national minority groups. Black, brown, immigrant, Muslim, etc men are threatened by this type of discourse, at least within the United States
Which is kind of what BLM was all about - that black men are just people and are not dangerous super predators like many white people, including white women, seem to think
America might see black men as animals, but I don’t think the UK is quite there yet. Also, the question doesn’t mention race or skin tone, so I’m not sure how we got there.
The UK does not have a good history on race. Or on welcoming immigrants. Hence Brexit. And, also, the entirety of the British Empire.
The human brain has an ability to understand implicit narratives without a thing needing to be explicitly stated. If you ask a person to imagine a dangerous and strange man, I very much doubt that most Western people are honestly going to imagine a man that is white. Which is what this question is actually all about
To be honest, I was thinking about the man who was trying to show me his penis when I was hiking in the woods a couple of weeks ago, when I heard this question. He was white. Actually all men that harassed me were white, thinking about it now.
Racist stereotypes are a real issue and I am not trying to deny that. And if women needed to imagine some hypothetical situation when thinking about dangerous men, you might be right. However, I think you might be underestimating the number of women who have been harassed, or worse. Most women do not need to imagine, they can just remember.
The U.K. is incredibly ethnically diverse. I was a huge Remain person, but not everyone that voted Leave did so because of race. Sort out your own prejudices mate and stop projecting.
The UK is one of the most xenophobic western countries. And left the EU largely because your white boomers are so terrified of brown migrants that they destroyed their own economic future to get away from them. Similar to Americans voting for trump out of fear of Mexicans and migrant caravans.
I would take any human over a fucking bear. It's a bear. It is far more adapted to the woods than I am. At least with another human I have some chance. Jesus how are you people not terrified of a animal thathas claws, can climb trees, can outrun you, is stronger than you, and is a predator when presumably you would have nothing resembling a weapon on you.
Women were talking about men in general. Some men took it as though they specifically were being targeted. If women don’t feel comfortable running alone at night because men can be predators, men in general should listen. When I hear that, I don’t take offence. I’m with you, I’ve never done anything. But we should be trying to figure out ways that women can feel more comfortable around men. Women shouldn’t need to feel like they have their guard up, and listening is the first step.
Whites were talking about blacks in general. Some black people took it as though they specifically were being targeted. If white people don’t feel comfortable running alone at night because blacks can be predators, black people in general should listen. When I hear that, I don’t take offence. I’m with you, I’ve never done anything. But we should be trying to figure out ways that whites can feel more comfortable around blacks. Whites shouldn’t need to feel like they have their guard up, and listening is the first step.
Every time you hear a claim about women/men replace with white and blacks, if you sound like a racist asshole, then you're being a sexist asshole. This also applies for other stuff, including just reverting roles, if just by doing that you're able to make your argument sound straight from the KKK, you know it's a bad argument.
That's not to say that women shouldn't feel like that, or that there isn't a problem in our society, but the same can be said about white/black situation. The difference is that most people (at least non racist assholes) understand that a higher criminality among black people has nothing to do with their skin tone, and is instead a consequence of historical factors perpetuated by social injustice, so they understand why generalized statements such as the one you made are problematic. But with the men/women people in general think it's different, they think that men are inherently more violent or whatever, so their broad statements get less judgement, let's not forget that up until recently that was also the general consensus about race as well.
In short if you do broad generalizations like that you ARE being an asshole, and people will feel attacked. And what's worse is that those people are more likely to then align with someone who opposes your views which oftentimes means right wing Nazis just because they're not attacking them.
Because at its core your argument is "group of people X feels threatened by group of people Y, but group Y should listen and not feel attacked if someone from group X tells them group Y is dangerous". Replacing group X and Y by any group of people should give you an idea of why this is a bad argument. In other words I'm just applying analogical reasoning to your argument to showcase that in an analogous situation the same argument would be considered aggressive.
Granted, it's not always possible to substitute groups, but if your counterargument is that the substitutions are not analogous you need to present evidence of why that is the case. In other words, why do you think this argument applies to women who are afraid of men but not to whites that are afraid of blacks.
Look, I'm not the person you replied to, let's start with that. Second, no, I don't have to justify countering that absurd sophism that you did. It's on you to make sense in the first place
Ok,sorry, didn't see it was someone different, in any case at its core his argument was that.
You're making a claim that those two are different, it's impossible to prove a negative so I can't prove that they're not different because even if I pointed to 99 metrics that made it the same that doesn't mean that there doesn't exist a metric by which they're different.
I've explained my reasoning, they're analogous groups, so if you can point to a relevant metric by which they're different then my argument would be invalid. Let me explain, one could argue that it's different because women are mostly attacked by men, but statistically speaking whites are also attacked more by blacks, and again one can easily see that that's a bad argument to claim blacks are criminals, therefore the other form of it is a bad argument to claim men are rapist. Any meaningful metric I can think of has the same problem, i.e it also applies to the white/black version.
And no, you're not forced to reply, but that does sound like confirmation that you couldn't think of any meaningful metric by which my analogy fails.
I am listening, and what I'm hearing is that I, as an innocent person, am a source of terror for someone I've never met because of a fact of my biology that I have no control over. I have no ability to change the feelings of someone else, because no matter what, those feelings are only able to be changed by the person feeling them. I can say I'm innocent and not a threat until I'm blue in the face, I can act as non-threatening as I possibly can, I can leave women alone in public. None of that matters because I'm not the one with the power over those feelings.
You say you're listening but all you're hearing is how what is being said affects you.
You appear to see yourself as a victim. This makes you more dangerous than a bear.
The bear won't take a women's fear of it personally. It will want to avoid confrontation.
You will definitely take it personal. You appear willing to confront them for their fear. You will demand they not be afraid of you, because you are innocent. The scenario is one of a thousand reasons they choose the bear.
No. You’re not a source of terror. But people don’t know that. They just see a man. The issue isn’t with you, it’s with common experiences women have had with men.
There are so many bears that don’t hurt humans. But humans carry bear spray just in case the one they encounter is dangerous.
The issue isn’t with you, it’s with common experiences women have had with men.
And that's exactly the problem. I'm not those men. I have no intention of acting like those men. Yet I'm still scared that I'm going to get pepper sprayed anyway just for asking a woman for directions.
Unfortunately dangerous men don't wear signs around their necks. They just look like normal dudes. It's the false positive vs false negative. A false positive results in the woman walking away and maybe an awkward moment between two people. A false negative can result in being raped and/or murdered. That's really what it boils down to. Women just want to stay safe.
That's on you, pal. I don't feel entitled to anything but the same basic respect I give anyone, man, woman, or otherwise. All I want is not to be looked at as an existential threat just for existing and I really don't think that's unreasonable.
Are you fucked in the head? I am a man and I take no insult to this. In fact I agree, I would also rather be in the woods with a bear than with a random man. Imagine it differently for a second to maybe gain some perspective. Would you rather spend the night in the forest or in jail with the scariest ass don't drop the soap motherfuckers and no guards? That's basically what this question is like for women. A bear is generally just going to ignore you.
You are taking the bait, this question was never about the actual answers, but rather the male response to being told that we men pose a risk to women, this question was just asked to generate responses from men, proving their point that men are angry and dangerous.
Yes, you're a man, so you should suffer because equality, hurr durr. And you're a misogynist if you say something. And you're a racist if you point out it's the same as saying "black people are [insert stereotype here]".
Welcome to online interactions of the latest decade! Luckily I don't encounter this hostility for having been born with a penis in real life, otherwise I'd probably just gone and killed myself, it's unpleasant enough being the public enemy online.
But hey, everything's fair when it comes to revenge equality!
Yea like the brother never inherited the family business, and the brother was sold off to a rich older lady to marry, or the brother for goes university in place of his sister, the brother having a bastard child meant he was ostracized from the family and sent to a Catholic nunnery to learn the ways of god.
Women have historically been repressed through out many culture in history and even to present wealth be damned.
So were men. And children. And everyone in between, unless they had money. We're not living in a patriarchy and haven't for quite a few millennia. It's the rich ruling the poor.