So, I’m just assuming we’ve all seen the discussions about the bear.
Personally I feel that this is an opportunity for everyone to stop and think a little about it.
The knee-jerk reaction from many men seems to be something along the lines of “You would choose a dangerous animal over me? That makes me feel bad about myself.” which results in endless comments of the “Akchully… according to Bayes theorem you are much more likely to…” kind.
It should be clear by now that it doesn’t lead to good places.
Maybe, and I’m open to being wrong, but maybe the real message is women saying: “We are scared of unknown men.”
Then, if that is the message intended, what do we do next? Maybe the best thing is just to listen. To ask questions. What have you experienced to make you feel that way?
I firmly believe that the empathy we give lays a foundation for other people being willing to have empathy for the things we try to communicate.
It doesn’t mean we should feel bad about ourselves, but just to recognize that someone is trying to say something, and it’s not a technical discussion about bears.
What do you think?
There is a book I will mention that will get me downvoted to oblivion, but it is very relevant to this discussion. It is called “White Fragility” and it discusses the following phenomenon: When vulnerable groups express criticism of societal problems, individuals will take that criticism personally and redirect the conversation towards their feelings. This has the effect, whether intended or otherwise, of shutting out the voice of the vulnerable group and forestalling any meaningful change. The book identifies this phenomenon in discussions of race, but I hope you can identify the parallels.
Does it suggest any solutions? I totally see the parallel
I think a lot of men believe “I’m one of the good ones” and don’t stop to think that a random woman on the street (or in the woods, in this case) has no way of determining that.
I think you might be right in that idea. One time I was out with my wife at a club show. She got a little too drunk and stumbling. I was walking her out of the club to pick up the metro and go home, when some chick stopped us (her) and whispered something in my wife’s ear.
My wife responded “No, it’s good. He’s my husband.” When I asked my wife what was that about and she told me that she was “checking to make sure I knew you.” My first response was “oh yeah that makes sense. Men suck.” I was low-key glad they checked on my wife though. They had no way of knowing if “I’m one of the good ones.”
Did they apologize to you afterwards? If not then that’s what’s fucked up about this whole situation in society. You can’t treat a person that you just suspected was a harasser like wind after you do it, and excuse it with “men are shitty, so I’m forgiven for my own shitty behaviour towards the good ones”.
and plenty of women who think they are ‘the good ones’ are an abusive psycho. and men have no way of knowing until they are abused by her.
And George Washington Carver was genius with peanuts. Whats that got to do with the topic at hand?
If you took it personally, you might be part of the problem
It’s not a maybe, that’s literally the entire point of the message. Unknown men are all too often kinda shitty because we have zero systems in place to teach men how to be good people and many systemic ways in which we’re told that we’re automatically better. We’re generally physically bigger, generally stronger, and, for the most part, taught to be entitled to a woman we happen to fancy.
But yes, you’ve read it correctly and we shouldn’t be getting upset but instead working on making ourselves more trustworthy. And it won’t happen in our lifetimes but it’ll be progress.
Who teaches you that you’re entitled to a woman you fancy?
Le Roman de la Rose, a mediaeval French poem that informed the tropes of western heterosexual media for the last thousand years.
