Bear or man? Terrifying answers to a viral inquiry TikTok

TFD – Delve into the controversial TikTok discourse sparking crucial conversations about women’s safety and societal perceptions.

One more day, another speculative situation dividing people on social media. This cultural discourse does, however, have some pointed edges.

The question, directed towards women, seems simple: Would you rather be alone in the woods with a man or a bear?

A significant portion of ladies on TikTok, Instagram, and X have expressed that they would much rather be bears, despite the fact that opinions differ. More than just infuriating some guys on the internet, this has ignited an important conversation about violence against women and the fact that danger doesn’t always manifest as a ferocious animal on the prowl.

It’s not really about the bear, really.

An interviewer asks eight ladies on the street in a TikTok video that has had over 16.7 million views if they would rather be stranded in a wilderness with a guy or a bear. Seven of the eight respond to the later question with minimal hesitation.

This movie has several variations in which the question is posed to strangers on the street, family members, and friend groups. Women consistently respond in a similar way when asked why they would choose the bear: because they are aware of the risks involved. Theoretically, they are aware of how to survive the meeting.

The next video’s comments make that brutally obvious:

“You are aware of what a bear is likely to do.”

“Humans are capable of so much worse, without a doubt.”

“Bear, because people would believe me if I said I was attacked by a bear.”

It’s impossible to conduct a statistical analysis on whether one particular man would be more dangerous than one particular bear, especially since we all spend a lot more of our daily existence in proximity to men than wild ursines. The point of this clearly hypothetical exercise has nothing to do with survival skills or being able to tell a black bear from a brown one.

“We have completely failed to create a safe society, as evidenced by the fact that women would even consider hypothetical man/bear questions,” one person commented on X.

Nearly 89,000 women and children were deliberately slain worldwide in 2022, according to UN statistics. According to UN statistics, one in three women worldwide have been victims of intimate relationship violence or non-partner sexual assault, which includes rape and domestic abuse.

Sexual harassment and other circumstances that can make a woman fear for her life are not included in that. The majority of female legislators and journalists, according to UN data, have suffered psychological abuse in public. This is a specific figure, but it illustrates how pervasive the fear of violence can be in a woman’s life.

Many detractors fail to see the point

People rankled by the number of women choosing to take their chances with a bear have called the question “misandrist” and said it’s an excuse to freely hate on men. Some have responded by making fun of and demeaning women, completely missing the mark.

A cartoon depicting a woman telling a bear that she’s happy to be saddled with it “instead of a man teehee” appears on one X post. She has been brutally attacked by the bear in the second panel.

One of the top responses says, “Help me understand the math.” “More women than males stated they feel safer around bears. Therefore, in retaliation, you as a guy chose to fabricate images of them being brutally dissected in order to demonstrate your lack of violence and safety around women.

Women who feel that some men genuinely don’t understand, or care to comprehend, what it feels like to never feel completely safe with other people have become frustrated by this kind of inadvertent proof-of-theory.

A post on Instagram Threads, shared thousands of times, further illustrates this gap.

The post says, “A woman should definitely pick the bear.” She’d be eaten by the bear. It won’t even slightly assist her. A man with whom she may form a strong bond and who will cooperate with her to ensure their survival in the wilderness. If she applied her femininity. He would hunt, building and protect.”

It goes on, but that penultimate line, “if she used her feminine traits,” spawned waves of comments from people shocked at the irony.

Many critics also appear to be misinterpreting what constitutes a hypothetical inquiry. For law students, the website LSD Law provides a particularly lucid explanation:

“Hypothetical refers to something that is utilized to explain or make sense of something else, but it is not necessarily true. It functions similarly to a made-up scenario that we utilize to reflect or learn from.

Men are adding their perspectives to the conversation.

Though it may seem like a gender-based conflict, the “man vs. bear” debate is not at all binary. Numerous males have voiced their opinions and sided with the bear in this case.

Which would her father, a lifelong bear hunter, prefer for her? that question was posed by a TikToker.

After giving it some thinking, he remarked, “You’d have a better chance with the bear.” Subsequently, he continues, seemingly devoid of drama or irony: “Because men are evil.”

Another user added a layer of nuance, pointing out that men (or people in general) can lie, make false promises, downplay their own danger and generally be predatory on a level no bear could ever be.

He claimed that the bear did not offer an apology or a vow to never repeat the behavior.

The originator of the current man vs. bear argument on TikTok and anti-misogynist educator Call Me BK stated he didn’t even think the topic was hypothetical.

He makes reference to a video that was uploaded on March 12 in which he states, “Seeing a man is ten times scarier than seeing a bear if you’re alone in the woods.”

In a recent piece, he wrote, “I never presented it as a ‘would you rather’ question because I already knew that women were picking the bear.”

Call Me BK has made multiple videos in an attempt to explain to males why ladies would choose the bear, but each time he does, people comment that he is foolish, hateful, illogical, or worse.

However, some positive comments have argued that the question isn’t meant to lambaste men or pick apart the potential danger of a bear encounter. It is, in the way hypothetical questions are, a door to something bigger.

An important discourse was begun by you, a TikTok commentator said. “It went beyond a simple argument. As a result, a few of us mothers had crucial conversations with our older sons. This is the kinda thing that can change the future.”