this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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Jeez. These comments.
I don't understand why this triggers so many men. I think a lot of them just have absolutely no experience talking with women or reading about their interactions with men. Just a total lack of curiosity or interest in what life is like for women.
Also, most people have no experience with wildlife and think all bears are murder machines.
The vast majority of bear encounters outside of very specific locations are with black bears. In which case you just end up momentarily scaring each other and then they run away.
Genuinely men don't see some of the issues women deal with. Like, all of my female friends have stories about dudes being creeps, but my male friends mostly don't have stories like that. It's extremely easy to be out of touch with even your close friends on this matter.
I personally don't like it because the analogy makes the generalization that ALL men are evil and planning to cause harm. That's incorrect, and vilifies me. I didn't do anything to be vilified. I didn't throw any stones, so wtf...
Generally speaking, I abhor these types of fictitious analogies. I understand that women have apprehension of men in general. I know why that is. This whole bear thing is just mean to every man though. I don't appreciate it.
I really don't want to give a rhetoric lesson in a comment, but not everything people say is a 100% absolute that is about you specifically. It's a commentary on the fact that many women do not feel safe around a random man because of their lived experiences. If you don't understand why that is, you have the entire internet at your disposal.
Look, you claimed you didn't understand something. I attempted to provide feedback that would provide insight. It's pretty clear your claim that you didn't understand wasn't sincere; just more wanting to shit on people that feel bad about having been shit on already. I didn't ask for you to provide anything at all; you probably shouldn't have. You seem like a terrible human being.
Yeah, I'm shocked at the level of misogyny on Lemmy. I swear shit was never this bad even a few months ago? Maybe I was being ignorant.
Na, never has been different. Look up any thread that even mildly implies men could do something wrong and it's only hate from there on.
I wonder why tough. Lemmy is fairly left, pro LGBTQI+, etc. but in regards to anything mildly feminist you get... well, this kind of lovely thread.
I feel bad for note paying attention to it sooner. I think I'm going to have to post more of this sort of content all over the place to piss of the sexists.
Sadly brocialism is a thing amongst some leftists.
lemmy is a network mostly populated by cis white men. like a lot of liberal/leftist spaces populated by cis white men, it’s going to be progressive on the surface; i.e., they oppose right wing shit. say here that you support the right to abortion, immigration or gay marriage, and you’re not going to meet much pushback.
but, as soon as you start criticizing dominant groups (or just, say that they have power over oppressed people), now people yell at you. you can see that here, but also, say that anti-white racism is not a thing, or even just that it’s not comparable to actual racism, and you’ll wonder if you actually logged into reddit by accident.
heck, just criticize people’s behavior as bigoted here and they’ll rip you apart…
Yeah, that tracks. I wonder if the average age being around 40 adds to that equation. I am 40ish myself, but encounter a lot of cis white men in their tweens in left spaces, that seem to be quite reflected im regards to feminist topics.
Because it's unnecessarily inflammatory. The "bear or men" thing is apparently interpreted completely differently by at least some men and women and instead of listening to each other it just ends up as hate for each other. Why would you want to piss of the men that are on your side?
... If this question pisses you off, maybe you're not as on the side of women as you think you are.
They're not asking if people would feel more safe with a bear or you, they're asking about a completely random, unknown man.
I'm sure you are one of the good ones, I'm sure the majority of people on this thread are, but it's not about that, it's about the unknown.
You shouldn't be pissed off at women for being afraid of men, you should be pissed off at men that make women afraid.
Nobody wants to be lumped in with a bunch of people they find disgusting, which is what the question is about. I can fully understand women replying the way they do, but I can also fully understand men getting upset over the implication. It's bullshit ragebait and dividing us unnecessarily.
If you're upset over the implication then I have bad news for you: every time you're walking down the street and about to pass a woman, the exact same thought is likely going through her head. There's a very high chance that said thought is from prior experiences, too.
The key thing is that it's not about you, it's not an attack on your or your character, it's about how women feel. I can appreciate why the question feels like rage bait, but you have to also consider that the only reason it feels like rage bait is because so many women feel the way they do and you have to ask why that is. You then have to consider your position, if you would rather that women didn't feel that way, what are you going to do about it? If anything.
The implication that their unknown behavior makes them potentially dangerous gets them upset to the point that they lash out and show exactly that their unknown behavior is, in fact, dangerous? No, I don't understand it, and I understand it proves that the question is right. If this makes someone upset, that person is the danger. It is not divisive because it has always been true for everyone who is subject to it, what makes you upset is that it is being pointed out and explained to you why it has always been bad and why this divide has always been there while you pretended that it didn't exist. I don't get upset when someone points out the existence of a problem that I already knew was there. Hell, even if I didn't know it was there, my reaction is oh shit is that an issue what can we do about this, not how dare you show this to me.
Well, reddit migration I guess.
Well, it's egalitarian, so there's your answer. Equal
Fuck equality!
I do love that picture. I wish it'd be more reflected in real life. That said, none of those people are being brought DOWN - the people in need are being brought UP. Big difference
Fuck misogynists.
If you're not a misogynist you shouldn't feel hurt when I say that.
Agreed. But it's not "would you rather be stuck in the woods alone with a bear or a misogynist", it's with a man, isn't it? People can't help what they're born as. You're judging them for something completely out of their control. Their gender no less, which a lot of men aren't happy they were assigned. And on the other hand you're actively shitting on trans masc choices to be men. I just don't think this sweeping sexism is the answer.
It's not sweeping sexism, it's just toxic masculinity that's the problem.
Feminism is the solution to most problems with men. Men are the ones rejecting the solution without even considering it. So who is sexist here?
Nobody is faulting men for their gender. They are being accused of protecting the bad actors by acting like 'no there is not a problem, I'm the good one'.
By staying oblivious in face of the facts, and not owning up to it and saying 'those stats are fucked up, we need to do better', you are part of the problem.
It's with a random man. You're not a random man, you're you. If a random man isn't safe, that doesn't mean anything about you. You're not Spiders Georg.
That's why it looks like solidarity when you defend the random man.
If I offered you some candy from a big bowl of Skittles and told you that only a handful were poisoned, would you eat one?
One bad apple spoils the bunch etc.
The man/bear thing seems stupid to me - but that's probably just because I've missed the point of it.
Isn't "choice" generally regarded as a problematic and incorrect term to use?
A potential solution to a lot of gender-related issues is to make agender the default. Gender should be opt-in not opt-out. This way more people will not have a gender to be treated as, and people will get more used to treating people in the same way with little regard for gender.
However, this would be difficult.
With that framing, there wouln't be a patriarchy to fight against - just the establishment.
Uh...this is a joke, yeah? 😅
Unfortunately no, it’s been like this since I made my first account over 2 yrs ago. It hasn’t really gotten worse but it’s also not getting better. It’s basically why the AFAB cis population of the platform is tiny. Why would women stick around when this stuff is what every post about women turns into..
Yeah.... The vast majority of the comments I've had rack up a bunch of down votes on this platform have been arguing with misogynists. I think it's mainly a byproduct of the demographics of lemmy mostly being made up of young dudes working in tech.
the root of most hate, and i mean like… DEEP hate isn't any active emotion towards another person but instead an unwillingness to audit our blindspots. what i see a lot on lemmy is people who are steeped in Internet Culture who assume that they are progressive, forward thinking, and have it all figured out. i try to come into discussions with the mindset that i'm guilty of this, too, and that i'm a work in progress.
there's also a deep seated fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism is here that matches very directly to what you would get used to seeing on reddit. it's kind of funny, because it demonstrates that the Read Theory bros theories don't consider critical marxist analysis of gender to be part of the theory that needs to be read, which is frustrating, bordering on upsetting. anytime i recommend someone read bell hooks' Feminism is For Everyone i get antsy about how long in will take for someone who's let conservatives tell them what feminism is to tell me that's a propaganda rag and that bell hooks doesn't know what feminism is
it's like solidarity amongst the lower classes only matters up until the point when you have to start working against the oldest arbitrary division that's been used to keep us from organizing
Unfortunately, I think a lot of the read theory bros on lemmy are people who are less concerned about solidarity with the lower class, and really just involved in Marxism because they want to abolish class because they've incidentally fallen into the lower class.
There seems to be a lot more anger about their own displacement within their own society than the plights of more disenfranchised minorities classes. I think that's why a lot of the Marxist/communist instances are so obsessed with the particulars instead of being a more big tent community.
As a big Read Theory Bro, turned Read Theory Girl, holy fucking shit, this is so true.
Marx, Lenin, and friends are great, but there's so much Feminist and Queer Marxism out there worth reading
Engles' Origin of The Family, Private Property and The State
Alexandra Kollontai's Communism and The Woman Question
Anuradha Ghandy's Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement
Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg
I hope it may be a bit of confirmation bias. Most of the people who are not misogynists just move on after reading the meme and don't comment. I was about to do the same until I saw this comment thread, and now I'm in the gutter of other comment threads here trying to fight the good fight 🤣.
It comes and goes depending on if women are speaking up about stuff or if the misogynistic men can forget we're here
My first real experience on Lemmy, was a thread about men overrunning a women's tech job fair. And Lemmites seeing nothing wrong with it.
It kinda set the tone.
Maybe it just wasn’t apparent? But flares up in posts like this.
Still. It’s literally mgtow ChatGPT slop, with the caption “hey, you said you chose the bear!” I’m floored/ashamed the response is anything but “wow, Rafael is a jerk.”
The picking the bear nonsense was sexist ragebait to start with, if you don't want people pointing that out then don"t post said ragebait.
Boo hoo that men are offended.
Women: I want men to talk to me instead of leaving me out all the time
Also women: lol stop being offended
"sexism both ways"
Lmfao
That's always the response..... You wanting me to acknowledge the systemic disenfranchisement of women/minorities is sexist/racist.
That or it's .... It's sexist to not let me have a tantrum about the "male loneliness epidemic", and somehow the epidemic is because of women.
It is all the LLM bots that are configured to work on Reddit.
Men in general have no idea what women have to deal with [from men]. And so many men are fragile and want to turn it around and make themselves the victims. If you are having a hard time befriending women, then you need to look deeper into your actions and how they might be perceived by someone who has to deal with unprovoked messaging, calling, touching, staring, following, etc. Men are the reason women travel in groups to the restroom, or that there is such a thing as a drink cover in a bar, or that there are women only driver options for ride services, etc. etc. You just need to realize that even if the actual percentage of men who are creepers is low, it doesn't mean that the number of interactions women have with them is not. All it takes is one scary moment for a woman to be put on the defensive for good.
Still though. Even assuming total ignorance, where’s the respect?
Rafael is an abusive ass. It’s clear cut.
Hence I don’t get the responses below… Are others guys really so afraid of the bear meme “perpetuating a toxic message to other women” or whatever that their respect for other human beings goes out the window? Like it’s too dangerous an idea? I’m pretty socially isolated, yet that sounds like fascism to me.
Most of the user base is from Reddit, so no surprise. Ostensibly progressive guys who take criticism of things other men do personally. I'm particularly familiar given I used to be one of them, though I wasn't on Reddit then.