Well three big reasons, it’s statistically less likely to be an incident, has less terrible results if DOES become a problem and the personal experiences of women. So just to be clear, the hypothetical is
Would you rather be alone in the woods with a random man or a random bear?
And the vast majority of women, myself included, pick the random bear. Of course we realize that bears are dangerous creatures, on average they attack about 40 people a year worldwide. Primarily hikers that get too close to a mother bear and it attacks to protect its cubs.
Now compare that with the statistics of sexual violence. A few things should jump out, primarily that 1 in 5 women experince sexual assault at some point in their lives. One in three victims are minors and just over half of those attacking the crime are known to the victim. It’s hard to compare those numbers straight across, because per year and in lifetime aren’t quite the same thing, BUT it’s also very clear that it’s WAY WAY WAY more likely that a young woman will be harmed by men they know. Exponentially more so than they are attack by bears.
(and it’s worth nothing that most experts agree those numbers are likely lower than reality due to social pressures and shame)
If I were hypothetically alone in the woods with a bear, I would know that so long as I leave the bear alone, its likely to leave me alone. If I mess with it or it’s cubs, I’m liable to have a problem but if I focus on getting home then it’s likely not a problem.
But if it were a random man that knew we were alone in the woods? Well, not only is the man faster and stronger than me, he is also way more likely to harm me than a bear. If I attempt to evade a human, it’s way less assured that I could get home safely. Not only is he way smarter and more motivated to find me than a bear, but he also runs the risk of being sadistic. Even in a worse case scenario, the worst thing a bear can do is simply kill me. But some men are liable to keep me alive simply for their gratification and then eventually kill me. To speak nothing of sadists who will specfically enjoy my suffering. That’s not a risk with the bear. Getting the worst bear in the world means minutes of pain if I am reckless enough to be near it, but getting the worst man means hours/days/weeks of suffering from a captor that is much harder to escape from. Regardless of my actions, age, appearance or relationship to the man.
And let’s say a man/bear does assault me in the woods and I escape back to civilization. Everyone will believe me when I say a bear attacked me. But not so it I say a man. That will prompt questions of
“what were you wearing?”
“Did you lead him on?”
“He said it was consentual, you might be lying because you regret it.”
Mosy women have not been raped, BUT most women have had a man try something explict with them while alone. Be it alone in an apartment, home, classroom or any other place. So when the hypothetical is total isolation from society, laws and repurcussions. When it’s just me alone in the woods, the bear is a safer bet on every single factor.
Try to answer the question with your little sister in mind, would you rather her be alone in the woods with a stranger man or a random bear? Because as I said before, tragically, 1 in 3 victims are minors, how many many men would we this as their golden opportunity for SA without repercussions? Would those men seek her out? Or would you rather the subject contuine being a wild animal in the woods that doesn’t care your sister even exists.
Let me preface this by saying that I’m a man and I too would choose the bear.
That being said the statistics you shared are not an apples to apples comparison because humans are more often in touch with humans than with bears, so the fact that we get attacked way less by bears than by other humans is to be expected even if bears were the most violent aggressors out there. To kind of put it in perspective think about the opposite, how many times have you been close to a human and the human hasn’t attacked you, then compare that to encounters with bears and it quickly becomes obvious that an encounter with a bear is statistically a lot more dangerous than an encounter with a human, because people meet with hundred if not thousands of humans on a daily basis, and only get attacked by one of them periodically, whereas if humans were encountering hundreds or thousands of bears daily the number of attacks would be way higher.
Which is not to say that you shouldn’t choose the bear, like I said before I would choose the bear, but the reason for me is that bears are likely to be more predictable, if a bear decides to attack me I’m fucked, if a human decides to attack me I have a chance of survival, but the likelihood that the bear would attack me is easy to calculate, as long as I’m not threatening him and he has some food, we should be good. on the other hand the likelihood that the human will attack me is completely random, some people will have a 0% chance, while others will have a 100%. So it’s like asking would you prefer to play Russian roulette with the normal rules (1 bullet) or with a random 0-6 bullets? I personally would go for the 1 bullet, because while I can get 0 bullets on the other way I might also get 6 bullets.
Well three big reasons, it’s statistically less likely to be an incident, has less terrible results if DOES become a problem and the personal experiences of women. So just to be clear, the hypothetical is
And the vast majority of women, myself included, pick the random bear. Of course we realize that bears are dangerous creatures, on average they attack about 40 people a year worldwide. Primarily hikers that get too close to a mother bear and it attacks to protect its cubs.
Now compare that with the statistics of sexual violence. A few things should jump out, primarily that 1 in 5 women experince sexual assault at some point in their lives. One in three victims are minors and just over half of those attacking the crime are known to the victim. It’s hard to compare those numbers straight across, because per year and in lifetime aren’t quite the same thing, BUT it’s also very clear that it’s WAY WAY WAY more likely that a young woman will be harmed by men they know. Exponentially more so than they are attack by bears.
(and it’s worth nothing that most experts agree those numbers are likely lower than reality due to social pressures and shame)
If I were hypothetically alone in the woods with a bear, I would know that so long as I leave the bear alone, its likely to leave me alone. If I mess with it or it’s cubs, I’m liable to have a problem but if I focus on getting home then it’s likely not a problem.
But if it were a random man that knew we were alone in the woods? Well, not only is the man faster and stronger than me, he is also way more likely to harm me than a bear. If I attempt to evade a human, it’s way less assured that I could get home safely. Not only is he way smarter and more motivated to find me than a bear, but he also runs the risk of being sadistic. Even in a worse case scenario, the worst thing a bear can do is simply kill me. But some men are liable to keep me alive simply for their gratification and then eventually kill me. To speak nothing of sadists who will specfically enjoy my suffering. That’s not a risk with the bear. Getting the worst bear in the world means minutes of pain if I am reckless enough to be near it, but getting the worst man means hours/days/weeks of suffering from a captor that is much harder to escape from. Regardless of my actions, age, appearance or relationship to the man.
And let’s say a man/bear does assault me in the woods and I escape back to civilization. Everyone will believe me when I say a bear attacked me. But not so it I say a man. That will prompt questions of
Mosy women have not been raped, BUT most women have had a man try something explict with them while alone. Be it alone in an apartment, home, classroom or any other place. So when the hypothetical is total isolation from society, laws and repurcussions. When it’s just me alone in the woods, the bear is a safer bet on every single factor.
Try to answer the question with your little sister in mind, would you rather her be alone in the woods with a stranger man or a random bear? Because as I said before, tragically, 1 in 3 victims are minors, how many many men would we this as their golden opportunity for SA without repercussions? Would those men seek her out? Or would you rather the subject contuine being a wild animal in the woods that doesn’t care your sister even exists.
Let me preface this by saying that I’m a man and I too would choose the bear.
That being said the statistics you shared are not an apples to apples comparison because humans are more often in touch with humans than with bears, so the fact that we get attacked way less by bears than by other humans is to be expected even if bears were the most violent aggressors out there. To kind of put it in perspective think about the opposite, how many times have you been close to a human and the human hasn’t attacked you, then compare that to encounters with bears and it quickly becomes obvious that an encounter with a bear is statistically a lot more dangerous than an encounter with a human, because people meet with hundred if not thousands of humans on a daily basis, and only get attacked by one of them periodically, whereas if humans were encountering hundreds or thousands of bears daily the number of attacks would be way higher.
Which is not to say that you shouldn’t choose the bear, like I said before I would choose the bear, but the reason for me is that bears are likely to be more predictable, if a bear decides to attack me I’m fucked, if a human decides to attack me I have a chance of survival, but the likelihood that the bear would attack me is easy to calculate, as long as I’m not threatening him and he has some food, we should be good. on the other hand the likelihood that the human will attack me is completely random, some people will have a 0% chance, while others will have a 100%. So it’s like asking would you prefer to play Russian roulette with the normal rules (1 bullet) or with a random 0-6 bullets? I personally would go for the 1 bullet, because while I can get 0 bullets on the other way I might also get 6 bullets.