“b-but bears are actually dangerous!” Shut the hell up.
People’s safety is more important than people’s feelings.
I have some extra emotional capacity today so(see edit*) I’ll post some wrong think: but can we stop antagonizing populations that feel disenfranchised by society and therefor giving the truly evil fucks out there an easy population to brainwash and feed extra scummy ideologies to?Young nerdy men who feel excluded from society that dont have any strong female figures in their life are barraged by a constant stream of messaging that could easily be interpreted as “(white) men are evil and the source of all problems with society”
By constantly antagonizing them for not being able to navigate the political nuance of those messages, we give an incredibly easy pathway to the more toxic ideologies that the Tates of the world will pull them into to profit off of them, because they are the only figures who will give them praise and a sense of belonging.
Edit: Its a new day now, and I no longer have the energy. If you want to vent, understanding that venting in this manner will bring about little to no positive change, you do you, I will no longer be responding
The thing is, I’ve seen statements like this before. Except when I heard it, it was being used to justify ignoring women’s experiences and feelings in regard to things like sexual harassment and feeling unsafe, since that’s “just a feeling” as well. It wasn’t okay then, and it’s not okay the other way around. The truth is that feelings do matter, on both sides. Everyone should feel safe and welcome in their surroundings. And how much so that is, is reflected in how those people feel.
The outcome of men feeling being respected and women feeling safe are not mutually exclusive. The sad part is that someone who is reading this here is far more likely to be an ally than a foe, yet the people who need to hear the intended message the most will most likely never hear it nor be bothered by it. There’s a stick being wedged here that is only meant to divide, and oh my god is it working.
The original post about bears has completely lost all meaning and any semblance of discussion is lost because the metaphor is inflammatory by design - sometimes that’s a good thing, to highlight through absurdity. But metaphors are fragile - if it’s very likely to be misunderstood or offensive, the message is lost in emotion. Personally I think this metaphor is just highly ineffective at getting the message across, as it has driven people who would stand by the original message to the other side due to the many uncharitable interpretations it presents. And among the crowd of reasonable people are those who confirm those interpretations and muddy the water to make women seem like misandrists, and men like sexual assault deniers. This meme is simply terrible and perhaps we can move on to a better version of it that actually gets the message across well, instead of getting people at each other’s throat.
Honestly I am so goddamn tired of this shit, everytime something like the bear question comes up it blatantly tilted in one side or the others favor and dissent is crushed in both sets of spaces and no one learns anything.
Best take in this thread by a long shot. I’d like to add that there’s nothing wrong with a little thought experiment to illicit a point. But the internet has become such an inhospitable place to any kind of discussion requiring nuance and patience.
You’re right, feelings do matter, and this post did not dispute that. It’s just that safety matters more.
It saddens me that the default interpretation of this is accusatory and requiring of defense. Not to personally blame you, this is very common and clearly a systemic reaction, but I don’t know enough psychology/politics/sociology to understand why, just enough to know it’s bad.
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It saddens me that the default interpretation of this is accusatory
It’s saying men are inherently unsafe to be around. How is that not accusatory?
This isn’t about women’s safety versus men’s feelings, it’s about women’s feelings (of safety) versus men’s feelings (of respect).
But it doesn’t say you personally are unsafe, it says that the odds that a man chosen at random is unsafe is high enough that women - understandably - fear being left alone with a random stranger to a level at least comparable with being left alone with a bear.
An enormous number of men fail to understand just how common and how terrifying it is for women to be harassed, assaulted and raped by men. And that is exactly what the bear/man hyperbole is pointing out.
And the reason people with takes like yours get chewed out for it is because you could do some reflection and consider
what is this systemic issue, what behaviours might make women around me scared, what can we as a society do to change this, and what can I do to avoid women around me fearing I may be unsafe?
But instead, they take it as a personal attack, and so respond
why am I being attacked for someone else’s behaviour?
Edit: here’s another example in a similar format to demonstrate how the meme is being misinterpreted, note how your first response wouldn’t be “why are you accusing all priests?!”
“Who would you rather babysit your child, a bear or a Catholic priest?”
It’s what it says to me and many of us. Perhaps it’s the messaging.
What do you mean what behaviors? I don’t harass women. I barely talk to people I don’t know. But yet people are still scared of me.
And I would 100% pick a catholic priest. What a dumb choice. And, yeah, you are accusing everyone.
I clearly said: it’s not targeted at you specifically, but at that fact that women are disproportionately more likely to be harassed or assaulted, and when that happens, the aggressor is almost exclusively men.
They’re not scared of you because you’re personally scary, they’re scared of you because there’s an ingrained culture of sexual harassment of women by men. So when you say “that’s a nice dress” to a woman you don’t know, she’s not thinking “aww cute”, she’s thinking “is this guy being nice, or will they threaten me if I turn them down?”
Seriously, ask literally any woman you know if they’ve ever been sexually harassed, and the answer is almost guaranteed to be yes.
I would 100% pick a Catholic priest
Yes, I know that, that’s how hyperbole works. My point is that such a statement shouldn’t be interpreted as “every priest is a child molester” but as “there’s a concerningly high rate of them, and they’re probably not a good option for childcare.”
You are accusing everyone
When did I say “all men are <whatever you’re saying I’m accusing all men of>?” Stop making this about you, and actually try to understand why interactions with men can be terrifying for women.
If you are not targeting all men, stop talking about men as one generalized body.
Sorry, when you say “I’d rather encounter a bear than a man” it sure as hell sound like you are saying all men are dangerous. If that isn’t what you are saying, you are saying it poorly.
But it doesn’t say that
I disagree. Clearly the meme is highly effective. It brought a topic that ought to be in the light back into the light. Considering the frequency of SA, this should be something that people are considering how to handle on a regular basis, but that’s not what you see if you watch the news, listen to the city council, or talk with the school board.
Your opening paragraph sounds similar to the expression “All lives matter.” It didn’t sound like you wrote that ironically.
And the final paragraph is classic heckler’s veto. Two sides disagree, and rather than talk about the serious issue, you make a comment about how people should all try to get along better by speaking in less aggressive terms. But the underlying problem is not about aggressive speech. It’s about aggressive action. So maybe we can focus on that.
Clearly the meme is highly effective.
It was highly contagious, that is, it spread widely. But so was the whole “would you still love me if I were a worm” thing and it was “effective” for the same reason: Gals thought “Oh I want a ‘yes’ to that answer that’d be so emotionally satisfying” and guys thought “WTF why would I want a worm if there’s something more behind it why can’t my SO speak plain English”: It spread by exploiting the emotional kick gals get out of tripping over guys for having a particular default interpretation. No, it is not a “wrong” interpretation to think of the question as “rather with a bear or a man like me”. If you don’t want men to interpret the question like that then pose it differently. Simple as that. But then it wouldn’t be as inflammatory and with that not as contagious.
Each and every time one of these things comes around one of two things happens for the average guy: We a) fall right into a trap and then get accused of being insensitive or b) we recognise the trap, lift our hands, walk back slowly, then faster, then even faster, until making a go at the 10km parcour world record. Because yes that kind of shit is a giant red flag.
It’s like those people who are proud of being “brutally honest” but in reality what they care about is not the truth, but the brutality, just from the other side of the gender distribution.
Yes, feelings matter. Beautifully put.
But nobody is purposefully “wedging a stick” between allies and enemies. No secret society is plotting to prevent you from sending any message of safety. The metaphor is not designed, or created for a specific purpose. You have to realise how crazy and for real dangerous this way of agumenting is.
You aim for a good purpose, then use basically the debate version of biological weapons of mass destruction to make your point.
Just for any small argument about a small thing between sexes, like always it’s fun for people to discuss, and some get mad, but
For you to use the narrative of psy ops, learned no doubt subconsciously, to speak like there is a secret cabal that want you to be fearful, we must unite against some kind of expression just because they are coming for you… No
If anyone takes it too far it’s talk like that, and you unironically talk about how reasonable people are hard to come by
Gee
Wonder why that is brother
But nobody is purposefully “wedging a stick” between allies and enemies.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
There are plenty systems that are not controlled by a cabal, yes
Just because noone sets out to do a thing on purpose, individually, as a group, organically, conspiratorially, whatever, doesn’t mean that the resulting system of action does not act with a particular purpose in the wider system.
Life, for example, has the purpose of hastening the heat death of the universe: We reduce entropy locally and to do that increase the rate of entropy increase in the wider universe. It’s what we do. It’s our purpose, as far as the universe is concerned, whether we like it or not, whether we intend to or not, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we try to or not.
These kinds of memes (bear, worm, what have you) have a particular impact. That impact is their purpose. If you don’t like the impact I suggest advocating against the practice instead of saying “but nobody meant to”. Have some Goethe.
Exactly, which is why your rhetoric is damaging
Purpose implies intent more than outcome. I agree with your overall stance but think something like “result” would be more effective. Calling it the “purpose” makes a similar accusation to anyone who wants to have this debate to what it itself is making about men in general, which will just increase the divide. I don’t think you’re deliberately trying to do that, but I think it could end up being the result.
Your overall point does capture how this whole thing has made me feel. Even as someone who didn’t get offended, understands what women who would “prefer the bear” are actually saying and doesn’t think I’m owed any attention from anyone that doesn’t want to give it to me, the only thing this meme makes me want to do is disengage even more. And a younger version of me would have really resented being made to feel like my mere presence was offensive or scary.
It’s a system thinking heuristic. The reason “purpose” is used instead of result is a) “the result of a system is what it does” doesn’t actually make sense, as systems aren’t events in time but, well, systems which have non-negligible timespans – it sounds something like “what is the result of a dishwasher” – I dunno, what is it doing? Is it standing there? Short-circuiting and on fire? Washing dishes? All that is part of what “a dishwasher” is, does, and therefore, its purpose in the grand scheme of things. And b) precisely to stop people trying to find purpose in motives, intentions, etc, to go with a materialistic instead of idealist interpretation of things. To quote Beer: “There is no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” The purpose of prisons is to rehabilitate? Well maybe in some countries, in other countries no matter what the stated intent is their purpose is to be a place where people can get degrees in how to do crime.
No it’s not and that’s a terrible way to view the world.
Are you the same idiot who argued with me before because he thought he’d found the Word of God in this random philosophical exercise?
Edit: nope, different moron. I wonder why this silly thing is making the idiot rounds lately? It’s like when a 19 year old has their first philosophy 101 class and thinks they’ve gained supreme knowledge of how the world works.
It’s systems thinking and if you think it’s terrible then because it’s terribly good at getting rid of excuses. “Oh but you see the intent of the prison system is to reduce crime, never mind it doing the opposite, move along, nothing to see because intent is all that matters”.
Yes, it’s a thought exercise, not a tautology. And it’s not a great thought exercise either, because people of low intellect apparently assume it’s a tautology because of how it’s worded.
It’s not a thought exercise but a modelling discipline.
Those are more or less synonymous.
I can tell you’ve been huffing too much philosophy because you insist on weird hair splitting like this lol
Downvoted not because it isn’t true, but because they aren’t automatically mutually exclusive and because it is an unnecessary jab at half of the human species. Why are we paying attention to divisive bullshit instead of focusing on things that actually have the potential to help?
What will help?
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It’s also sexist to call all men rapists. Women rape as well.
Purely personal speculation here, I haven’t done any hard reading on the subject:
When you say “women’s safety is more important than men’s feelings”
What you mean is “women’s feelings is more important than men’s feelings”
Well say no more!
Oo! Oo! Are we doing reductionism??
We need different methods to reach people who either aren’t interested in listening, or who don’t think what they’re doing is “bad”. This will require a lot of work and research, but the first step is acknowledging that the current efforts are not helping.
Let’s say more about this!!
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Sees question mark
Uh oh. Sorry dude. Downvoted for using the forbidden punctuation. Them’s tha rules…
In reality, it’s not attacking half the human species. It’s actually attacking people who perpetrate SA, and other people who cheerlead for them. One problem is that many men react just the way you reacted. Instead of saying “let’s solve this problem”, you say “quit being so divisive”. Unfortunately, those are your values.
“I realized men are evil, masculinity is toxic, these are statements of truth and the only ones who deny this shit are cis men themselves.” - CheesyCheese1 This thread
☝️ Top comment when i got here. This issue brings out as many misandrists as it does misogynists.
Even my gf who wasn’t aware of this meme picked the bear vs a random man when i asked her, so obviously there is a problem. But in reality i don’t give a shit if some rando woman would prefer a bear over me in the woods, whatever makes her feel safer i guess. I do care about being tarred with the rape brush though, and this topic is being used to attack all men rather than just the problem ones.
I support sexual assualt because I think associating all men with sexual assault is divisive? Eat shit and die.
Because the solution to women getting assaulted is to make men think about their actions. The post wasn’t anymore divisive than the average black twitter meme. It was a simple tongue in cheek piece about how women have the impossible task of figuring out if a man is going to be their life partner or their rapist & murderer.
“Hey, would you rather be alone with a bear or a man?”
“A bear. And you should think about what you’ve done.” "… Huh? "to make men think about their actions
Do you not understand that, as a very straight man, I’ve never once even thought about hurting a woman?
It’s absolutely divisive. Stop.
But have you thought about challenging a man who does?
Ah yes, let me open myself up to physical violence because I’m a man and that’s my place in the world.
Shut the fuck up
Are you aware that you get to make that choice and that women don’t?
Are you aware that, as a man, I still have the right to protect myself?
God, go fuck yourself you troglodyte.
I’ve never once even thought about hurting a woman?
then you’d know it’s not about you. I don’t think women want to potentially be mauled to death by the bear, it’s simply preferable to the horrible shit men do to women with astonishing regularity. kidnapped and raped to death, or kidnapped and raped for decades.
do you need links, to show how unfortunately regular this kind of thing is? because they’ll turn your fucking stomach. just because you’re ignorant about how often it happens doesn’t mean you should take it personally when women make a logical choice. they’re safer with the bear. You’ve never thought about hurting a woman, that’s great, but it doesn’t do shit for the women who have had this shit done to them by men for the history of the species.
It’s absolutely divisive. Stop.
oooOoh poor boy, it hurts your feelings huh? get over yourself.
Is vague with their wording, immediately backpedals to “I dOn’T mEaN aLl MeN”
Shut up
there’s some real delusional entitlement going on here. one for all the supposedly ‘good guys’ who feel blamed for rapists - I don’t rape women but would never begrudge their need to defend themselves. telling women they need to take literal risks for the sake of ‘not hurting the good guys’ feelings’ seems kinda fucking gross.
I don’t get why any man would jump to defend the chuds, unless they feel pointed out as a chud.
then you’d know it’s not about you.
It absolutely is. You are saying no man, myself included, is safe. That no matter what good we might do individually, we will always be viewed as monsters. Can you not see why men find that hurtful?
It absolutely is. You are saying no man, myself included, is safe. That no matter what good we might do individually, we will always be viewed as monsters. Can you not see why men find that hurtful?
look mate if you want to self identify as a rapist / creep, be my guest. if you want to identify that way and then wonder why people find it creepy, well, I don’t have the crayons.
If you think women assume all men are rapists, you’re wrong. if you think women assume some men are rapist creeps, that would be EXTREMELY RATIONAL. Now, compare those two categories with the number of times a woman has had to worry about being raped by a bear.
Come on, you can do it. Count on your toes if you need to. There we go: it’s none.
So some, vs. None.
Now work it out.
I’m not self identifying as anything. You are saying woman should be more scared of me or any other man. And bears may not rape, but they do other damage.
You are saying woman should be more scared of me or any other man
I mean… the historical record is replete with horrible shit men do to women:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_violence_against_women
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Incidents_of_violence_against_girls
https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw
https://people.com/crime/gallery-elizabeth-smart-jaycee-dugard-kidnapping-survivors/
https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-serial-killers-of-women/ranker-crime
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf
so you figure it out for yourself mate, I have neither the time nor crayons.
Imo this doesn’t impact the men who would do such a thing in the slightest. You’re just making the ones who have empathy feel bad, those who would rape are just getting their egos stoked by this fad: “Look at me, I’m more dangerous than a bear! That means I’m badass”
The problem is a large portion of rape is not done by serial rapists who rapes every chance they get, it’s done by average dudes once or twice when an opportunity arrives. Most rape cases involve someone known to the victim.
Rape culture (as awkward and taboo of a phrase as it as) is a real thing that this bear analogy is pointing to. You may not have anything to examine in yourself that is the result of that culture but a metric fuck-ton of men do have internalized rape cultural aspects that need to be examined and extracted. The fact that so many women picked the bear is a testament to how pervasive that culture is, at least in their eyes.
The point isn’t to stoke the egos of the serial rapists with no empathy, it’s to use empathy to make the “average-Joe” rapist examine his internal biases before they turn into an actual rape.
However, women’s feelings does not equal women’s safety.
I’m a woman (a trans one if that matters to you) and have experienced sexual assault and domestic violence from both men and women.
I know the point that people are trying to make with the whole bear thing.
But I think the friction comes from women talk about this as a theoretical to make a point, where men are thinking more literally.
And I do belive that no one in there right mind, if actually given this option in real life, would pick a bear (unless maybe it was definitely one of the more harmless species).
Each and every one of us, even those of us that have survived SA, have had countless uneventful interactions with men you don’t know. Even when it’s just one on one. And its mostly normal biases that makes us remember the shitty ones more. And something a lot of people forget is that the vast majority of SA victims already know their assailant, so the idea of a rando assaulting you is even less likely. So yes I would much rather be in the woods with a man, than a wild fucking animal. And if you’re a reasonable person, then you would too.
Honestly I think it depends more on the guy than the bear. Any time you’re alone in the woods (at least in the US) it’s safe to assume you’re with a bear, that’s where they live. Most bears keep to themselves though.
People tend to be less low-key, and less predictable. To me it seems more likely that a random guy could follow you around, take your stuff, or generally make life more difficult. There’s also a higher chance for a guy to assist you and make things easier, but I can understand how the potential risk could outweigh the potential benefits.
Nono you’re not allowed to judge the man individually. You’re required to judge before you see both the man and bear so that we get a properly over-essentialised judgement how else are we going to propagate in- / out-group divisions.
it makes me happy that this is near the top of this thread, but this comment is also only 15 minutes old, so i’m not sure how far down the pipeline of this post, it’ll track.
(This is me being glib) It depends on what kind of bear we’re talking about. Blackbear be big noisy and confusing, grizzly play dead, big hairy gay guy like best case scenario.
As a trans woman who has also been sexually assaulted, it has more to do for me with what danger is more real to me. I’ve experienced zero bear attacks. Nobody I know has experienced a bear attack. Why would I fear one? Of course, consciously yeah, I know a bear is dangerous, but I have no real world experience to back that assumption up.
Men though? Yeah, I’ve been sexually assaulted by men. I’ve been physically assaulted by men. I’ve had family and friends who’ve been physically and sexually assaulted by men. That danger is real to me. I know that if a man I don’t know is nearby me he could do those things to me, and I have the real world experience to prove that assumption correct (the assumption that they could, not the assumption that they would.)
Therefore, of course I’m more scared of the man than the bear. And of course I’d choose the bear over the man. I don’t care if it’s the wrong choice, I’ll take my chances to not have to relive that trauma, even if it means risking my life. Not like I’ll have time to regret that decision if the bear decides to kill me. Probably. And most women I know when asked expressed the same sentiment in different words. We’re more scared of men than bears, but that doesn’t mean we literally think men are more dangerous than bears.
Is it the logical choice to pick the bear? Probably not, but humans are not logical creatures. I’d rather make the wrong choice than the scary choice.I’d rather make the wrong choice than the scary choice.
Unrelated to the topic, but this mindset is exactly why far-right movements are getting so strong right now.
I agree. I never said it was a good mindset. Therapy is definitely something we need to learn to deal with this and think logically. The issue is so absurdly many women have been traumatized by men that the mental health support systems would be so overloaded that it’s just a fact that only a miniscule fraction of women would ever be able to receive help, even if we had absolutely perfect support systems.
So the only solution is to prevent them from getting traumatized in the first place. But the entirety of Lemmy seems really resistant to that conversation. Would rather quote statistics about “oh the average man isn’t likely to assault you” than to accept that the ones who do are dealing enough damage that the problem needs to be dealt with regardless of what the average man is doing.
This is a great look into the mindset of someone who’s been through SA. Thanks for sharing.
The point I think a lot of men are trying to make is that: In the same way that somebody who commits SA may have been abused themselves, women who are prejudiced against men create a new victim. Treating a harmless man as worse than a dangerous animal is an experience that most every man goes through and that sucks.
I can understand and sympathize with your position. But it doesn’t absolve you of your behavior. Just like someone who commits SA isn’t off the hook because they were beaten as a child and that screwed them up. I feel for someone who was abused growing up, but they don’t get to throw up their hands and say it’s not their fault they victimize others. Compassion is crucial, but at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own actions.
But what’s going on here isn’t something within the control of most people. When you’re abused by somebody you don’t choose to fear those people, you fear them because that’s what your brain is wired to do to avoid repeated trauma. Like I said, therapy is the solution, but only part of the solution. The other part is fixing the issue causing the trauma in the first place. Men aren’t being victimized by the women who fear them, they’re being victimized by the other men who caused that fear.
And I want to be clear, because I’ve realized at this point that this isn’t obvious anymore in today’s world, fear is not an excuse for misandry. At the same time, fear of men is not misandry. Somebody saying they’d rather pick the bear should be met with “oh, we should fix the issue causing them to fear men more than bears,” not “oh, they should fear bears more.”
I also want to be clear that this isn’t even a gendered issue despite the fact that it’s been made into one. A man who’s been abused by women and would rather pick the bear should also be met with compassion and “how can we reduce the number of female abusers?” I’ve actually been abused by women too. In fact, more often than I have men. I want to be clear that even though this discussion has been about men specifically, I feel the exact same way about women. That we still need to be compassionate to their victims and accept that the people who traumatized them are the problem, not their trauma.
Fearing somebody is not an action you perform, it’s a state you’re in.You seem incredibly well adjusted for what you’ve been through and clearly you’ve learned a lot from your life experience. Thanks for laying all that out. It was very insightful. I think we agree on 99% of this. So at the risk of splitting hairs, I’m going to put a magnifying glass on that last 1%.
I think fear absolutely victimizes people. I’ve seen xenophobia and homophobia do plenty of damage. Men are far from a disenfranchised minority and I think the issue of women’s safety is much more pressing than men being treated unfairly in some situations. But it still shouldn’t happen.
You’re right that in a way it’s the fault of the dangerous men who abuse women. But in a way, hypothetically, it’s really the fault of their parents who sexually assaulted them. But in a way it’s the fault of their parents genetics that made them mentally unstable, etc, etc all the way back to the first multicellular organism. This thinking, however true, isn’t very useful. People need to take responsibility for their own actions.
We agree fear is not an excuse for misandry. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for women to fear men after having a traumatic experience. However I can still point out the problem here. I think a good example is the trolley problem. If you pull the lever to only kill one person instead of six, I can both: agree with your decision but also point out that you killed someone. You can argue that’s insensitive to your difficult dilemma, but I think it’s worse to pretend like someone isn’t getting hurt. That one person who died still was a life with people who will mourn them.
I think what’s irking men about this whole bear thing is not that the result is not what they want or even what they expect. It’s that a huge chunk of people seem to not even see it as a problem that most men are being judged for something they have nothing to do with.
I’ve never been shot or held at gunpoint, but I have have the shit kicked out of me. But still if given the option to face a person with a gun and a person with the bare hands. I don’t think I’m going to pick the the guy with a gun.
There’s a serious difference in the level of trauma between these examples, and the level of exposure to the dangers of the counter. Sexual trauma is a hell of a lot more scarring on your psyche than simply being beaten. In addition, at least in the US we’re exposed to gun violence every day as opposed to basically never for bear attacks. Even in other countries with better gun control, you’re dramatically more likely to hear about somebody being shot than you are to hear about somebody being mauled by a bear. Not only that, but it’s really easy to process “get shot, you’re dead.” It’s not as easy to make yourself believe you’re definitely gonna be killed by an animal that has whole guides written on how to survive them.
Those two things combined make your example far from comparable. In addition, I’m not saying in any way that the fear is justified nor that no attempt should be made to fix it, what I’m trying to point out us that people don’t realize how intense a fear it really is when they get offended at people making this choice.Obviously, therapy is important to learning how to handle that fear and think more logically, but if every woman who needs it sought therapy for this, there just aren’t enough therapists in the entire world to handle the load. Not even close. So a bigger part of the solution is, y’know, making sure women aren’t getting traumatized in the first place. But everybody here wants to skip that part for some reason.
Sexual trauma is a hell of a lot more scarring on your psyche than simply being beaten.
Very hard disagree.
You’re free to disagree, but for me and many others, I’ve been through both, and I’m definitely waaaay more scared of being sexually assaulted again than being beaten half to death again. They have very different effects on your psyche. Physical violence I react far more with anger than fear, even if I was terrified in the moment. When it looks like it’s happening again, my brain says “Fight back.” When I’m afraid of sexual trauma being relived, my brain says “Escape, now. Can’t escape? Submit. Maybe that way they won’t kill you too at least.”
👍
How about you Google the man who’s face was eaten by bear and then decide
How about you miss the entire point and get aggressive for no reason?
Seriously, what kind of response to “I’ve been traumatized by men” is “you should traumatized by bears too?”
Most bears would just walk away from you when you make a loud noise. Men would approach you. So even I as a man, would pick a bear
How many female teachers have been caught fucking their barely pubescent students this year alone so far?
It isn’t a men-women problem. People just suck.
You spelled it wrong, the sign should say “Safety is more important than feelings”
I’m a woman and the same way that women feel about men in this whole meme thing, is the exact same way I feel about women…
I don’t trust women within a hairs inch of my life and I would rather be with a bear than a Woman but I bet you I’ll get super downvoted for this opinion.
My wife shares the same opinion. It’s not something she can discuss in her social circles, but she feels like she’s been backstabbed in more awful ways by her fellow women.
When she gets in that pattern, I try to remind her that people tend to suck and you have to be choosy regardless of gender.
I feel like with men it’s usually more physical and with women it’s more social/mental. And physical is way easier to document and make stats out of
Have you had some negative experiences that led to this?
This whole thing is bait.
Anyone engaging on any side of the debate are fools. Any topic antagonizing half the population will somehow stir up some noise.
It’s like saying all women are bad at sport because they don’t train hard enough. It’s ignorant and serves only the purpose of creating a divide in the population.
Stop engaging in the divide.
I like this logical approach.
Also: eat the rich.
I see OP noticed how much traction and drama this post stirred up last week so they decided to try it for themselves.
My edge-case where I run into something semi-related to this issue is when I go on my daily walks and get caught walking behind women. I’m a fast walker, it pains me to have to slow down for people and I don’t like having to walk awkwardly around other people walking too slow (especially if they’re just barely slow but not too slow). I realize that the Flash is trapped in a living hell walking behind all these goddamn slow walkers.
I dislike walking behind women especially, nothing that’s their fault, they’re just living life, but because then I get extra self-conscious, like, “Oh geez, what if they think I’m following them or that I’m trying took at their butt or what if I’m making them uncomfortable.” It’s about the implication. Walking slowly isn’t an option because it extends the whole thing out and makes it worse, so then I have to re-route my whole walking routine on the off-chance my very existence might make somebody else uncomfortable.
I’ve tried saying things to them to try to put them at ease like, “I wasn’t planning on raping you,” or “Hey, it’s ok, I’m not a rapist,” but nothing seems to work, if anything, it makes them more uncomfortable. I honestly don’t know what women want from men.
That’s quite the universal statement. I think first and foremost, men need to learn that they might not be part of the problem, but that there are many very problematic ones among us.
The feeling of general suspicion is what we need to tackle. If you don’t grasp the problems and their magnitude, you will naturally take offense in being suspected.
We need to take this feeling and turn it into anger towards the disgraceful people that are the reason for the suspicion.
So on the contrary, I think men’s feelings actually matter a lot, if you want to reach a world free of misogyny and violence against women.
Sometimes things aren’t your fault but are your problem. And men making excuses like “just locker room talk” and not confronting other men in their lives who do or say toxic things or espouse ideas or personalities that generally make women uncomfortable are our problems, whether or not they are our fault.
I wish I could do this at work. The most inappropriate things I hear in a regular basis are from my own leadership.
I mean, it depends. I am not my own gender police, I don’t see my life with my peers as “shaping the culture of manhood” because having gender in common is basically irrelevant and there is absolute no sense of belonging for me into “manhood” as a gender. We are not talking about contributing to shape the culture of your organization, or club or something, where there are (or should be) some form of shared values.
In fact, I find this whole idea between silly and sexist, where by sexist I mean rigid attributes applied based on gender.
The way I see it is that I - as a man - have absolutely nothing to do to help with the overall problem and the only way that I can help improve is by not being part of it (in this case, not assault, rape, stalk, harass etc.). That’s pretty much the end of it.
I have no heard a man express what you would call a toxic opinion in like twenty years. And yet women are still just as afraid. Crime rates are at an all-time low, yet women are more afraid than ever.
Whether it’s my problem is my decision. Primarily, it is women’s problem. And they have practical steps they can take to fix that problem. I refuse to make someone else’s problem my own problem, if that other person is ignoring steps they themselves can take to fix it.
I’m all for helping out, but only people who have done the first step themselves.
Women’s general attitude toward this is “It’s my problem but it’s your responsibility to solve it” and I say fuck that. I have my own problems to solve. My life is, in fact, absolutely full of problems that take all my energy to solve.
I have no heard a man express what you would call a toxic opinion in like twenty years.
Your personal experience is not representative of the experience of the rest of the world. Though I am very glad that this has been your experience!
You’d think that it would appear on video maybe once, somewhere on the internet, if it were happening. Can you link to a place where men are saying these things? If not, does that indicate something about the rate at which it’s happening?
I can link to videos of UFOs and videos of dogs walking on their hind legs. Are these defining our culture? If not, what does that imply about something you can’t find a video of?
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html
I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.
Or for another example, see Andrew Tate and all the idiots who follow him.
This, except that shouldn’t be anger, really.
Anger is a feeling that leads to alienation, and an alienated beast is the most dangerous one.
We should be on a watch for potentially dangerous behaviors and offer help so that people gently unlearn their ways.
That’s not to say people who have already committed some form of abuse shouldn’t be punished, but that we should fight for those who can become dangers and support those who recognize their mistakes and genuinely strive to do better.
The feeling of general suspicion is what we need to tackle.
I agree. This general suspicion is not good. As Bruce Lee says, “Do not be tense, but ready”.
I recommend women take concrete steps to protect their own safety, so they don’t have to be constantly on high alert. That’s a terrible way to live.
When people justify racism with statistics: That’s stupid and you’re a bigot
When people justify sexism with statistics: Only one side’s feelings matter! I’m going to post this divisive meme everywhere!1!
Edit Sexists know how to downvote, but not present a logical argument.
Stay tuned for the next “men suck” cycle: ‘toxic masculinity is bad you should express your feelings instead of bottling them’, more after the break
This rage bait is so old the Simpsons parodied it:
“Today’s topic…”
I’m doing my part by playing with Arch Linux in my mom’s basement instead of going outside. Where women are. And Arch Linux isn’t. I use Arch btw.
Well I’ll have you know I do the same but with Fedora Linux (like arch Linux but imo better). I use fedora btw.
I’ll have you know my Linux runs on bears. Makes me, and all my many female friends who hang out, more comfortable.
I don’t like much bloat in my Linux though; just the bare necessities.
