Man vs. Bear: Why It Failed to Accomplish as Much as It Could

The Man vs. Bear Debate had recently taken social media by storm, but quickly died down. In a TikTok video, eight women were asked who they would prefer to encounter in the woods: a bear or a man. Seven of the eight women chose the bear, and the video went viral, with memes based on it making the round on social media, sometimes with information on sexual assaults attached.

This was supposed to show how evil men were and how far we had yet to go. Any man who complained about it was seen as the usual "not all men" and you had the usual crowd celebrating its "honesty." However, it was also quickly mocked because of inherent issues within the comparison. It ended up failing, as it's likely to be forgotten in the long run. There are some good reasons it failed, mostly because it just didn't ring as true as some felt it should.

The Bear Issue

Part of the problem, when it came to taking the meme seriously, is that bears in the wild are actually pretty safe to be around. That is, you basically need to go after them to get them to attack you: get between a mother bear and her cubs, throw things at them, and charge them. You can even keep them away from you by making lots of noise during hiking. They can even be foiled as thieves just by hanging up food just beyond their reach. You need to really go after a bear, or make them mad when they're getting ready for hibernation, to make them a fearful presence. Put another way, annual bear attacks average at around eight per year; hardly something to base a fearsome attack on.

It really doesn't help that bears have this pop culture reputation as one of the go-to creatures to cuddle up with, given their soft, thick fur and protective nature. In indigenous myths, they are known as healers and protectors, even as they've been used as fearsome tools of the gods (such as in The Seven Sisters story or as commanded by Elisha).

In short, if you were looking for an animal that looks ferocious but no one sees as a threat, the bear is the perfect animal. It would have been interesting to see how the poll would have gone if they had used wolves instead. Or wolverines. The creature, not the Hugh Jackman character.

Then There's The Changing Social Mores

If this meme had been released even a decade ago, it probably would have found a greater audience. However, things have been changing in a lot of ways. First, women are being seen more and more as attackers: Statutory rape by female teachers has lost a lot of the coolness factor that it used to have and we're seeing more sexual harassment from women as more become supervisors. Human Resources departments are also seeing upticks in complaints about predatory female behavior, ranging from women in too-tight clothes to women making passes at co-workers; these complaints were almost solely the domain of men with tight pants and aggressive behaviors in years past.

We're even starting to look at rape victims themselves differently. Gay and transgender groups have been leading the charge, forcing people to look at victims of rape as more than "just women." Violent crime researchers have been reporting that male victims make up a significant number of victims, even though it's worth noting that men reporting being raped is still a taboo. People have also been looking harder at domestic violence, where women are more likely than popularly believed, and where there is no help (counseling, support, even escape) for male victims as there are women; there are no homes for battered men.

In short, we're not seeing sexual assault as something limited to just women, and we're seeing that as a good thing.

[Obligatory Caveat: This is not to make it seem like men aren't the most likely aggressors in a given situation, just to show that the situation is more nuanced than "all men are bad, all women are victims."]

But What About the Pop Culture Paradox?

One of the most frustrating aspects of the situation is that pop culture hasn't really caught up with the society it reflects, but that's because no culture is monolithic. Consider romance novels: They are full of aggressive men who get the women they want, usually because of their aggressiveness, the very trait that men in real life are being asked to curb. However, that they are being written by women representing their fantasies on the written page has helped to encourage the more aggressive men.

They are not an exception, however: Romcoms, Hallmark movies, and even popular shows are written by women, directed by women, produced by women, and are all full of men who attained their women by being aggressive. Yes: "Their women" is intentional as women in those media become a trophy of the man's quest more than they were any sort of partner. If I were to look at media created by women for women, it would be hard to see any of the victories present that women have fought long and hard for; there are too many Hallmark movies where women give up everything (their success, their fortunes, their very agency) just to fall in love with a man from a small town.

[It's somewhat ironic that the action-adventure genre has been traditionally slammed for its depiction of women as trophies, but it's the one where its heroines are the equal of the men in the same genre, with the same limits and issues. It's learned to its advantage that a woman with a big gun has its own sex appeal.]

The problem is that while the message in real life is that women should be equal to any other person, the books, movies, and music tell women and girls that they need to accept their second-class lot in life. That's not a message we need to be telling the next generation.

If fantasies affect reality, then we need to change the fantasies.

The Bear Remains

We're on the cusp of some major changes. You see it in the desperation of pretty much every political group as they vie for power; just as conservatives see bogeymen in every bathroom, liberals debate the credibility of the latest numbers. That we debate issues like Critical Race Theory without really being able to explain them says more about our need to be divided than our need to be together. We need to stop looking for reasons to be scared of each other and look for reasons to love each other if we're going to ever walk together into the future that we keep catching glimpses of.