Exit, Pursued by a Bear

In which not all men get the point of a question.

A week or so ago, a woman on the internet posted a video about a question she had asked some women.  She asked whether, if they were alone in the woods, the women would rather encounter a man, or a bear.  Six out of seven initial women, who were asked this question for the purposes of the video, chose the bear.  Overwhelmingly, the women of the internet in the comment section of the video said they also would choose the bear.

And predictably, the men of the internet are losing their minds over it. 

There are a thousand and one takes on this from men, ranging from raging men who cannot fathom why women would choose the bear using rhetoric that you would think would make it self-explanatory, to men fervently declaring that they are “not like that” and many men aren’t and boy if women would just give them a chance for once!, to men explaining the choice to other men by citing the statistics for sexual assault and other crimes against women perpetrated by men, to men simply going “I’m a man, and speaking as a man who knows what other men are like, if I were a woman, I would choose the bear too.” 

(Perhaps my favorite comment on it was from a gay male friend of mine who joked, “Lucky for me, I get to choose both!”)

This debate has reignited discussion around the statistics of sexual assault against women (ranging from one in three to one in four depending on what gets counted), the incredibly low conviction rate for rape and sexual assault if women do report (which by and large they don’t precisely because of the low conviction rate and the way law enforcement tends to treat sexual assault victims), and oddly, the now suddenly controversial number of reported bear attacks on women. 

The lack of self-awareness of men in general, even the ones trying to defend the women choosing the bear, is both interesting and sad to me. 

All of these takes focus in on the wrong thing. 

It’s not at its heart just about women’s safety, though it is about that.  It’s not just about men’s reflexive vitriolic rage at the thought of being somehow vaguely accused, though it is about that as well.  It’s not about the contingent of increasingly isolated men who cannot see why they have become toxic and undesirable to women, though it is about that also. 

This question is simply one about preferential opinions.  And overwhelmingly, what the response from all these men on the internet really shows is more fundamental:

According to all these men, women are not allowed to have preferential opinions. 

Even the defenders who jump in to say “here are all the reasons why women are perfectly justified in choosing the bear” miss this crucial point: women don’t need to justify their preference here. 

I used to be to a high school English teacher.  One of the things that I taught as part of units on general critical thinking is the difference between objective fact and subjective opinion, and specifically within teaching opinion, I also made a further distinction for my students: there are preferential opinions, and declarative opinions. 

Declarative opinions are claims; they’re opinions that are stated as a truth or a fact.  Declarative opinions are things which we think others should agree with and adopt as some form of subjective agreed-upon truism.  “George Washington was the best president” is a declarative opinion.  Shoulds and should nots, what to do about a problem, and other subjective “truths,” these are declarative opinions.

These claims are part of a persuasive dialogue with others; they seek to affect others or to declare something to be accepted as true or false, though they are not objective fact. 

Declarative opinions, if they are to be persuasive, do require some reasoning, some explanation of how the claimant got to their claim.  You can believe George Washington is the best president, but if you want anyone to agree with you, you will need to back that claim up with evidence and reasoning. 

Preferences, on the other hand, are wholly internal to us.  It doesn’t really matter if anyone agrees with us.  We’re not seeking to persuade others.  We’re not declaring something to be true or false for anyone but ourselves.  “I like George Washington the most out of the US presidents” is a preference. 

Preferences do not need justification to anyone but ourselves.  You like cashews more than pistachios?  Ok.  You like reading trashy romance novels more than hard science fiction?  Great for you.  You don’t like deep fried cheese curds?  Well.. ok, look, we have to draw the line somewhere here, you sociopath. 

If the question were phrased “Do you believe women should choose the bear or the man?” that would be calling for a declarative opinion. 

But the question doesn’t call for that. 

The question calls for a preference.  Men who are jumping in on either side of this are either inserting justifications for women that are not needed, or they are trying to invalidate women’s preferences – which probably has a lot to do with why women prefer the bear here. 

The reasons don’t really matter.  There certainly are implications here for men, which should be sobering to us!  It’s a preference that should lead to self-reflection for men!¹

And here’s the real kicker: men’s preferences are never subjected to the same scrutiny.  They just aren’t. 

Think of a time when specifically women look at a survey question of men that is about a preference and en masse come out to say "no, men are making the wrong choice here" or "here's all the reasons why men are right to have this preference."  Men will jump into those survey questions to attack other men if the survey comes out a certain way (something like “Men, do you prefer curvy women or thin women?” for example, might draw that kind of scrutiny from other men).  But I cannot think of a time when women have in any mass movement sought to invalidate a preferential opinion of a significant majority of men, or have sought to defend it from criticism!

I asked some other men if they could think of anything, and the only thing that any of them could come up with was a resistance by women to a preference by a sizeable and apparently growing minority of younger conservative men who want a “tradwife.”  For those not familiar, this is your June Cleaver stay-at-home mom who handles the entire domestic sphere of the household and subserviently waits on the man of the house, with pretty limited autonomy outside the home or in decisionmaking.  Despite the popularity of various social media accounts, various publications promoting the idea, and articles suggesting that more women are choosing this than ever, women overwhelmingly reject this preference for themselves (the labor participation rate for women ages 25-54 is at near an all-time high of over 75%, including in the target audience for these “tradwives” in the 25-25 range, and stay-at-home-fathers have been rising for some time now) Some of these women have come to reject the concept after years of misery and unfulfillment.² 

However, I don’t see any part of this that is really that comparable to the bear question, where men overwhelmingly prefer something with negative implications for women on the whole and there is the same massive critical oppositional response or rush by other women to defend the preference.  This “tradwife” preference is still a pretty small population of men.  It’s far from six out of seven men. 

I think a massive piece of this need by men to invalidate the preferences of women, or even to defend those preferences, comes from the incredible fragility of men in especially US culture.  Many of them cannot stand to be questioned, and many (as evidenced by the vitriol from this bear question) cannot cope with even the theory of being questioned. 

The problem with being at the top of a hierarchy of any kind is that there comes a constant fear of losing that place.  This is evident in supremacy thinking of every stripe: white fragility comes from the same fear.  Any expansion of rights or equality or even respect for others in the lower echelons of the hierarchy feels like an assault to the people at the top of the hierarchy because it diminishes their superior place in the hierarchy. 

This is often entirely subconscious and implicit.  Most people who demonstrate this kind of fragility are wholly unaware of where these responses are rooted. 

But at its core, this offended reaction by men to this question comes out of a feeling of precarity in their identity – one which often goes wholly unnoticed by men, but exists because they are by default granted a position of unearned privilege in society due to patriarchal traditions. 

My wife and I watched the recent Barbie movie together, the one directed by Greta Gerwig with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in it. 

Frankly, I loved it.  Every artistic aspect of the movie was outstanding.  The cinematography, the blocking and staging, the set design, the dialogue, the acting, every aspect of it was perfectly executed.  From a technical standpoint it is a masterpiece, even without its incredibly thoughtful commentary on male fragility and toxicity. 

The film satirically dissects the nature of patriarchy, and maps its effects not just on women, but also on men.  The problem of patriarchy (really of any hierarchical thinking) is that the roles are entirely defined by relationship of the upper echelons to the lower ones.  Ken is so easily seduced into patriarchy because his role had always been not just subservient to Barbie, but entire dependent on her for his very identity.  For the first time, he has a taste of privilege, where rules no longer apply to him. He is made to feel seen and respected for the first time in the Real World, even though he has absolutely no qualifications or aptitude.  (This is, in fact, quite pointedly commented on in the film!)

This ultimately leads to a place of fragility, though!  Ken is suddenly at the top of the hierarchy simply by virtue of “that’s the way it is” and not because he’s been elevated there by a broader mandate or through the respect of others.  His sense of identity, both before learning about patriarchy and after, is wholly dependent on how others see him. He has no autonomy of his own.  Once he elevates himself to the top, his position there rests solely on making sure none of the Barbies have enough power to question it.  It’s very fragile.  The mere questioning of the authority could cause the whole thing, including Ken’s identity, to collapse (and it does when the Barbies simply cause the Kens to question each other’s authority). 

The question about the bear similarly implicitly questions the place and identity of men, and the response demonstrates this same fragility. 

The question asked was incredibly generic, but literally tens of thousands of men or more saw it as a personal attack on themselves, or masculinity as a whole.  The implications of all the women saying they’d rather choose the bear was something that cut them deeply because they, like Ken in the film, feel unseen and unchosen, especially when many of them so desperately want to be seen as protectors and providers.  They saw themselves in a mirror they held up to themselves by the question, and they did not like what they saw. 

Many of them probably don’t even know why they feel this way: hence the comments that often seem to just generically lash out at the whole thing.  “Not all men!” is a fragile cry of “but I’m not like this!  Right?!  Right…?” 

So many other men feel the need to come to the defense of women.  This is from a place of better intention, but a place no less fragile.  I get that it’s largely meant to be an explanation or defense against the men whose weak egos are so wounded by the implications of the question that they may be dangerous, but this defensive position continues to implicitly assume that women’s preferences need justification to men. 

Nowhere do I see men standing up to say “If you’re a guy and you’re offended by this, that’s a you problem.”  I do not see a wave of men saying to other men “these women owe you no explanation; if you want them to choose you over the bear, be better a better choice than the bear.”

I don’t even see men standing up and going, “Whoa.  This is not good.  Women, what should we be doing to be better?” 

There is no curiosity on the part of men as to why women feel this way.  There is only either full out rejection of their feelings on the matter, or men who rush in to explain why women should feel that way. 

In general, when someone has a preference that you don’t understand, asking about it is the simplest thing to do!  (Again, unless that person’s preference is the rejection of deep-fried breaded fresh cheese gifts from God, in which case there is only one explanation and it is that something is fundamentally broken in their souls.) 

Until that acceptance of women’s preferences and self-reflection on the part of men happens, patriarchy is going nowhere. 

But perhaps this is a time when that conversation can start to happen.  This can be a good teaching moment for young men to address the damage that patriarchy does, not just to women, but to them, and to hopefully get a generation of men who can break this toxic cycle and treat women as equal partners whose preferences are just as valid as theirs.  Instead of them turning into incels and “men going their own way,” perhaps these men can be taught to start looking at the preferences of women as a roadmap to being better partners, and better people.

While thousands of years of history give me reason not to be optimistic, perhaps this is a time in history where patriarchy might finally be effectively challenged.  Through the magic of social media, conversations can happen with people around the world, not just in our own lives.  We are more connected than ever, which means that the ability to broadcast ideas has become democratized, and the flow of discourse is greater than at any time in history.

Now is the best time to start a dialogue, particularly with younger men who are wondering why women would rather choose the bear to them, about the nature of patriarchy and the toxic effects of it specifically on men.  It is the best time to address these young men who are struggling to define themselves and their identities, and teach them how to be better men, men who are worthy of respect and of being chosen by others (especially over bears). 

Maybe this preference to dangerous wild animals that would just as soon eat women as anything else might finally wake up some of the older men who up to now just haven’t gotten it. 

Perhaps this hypothetical bear may finally chase patriarchy to exit out of our culture, stage left, at last. 

1. It won’t, of course, because we literally have thousands of years of written history of men invalidating women’s preferences and being explicitly told why it’s problematic and the men are always responding “uppity females are just so illogical and hysterical.”  But I digress.

2. Honestly, this “traditional” concept has always been fictional to begin with, and it’s a virtual impossibility to actually accomplish, even when it isn’t utterly miserable for the women involved.  For all the popularity of the social media accounts online saying “no, no, it’s great!” an increasing number of disillusioned women are speaking out against it.