Man or bear?

[WCZ]

2xChevrons said:

Using 'female' to refer to a particular woman ("what was the female doing in the woods at night anyway?") and - especially - 'females' to refer to women in general )("The majority of females surveyed responded 'a bear'.") comes across as dehumanising. Like you're narrating a nature documentary or writing up an anthropological study. Or, in some contexts, it comes across as like something from a serial killer's manifesto.

for what it's worth I wrote "females" in my inital post as I thought it was apt as the surveys/threads/tiktok stuff had a huge range of ages (esp tiktok being particularly young girls) and didn't meant it to be dehumanising

[BikeBikeBIke]

2xChevrons said:

asfault said:

fk me get me off this planet now. Not allowed to use the word female?

Get a grip. Of course you are. It's a perfectly good adjective. But it shouldn't really be used a noun.

Using 'female' to refer to a particular woman ("what was the female doing in the woods at night anyway?") and - especially - 'females' to refer to women in general )("The majority of females surveyed responded 'a bear'.") comes across as dehumanising. Like you're narrating a nature documentary or writing up an anthropological study. Or, in some contexts, it comes across as like something from a serial killer's manifesto.

I've found it a fairly reliable indicator of people with (at least) questionable attitudes to women.

So Bears are safer than men in the case of women, but below the age where women is the approprate term that's no longer the case?

Are these Bears asking the age of their prey?

[otolith]

Maybe they misheard and thought they were being asked if they wanted to go to Wales?

[2xChevrons]

BikeBikeBIke said:

2xChevrons said:

asfault said:

fk me get me off this planet now. Not allowed to use the word female?

Get a grip. Of course you are. It's a perfectly good adjective. But it shouldn't really be used a noun.

Using 'female' to refer to a particular woman ("what was the female doing in the woods at night anyway?") and - especially - 'females' to refer to women in general )("The majority of females surveyed responded 'a bear'.") comes across as dehumanising. Like you're narrating a nature documentary or writing up an anthropological study. Or, in some contexts, it comes across as like something from a serial killer's manifesto.

I've found it a fairly reliable indicator of people with (at least) questionable attitudes to women.

So Bears are safer than men in the case of women, but below the age where women is the approprate term that's no longer the case?

Are these Bears asking the age of their prey?

Fair enough (and to WCZ) - my fault for using illustrative quotes from the thread when we are (effectively) talking in sociological terms.

I stand by the point in terms of general/political/daily conversation. As the other poster said, it has a touch of Ferengi about it.

[BikeBikeBIke]

2xChevrons said:

Fair enough (and to WCZ) - my fault for using illustrative quotes from the thread when we are (effectively) talking in sociological terms.

No we're not. We're talking purely about biology.

You're saying biological bears are safer than biological human males.

Do sociological bears poo in the woods?

Edited by BikeBikeBIke on Friday 10th May 13:54

[2xChevrons]

BikeBikeBIke said:

No we're not. We're talking purely about biology.

You're saying biological bears are safer than biological human males.

Do sociological bears poo in the woods?

Edited by BikeBikeBIke on Friday 10th May 13:54

You are talking biology - effectively "facts and logic-ing" reasons why the respondents are wrong. I have said nothing about what the actual statistical 'answer' is. I don't think that's really the point of the issue.

The fact that a majority of women (female respondents or whatever) answered the question the way they did is a sociological problem, and quite an interesting one.

As I said, stripping it back to the risks presented by bears versus men rather misses the point and is actually rather illustrative of the reason why the answers have fallen the way they have. Proving that the women have been giving 'the wrong answer' isn't actually helpful or that constructive.

Edited by 2xChevrons on Friday 10th May 14:01

[bitchstewie]

The Rotrex Kid said:

It's pretty bonkers when you think about it. I recently walked a mile or so back from a venue to a hotel. alone in a city I'd never visited before, just before midmight and I'd had a couple of drinks, when I've relayed that story to some of the women I work with (and even my wife) the general consensus is that they would never imagine doing that in million years. I didn't even question it for a second

I think sometimes there's an almost wilful effort not to think about it going from some of the responses.

[BikeBikeBIke]

2xChevrons said:

You are talking biology - effectively "facts and logic-ing" reasons

Yup. Fact and reason.

[2xChevrons]

BikeBikeBIke said:

Yup. Fact and reason.

So the ladies are provably, statistically wrong to be more wary of men than bears if they're alone in the woods. Well done. Great. Point proven. The statistics spell it out.

How does this inform or help discussion about why the women (with their illogical, counter-factual, flighty and emotion-driven female brains?) answered the way they did?

Which is actually the root issue. Or should be. Not "nah, bears are clearly more dangerous. Mumsnet don't know what they're talking about. Moving on..."

I think telling women not to be wary of men they meet because if those men were bears they'd be far more dangerous wouldn't be well received. Especially given that so many women have very good reasons born from personal experience to be defensive or cautious, or to take self-preserving measures, around men in their day to day lives.

Edited by 2xChevrons on Friday 10th May 14:12

[BikeBikeBIke]

2xChevrons said:

So the ladies are provably, statistically wrong to be more wary of men than bears if they're alone in the woods.

Agree.

2xChevrons said:

How does this inform or help discussion about why the women (with their illogical, counter-factual, flighty and emotion-driven female brains?) answered the way they did?

It doesn't, but if stops you releasing bears in a primary school or jumping in a Bear pit to get away from men then it was time well spent. Have a great afternoon.

[White-Noise]

Anyone with any sense will pick the man. A bear may not want to eat you but I wouldn't fancy my chances against one. A random man on the other hand will most likely help you etc...

I run up the woods in the dark in the winter, the only people I ever see are other runners or dog walkers. The reflective eyes here and there are a bit unsettling sometimes but there is no risk.

Most of the time this random man will help you, it won't be the axe murderer everyone imagines why are murderers walking round the woods in the dark in people's heads!?

[JagLover]

2xChevrons said:

Fair enough (and to WCZ) - my fault for using illustrative quotes from the thread when we are (effectively) talking in sociological terms.

I stand by the point in terms of general/political/daily conversation. As the other poster said, it has a touch of Ferengi about it.

Do you have a similar objection to the use of the word "male"?

[2xChevrons]

JagLover said:

Do you have a similar objection to the use of the word "male"?

Yes, when used in the same context. "Check out the males in this club!" or "We all know that males don't like expressing emotion" or "That red and white Citroen 2CV isn't the sort of car you'd expect a male to drive" all sound clinical and odd. Basically where it emphasises basic biology over personhood or where it's irrelevant.

[BikeBikeBIke]

White-Noise said:

Anyone with any sense will pick the man. A bear may not want to eat you but I wouldn't fancy my chances against one. A random man on the other hand will most likely help you etc...

I run up the woods in the dark in the winter, the only people I ever see are other runners or dog walkers. The reflective eyes here and there are a bit unsettling sometimes but there is no risk.

Most of the time this random man will help you, it won't be the axe murderer everyone imagines why are murderers walking round the woods in the dark in people's heads!?

+1

I MTB in the dark all winter. Frankly it scares the bejesus out of me but that's not a rational fear - just some leftover bit of the monkey brain telling me to look out for sabre tooth tigers.

Murderers don't walk 10 miles out of town and wait in the wet and cold night after night hoping someone passes by one day.

[isaldiri]

2xChevrons said:

So the ladies are provably, statistically wrong to be more wary of men than bears if they're alone in the woods. Well done. Great. Point proven. The statistics spell it out.

How does this inform or help discussion about why the women (with their illogical, counter-factual, flighty and emotion-driven female brains?) answered the way they did?

Which is actually the root issue. Or should be. Not "nah, bears are clearly more dangerous. Mumsnet don't know what they're talking about. Moving on..."

I think telling women not to be wary of men they meet because if those men were bears they'd be far more dangerous wouldn't be well received. Especially given that so many women have very good reasons born from personal experience to be defensive or cautious, or to take self-preserving measures, around men in their day to day lives.

Right. So given the root cause of this is the 'illogical, counter-factual, flighty and emotion-driven brain' (according to you), how exactly do you think there is any point in informing or helping it as logic and reason (clearly it seems) isn't going to work? Make everyone else do something equally illogical, counter-factual and emotional just to try to solve a problem caused by that in the first place?

[bitchstewie]

No they sometimes show you their Police ID before abducting and killing you in an outskirt of London.

Are you deliberately refusing to even attempt to see the points behind the survey that are being made or do you genuinely think how you feel when you're out on your mountain bike has anything at all do with anything?

This whole Mr Logic thing is just bizarre.

[Leon R]

bhstewie said:

No they sometimes show you their Police ID before abducting and killing you in an outskirt of London.

Are you deliberately refusing to even attempt to see the points behind the survey that are being made or do you genuinely think how you feel when you're out on your mountain bike has anything at all do with anything?

This whole Mr Logic thing is just bizarre.

See this is exactly what happens when you do what I said earlier and model the behavior of others on the worst examples.

As soon as people are asked the question they don't picture a bear and a man, they picture a bear and Wayne Couzens.

[JerseyRoyal]

Someone will semantically prove that all those stupid women are wrong eventually.

[bitchstewie]

Leon R said:

See this is exactly what happens when you do what I said earlier and model the behavior of others on the worst examples.

As soon as people are asked the question they don't picture a bear and a man, they picture a bear and Wayne Couzens.

Yeah fair point that I've used the worst case scenario.

But stop and think about the daily drip drip drip of behaviours some of which have been mentioned on this thread and many of which there have been countless reports and other threads on.

Obviously the really extreme scenarios like Couzens figure somewhere in there but if you're looking for the reasons so many women have such stty opinion of men I think you have to step back and look at the complete picture around behaviours.

There's an article somewhere called something like what would women do in a world without men and there's stuff on there you'd never even expect to hear like "wear what I want".

Some of them range from odd to creepy to totally fking disturbing to dangerous to deadly.

And no #notallmen or whatever someone will come back with.

Just approach it with an open mind which a lot of men don't do as this thread demonstrates

[thegreenhell]

Leon R said:

bhstewie said:

No they sometimes show you their Police ID before abducting and killing you in an outskirt of London.

Are you deliberately refusing to even attempt to see the points behind the survey that are being made or do you genuinely think how you feel when you're out on your mountain bike has anything at all do with anything?

This whole Mr Logic thing is just bizarre.

See this is exactly what happens when you do what I said earlier and model the behavior of others on the worst examples.

As soon as people are asked the question they don't picture a bear and a man, they picture a bear and Wayne Couzens.

Would it be better or worse if you show them your Pistonheads ID?