Given the amount of noise and flames that have arisen over this debate, it seems kind of unnecessary to describe the debate, but might as well. If you were a woman, what would you rather encounter whilst lost in the woods? A man or a bear?
If you ignore all the emotions involved and think about it logically with statistics, you may well come down on the side of picking a man.
There’s a study “out there” which shows that for every 1,000 women, “only” 4.7 will be attacked (and it’s 9.5 for men) – see https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf. There is plenty of evidence that women are far more likely to be attacked by a man they know rather than a stranger – See :-
- https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/statistics-sexual-violence/. 1 in 7 rapes against women are carried out by a stranger (it’s stated as 6 in 7 rapes are carried out by someone a woman knows).
- https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023. Of murdered women, just 6% were murdered by strangers (as opposed to nearly 20% for male victims).
We are very poor at judging risk – we (women and older men – which I’m rapidly becoming) tend to stay in at night not because we’re likely to be attacked but because we fear being attacked. And fear doesn’t respect logic.
So women widely choosing the bear shows :-
- On average women are no better at judging risk than men. Well that’s a no-brainer – people are still people.
- Women fear strange men. It’s irrelevant if statistically they’re safer walking around late at night than sat in their own home, they still fear men.
- To a greater or lesser extent (and perhaps unintentionally), they may be picking the bear to make the point about men doing something about violence against women.
It’s a great way of making that last point; perhaps even better for being statistically the wrong choice. We should be doing more to stop violence against women.
But I would go on to say we shouldn’t stop there; we should be doing more to stop violence against all people. And indeed any sentient creatures.
