I’ve met a lot of bears, but not nearly as many bears as men

May 24, 2024 1:18 PM

This leads us straight back to the original conversation about “Man or Bear,” which has nothing to do with bears. (Sorry, bears!) “Would you rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear?” is just another way of asking, “Are you afraid of men?” It’s the same question I’ve been fielding for the entirety of my life as a solo female traveler. It’s the same question that hovers over women all the time as we move through the world. And it’s a question that’s always been difficult for me to answer. from A Woman Who Left Society to Live With Bears Weighs in on “Man or Bear” by Laura Killingbeck [Bikepacking]
posted by chavenet (38 comments total)

"he tended to want to become a bear"
posted by HearHere at 1:33 PM on May 24 [1 favorite]

That was a thoughtful, compassionate article. Thanks for posting.
posted by clawsoon at 1:44 PM on May 24 [10 favorites]

i also appreciated it. thank you, as always, for your wonderful posts!!
posted by HearHere at 1:49 PM on May 24 [2 favorites]

Glad to see this here.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:03 PM on May 24 [1 favorite]

What a great article! Thanks for posting it.
posted by medusa at 2:14 PM on May 24 [1 favorite]

Wow that was excellent.
posted by aubilenon at 2:16 PM on May 24 [2 favorites]

“Would you rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear?” is just another way of asking, “Are you afraid of men?”

I think this is a good point regarding this debate. A huge percentage of women have been in a situation where they had reason to fear a man. A tiny percentage of women have ever had to fear a bear, directly and personally. Men can be very dangerous. Bears can also be very dangerous. The idea that you might not fear a bear is easy to entertain when you're sitting in your house playing on your computer.
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon at 2:26 PM on May 24 [8 favorites]

going off of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America bears kill about one woman per year over the last 25 years. men are a greater threat to women than bears are.

the question was never "would you be more afraid if a man or a bear were actively trying to kill you?"
posted by sharktopus at 2:42 PM on May 24 [19 favorites]

I see sharktopus has already linked to the Wiki on bear attacks: If you're in, say, New England you have even less to worry about. There's no record of a bear ever killing a woman here.

Also:
I'm the Bear from the Woods and Bumble Wants Me to be Their New CEO
posted by justkevin at 2:52 PM on May 24 [9 favorites]

At least if I was attacked by a bear, people would believe me.
posted by june_dodecahedron at 2:52 PM on May 24 [89 favorites]

It was pretty neat to see this article come up on Bikepacking.com. For the most part their content is equipment reviews, race/ride reports, and people's trip experiences and as much as they include other voices the site generally reads white and male. It's a good site but not one you need to visit too regularly unless you have serious Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

When I plan a bikepacking or hiking trip my concerns are purely about logistics. Getting in and out, how far I plan on travelling in a day, what do I need for the weather, how much extra space/weight can I give to extras, etc. I worry about bears somewhat in that I do a bear hang if there are no food lockers available, but in Ontario we've only got black bears and they only want your food so I'm not worrying about them attacking me for the fun of it. My biggest worry about other people is getting accidentally shot by a hunter, but I wear bright colours for that, or someone stealing my bike if I'm leaving it unattended.

I don't need to think about what happens if I have a bad interaction with someone. The closest I'll get to safety considerations about other people is sometimes I dream about doing a trip like the GDMBR but then wonder about riding into some small town as a visibly brown person and what kind of reception I'd get. It goes without saying that in my wonderings the people I'd have to worry about are men.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:58 PM on May 24 [8 favorites]

In general, people are usually pretty jazzed when they see a bear in the woods. If they were honest, men would also answer "bear". I get that this misses the point, but it does highlight what a gentle way "man or bear?" is of talking about the subject of scary men: it's memorable, kind of funny, and everyone's answer would be the same so nobody should be getting mad.
posted by surlyben at 2:58 PM on May 24 [5 favorites]

At least if I was attacked by a bear, people would believe me.

"What were you wearing? Were you eating something? Did you get between it and its cubs? Did you have bear spray? Bells? Did you fight back? Did you encourage it, maybe try to pet it or feed it? Bears seldom attack humans, so you probably did something to deserve it. That's assuming you did get attacked and aren't just looking for attention. You could have got those claw marks and bite wounds from rough consensual mauling, and now you're trying to get bears in trouble because you're embarrassed."

edit: em-bear-assed
posted by The otter lady at 3:01 PM on May 24 [33 favorites]

Bear-splaining. #notallbears A woman needs a man like a salmon needs a bear.
posted by amanda at 3:07 PM on May 24 [11 favorites]

Bears are never "not all bears." They're more like "all not food???"
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:36 PM on May 24 [2 favorites]

I've never seen or heard a bear in the wild but a couple of years ago I was at a campground where people were really careless about leaving food out and one morning I was walking back from the washroom to our campsite when a bear casually crossed the path maybe 5 metres in front of me walking from one campsite to another. Camp rangers came almost immediately and chased it away but I don't know what happened to it in the end. I hope they didn't have to kill it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:43 PM on May 24 [1 favorite]

I've encountered bears in the woods probably a dozen times and they've all been either chill or eager to get away from me but Laura Killingbeck did it in Alaska and honestly the bears and the men there are both a lot worse than you're likely to find in the lower 48.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:54 PM on May 24 [10 favorites]

And generally bears, and I've had a lot of encounters with them, don't want to fuck with humans.

The guys down at the Eagle beg to differ. Hippy.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:06 PM on May 24 [12 favorites]

I don't know why so many men are so mad about this man vs. bear debate. Doesn't anybody watch horror movies? If the bear is the killer, you're basically in some lame 1970s or 1980s ecology-themed horror movie. If I were a character in that movie, all I would have to do to survive is to be smarter or faster than the other characters. I'd immediately make myself into a minor character by noping myself out of the movie in the first 5 minutes.

On the other hand, if I were in a horror movie scenario & it's a creepy guy in the woods, I could be in some 1970s backwoods exploitation movie or a 1980s slasher or a torture porn film. I'd try to run, put I'd probably end up with my leg caught in a bear trap.
posted by jonp72 at 4:41 PM on May 24 [7 favorites]

posted by hippybear at 1:50 PM on May 24

Came for bear content, was not disappointed!
posted by cosmologinaut at 5:25 PM on May 24 [12 favorites]

This is reminding me, perhaps apropos of nothing, of watching a video of a First Nations man (who had done nothing wrong) trying to do anything and everything he could to get out of an interaction with a police officer. As I was watching, his increasingly anxious, desperate attempts made me think of someone trying every recommendation they'd ever heard to escape a determined grizzly attack.

I am thankful to have never met a grizzly, or a police officer who was determined that I was a threat, or a man in the woods who seemed like he might want to do me harm. (I have crossed paths with black bears a couple of times, and we all just went on our ways.)

But on to the article... I have for sure learned some very counterproductive things about how, as a man, to get (or not get) affection. I've muddled through at least some of it, and Metafilter has been helpful. (Ironically, it was most helpful back when it was fightier than it is now.)
posted by clawsoon at 5:29 PM on May 24 [10 favorites]

If I deny his attempts at closeness by leaving or setting a boundary, he could feel frustrated, rejected, or ashamed. If he doesn’t know how to recognize or manage those feelings, he’s likely to experience them as anger. And then I’m a solo woman stuck in a forest with an angry man, which is exactly what women are most afraid of.

The whole section around this quote is a great summation of the problem, and how exhausting it is. Bears are so much simpler to deal with, even potentially dangerous ones.
posted by tavella at 6:40 PM on May 24 [25 favorites]

As a woman who camps alone at LARPs, bikes alone on a mountain bike, and hikes alone in the forest behind my house, when she writes "the most common question I get about my travels is some version of, “Aren’t you afraid to bike/hike/travel alone as a woman?”" I get it. Even as a six foot tall woman with a black belt in Aikido, I know that physical distance from men is the key to my safety when I'm alone. If I come across a guy on my walks, I usually start assessing ma'ai (distance of encounter in Aikido), trying to keep a clear, ready mind, and thinking about which technique will counter a sudden grab or lunge. His ability to draw upon adrenaline, his muscle density, his endurance, are all likely significantly higher than mine - and even at six feet tall, I'm seen far more as a target than a threat. So I keep out of range, and I wonder if he'll be able to outrun me if it comes to that (the answer is probably yes, because he'll have more endurance).

That is my very normative response to men when I'm alone in the woods - and I see them all the time. (For those fixated on why I'm not worried about bears, I've seen those once in the woods, so they're frankly not relevant to my nature activities).
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:55 PM on May 24 [24 favorites]

I thought the organization of that essay was particularly good. I mean, not much in it was novel subject matter, I’ve spent plenty of time trying to explain it to myself or another; I was a little surprised at some of the topics that came up early; and then everything was in place for that conclusion. Wow.
posted by clew at 7:16 PM on May 24 [3 favorites]

There’s no time to think, so I operate on instinct. My task is ridiculously complex. I need to deescalate any signs of aggression, guide the man into a state of emotional balance, and exit the situation safely, all at once. This process requires all of my attention, energy, and intellect. It’s really hard.

Not sure how many commenting here have read the article, but it's very good. The description of what it's like to deal with a potentially hostile man is exactly correct.
posted by Zumbador at 8:31 PM on May 24 [21 favorites]

I'd like to join the chorus: excellent article, thank you.
posted by holist at 10:35 PM on May 24 [2 favorites]

Tangential nature PSA: if you're in North America and you're south of Nunavut, the only bears you're going to encounter are black bears. (Okay, British Columbia does also have a few grizzlies.) Black bears are mostly chill dopes unless you act like a jackass; they want to avoid you at least as much as you want to avoid them. Unless you're incredibly unlucky (or you're the sort of person who would deliberately antagonize a bear), you're vastly safer with a strange bear than a strange man.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:08 PM on May 24 [5 favorites]

There are definitely grizzlies south of Nunavut, not just in BC. Yellowstone most famously, but there's a fair few in Alberta and other parts of Montana. But in general, yes the only ones you are likely to run into outside of that limited area are black bears, which have been known to be chased off by domestic cats. Though there have been a surprising number of deaths in the lower 48 in the 2020s going by that Wikipedia page, I'm wondering if something about the change in behavior patterns during the pandemic had something to do with it.
posted by tavella at 11:24 PM on May 24 [4 favorites]

Yes, fair enough, they also do exist in Alberta and Montana. I was handwaving their range a little. But yes, outside of a few specific areas, you aren't going to be meeting a grizzly.
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:29 AM on May 25 [1 favorite]

While at first I found the first few paragraphs a little "Patriarchy 101", I do like how she intentionally spells out how men, as individuals, are my generally good and kind people, but patriarchy, in its efforts to create power structures that benefit men, is the actual problem; and I think there's an unsaid part of this around how so much of the male response of "how dare" when it comes to choosing the bear is about men seeing the wilderness as dangerous because the wilderness is a context where the patriarchy has limited power.

The bear doesn't care if you are a man. Nor does the storm or the forest fire. They will all be a danger to you, the man, if that is what happens. Most forests are tame. Most bears will not attack. Most weather systems are benign; but men who go into the wilderness have to do all kinds of mental and emotional labor to assess bear tracks, or get weather forecasts, or consider the likeliness of a forest fire before venturing forth. And for women, that kind of threat assessment happens ALL THE TIME.

And that is what this entire meme is about.
posted by bl1nk at 8:50 AM on May 25 [10 favorites]

bl1nk: I do like how she intentionally spells out how men, as individuals, are my generally good and kind people, but patriarchy, in its efforts to create power structures that benefit men, is the actual problem;

I was reading Caliban and the Witch recently, and it talks about how poor men were peeled away from medieval revolutionary movements by giving them a stake in the hierarchy of violence. It was an extended propaganda effort in the early modern period to extend patriarchy all the way down the social ladder as a way to prevent equality from coming up the social ladder.

and I think there's an unsaid part of this around how so much of the male response of "how dare" when it comes to choosing the bear is about men seeing the wilderness as dangerous because the wilderness is a context where the patriarchy has limited power.

That's a really interesting point. It makes me think about how the first thing that Christian missionaries do when they enter a nature-worshipping area (and apparently something that the Romans did, too) is cut down sacred trees and declare that no spirit of the forest is to be feared. And then they're followed by colonists or clear-cutters who attempt to control the forest in a way that makes their declaration true. (I suppose that might be part of subjecting it to the same hierarchy of violence as above?)
posted by clawsoon at 9:29 AM on May 25 [6 favorites]

Tangential nature PSA: if you're in North America and you're south of Nunavut, the only bears you're going to encounter are black bears. (Okay, British Columbia does also have a few grizzlies.)

Only one person has died in a grizzly bear attack in BC in the last 25 years, even though their range covers basically the whole province and there are over 10,000 of them, while many people have died in Alberta, Montana, Wyoming and the Alaska panhandle. So you should be a lot more worried if you run into a grizzly outside BC than in BC!

The article is great.
posted by ssg at 10:25 AM on May 25 [2 favorites]

tavella: i suspect that the higher incidence of black bear attacks in the US is connected to the occasional bears that wander into suburbs, or become attached to popular campgrounds, and end up warped by that? For instance, people in this town are statistically much more likely to be killed by bears than the general population of the US, and that's because they have structured their relationship with the nearby bears in a way that makes it vastly more likely.

That's not to say that nobody is ever killed in the actual wilderness by a black bear—certainly that does happen occasionally!—but if i'm correct, it still makes meeting a bear in the woods pretty damn safe.

(Also the most deadly animals in North America, measured by how many people they actually kill, are dogs and it's not even close. Domesticated ungulates (horses/cows) are second.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:02 PM on May 25 [3 favorites]

I meet black bears in the woods in the NC mountains pretty often and feel safe, though cautious, as long as I don't see cubs, or if I do see them, I'm not anywhere near separating mom from cubs. I hate running into them on the street after dark, though, because the ones wandering through town are much more people acclimated and people-food motivated. All of the deaths I know about in the Southeast have been food-conditioned bears in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:42 PM on May 25 [3 favorites]

Bears aren't afraid that women will laugh at them.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:21 PM on May 25 [10 favorites]

I found a bear statue today and got my picture taken with it. Choosing the bear!
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:10 PM on May 25 [2 favorites]

Obligatory reference to the best documentary footage on man v. bear interaction ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP92j-uEnps

Based on this compelling footage, one should always choose the bear, as men are inherently more dangerous.
posted by hankmajor at 6:01 AM on May 26 [2 favorites]

‘I Would Treat You Better Than Bears or Men,’ Says Sasquatch
posted by polecat at 3:06 PM on June 13 [1 favorite]