This seems to be comparing percent of women who’ve been attacked by a bear to the percent of women who’ve been attacked by a man, which… I mean, I guess? But a more fair statistic would be comparing the percentage of bear encounters that result in an attack to the percentage of man encounters that result in an attack. This is also comparing fatal bear attacks to non-fatal man attacks. Not to mention, their conclusion that a woman is safer in a forest with 260 bears than with one man assumes that the man is with them, and the bears just exist somewhere in the forest and may never see nor even be aware of them.
I agree with the conclusion that a woman has a greater chance of being victimized by a man than by a bear, but this whole argument just feels like it’s designed to not stand up to critical analysis with the intent of labeling whoever tries to call it into question a misogynist, though, and I’m not going to get into all of that again.
The entire question itself I don’t think was ever meant to hold up to any analysis. It’s more about making a statement on how threatened women feel in public. Bear attacks are rare while women are acutely aware of how dangerous being out in public feels. Roughly 20% will be sexually assaulted at least once, half of them before the age of 18, and that number jumps up to somewhere around 40% for trans women specifically, but the stats don’t account for the cultural pressure that’s exerted on every other woman outside of the victims by things like victim blaming and the way that men act in regards to women and their bodies. A simple look at current American politics is a perfect example of why women would “choose the bear.”
The whole thing kind of reminds me of the question about the walrus and the fairy that went around Tumblr earlier this year. It doesn’t matter what the stats say about the likelihood of a fairy being the one knocking at your door. More people would be surprised to find the walrus on their doorstep because at least with a fairy, you just have to accept that magic exists and not figure out how the walrus got there or learned how to knock on your door.
Sure, and that’s fine - but if that’s the case, why do we get long-winded explanations with stats and math like the one linked to earlier? Maybe not everyone got the memo that it wasn’t supposed to hold up to scrutiny, but when someone writes something like that, apparently with the intention of it looking like an actual statistical analysis of an actual situation, they’re opening themself up to analysis and criticism.
This seems to be comparing percent of women who’ve been attacked by a bear to the percent of women who’ve been attacked by a man, which… I mean, I guess? But a more fair statistic would be comparing the percentage of bear encounters that result in an attack to the percentage of man encounters that result in an attack. This is also comparing fatal bear attacks to non-fatal man attacks. Not to mention, their conclusion that a woman is safer in a forest with 260 bears than with one man assumes that the man is with them, and the bears just exist somewhere in the forest and may never see nor even be aware of them.
I agree with the conclusion that a woman has a greater chance of being victimized by a man than by a bear, but this whole argument just feels like it’s designed to not stand up to critical analysis with the intent of labeling whoever tries to call it into question a misogynist, though, and I’m not going to get into all of that again.
The entire question itself I don’t think was ever meant to hold up to any analysis. It’s more about making a statement on how threatened women feel in public. Bear attacks are rare while women are acutely aware of how dangerous being out in public feels. Roughly 20% will be sexually assaulted at least once, half of them before the age of 18, and that number jumps up to somewhere around 40% for trans women specifically, but the stats don’t account for the cultural pressure that’s exerted on every other woman outside of the victims by things like victim blaming and the way that men act in regards to women and their bodies. A simple look at current American politics is a perfect example of why women would “choose the bear.”
The whole thing kind of reminds me of the question about the walrus and the fairy that went around Tumblr earlier this year. It doesn’t matter what the stats say about the likelihood of a fairy being the one knocking at your door. More people would be surprised to find the walrus on their doorstep because at least with a fairy, you just have to accept that magic exists and not figure out how the walrus got there or learned how to knock on your door.
Sure, and that’s fine - but if that’s the case, why do we get long-winded explanations with stats and math like the one linked to earlier? Maybe not everyone got the memo that it wasn’t supposed to hold up to scrutiny, but when someone writes something like that, apparently with the intention of it looking like an actual statistical analysis of an actual situation, they’re opening themself up to analysis and criticism.