I RUN a hiking group here in Australia. And the sole purpose of this question is to promote toxic men and women to start toxic discussions. I’ve never seen it posted outside of Reddit/lemmy in hiking communities, and the only real life discussion I had about it, was by a female hiker who messaged me about it once, and called it stupid… I agreed…
The vast majority of people who join my group (even overnight solo with me), are women (and no, I’m not a bear). In fact, I’m probably as average as they get (straight, white, not particularly tall or short, no tatts, etc)…
Whenever the question of safety comes up in hiking groups, and anyone says "women need to bring a weapon, and keep it under your pillow, trying to make them feel insecure, the entire female and male community tends to completely blast them for doing so. Such threads are always full of primarily women re-affirming others that they are safe and push them to give things a go. Based on that, I don’t think many women from the aussie female hiking community would agree…
So, things might be different in America, but here in Australia, it’s not true. And I regularly speak to a few women who run their own groups, and whilst I can’t speak on behalf of any of them, I suspect at least some of them would hate this discussion, as they are interested in encouraging women to hike, be active and be their best self. This question is designed as a weird hypothetical instead.
I’d even argue, the question likely wasn’t posted by someone who actually hikes much either. More likely it was posted by someone who wants to argue with others, or having a bad week (possibly some weird 4Chan troll even).
Firstly, as far as I understand, the concept is supposed to be that you’re stuck in an unknown location with no witnesses. Hence the choice of “spend a night in the woods alone with a bear/man”. The purpose of this is to ensure that neither the bear nor the man are going to have peer pressure or have any sort of intervention from a third party.
Secondly, I’m not a toxic woman and this isn’t a toxic discussion. The hypothetical is a vessel for encouraging discussion about women feeling unsafe around unknown men. The bear isn’t the point. The takeaway is supposed to be "a lot of women feel so unsafe around unknown men that they’d choose [insert bad thing].
This isn’t a discussion about real life hiking safety. Many women (including me) are sharing their discomfort about random men. Hear them, acknowledge them. Their fear and discomfort is based on their lived experience or the lived experience of the women close to them.
Side note, not sure if the Australia vs America comment was directed to me or the discussion in general but for posterity’s sake I’m not American and don’t live in America.
There were two posts in men’s liberation which may be good food for thought.
There are two (three) types of people
People who understand why women would choose the bear
People who are the reason women would choose the bear
(People who haven’t heard of the bear discourse and don’t have enough context from this meme to pick it up)
Sigh…
I RUN a hiking group here in Australia. And the sole purpose of this question is to promote toxic men and women to start toxic discussions. I’ve never seen it posted outside of Reddit/lemmy in hiking communities, and the only real life discussion I had about it, was by a female hiker who messaged me about it once, and called it stupid… I agreed…
The vast majority of people who join my group (even overnight solo with me), are women (and no, I’m not a bear). In fact, I’m probably as average as they get (straight, white, not particularly tall or short, no tatts, etc)…
Whenever the question of safety comes up in hiking groups, and anyone says "women need to bring a weapon, and keep it under your pillow, trying to make them feel insecure, the entire female and male community tends to completely blast them for doing so. Such threads are always full of primarily women re-affirming others that they are safe and push them to give things a go. Based on that, I don’t think many women from the aussie female hiking community would agree…
So, things might be different in America, but here in Australia, it’s not true. And I regularly speak to a few women who run their own groups, and whilst I can’t speak on behalf of any of them, I suspect at least some of them would hate this discussion, as they are interested in encouraging women to hike, be active and be their best self. This question is designed as a weird hypothetical instead.
I’d even argue, the question likely wasn’t posted by someone who actually hikes much either. More likely it was posted by someone who wants to argue with others, or having a bad week (possibly some weird 4Chan troll even).
You’re missing the point of the hypothetical.
Firstly, as far as I understand, the concept is supposed to be that you’re stuck in an unknown location with no witnesses. Hence the choice of “spend a night in the woods alone with a bear/man”. The purpose of this is to ensure that neither the bear nor the man are going to have peer pressure or have any sort of intervention from a third party.
Secondly, I’m not a toxic woman and this isn’t a toxic discussion. The hypothetical is a vessel for encouraging discussion about women feeling unsafe around unknown men. The bear isn’t the point. The takeaway is supposed to be "a lot of women feel so unsafe around unknown men that they’d choose [insert bad thing].
This isn’t a discussion about real life hiking safety. Many women (including me) are sharing their discomfort about random men. Hear them, acknowledge them. Their fear and discomfort is based on their lived experience or the lived experience of the women close to them.
Side note, not sure if the Australia vs America comment was directed to me or the discussion in general but for posterity’s sake I’m not American and don’t live in America.
There were two posts in men’s liberation which may be good food for thought.
https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/16305417
https://beehaw.org/post/13780248
God bless those pure souls living between your parenthesis