obligatory bear post
obligatory bear post
is the man or bear thing rhetorically or optically the perfect feminist meme that is beyond criticism? no.
but is it leaps and bounds better at getting men to understand the material consequences of patriarchy on the physical and emotional health of women than that stupid “kill all men” meme from last decade? definitely.
The image you posted has a good sentiment, and I don't think it's effective as a meme itself. What will make it stick in the viewer's mind? To me it doesn't have a joke and doesn't make enough sense to convey a new insight.
You're right, feminism is for everyone. How does the introduction of Bell Hooks explain that or prove it to the reader? Who is the new character in the bottom right corner? Their instant agreement with Bell doesn't make sense given the preceding text.
I was discussing this whole "safer with a bear" thing with my wife earlier, and she agreed that it was more about the bear will almost always just fuck off and leave you alone. Imo, the problem is the lack of social (third) spaces in the West, particularly anglo-North America. The only places left where you can encounter a potential romantic partner are in their home or in a place of business, and both are generally unacceptable for romantic solicitation. We've even managed to largely flush the Internet as a meaningful third space. So, folks are left with the choice of committing a social faux pas or being lonely, which is kind of a shit choice.
If we brought back third spaces whose sole purpose was socializing and community-building, we'd probably see stuff like the "safer with bear" sentiment disappate.
I'm so glad to see this posted. The whole meme of bear vs man made me feel at odds and while I saw what the point was that it tried to raise it still didn't really do a great job to me. After a lot of thinking about it and discussing it in other threads I finally understood what I feel is the issue. While the answer given by most (if not all) women is shocking and shows the feeling of uncertainty and unsafeness the question is framed in such a way that it creates division and sexism. The problem is not what women are answering, the issue is that it puts men on the other side without any more thought. It divides us into women vs either men or bears. I'm not a woman, I'm not a bear, and I don't want to be a man seen as a danger. I understand the issue and I want to be part of the solution and create a safer world for everyone.
This whole topic wouldn't have made me see the problem if it wasn't for the effect that other ways to raise awareness have had in the past. For me the greatest method to raise awareness was the #metoo movement. That's when I could see the issue and what kind of effect it has. It was a movement that didn't automatically make me feel excluded, it was a movement that raised awareness of the victims, but it didn't have to be only women, also men that had been victims could raise it if they felt empowered by it. It was horrifying seeing the spread of it, and then there must be all the ones that didn't say anything. That's a movement I can get behind, that's the way to raise awareness. Since then I try to be more aware of the kind of behavior that creates those feelings of unsafeness for women and if I would ever notice something done by others I'd try to step up. The whole man vs bear is terrible at doing the same.
I feel like this exchange from 30 Rock is relevant here:
I forget the exact context for the scene, but Kenneth disagrees with Jack and objects that he [Kenneth] is also a white man. Jack corrects him that he is not and is, socio-economically speaking, an inner-city Latina.
Jack represents the patriarchy/ruling money class in the show.
is it rhetorically or optically the perfect feminist meme that is beyond criticism? no.
Honestly, I think the biggest problem with the argument is men have been having very serious discussions for probably millenia about what animals they could and could not beat in a fight. And it is implicitly known that the guy who comes in saying he could beat a bear is way up his own ass. Now here comes a meme appearing to imply that men could beat a bear in a fight, and the urge to correct is strong.
I understand and agree with the sentiment, but I also want you to know you can't beat a bear in a fight, but will gladly discuss what animals you might win against.
What about a Cheetah?
Depends what you mean by feminism if you mean feminism as equality for all then great.
If you mean feminism as you see a lot of today then maybe not. The fact you never see feminism calling out shitty, toxic female behaviour shows a lot of the picture is missing.
Holding up everything that lives under the feminism banner as infallible is dangerous. Plenty of low income white guys have been pushed aside for feminism and then told they have all this privilege for living in a place with no economic prospects and they are responsible for how the world was made before they were born.
This post is how I found out she died. She was great and I really enjoyed several of her books. RIP in peace.
New thing I thought of, new idea, on top of all the other shit, about like, women vs man vs bear, right. If you choose the man, the chances that the average woman can outrun the average man I think are pretty high. I think the psycho outlier males maybe skew that stat a little bit, but I think on average, the chances are pretty good, and if I remember right, women can even, on average, run for longer than the average man. I dunno about faster, so the initial chase would probably matter more there, but, yeah. On the other hand, you can't outrun a bear, since they can get up to like 40-50 miles per hour and can pivot and maneuver way better on account of their quadripedaliness.
So I think probably that should be a good factor in the decision making, on top of all the other stuff.
Okay but now that I've got you locked in, I think I want to like. The hypothetical, the meme, is interesting, because it's obviously bait, right? Like it's obviously just something that's meant to be divisive but "illustrative", or something. It's not really successful at being illustrative and inspiring empathy, and as this meme posts, reading bell hooks would probably be a better maneuver for most men, or just like, engaging with a woman's experience of the world generally in good faith, or like, treating them like they're smart fellow human beings instead of just bringing up some counterpoint every five minutes that the chick's already thought of, and then instead of bringing it up as like a good faith question they bring it up in a way where it's like primed to treat the woman's stupid. But I dunno, maybe people just don't know how to talk, really. Small talk, sure, but real talk, no way.
Uhhh, but what I was saying, the original meme is bait, right? And it's so obviously bait that it sort of, I think, inspires two separate reactions. One treats the meme seriously because it's so absurd, right. Usually the male response, right, the idea is that we've never really had to think "oh do I take a man on this hike so I can feel more safe, or do I go alone, who can I trust to go along with me", right, the thought process would be more along the lines of like "who do I take on this hike". Existing in a male as default state, the idea is maybe that men are going to be less predisposed to gendered thinking because they don't need to think that way out of self-preservation, or culturally ingrained bias, or whatever. This doesn't mean they aren't biased, right, but it's sort of like, the white dude that's got a lot of racist notions floating around but then they don't realize it, it's implicit. So there's like, not good faith engagement, but like just total acceptance of the premise as an absurd notion to be toyed around with, right, sort of along the lines of, as I've heard another commenter say, along the lines of "what animal could I take in a fight" kind of discussions.
I think then women are maybe more likely to, on the opposite side of what I just said, actually relate more to the premise, treat it less as absurd maybe, or maybe understand more that it's meant to try to illustrate a point or get at something, and then with their responses they're going to do the same. Try to use their responses to get at something or illustrate some principle rather than just being like "oh I dunno I could probably take a bear in a fight" level shit. Like no shit that's not what they're getting at.
So, I dunno, in conclusion, the meme was primed to be bait from the onset, and, it's never not going to be bait, and, from the way social media works, the bait engagement is encouraged, the bad faith engagement is encouraged, yadda yadda. I think I will say, to put on my meme criticism hat for a moment, of this meme, this meme either operates on the assumption that someone will google bell hooks, or that someone already knows who she is, so that's kind of, narrowing the audience to those who already know, and probably don't need it as much. I'd probably go with like a bell hooks' book passage or quote which is both productive in itself for people to hear, and can maybe also drive traffic towards a book of hers. Maybe make the talking head quote that passage and then the chad soyjack can pog up on hearing it or be crying or whatever. Also I'd probably replace the "black woman" soyjack with a bell hooks specific soyjack, but that might be too high effort.
Also looked up bell hooks while writing this, didn't know she was dead as of 3 years ago, RIP to a real one, that sucks.
Antisexism is for everyone.
Feminism inherently centers on the issues of women, it's in the name, and anything that it solves for men is collateral.
We need to hear both women and men if we want actual solutions that work for all sides.
Let's stop this division. It's time to ditch this "women against the men's system" in favor of "how can we be good to each other, and what we don't know of each other's struggles"
And for now, the popular post considering the men's perspective was just nuked. Probably for daring to consider the other side of this.