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For the last couple of week social media has been roiled by the hypothetical question posed to women, if you were alone in the woods would you rather encounter a bear or a man?

When I heard this proposed I had an instant intuitive sense that most women would choose the bear. My impression of the social media fracas seems to support my guess and apparently there have been more than a few men flummoxed by the answer.

Photo Credit: Robert Mitchell Evans

There is no doubt that a bear is a dangerous omnivorous predator with many species presenting as quite territorial. Mauled by a bear is a very painful way to depart this sad world and I do not think for a moment that the women electing ‘bear’ are ignorant of the facts of these animals.

I know of no statistically valid way to produce an off the cuff probability of threat between a random bear and a random man, but I suspect that even if the odds were more dangerous with the bear that would remain the most likely election.

I think most men have little conception of what life is like for most women. The truth be told most people have little conception of what life is like for anyone other than themselves. The ability to project an empathic understanding of another person’s viewpoint and emotional state is a quite rare gift. But what makes the choice so often bear? Why are so many women, fully aware of the dangerous of a large predator, still willing to say ‘bear’ over men?

I think it is the subtle difference between terror and horror.

Bears can be terrifying, but people can be horrifying. A bear presenting a serious risk of injury or harm is much like a tornado. Terrifying to consider but also simply a force of nature. A bear, or a tiger, or a flood simply is without any moral qualification.

People, and men in this hypothetical, are not simply forces of nature and certain their action are bound by moral qualifications.

If a bear mauls you, it does so without volition it is simply following millions of years of evolutionary programming. A man who assaults you does so because he has made a choice. A man is someone capable of understanding the consequences of his actions and has made the calculus that his victims pain, suffering, and trauma are of no consideration. Or worse to be valued and enjoyed. The man knows what harm he causes and elects to cause it. That is true horror in a manner that is not produced by a bear or a flood or a tornado. All of which can cause grievous bodily harm or death but only the man wants to cause it.