April 27, 2026 • 28 mins
Would you rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear? This hypothetical question went viral and exposed so much more. We discuss in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and all the stuff
I never told you production of iHeart Radio. And today
we are bringing back a Monday Mini that you brought
to us, Samantha, and it was about man versus bear,
(00:25):
that whole conversation. And it's because still too bear. It's
because I recently had a very annoying moment where I
saw that the movie we did in November as our
November movie pic Dangerous Animal is really popular now, and
(00:48):
I was like, I was there first, I knew. I
said that I did, and you were like, well, let's
bring that episode back. It's too recent. We try not
to do very recent good episodes for Classic I love
them obviously obviously. But in that episode, we did talk
about this conversation and how it applies to that movie.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It absolutely does, It absolutely does.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I will also like to update you with people actually
creating painting and drawings of women happily dancing with bears.
Oh wow, two men talking about Yes, I would choose
the bear.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay, that's a solid update. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Have to look into that. In the meantime, please enjoy
this classic episode. Hey, this is any and Samantha. I'm
welcome to STEPHF. I've never told your prediction of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And we are back with a Nonday. I put another
and Monday together, so I just created a new word.
Maybe that's our new series word.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Wow, Samantha H. I have learned new Star Wars knowledge.
The Star Wars days of the week. One of them
is Banundai Banundae. So you're close to I'm close.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I'm calling this a Nonday, which is my Monday Mini,
because it's another Monday mini Annday many.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I like that, and we're.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Coming back to me making all of my Monday minies.
Like Samantha's social media corner, which I did. I feel
like that's my new thing now in which I just
find random posts. I'm like, yeah, we're gonna talk about
this because I find them fascinating. And also I have
a lot of questions and thoughts that I don't put
on social media myself because I am not articulate enough
(02:54):
to type it out on my phone.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Experience were just about that.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I can't stand it. I start to say, anyway, that's
a whole different episode. But I do need to put
trigger warning content warning. We are talking about sexual abuse,
sexual harassment, we're talking about all the violence against women
type of things here. We're not going into detail. I'm
talking a little bit of specifics and even like violence
with animals. So put that at the top. I know, intriguing, right, wow,
(03:27):
Because honestly, my TikTok has been flooded with several things
because the world is bad. I think we had this
conversation just with Bridget about how all of social media
does make me really really really really really sad sometimes. Also,
I did find a new dog content where all they
do I'm not really sure the jeniter of the dog,
but it's get types of containers, brings it to its
(03:48):
owner and then tries to lay in it no matter
how big or small, and then falls out of it
on purpose. It is really proud of themselves. I really
love that content anyway. So that's the beginning joyous content
that I have found. But unfortunately the other side of
that is there's a viral video going around. I think
it's I want to say it's a YouTube video. I
(04:09):
don't actually think it originated with TikTok, and I was
trying to find the original video. But of course my
short search, I'm sure it would be easy to find
I didn't. It's essentially that whole situation where a person
with a mic goes randomly on the streets asking random
questions to people. So what Billy on the streets has
been doing? But now it's everywhere and everyone does it,
(04:31):
And sometimes you have some really iconic answers, and sometimes
you have really problematic answers, and you start like, yeah,
this is this is society. But this one was asking people,
specifically women, would they rather be alone in the forest
with a bear or a man? And I have a
feeling if you're on social media at all, you know
exactly what I'm talking about, because it's huge. But if
(04:53):
you're any and you're not on social media, you have
no clue what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Nope, this was the topic of discussion.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
When I said this to her, I just assumed she
was like, yeah, of course, she's like what what? Because
I said bear man things, she was like what. So
I don't even know what was going through your mind.
I will say, in my searches when I was looking
for like the original video, the actual search results showed
me that Chinese sun bears and people talking about whether
or not they thought it was a man in a
suit or you know what I'm talking about, which I
(05:31):
have seen that that's been a minute, but I was like, oh,
that's funny. Those are the two results like it, but
specifically about women being alone in the forest with whether
it was a bear or a man. Of course, there's
a lot of discussion and a lot of talks, and unsurprisingly,
I think most women said bears and men are unhappy.
(05:55):
Of course, this is one of the situations, not all men.
Because there's also one new thing with this of women
asking their partners at their sis I guess or if
they're in a heterosexual relationship. So we have women with
men asking them, would you rather your daughter be in
the woods with a bear or a man? And a
(06:16):
chunk of them either have a lot of questions or
typically just like bear like, straightforward, and then when they
are asked why, they'll be like, because I don't want
my daughter to go through some of the things that
they could go through with men, essentially, and so so
back and forth about all this. But you have a
(06:36):
chunk of men sitting there going that's so ridiculous, literally
trying to say all these scientific and I'm putting this
in quotes facts about what bears can do to people
and this is dumb and how would women even survive
that this is someone one of the commenters said brain
rides and one of them said internet rot and they
(06:57):
just need to get off the internet because they don't understand.
And then at one point they were like, yeah, and
if they were put in a room where it be
with just a bear or with a man, like having
these scenarios just go completely out of whack and getting
upset that women are saying bears. And even in the
interview you have the women saying, well, let me ask
(07:20):
these questions and then just in a depth say yeah,
bear bear, And of course we have this conversation. Some
of the reasons that we have said we being women
or marginalized people are saying, is bears attack out of
hunger or fear or protection. And this is from what
I gather, Like so you know kind of what to expect.
So yes, you may die, you may die, But the
(07:43):
other thing is, but you also know that you're just
gonna die, Like that's not that's it, You're not. I mean,
you may be broken, you may go through some things
for sure, but like as where men are torturing, sexual violating,
and maybe taking pictures and posting, like, you know, the
(08:06):
level of public humiliation, as well as a fact that
for bears, like you're probably gonna get more sympathy from
a bear attack than being attacked by a man or
you're also more likely going to be believed if you're
attacked by a bear rather than a man or you
don't have to be publicly humiliated to tell your story
(08:28):
and petrified of retaliation of some sorts. And I find
that fascinating in that conversation, because men are like, but no,
this is what happens to you. They don't just they
do bad things to your body too. One dude just
went as far as to say, like, oh, you think
men will violate your body, Bears do too. Bears hump trees,
they'll hump you. And I'm like, can you name a case, Like,
(08:51):
I'm sure maybe weird, weird things have happened, so I'm
not completely disregarding, but like the amount of times that
have happened, can you tell me that's not a thing.
And then yeah, one of the reasons that women said
they were more scared of men is because if they
are rejected, if they felt like people were insulting them,
or threatening them, or because they just don't like women
(09:11):
or anyone different from them. The example of the man
randomly punching women on the streets of New York for
no damn reason, literally seeing them on their phone just
side punch them, or and or just because they can
literally just saying I just wanted to see if I
could again. I'm trying to really really think about why
the men are so angry in this situation. It's one
(09:33):
of those things in the level of like you're getting
defensive over something that either is really true and you're
angry about it because you know that you're that person
that they're talking about, or this is that whole alpha
level of connection of like, well, you know, bears and
only men can be really fighting. Like I don't know
if that revenant has any kind of like thought process,
(09:57):
you know, Like in my mind, I'm trying to really
rationalize why they are so angry and why they feel
the need to like no, you're wrong, No you're wrong
to a hypothetical question that really is just about society, right,
Like I'm thinking, is this somehow challenging men that men say?
(10:17):
If men say I'm afraid of a bear and a
woman says, I would rather be around a bear and
somehow challenges their masculinity somehow. Yeah, like I'm trying to
go down that route. I think I'm gonna have to
sit quietly for that, and I don't have the patience.
Maybe I really do have brain rot to go down
that road. Of course, this came back to me thinking
(10:47):
about the statistics that we all know and we haven't
checked up on recently because I feel like things are
getting worse. But of course we know that the statistics
are going higher. Apparently to the ed app dot com
they talked about in twenty twenty three, they're a sexual
assault that curs every ninety three seconds in the United States.
(11:09):
I think that's about the same number as it has been.
We know that in twenty twenty three, eighty one percent
of women have a face sexual harassment in their life.
Forty three percent of men have a face sexual harassment
in their life. We also know that a majority of
them don't report, especially in workplaces, and the few that
have reported now maybe fifteen percent have something some kind
(11:33):
of consequence. Weinstein, his case just got overturned in New York.
I will say Annie, I verbally like I outright cursed
at my phone and like through it because I am
so damn angry. Of course, apparently this is going to
(11:55):
a new retrial and the California cases are still place,
and so he's still locked up for like the twelve years,
sixteen years, so he's still in jail. He's still locked up.
So that's the good news in this. But the level
of anger I have about that, I feel like that
is the new all men. You know how women will respond. Yeah,
(12:18):
not all men, but all men is now the and
that and the bears. I would rather be with bears.
That's the new response to this. And that's kind of
that same level. There has an alarmingly high uptick of
family annihilation cases recently, and I'm actually going to come back.
We're actually going to come back and do an episode
about this because I'm very deeply disturbed by what is
(12:40):
happening with this. And maybe it's because social media is
highlighting a lot more, but I did look it up,
and in the last two years it has says there
there is an uptick of men killing off their entire
family for quote unquote either domestic violence reasons, rejection reasons, whatever,
like so many reasons. And I want to come and
(13:02):
visit that there might be in no answers. It may
be the same conversation we had when we talked about
true crime, because we didn't puilt few statistics in there.
But also we also know that there's been an uptick
of women killing their children as well in themselves. So
it's it's I'm very interested in what's going on. I
do want to have this conversation, but things like this
(13:25):
is what it's like, the bear versus man. These statistics
of transgender and queer assaults have always been pretty high.
We know this. We know that at least forty seven
percent of trans gender people have faced some kind of
sexual assault. Forty six percent of bisexual women have dealt
(13:48):
with a sexual assault. We know that people who are
disabled have been at risk seven times more than any
other group of people for sexual assault and harassment. And
then we talked about the fact that the lifetime cost
of each survivor of rape is around over about one
(14:11):
hundred and twenty two thousand dollars one hundred and twenty
two to one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars in
their lifetime, and the fact that there's no compensation for
that or rarely any compensation for that. Hurts hurts a lot.
And when I was looking up all this conversation, I
did try to see if there was anything in the
(14:31):
news or anybody was talking about it outside of TikTok
or any viral conversations. And we have one columnist from
iNews dot co dot uk. Her name is Kate Lister,
and she had some thoughts about it, and I wanted
to read a little bit from her article. She talks
about the statistics of why maybe women are saying bears,
(14:55):
and so she says, let's start with the bears. Bear
attacks are highly sensationalized but rare. According to research published
in the Nature Journal, there are around forty brown bear
attacks on humans worldwide each year, and most of these
are when the bear feels threatened. Of these forty attacks,
fourteen point three percent were fatal. So I'm like, that's
(15:17):
just significantly low, anybody, Okay. Between eighteen seventy and twenty fourteen,
there were seventy three attacks worldwide on humans by wild
polar bears, twenty of which were fatal. And that's the
one bear that I hear people talking about, being like, oh,
they're the most dangerous the polar bears. So there's that
black bears attack and kill around one human per year
(15:40):
in America, and because of humans in crouching on their territories,
black bear attacks are on the rise in Japan. In
crouching on the territories, bears generally leave humans alone and
will alter their behavior to avoid us where possible. In fact,
we pose far greater danger to them than other way around.
(16:01):
According to Western Wildlife Outreach, fifty thousand black bears are
legally hunted in North America each year alone, while over
eight hundred polar bears are killed by humans every year.
I don't know if anyone is asking the bears who
they would rather be stuck in the force with, but
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't choose the man either. So
(16:22):
I was like, yeah, absolutely, as in fact, I saw
an acquaintance of mine go like, go legally hunt black
bears in North Carolina and it goes on. Now for
the men. Male violence against women is incredibly common and
not sence sectionalized, and nearly enough. On average, two women
(16:43):
per week are murdered by their partner or ex partner.
In the UK. According to the UN, fifty five percent
of all female homicide worldwide are committed by intimate partners
or other family members, at a rate of five deaths
every every single hour. Their research also found that most
(17:04):
violence against women is perpetrated by current or former husbands
or intimate partners. More than six hundred and forty million,
or twenty six percent of women aged fifteen and older,
have been subjected to intimate partner violence. I feel like
that should be enough set this whole level. And I
(17:27):
will say this, the few encounters because I'd live in
the mountains of North Georgia that I've had of bears,
they are just as scared of me as I was
of them, and me yelling at them was enough for
them to run away, as where if we were yelling
at men, guarantee that same situation would not happen.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, it's true, because I feel like it's completely accurate
that the bear attack is so sensationalized. And I do
think you're on something with the because I feel like,
for kind of the hunter type men, the bear is
(18:09):
like your top predator, and so for people to say, Okay,
I'd rather be with the bear, it makes complete sense
to me that men would be like, well, actually, bears
are really really dangerous, well, like totally missing the point
(18:30):
where is a lot of I would say largely women
answering this who said the bear actually reason to out,
as you said, Like they asked questions and they're like, okay,
no the bear, So they kind of like really thinking
it through and knowing these dangers, whereas it seems the
men just went right to ignore. Why they would say
(18:51):
that you're wrong because I know about bears, right.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I mean, it really feels like an office episode, yes,
about the black bear, right to the point that you
just sit there and go literally one one, one person
a year, like I think at one point, someone else
statistics of like fifteen people at most of in a year,
(19:15):
and then the amount of women that have died at
the hands of their partner is literally spaced out in
a single day like that. Yeah, it's like the amount
of statistics and the fact that men are so threatened
by this question.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah to the again like.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
The I don't know why this is a go to
for so many insecure men is you have then to
ask them for help for what help from other men?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It's a very it's like a very dismissive thing too,
because it's like essentially trying to dismiss why women would
say that as then you can't handle you don't know fear,
you don't know bears, right, But I wonder how much
of it is like they feel threatened too by Well,
(20:11):
if you're living with the fear of the bear every day,
then you must be stronger than I thought.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Ladies, here's a statistic.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And I just needed to know. I needed to know
more men have been killed by bears and women and
I just because like, so here's one and I don't
know how outdated. Oh, this is twenty sixteen. So this
is a Vox article in twenty sixteen about attacks involving
grizzly bears and occurring during summer. And it's among fatal
bear attack victims. The average age was thirty seven. Of
(20:52):
these victims twenty one more female and fifty more male.
And it happened in deep backcountries with hobbies dominated by men.
So I don't because it's there in their space. So
that's a whole different conversation. But I did wonder, like
in like can't be situations, whether like who are the
ones going to antagonize the bear versus who are not?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I did see a video also of this group of people,
and there were several young women getting a cub out
of the tree that they just wanted to cuddle. And
they're like, that is illegal.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's dangerous. That is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I think people were in so upset and I'm like, yeah, right, live,
so leave the bears alone, dude, let them be. Yeah
when they come into our Twitter territory and go off,
they have had some cocaine apparently.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That could be a thing can be. That's also pretty rare,
but can.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Had to throw that in for a reference. Sound that disheartening, Uh,
that this is that deep of a conversation and that
the fallout as men being upset and I think there
are some human some girls and you're like, oh, that's
not true. I wouldn't. I wouldn't pick a bear because
then they like result too, Like I would definitely pick
(22:13):
Ryan Gosling over a bear. Who wouldn't Just kidding.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well, again, that's when you ask the questions. But when
it's like just some random man.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's a strange person I have never met, and it's
just a dude that's just chilling, and they're staring at
me and I see it like if I see a
bear and a man at the same distance. I'm not
going towards either one of them. Yeah, I'm saying away
from both of you. But if you're telling me we're
in the woods, and like, yeah, I would rather like
be able to play dead with the bear hopefully, versus
(22:48):
trying to run from a man mm hmm and hide.
I've seen those horror movies.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Me too, you know I have.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Once I I was hiking alone and I was in
a very remote place and it was in North Georgia,
and I saw a bear and I was nervous, but
I just was like, okay, just to come and keep going.
Then I saw a man and he was just standing
there in a very awkward pose and he was stuck
(23:23):
still and he just like watched me go by, and
I was more scared of him, for sure. It rattled me.
Like the bear. I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna
like try to move on and be cool and.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Not don't panic, don't look at it.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Just just go. And then after I couldn't see it,
I couldn't hear it. I was like, Okay, I'm good,
but that man was I was like I could be
so far from him and he could shoot me, Like,
I don't know what he was doing, but he was
just it was creepy.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Right, No, that's absolutely Like, and when you hear a
rustling in the woods, I'm more scared that it's going
to be a man, a giant watching me, or or
a wild boar. Those wilds the mountains, they're pretty, they're.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Faster, they'll get you.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I think that's the thing though, is like I am,
I don't want to mess with bears. Bears scary, right,
But I also I think that's kind of the point,
is that if that's true, Yeah, then if the man
is scarier the random man.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right, And again a lot of them are like, yeah,
I could die either way, but I would rather be
killed by a bear versus a man. Yeah, that's that scenario.
That's that conversation, Like what's going to happen, I mean,
and as what's happened in Wisconsin, which I believe Shawe
Robinson met a dude on tender and he member her
(25:01):
and killed her with initially, and there's a conversation about
the fact that he may have killed other black women
and no one's caring, no one, no one, until like
it came out like in a bigger conversation, no one
really said much and it's not a very hyped case,
and like those are the situations like, yeah, she took
a chance on meeting a dude in public, I believe,
(25:21):
and died h And that we know more and more
and more of those cases, and it's kind of like
we this is that conversation that we're having of like
what did a poor woman? And yeah, if you've listened
to true crimes and so many things where they're like,
you know, like people are women are petrified. I just say,
(25:43):
you know, marginalized people are super petrified about what's out
there and who's going to get them. And it's more
often that they're more afraid of a human being than
of all the creatures out there, except for the deep sea.
Like if I go into deep sea, then maybe I'll
be more scared.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Deeps is scary, so scary.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
But yeah, I think that was an important conversation and
I'm I hate that this is a constant turnaround conversation
that I'm like wow, wow, like you just you refuse
to get it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, yeah, because I do feel that so many times,
and most of my male friends have been very cool
about it. But you just mentioned something and they'll be
like what really, Like, yep, that's just my existence. And
I feel like so many of these things just showcase
over and over again that we're we're here living in
(26:40):
different worlds. We've got a long ready to go.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
And then the amount of men who are getting boosted
because they just said, oh yeah, bear because they quote
unquote get it. But this is minimum, this is this
is a minimum. Yeah, but I get while we're celebrating
because this minimum is really high compared to the rest
of the average here.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
It is. It is.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, it's unfortunate because like you said, it's also Yeah,
when a bear attach happens, you hear so much about it.
But every day to every day inundated with violence against women,
it's like, okay.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, women's not wearing these clothings. Thanks, don't go out alone.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yes, oh god, well I did not know this is
what we would be talking about today. Yeah, thank you
for keeping me up to date on these trends that
I don't know about.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
That now is gonna go away, tiktook is forever go.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Got a year one year, So listeners, if you have
any thoughts about this, please let us know. You can
emails a Stephanie and mom Stuff at I Heard at
media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
One Never told You. We have a YouTube tube and
t public store and a book that you can get
(28:11):
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and your contributor Joey.
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
Told You this production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or where you listen to
your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and all the stuff
I never told you production of iHeart Radio. And today
we are bringing back a Monday Mini that you brought
to us, Samantha, and it was about man versus bear,
(00:25):
that whole conversation. And it's because still too bear. It's
because I recently had a very annoying moment where I
saw that the movie we did in November as our
November movie pic Dangerous Animal is really popular now, and
(00:48):
I was like, I was there first, I knew. I
said that I did, and you were like, well, let's
bring that episode back. It's too recent. We try not
to do very recent good episodes for Classic I love
them obviously obviously. But in that episode, we did talk
about this conversation and how it applies to that movie.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It absolutely does, It absolutely does.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I will also like to update you with people actually
creating painting and drawings of women happily dancing with bears.
Oh wow, two men talking about Yes, I would choose
the bear.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay, that's a solid update. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Have to look into that. In the meantime, please enjoy
this classic episode. Hey, this is any and Samantha. I'm
welcome to STEPHF. I've never told your prediction of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And we are back with a Nonday. I put another
and Monday together, so I just created a new word.
Maybe that's our new series word.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Wow, Samantha H. I have learned new Star Wars knowledge.
The Star Wars days of the week. One of them
is Banundai Banundae. So you're close to I'm close.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I'm calling this a Nonday, which is my Monday Mini,
because it's another Monday mini Annday many.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I like that, and we're.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Coming back to me making all of my Monday minies.
Like Samantha's social media corner, which I did. I feel
like that's my new thing now in which I just
find random posts. I'm like, yeah, we're gonna talk about
this because I find them fascinating. And also I have
a lot of questions and thoughts that I don't put
on social media myself because I am not articulate enough
(02:54):
to type it out on my phone.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Experience were just about that.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I can't stand it. I start to say, anyway, that's
a whole different episode. But I do need to put
trigger warning content warning. We are talking about sexual abuse,
sexual harassment, we're talking about all the violence against women
type of things here. We're not going into detail. I'm
talking a little bit of specifics and even like violence
with animals. So put that at the top. I know, intriguing, right, wow,
(03:27):
Because honestly, my TikTok has been flooded with several things
because the world is bad. I think we had this
conversation just with Bridget about how all of social media
does make me really really really really really sad sometimes. Also,
I did find a new dog content where all they
do I'm not really sure the jeniter of the dog,
but it's get types of containers, brings it to its
(03:48):
owner and then tries to lay in it no matter
how big or small, and then falls out of it
on purpose. It is really proud of themselves. I really
love that content anyway. So that's the beginning joyous content
that I have found. But unfortunately the other side of
that is there's a viral video going around. I think
it's I want to say it's a YouTube video. I
(04:09):
don't actually think it originated with TikTok, and I was
trying to find the original video. But of course my
short search, I'm sure it would be easy to find
I didn't. It's essentially that whole situation where a person
with a mic goes randomly on the streets asking random
questions to people. So what Billy on the streets has
been doing? But now it's everywhere and everyone does it,
(04:31):
And sometimes you have some really iconic answers, and sometimes
you have really problematic answers, and you start like, yeah,
this is this is society. But this one was asking people,
specifically women, would they rather be alone in the forest
with a bear or a man? And I have a
feeling if you're on social media at all, you know
exactly what I'm talking about, because it's huge. But if
(04:53):
you're any and you're not on social media, you have
no clue what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Nope, this was the topic of discussion.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
When I said this to her, I just assumed she
was like, yeah, of course, she's like what what? Because
I said bear man things, she was like what. So
I don't even know what was going through your mind.
I will say, in my searches when I was looking
for like the original video, the actual search results showed
me that Chinese sun bears and people talking about whether
or not they thought it was a man in a
suit or you know what I'm talking about, which I
(05:31):
have seen that that's been a minute, but I was like, oh,
that's funny. Those are the two results like it, but
specifically about women being alone in the forest with whether
it was a bear or a man. Of course, there's
a lot of discussion and a lot of talks, and unsurprisingly,
I think most women said bears and men are unhappy.
(05:55):
Of course, this is one of the situations, not all men.
Because there's also one new thing with this of women
asking their partners at their sis I guess or if
they're in a heterosexual relationship. So we have women with
men asking them, would you rather your daughter be in
the woods with a bear or a man? And a
(06:16):
chunk of them either have a lot of questions or
typically just like bear like, straightforward, and then when they
are asked why, they'll be like, because I don't want
my daughter to go through some of the things that
they could go through with men, essentially, and so so
back and forth about all this. But you have a
(06:36):
chunk of men sitting there going that's so ridiculous, literally
trying to say all these scientific and I'm putting this
in quotes facts about what bears can do to people
and this is dumb and how would women even survive
that this is someone one of the commenters said brain
rides and one of them said internet rot and they
(06:57):
just need to get off the internet because they don't understand.
And then at one point they were like, yeah, and
if they were put in a room where it be
with just a bear or with a man, like having
these scenarios just go completely out of whack and getting
upset that women are saying bears. And even in the
interview you have the women saying, well, let me ask
(07:20):
these questions and then just in a depth say yeah,
bear bear, And of course we have this conversation. Some
of the reasons that we have said we being women
or marginalized people are saying, is bears attack out of
hunger or fear or protection. And this is from what
I gather, Like so you know kind of what to expect.
So yes, you may die, you may die, But the
(07:43):
other thing is, but you also know that you're just
gonna die, Like that's not that's it, You're not. I mean,
you may be broken, you may go through some things
for sure, but like as where men are torturing, sexual violating,
and maybe taking pictures and posting, like, you know, the
(08:06):
level of public humiliation, as well as a fact that
for bears, like you're probably gonna get more sympathy from
a bear attack than being attacked by a man or
you're also more likely going to be believed if you're
attacked by a bear rather than a man or you
don't have to be publicly humiliated to tell your story
(08:28):
and petrified of retaliation of some sorts. And I find
that fascinating in that conversation, because men are like, but no,
this is what happens to you. They don't just they
do bad things to your body too. One dude just
went as far as to say, like, oh, you think
men will violate your body, Bears do too. Bears hump trees,
they'll hump you. And I'm like, can you name a case, Like,
(08:51):
I'm sure maybe weird, weird things have happened, so I'm
not completely disregarding, but like the amount of times that
have happened, can you tell me that's not a thing.
And then yeah, one of the reasons that women said
they were more scared of men is because if they
are rejected, if they felt like people were insulting them,
or threatening them, or because they just don't like women
(09:11):
or anyone different from them. The example of the man
randomly punching women on the streets of New York for
no damn reason, literally seeing them on their phone just
side punch them, or and or just because they can
literally just saying I just wanted to see if I
could again. I'm trying to really really think about why
the men are so angry in this situation. It's one
(09:33):
of those things in the level of like you're getting
defensive over something that either is really true and you're
angry about it because you know that you're that person
that they're talking about, or this is that whole alpha
level of connection of like, well, you know, bears and
only men can be really fighting. Like I don't know
if that revenant has any kind of like thought process,
(09:57):
you know, Like in my mind, I'm trying to really
rationalize why they are so angry and why they feel
the need to like no, you're wrong, No you're wrong
to a hypothetical question that really is just about society, right,
Like I'm thinking, is this somehow challenging men that men say?
(10:17):
If men say I'm afraid of a bear and a
woman says, I would rather be around a bear and
somehow challenges their masculinity somehow. Yeah, like I'm trying to
go down that route. I think I'm gonna have to
sit quietly for that, and I don't have the patience.
Maybe I really do have brain rot to go down
that road. Of course, this came back to me thinking
(10:47):
about the statistics that we all know and we haven't
checked up on recently because I feel like things are
getting worse. But of course we know that the statistics
are going higher. Apparently to the ed app dot com
they talked about in twenty twenty three, they're a sexual
assault that curs every ninety three seconds in the United States.
(11:09):
I think that's about the same number as it has been.
We know that in twenty twenty three, eighty one percent
of women have a face sexual harassment in their life.
Forty three percent of men have a face sexual harassment
in their life. We also know that a majority of
them don't report, especially in workplaces, and the few that
have reported now maybe fifteen percent have something some kind
(11:33):
of consequence. Weinstein, his case just got overturned in New York.
I will say Annie, I verbally like I outright cursed
at my phone and like through it because I am
so damn angry. Of course, apparently this is going to
(11:55):
a new retrial and the California cases are still place,
and so he's still locked up for like the twelve years,
sixteen years, so he's still in jail. He's still locked up.
So that's the good news in this. But the level
of anger I have about that, I feel like that
is the new all men. You know how women will respond. Yeah,
(12:18):
not all men, but all men is now the and
that and the bears. I would rather be with bears.
That's the new response to this. And that's kind of
that same level. There has an alarmingly high uptick of
family annihilation cases recently, and I'm actually going to come back.
We're actually going to come back and do an episode
about this because I'm very deeply disturbed by what is
(12:40):
happening with this. And maybe it's because social media is
highlighting a lot more, but I did look it up,
and in the last two years it has says there
there is an uptick of men killing off their entire
family for quote unquote either domestic violence reasons, rejection reasons, whatever,
like so many reasons. And I want to come and
(13:02):
visit that there might be in no answers. It may
be the same conversation we had when we talked about
true crime, because we didn't puilt few statistics in there.
But also we also know that there's been an uptick
of women killing their children as well in themselves. So
it's it's I'm very interested in what's going on. I
do want to have this conversation, but things like this
(13:25):
is what it's like, the bear versus man. These statistics
of transgender and queer assaults have always been pretty high.
We know this. We know that at least forty seven
percent of trans gender people have faced some kind of
sexual assault. Forty six percent of bisexual women have dealt
(13:48):
with a sexual assault. We know that people who are
disabled have been at risk seven times more than any
other group of people for sexual assault and harassment. And
then we talked about the fact that the lifetime cost
of each survivor of rape is around over about one
(14:11):
hundred and twenty two thousand dollars one hundred and twenty
two to one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars in
their lifetime, and the fact that there's no compensation for
that or rarely any compensation for that. Hurts hurts a lot.
And when I was looking up all this conversation, I
did try to see if there was anything in the
(14:31):
news or anybody was talking about it outside of TikTok
or any viral conversations. And we have one columnist from
iNews dot co dot uk. Her name is Kate Lister,
and she had some thoughts about it, and I wanted
to read a little bit from her article. She talks
about the statistics of why maybe women are saying bears,
(14:55):
and so she says, let's start with the bears. Bear
attacks are highly sensationalized but rare. According to research published
in the Nature Journal, there are around forty brown bear
attacks on humans worldwide each year, and most of these
are when the bear feels threatened. Of these forty attacks,
fourteen point three percent were fatal. So I'm like, that's
(15:17):
just significantly low, anybody, Okay. Between eighteen seventy and twenty fourteen,
there were seventy three attacks worldwide on humans by wild
polar bears, twenty of which were fatal. And that's the
one bear that I hear people talking about, being like, oh,
they're the most dangerous the polar bears. So there's that
black bears attack and kill around one human per year
(15:40):
in America, and because of humans in crouching on their territories,
black bear attacks are on the rise in Japan. In
crouching on the territories, bears generally leave humans alone and
will alter their behavior to avoid us where possible. In fact,
we pose far greater danger to them than other way around.
(16:01):
According to Western Wildlife Outreach, fifty thousand black bears are
legally hunted in North America each year alone, while over
eight hundred polar bears are killed by humans every year.
I don't know if anyone is asking the bears who
they would rather be stuck in the force with, but
I'm pretty sure they wouldn't choose the man either. So
(16:22):
I was like, yeah, absolutely, as in fact, I saw
an acquaintance of mine go like, go legally hunt black
bears in North Carolina and it goes on. Now for
the men. Male violence against women is incredibly common and
not sence sectionalized, and nearly enough. On average, two women
(16:43):
per week are murdered by their partner or ex partner.
In the UK. According to the UN, fifty five percent
of all female homicide worldwide are committed by intimate partners
or other family members, at a rate of five deaths
every every single hour. Their research also found that most
(17:04):
violence against women is perpetrated by current or former husbands
or intimate partners. More than six hundred and forty million,
or twenty six percent of women aged fifteen and older,
have been subjected to intimate partner violence. I feel like
that should be enough set this whole level. And I
(17:27):
will say this, the few encounters because I'd live in
the mountains of North Georgia that I've had of bears,
they are just as scared of me as I was
of them, and me yelling at them was enough for
them to run away, as where if we were yelling
at men, guarantee that same situation would not happen.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, it's true, because I feel like it's completely accurate
that the bear attack is so sensationalized. And I do
think you're on something with the because I feel like,
for kind of the hunter type men, the bear is
(18:09):
like your top predator, and so for people to say, Okay,
I'd rather be with the bear, it makes complete sense
to me that men would be like, well, actually, bears
are really really dangerous, well, like totally missing the point
(18:30):
where is a lot of I would say largely women
answering this who said the bear actually reason to out,
as you said, Like they asked questions and they're like, okay,
no the bear, So they kind of like really thinking
it through and knowing these dangers, whereas it seems the
men just went right to ignore. Why they would say
(18:51):
that you're wrong because I know about bears, right.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I mean, it really feels like an office episode, yes,
about the black bear, right to the point that you
just sit there and go literally one one, one person
a year, like I think at one point, someone else
statistics of like fifteen people at most of in a year,
(19:15):
and then the amount of women that have died at
the hands of their partner is literally spaced out in
a single day like that. Yeah, it's like the amount
of statistics and the fact that men are so threatened
by this question.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah to the again like.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
The I don't know why this is a go to
for so many insecure men is you have then to
ask them for help for what help from other men?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It's a very it's like a very dismissive thing too,
because it's like essentially trying to dismiss why women would
say that as then you can't handle you don't know fear,
you don't know bears, right, But I wonder how much
of it is like they feel threatened too by Well,
(20:11):
if you're living with the fear of the bear every day,
then you must be stronger than I thought.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Ladies, here's a statistic.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And I just needed to know. I needed to know
more men have been killed by bears and women and
I just because like, so here's one and I don't
know how outdated. Oh, this is twenty sixteen. So this
is a Vox article in twenty sixteen about attacks involving
grizzly bears and occurring during summer. And it's among fatal
bear attack victims. The average age was thirty seven. Of
(20:52):
these victims twenty one more female and fifty more male.
And it happened in deep backcountries with hobbies dominated by men.
So I don't because it's there in their space. So
that's a whole different conversation. But I did wonder, like
in like can't be situations, whether like who are the
ones going to antagonize the bear versus who are not?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I did see a video also of this group of people,
and there were several young women getting a cub out
of the tree that they just wanted to cuddle. And
they're like, that is illegal.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's dangerous. That is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I think people were in so upset and I'm like, yeah, right, live,
so leave the bears alone, dude, let them be. Yeah
when they come into our Twitter territory and go off,
they have had some cocaine apparently.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
That could be a thing can be. That's also pretty rare,
but can.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Had to throw that in for a reference. Sound that disheartening, Uh,
that this is that deep of a conversation and that
the fallout as men being upset and I think there
are some human some girls and you're like, oh, that's
not true. I wouldn't. I wouldn't pick a bear because
then they like result too, Like I would definitely pick
(22:13):
Ryan Gosling over a bear. Who wouldn't Just kidding.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well, again, that's when you ask the questions. But when
it's like just some random man.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's a strange person I have never met, and it's
just a dude that's just chilling, and they're staring at
me and I see it like if I see a
bear and a man at the same distance. I'm not
going towards either one of them. Yeah, I'm saying away
from both of you. But if you're telling me we're
in the woods, and like, yeah, I would rather like
be able to play dead with the bear hopefully, versus
(22:48):
trying to run from a man mm hmm and hide.
I've seen those horror movies.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Me too, you know I have.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Once I I was hiking alone and I was in
a very remote place and it was in North Georgia,
and I saw a bear and I was nervous, but
I just was like, okay, just to come and keep going.
Then I saw a man and he was just standing
there in a very awkward pose and he was stuck
(23:23):
still and he just like watched me go by, and
I was more scared of him, for sure. It rattled me.
Like the bear. I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna
like try to move on and be cool and.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Not don't panic, don't look at it.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Just just go. And then after I couldn't see it,
I couldn't hear it. I was like, Okay, I'm good,
but that man was I was like I could be
so far from him and he could shoot me, Like,
I don't know what he was doing, but he was
just it was creepy.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Right, No, that's absolutely Like, and when you hear a
rustling in the woods, I'm more scared that it's going
to be a man, a giant watching me, or or
a wild boar. Those wilds the mountains, they're pretty, they're.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Faster, they'll get you.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Well.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I think that's the thing though, is like I am,
I don't want to mess with bears. Bears scary, right,
But I also I think that's kind of the point,
is that if that's true, Yeah, then if the man
is scarier the random man.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Right, And again a lot of them are like, yeah,
I could die either way, but I would rather be
killed by a bear versus a man. Yeah, that's that scenario.
That's that conversation, Like what's going to happen, I mean,
and as what's happened in Wisconsin, which I believe Shawe
Robinson met a dude on tender and he member her
(25:01):
and killed her with initially, and there's a conversation about
the fact that he may have killed other black women
and no one's caring, no one, no one, until like
it came out like in a bigger conversation, no one
really said much and it's not a very hyped case,
and like those are the situations like, yeah, she took
a chance on meeting a dude in public, I believe,
(25:21):
and died h And that we know more and more
and more of those cases, and it's kind of like
we this is that conversation that we're having of like
what did a poor woman? And yeah, if you've listened
to true crimes and so many things where they're like,
you know, like people are women are petrified. I just say,
(25:43):
you know, marginalized people are super petrified about what's out
there and who's going to get them. And it's more
often that they're more afraid of a human being than
of all the creatures out there, except for the deep sea.
Like if I go into deep sea, then maybe I'll
be more scared.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Deeps is scary, so scary.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
But yeah, I think that was an important conversation and
I'm I hate that this is a constant turnaround conversation
that I'm like wow, wow, like you just you refuse
to get it.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, yeah, because I do feel that so many times,
and most of my male friends have been very cool
about it. But you just mentioned something and they'll be
like what really, Like, yep, that's just my existence. And
I feel like so many of these things just showcase
over and over again that we're we're here living in
(26:40):
different worlds. We've got a long ready to go.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
And then the amount of men who are getting boosted
because they just said, oh yeah, bear because they quote
unquote get it. But this is minimum, this is this
is a minimum. Yeah, but I get while we're celebrating
because this minimum is really high compared to the rest
of the average here.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
It is. It is.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, it's unfortunate because like you said, it's also Yeah,
when a bear attach happens, you hear so much about it.
But every day to every day inundated with violence against women,
it's like, okay.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, women's not wearing these clothings. Thanks, don't go out alone.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yes, oh god, well I did not know this is
what we would be talking about today. Yeah, thank you
for keeping me up to date on these trends that
I don't know about.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
That now is gonna go away, tiktook is forever go.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Got a year one year, So listeners, if you have
any thoughts about this, please let us know. You can
emails a Stephanie and mom Stuff at I Heard at
media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
One Never told You. We have a YouTube tube and
t public store and a book that you can get
(28:11):
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and your contributor Joey.
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Never
Told You this production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
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