Ladies, would you rather be in the forest with a bear or a man?

My backyard borders the state gamelands, I've had bears in my yard. I've seen them as close as my front door and they are usually minding their own business, and run away if you are loud enough. I needed a protection order to get my ex away from me. So, I'll take the bear.

I realized I'm not very informed about bears, so I hopped to Google to see how often they attack humans:

Although rare, attacks on humans have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death. Each bear and each experience is unique; there is no single strategy that will work in all situations and that guarantees safety. Most bear encounters end without injury.

And then I realized we can rewrite it like:

Although rare, attacks on women have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death. Each man and each experience is unique; there is no single strategy that will work in all situations and that guarantees safety. Most encounters with a man end without injury.

But I guess I'd rather be in the forest with a man, just because it's a more familiar terrifying situation.

If I die by bear, it wasn't personal. It was an animal doing animal things for animal reasons.

If I die by man, it was most certainly personal. It was a person making a choice to hurt me for cruel reasons.

I'd sooner take my chances with a bear.

I shoot astrophotography so I'm sometimes out all night alone in remote areas. I keep bear spray and a knife on me during those trips and it's definitely NOT the bears that I'm worried about.

I dunno. I live pretty rural and I assume there is some sort of predator nearby when I go hiking. Out of the two if I saw a wild animal predator like a cat or bear (ignoring the standard rule that if you were being stalked you wouldn't see it until the initial charge/attack) I think I'd feel semi secure just backtracking to my vehicle as long as I'm armed.

If I saw a man coming and he gave me predator vibes I'm not sure. I've read stories of women even with like a Doberman being overpowered if the man is armed because he's proactive with his weapon. The timing of “is he coming for me or just walking past me” can be the difference of life or death even with a protection dog. He could even disarm me if he came at me with that as a priority and caught me off guard instantly. I think a bear wouldn't reach for my gun and hopefully I've responded by the time it got that close.

So I'm leaning to preferring walking across a predator like a cat or bear then having to deal with that rather than an unexpected man in the woods.

I'd take a black bear over a strange man for sure. Grizzly bears are scarier, but then again, a lot of men are scary and wily. I think once you get away from the grizzly it wouldn't bear a grudge and come back for you, but as we all know, unfortunately men will. For polar bears, maybe I'd choose the man.

Bears are not smart enough to carry a gun or machete

Bears are not smart enough to anticipate a face full of capsicum

Bears are scared of loud horns

On the flipside I am instinctively scared of bears and I would automatically go into panic mode if I saw one anywhere close to where I was and if it had noticed my presence. I would probably end up spraying it in the face with hot pepper.

I don't know who the man is, what he's capable of and what weapons he's carrying. The man could be anyone and since at least 40% of men have admitted that they would rape a woman if they could get away with it. Around 20% would commit violent rape. I'm plus sized and 35% of men are attracted to a chubby-fat woman, 12% prefer obese women. That gives me around perhaps 5-10% odds that I could be with a potential attacker. Just under 90% of people arrested for robbery are male (that doesn't even account for the fact that a lot of women are accomplices for a man). If I have my phone with me, which is a rather nice phone, how do I know that said man won't steal it from me? Plus all the cash and debit cards I could be carrying.

Not to mention all the other things that exist in the woods during summer, hornets, wasps, mosquitoes, gadflies, wild pigs, stags, snakes, spiders. I also have an unstable knee and ankles and I am physically unable to run and I can't walk very well on uneven surfaces. I think I would rather stay out of the woods.

Bear. Where I live, we only get black bears. They are not that large, and they tend to shy away from humans. Also any decent hiker knows basic black bear behaviour and can act accordingly when they encounter one.

Some random dude in the woods? Nah. I hike alone every once in a while, and I automatically go into hyper vigilant potential defense mode if I encounter a man in the woods. They are not predictable, and they could potentially try to do me harm for no reason. I'll take the bears.

A bear! Hands down!

Why?

A bear isn't going to rape me, trap me, or torture me. If a bear means me harm it's gonna slaughter me quick. How do I know this? Well it will either eat me cuz it's hungry or end what it thought was a threat. Either way it's going for an efficient kill. Men on the other hand might have other intentions and motives

Also, my experience has been, bears are just as afraid of me as I am of them. Men on the other hand, they aren't afraid of a tiny petite woman like me. They know if they use force, weight, strength, etc that they'll win unless I have a weapon to defend myself with

Nothing will change my mind on this subject