Choosing the Bear
A few years ago, a thought experiment went viral: women were asked whether they’d rather encounter a bear or a man in the woods. At first glance, ‘Would you rather’ questions might seem silly or absurd. But well-designed ones strip complex issues down to a binary choice, revealing deeper fears, values, and societal perspectives.
If you’re familiar with the experiment, you’ll know that women chose the bear. The response to this from men was immediate and overwhelming - ranging from confusion to outright hostility. Some fixated on bear attack statistics, eager to debate animal behaviour. Others felt unfairly "lumped in," centring their own hurt and rejection. Some blamed the media. Others misrepresented or misunderstood domestic violence statistics.
But from my perspective, very few got curious. The men who were angry or confused never asked the most important question: "Why? Why would women choose the bear?”
As a therapist - and as a man - I’ve thought a lot about why women make that choice. When this experiment first arose, I saw it as an invitation, an opportunity for men to learn about themselves from a different perspective.
It wasn’t about bears. It was opening up a conversation around women’s sense of safety, and how that connects to masculinity, and trying to bring attention to the real problem of violence, and how that connects to the changing social fabrics, new gender identities, and how we talk to one another.
I understood the choice, although I won’t pretend I always would have understood. I’ve been where the men responding with anger and defensiveness have been before, and I still have much to learn. But, here’s a little of what I’d come to understand before this thought experiment arose:
Women navigate life calculating risk in ways most men never have to. From a young age, they are taught - by experience, by warning, by necessity - to assess their surroundings, avoid certain situations, and prepare for potential threats. Carry your keys between your fingers. Don’t walk alone at night. Make sure someone knows where you are. These are survival instincts, ingrained through generations of warnings and lived realities.
This isn’t paranoia. It’s statistics. It's valid.
One in three women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. Most who are assaulted or murdered aren’t attacked by strangers but by men they knew and trusted. In the U.S., five women are murdered every day - most by men. Globally, men commit over 90% of homicides. Women don’t fear men because they believe all men are violent. They fear men because, historically and statistically, many men are - and the consequences of guessing wrong are life-altering. Fatal, even.
The overwhelming backlash from men over women’s choice was a stark display of how men are socialized, and why they struggle to understand the choice. Even though the narratives around masculinity are shifting, the ideas still persist that men are supposed to be strong and dominant, providers and guardians, masters of craft, the emotionless and logical thinkers. In this debate that erupted on social media, the discrepancies between the prescriptions of masculinity and how it was actually performed, came into full view.
For example, many men want to be seen as providers and protectors, and to them, that equates to safety. They focus on their physical prowess and athleticism. They learn survival skills like hunting, fishing and fighting. They focus on material wealth, competition, and winning. Strength, dominance, and productivity come at a cost. They work their whole lives to be seen as powerful, dominant, and dangerous. But they rarely address their inner experience, learning to suppress, disconnect, or explode.
But when women spoke openly about seeing men as domineering, overpowering, or dangerous, instead of responding with logic or curiosity, men became defensive and emotional (anger is an emotion). Certainly, I understand it is uncomfortable for them to hear that they weren’t being perceived the way they wanted to be. Many men felt personally attacked.
Now they wanted to argue that they weren’t dangerous, that they would never hurt a woman. But that response flies in the face of what masculinity was striving for. This anger demonstrated a deeper problem of power without regulation.
Worse, it ignores the deeper issue here: It shifted the conversation from “What can we do to change this reality?” to “Reassure me that I’m one of the good ones.”
In other words, it became about men’s sense of safety instead of women’s.
Safety isn’t something you declare - it’s something you demonstrate. I rarely see men ask the question: “What am I protecting women from? From whom?” The hard truth is that men can’t claim to be protectors while refusing to address the violence within their own gender. They can’t demand trust while ignoring the very valid reasons it isn’t given freely.
I won’t claim that I came by this perspective easily - or quickly. Over the years, I’ve witnessed the aftermath, the impact, and the trauma women have had to carry because of the harm men have inflicted on them. I have had my own moments of dismissing the pain and experience of others that I will regret forever. I have also been a victim of violence. In too many of these situations, I looked away. I told myself I wasn’t the bad guy because I didn’t do anything wrong. But these incidents began to stack up, and patterns formed. Patterns of behaviour. Patterns of systems. And once I saw one form of systemic failure, I couldn’t ignore the others.
For me, learning to listen meant not just hearing but really listening. Not waiting for my turn to talk. Not crafting my rebuttal. Just sitting with what someone was saying and letting it sink in. Trying to understand it. It meant confronting my own mistakes, including the times I dismissed someone’s pain because it made me uncomfortable. It meant recognizing that accountability isn’t a punishment - it’s an opportunity to be better.
It wasn’t easy. Getting past the barriers defensiveness throws up is viscerally gut-wrenching at first. No one likes to feel wrong, or like they screwed up - especially men.
It has also meant learning how to walk other men through this process. To help them get past the barriers of shame. Shame is a dead end. It tells you something is wrong, but it doesn’t tell you what to do next. The real work is moving through it, not wallowing in it.
BearMind wasn’t born from this thought experiment or social media debate. My connection to bear motifs goes way back, and you can see how I incorporate that into my personal and professional philosophies in other posts here.
Still, I can’t ignore the overlap. Listening, understanding different perspectives, and learning from them - that’s at the core of how we grow. It’s central to my own work, my own learning, and what I hope to foster in the people I work with.
I’m here to help men unlearn the harmful parts, relearn what real strength is, and understand the power they hold - not to wield over others, but to create something better. And if you’re ready to do that work, let’s talk. I offer a free 30-minute virtual meet-and-greet - no pressure, just a conversation to see if I’m the right fit for you.