Women would rather come across a bear than a man in the woods

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I think the women of Tik Tok got this right. I have an irrational fear of encountering a bear on a trail but should have a more rational fear of a man on trail or on a road or in general. I personally know many people that have encountered bears on a trail including many women. None of them have been killed, raped, chased, traumatized or specifically targeted because they are women. Unfortunately, I know women that have fallen into each category with myself falling into the chased/traumatized category but not on a trail. I also don’t know many that women that expect to encounter a bear a on a city street, a college campus, or be friends/acquaintances with bears or have friends/acquaintances that have bears. I do think women think it would be possible to see bears on trails but would rather take their chances with the bear than a man. Does the worst case scenario have to happen with a man? Do their experiences with men off the trail go away? So yeah it is so statistically rare to harmed/killed by a bear that women shouldn’t in fact worry about it. So it is an upside for women that we have a greater likelihood of getting injured on a fall on the trail, or getting attacked by a dog, or perhaps some other animal?

I have been a runner for over 40 years and I would love to say that I have never had some absolutely terrifying encounters with men I didn’t know. The police were involved with several including the first when I was in my 2nd year of college. So I’ll spare the details but always considered myself “lucky” because nothing really bad happened to me. I was rescued by a campus police officer that I could see off in the distance and I think the man could see too. I never told my parents and the school didn’t notify them either because I was an adult. I know it was a different time and things may be better now. I have always been ashamed that I left out some important details because I was scared, embarrassed, young and very traumatized. What did I do wrong? Nothing I simply went out for a run.

Responses like this are troubling as a woman, mother, athlete, and member of the community in which I know live. An area with beautiful trails which I run on sometimes alone. An area with lots of bears and a lot more women runners/hikers/walkers than we I first started running. Not long ago a young women was murdered out on run in the town next to me by a man she did not know in broad daylight dragged into the woods off a country road not far from her family’s house that she was visiting. Our community will never be the same.

I have had the great fortune to have some wonderful men in my life, family, friends, runners, hikers, walkers. As I age I worry less about myself but more about my daughter and other young women. I don’t live in fear of all men but can totally understand why women do.

Violence against women is real whether it is on the trail/road/home/campus/city/country, by family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I spent all day thinking about this thread. It is very triggering and I can see it has bothered others as well.

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I don’t walk alone in woods any more.

In my mid 20s I was attending a 7 week course at a medical center (not in the USA); we attendees were housed in dorms at the medical center. On a local holiday when there was a colorful parade in the street, I took a stroll with my camera to see the festivities.

Returning toward the medical center, I noticed a small wooded area adjacent to the center’s campus, with a little stream running alongside. It was pretty and I turned off the road to walk a short distance into this wooded area. Not 200 feet in, I was assaulted by a man there, who silently forced me toward the ground, while another man approached from the same street where the parade was going on. I thought it was a coordinated ambush and that I was a goner. I screamed my head off but no one heard. My attacker pushed down on my shoulders and I sprained my thumb fighting to stay off the ground.

Then the downward pressure on my shoulders ceased, and I looked up to see my attacker running off. As it happened the 2nd man was not part of it and had chased the attacker away. I don’t think he spoke English, as he also said nothing. I walked away in a daze and that is when I finally began to feel the pain in my thumb.

I was embarrassed and blamed myself for using poor judgment in walking alone there, so I only told my roommate, and swore her to secrecy. I didn’t want to be the subject of everyone’s conversation and could not have identified the man anyway. Before the course ended, I finally confided in one trusted member of staff, and urged her to warn future course attendees to stay out of those woods. It would have been better to say something earlier, of course. Traumatized people don’t always make the best decisions.

For a week or two after the attack, I had flashbacks; I’d be in class and the whole sequence would suddenly replay in my head, like a movie that could not be stopped. I relived it in detail, over and over. This eventually stopped on its own, and my thumb was back to normal within 2 months. I went back to exploring the city the week after the attack-- alone, no less-- but I made sure to stay in public areas.

I used to think I could fight off an attacker, but found out it was not possible given his size and strength vs. mine. I used to assume screams would be heard. I discovered otherwise.

Since then I don’t walk alone where/when I believe I would be vulnerable, and I advise my daughter not to do so either.

Bears or men
 I don’t want to meet either in the woods, alone. Once was enough.

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That is so tragic. As you say, it occurred in the daytime on a busy street in a city, or while using public transport at that time. It would seem nothing she could have done would have prevented the awful event, and of course that is scary. Most of us still go out in the daytime on busy urban streets, though, and while that event is truly horrifying, does it actually impact your daily actions? Should it? It is a sincere question-what do you do to prevent being kidnapped in daylight from a busy urban street, and do you think about this when you are there?

In somewhat related news, one person was killed and another injured in falls in Denali park.

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I do want to make clear, as apparently my prior posts did not, that I respect everyone’s different levels of risk tolerance, whatever they are based upon. Our feeling matter, and everyone should consider their own comfort level, for whatever reason, and make their own decisions about what actions they engage in. It is a wholly personal decision; there is no right or wrong answer.

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This is your most recent post on this thread:

This was your first post on this thread:

I am curious what caused your apparent position and attitude to change so significantly over the last couple of days?

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“But somehow, I think I’d still much rather die in a car crash than be tortured, raped and perhaps murdered at the hands of a fellow human being.”

This - 100%. For all those statistics lovers on the thread, it is not about frequency it is about severity - and while it may seem death is death - I agree with @inthegarden. Frequency of car accidents is far higher yet the impact/severity of rape is much more significant.

I was going to pose a somewhat analogous question to men - as the one that started this thread - that I thought might clarify the situation, but as a woman I don’t know if feelings of helplessness and being attacked evoke the same feelings in men as women. My - awful -hypothetical to men would be: would you rather be in a car accident or get attacked by a street gang on an isolated dark street IF the injuries from both were identical. I find it hard to believe that a man would be ambivalent even though the injuries would be identical. No one wants to feel weak and unable to defend themselves. The risk of being attacked by a wild animal is - rational or irrational - just easier to accept than the thought or experience of being attacked by a fellow human being.

For women who have been assaulted or had significant “bad” interactions, we know the feeling of reliving the event, nightmares, flashbacks, panic. Perhaps it is not rational but it is how our emotions work. And no, it doesn’t make us stop living; it just makes us more vigilant - not necessarily a bad thing.

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So the question posed, encountering a bear or man once on a random trail, involves such a low statistical probability of harm that I wouldn’t give it a moment’s concern either way, and I personally don’t worry about events that are extraordinarily unlikely to occur, nor encourage others to do so by posing such questions on social media.
I recognize that some people are concerned about statistically unlikely events, for whatever reason, and that is their right to do so. It doesnt bother anyone else if they modify their own actions accordingly. So some people won’t fly, some won’t work in skyscrapers after 9/11, whatever. Some have heightened sensitivity to events based upon their own background or friendships. That is their decision to make.
As a society, we are better off devoting public resources to avoiding statistically likely events ( like car accidents) to maximize public welfare, but whatever decisions people make in their personal lives is up to them. Accurate assessment of risks, however, is in all of our interests.
I hope that clarifies things for you.

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Ah! I see the issue here–you read the original hypothetical as literally just about a bear or a man in one particular situation (hike in the woods).

Your answers make sense now.

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Well, yes, that was the question, I thought. One bear, one man, one hiker, one-time encounter.

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So then it has nothing to do with absolute risk assessment, does it? Either it’s just that one hypothetical, in which case it is totally about that one relative assessment,

Or, it’s about the much bigger issues the question poses, in which case the “absolute risk assessment” of the majority of posters makes sense, which of course are not just about one bear, one man, one hike.

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The absolute risk of being hurt in any one encounter with a man or bear is very, very low. Most seem focused on the relative risk in that encounter-so if it is a 1 in 100k risk of injury/death with the bear, maybe it is 1 in 50k for an encounter with the man, or maybe it is 1 in 200k, or maybe it is 1 in 50k risk of a negative encounter but a 1 in 25k risk of a positive encounter. ( assuming no bear encounters have a positive element). To some posters, I guess that relative risk difference is important, and they are really focused on trying to exactly figure it out.
To me ( and others), anything with a risk level of less than 1 in 1k or 1 in 5k isn’t worth any thought at all, and I don’t think it is particularly rational for one to do so, but feel free to do so if you like-it doesn’t affect anyone else.
The question posed had nothing to do with urban crime, sexual harassment or any of the other sidebars raised, which is why I think some math-inclined posters ( including me) keep raising statistics. And people misunderstand statistics all the time, dramatically overestimating some risks and underestimating others.

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I agree. I absolutely respect anyone’s right to be afraid or avoid whatever activity they feel may put them in harm’s way, but statistically speaking, it is unlikely that running into a bear or a man while hiking will result in something bad happening.

When I read the question I also read it as one man or one bear, having experienced both I have been more scared of the bears. That also doesn’t make statistical sense but in the moment, I was pretty scared of the bear.

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I definitely don’t shelter under tall trees in the rain.

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I don’t feed bears either. Generally, I do not deliberately increase my risk of adverse events, even remote ones

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I’m an engineer. I’m very math inclined. I know it’s much safer to fly than drive. But I just took the question as “bear” vs “man,” and due to my negative interactions with men, I chose the bear.

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Completely understandable. But the question is, on one hike, one time, would you actually be worried about either?
If people want to bring pepper spray or bear repellant or whatever on a hike to deal with any random men or animals they encounter, that’s fine for them. I just wish they brought water along too. Apparently not enough do so.

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I know three people personally who have been struck by lightening. Just saying.

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On a hike in Shenandoah National Park many years ago, my wife, I and two young sons ran into a black bear several hundred feet away. Me and my youngest were in the lead and knelt down to watch the bear. After a minute or two I turned around to say something to my wife and older son. They were nowhere to be found. My wife wanted nothing to do with a bear and had left me and the youngest to fend for ourselves. After a few minutes the bear climbed up a tree off of the trail. We continued past him and walked further down the trail to the waterfall, our initial destination. After spending about a half hour enjoying the falls we hiked back up past the bear again. My wife and oldest were waiting at the head of the trail. Everyone has their own personal feelings and experiences. If I felt unsafe on a trail I would definitely carry something that could afford me some level of protection. Mostly I hike close to home and mainly carry a small bag with extra water and a first aid kit to assist myself or anyone else in need.

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What’s that saying
“Statistics are only important until something happens to you - then you don’t care about the odds”

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