I hike on trails often. Encounter men on the trails. The bears are usually shy and don’t come very close. Deer on the other hand do, but as soon as you yell, they run. Do bears?
Squatters make me more nervous than bikers or runners on the trail. They occasionally pop up. You should report them. Some trails allow camping, I’m not talking about that.
Never had an issue with either but maybe I’ve been lucky. I do have cell phone coverage.
I’m more afraid of the unleashed dogs. They are always very friendly, according to their owners.
My sister (in a Connecticut suburb) has frequent visits from bears in her backyard. She isn’t bothered by them, but I always announce my arrival and make a lot of noise when I’m leaving!
Taking the hypothetical bear out of the equation - my father died when I was in college, but he taught me (in the late 70’s) how to carry my keys so that I could poke an attacker in the eye with them, and how to knee them in the crotch. The world was a much safer place then but I think most women have always realized the need to be aware of their surroundings, whether it’s while walking through the woods on a hike or walking in a Target parking lot.
https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm indicates that US crime rates generally were lower in 2019 than in 1975-1979. However, the rates for rape from 2016-2019 are not directly comparable to the rates in previous years, due to a change in definition. But the rate for rape in 2015 was not significantly different from that in 1975-1979, although the late 1970s saw a significant upward trend in rape as well as other crimes.
I find it interesting when guys make comments that say, in effect “wouldn’t it be great if I was an object of lust and women were making passes at me all the time?”
Look at the girl’s face in the picture/meme above… does she look like she’s enjoying the attention?
Just two years ago I was trying to arrange for a contractor to do some work. I texted back and forth with a guy who at one point felt it would be cool to send me *d**k pix. Like…really?
Would a guy maybe like to receive unsolicited naked pix from a woman? Perhaps. But I definitely did not and couldn’t eye bleach those images.
The worst part - when I called my daughter to tell her she said. “Yeah my friends and I hate when they do that.”’ What? This is apparently what our daughters are dealing with regularly. Makes me mad
Yes, I wonder if men who think this way really understand what women face. Studies of rapists show that many of them start with “lower” sex crimes such as exhibitionism.
Due to persisting social/gender patterns (along the lines of a similar behavior being called stud or slut depending on gender) many men feel valued when receiving unsolicited attention from women.
So perhaps to decrease that, an exercise could be to imagine a gay guy behaves with you in the way you behaved. Repeatedly. Or a colleague of yours does just what you did to your adult child.
I would imagine there are situations where a straight guy would feel flattered by gay men’s attention but not constantly and I assume they would be very uncomfortable thinking of their child being put in such a situation.
Don’t forget that person should also be significantly taller and heavier and faster than you and have been taught from an early age that he should be aggressive to get what he wants.
The fact is we women are not a usual prey species for bears. There are rare occasions when they will attack a person but they are atypical.
A small subset of men, however, do actively prey on women and it’s hard to tell by looking if a guy is a predator or not.
That’s what this is all about.
Yes we know most guys aren’t predators but the clever ones don’t advertise that they are predators until it’s too late so we are wary.
I’d be cautious and uncomfortable if a random guy told me a grizzly bear was down the trail. I’d probably turn around and walk with him but I’d keep my bear spray at the ready whether for him or a grizzly.
You did the opposite of failing your sons by not teaching them to be aggressive to get what they want. Because when boys are taught this, this is one way trouble starts:
Ask a girl out and she says no? Don’t take no for an answer, keep pestering her! Women like an “alpha man”!
Thank goodness that there are fathers who teach their sons to respect a woman’s decision.
If my sons didn’t respect women they’d have to deal with me. There is no acceptable reason not to respect women. My boys learned this from me, and both of their grandfathers.
Respect everyone until they go out of their way to prove otherwise.
My husband had a weird experience with a guy at the grocery store yesterday. DH accidentally bumped him and apologized. The guy was really angry. A couple of minutes later, he purposely pushed DH’s cart so it bumped DH! I guess he expected DH to react angrily, but he just apologized again. This threw the guy and he actually said he was sorry, too. So bizarre.
I did ask DH, “Afterwards, did you give any thought to what you would do when you exited the store?” and he said no. I told him that if it had been me, I would have made darned sure the guy had driven off before getting in my car. DH admitted he never would have thought of that.
