Yes, men do pose a danger to other men. Nobody anywhere on this thread is denying that. But the TikTok isn’t about men’s violence to men. Or about humans’ violence toward humans. Or humans’ violence toward bears. Or bears’ violence toward bears. It is about a very particular type of men’s violence toward women. The rape and murder you type. (Or sometimes just rape you type, and then you should count yourself as lucky.)
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You, sir, are one the good ones : )
Men, strive to be a good one.
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Thank you for your thoughtfulness. Speaking for myself, however, feel free to be open to innocuous conversation so long as there is good physical distance between you (i.e. greeting/weather/local athletic team/hope you have a great day). Of course, this is often a tell-tale sign of what region one is from. When we lived in NYC if people started up a conversation in the elevator, the conversation always turned to where the others were from, because they obviously weren’t New Yorkers. 
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I’m sorry for all the women out there who are traumatized by 50% of our population.
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When i was a freshman at my first college, a friend (male) from home was also attending. Neither of us really fit in there, and so we hung around together a lot. Because he applied late, he was stuck in an overflow room in a small frat house, along with three other latecomers. Therefore I ended up spending time in that frat house with my (platonic) friend. I will never forget him telling me the kinds of things they would say around him–like, how they looked forward to the sorority rush events because the freshman girls would be so drunk it was easy to pick them off on the way home. Never, ever felt safe on that campus. And the thing is, those guys “seemed” normal to me when I was around, but when I wasn’t, my friend heard what they were really capable of (some, not all, of course).
The thing is, like others said, you just don’t know when you encounter some random guy, who are the good guys and who aren’t. And if the “bad guys” were such a tiny minority, women wouldn’t grow up getting lessons about not being alone at night, carrying keys between our fingers, checking around cars before getting in, and in general, always having to be cognizant of vulnerability.
Let’s not play semantic games of if we’re talking about National Parks, or if it’s a hike or a walk (or, to edit “what kind of animal it is”) or whatever way a few posters want to slice this to ignore the bigger truth–MANY men are dangerous to women. And we know it.
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I wonder if changing the animal changes the answers. Now that we have established bears’ bona fides, would respondents feel the same way about pit bulls? Rottweilers? Pythons?
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Probably. I went to a convention one time where a fellow attendee had gotten on a subway train that picked up someone who entered with two pitbulls. They were terrified and I don’t blame them. I think the scariest encounters are in the city–not in the woods.
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Personally, stray dogs scare me the most, in any context. Yeah, I do think the type of animal is important.
If I truly believed 50% of the population presented a real danger to me, I would not leave the house. Although I have had my share of negative encounters with strangers, I have had far more positive ones, regardless of gender.
I do not believe " many men" are dangerous. Some are, of course. But IME, that is a minority.
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I didn’t say the pits were on a leash.
That seems like a very rational fear about the animal.
As I said before, the conversation does explain in part the current sky high anxiety rates. Neither female rapes nor murders have been increasing in the last decades, but posters are very concerned about their safety. Perhaps concerned for the wrong locations ( one’s home is the site of most female forcible rapes), but nevertheless, very concerned- more anxious than in the past, when crime rates were actually higher.
I’m not traumatized by 50% of our population but I’d really like some men to not be creepers and give women more space and be aware of how it might feel to be a woman in certain situations.
Rule to live by: Just don’t be a creeper
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I’d prefer a bear over a man in the woods.
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Yes, anxiety has been increasing, and there are a lot of possible explanations. But I don’t see worry about getting assaulted as on the increase–I was certainly educated to be wary as a young woman forty years ago. I don’t see any evidence that the awareness is any different now than it was before. It was a real concern then, and throughout history, basically, and it is now. Why would you attach that fact to the increase in anxiety, when there are so many very plausible explanations for that already?
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The anxiety on this thread is palpable.
It is reasonable to expect that carries over into the current high level of generalized anxiety.
Are women more worried about assault than they used to be? It seems so, though 24 hour news cycles, the internet, and social media reports may have exacerbated existing concerns.
Still don’t see it. People are talking about past experiences, some very far past. I don’t see “anxiety” on this thread–I see that women are more willing to talk about what we always have known. It’s just a basic fact. Or what were all those blue light boxes for, on our campuses forty/fifty year ago? Do you really think that women aren’t more often targets if out alone, or in the dark, or in deserted places?
In any case, you have a narrative and I don’t expect I’ll shake it.
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Your campus was quite advanced to have blue lights 40 years ago-mine did not.
Contrary to your assumption, I do not have a “narrative”. I just wish people ( of any gender) more accurately focused on likely risks, like heart attacks, traffic accidents, and falls, rather than stranger danger, bear attacks and the like.
Most strangers are not rapists. Most bears will not eat you. Take reasonable precautions, but I would like to think we should not overly stress about unlikely events, but some like to.
It would be interesting to see the question asked in different countries.
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Why is this a positive? 
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“Stranger danger” – cute. I know multiple women who have been assaulted by non-acquaintance men; none that have been assaulted by bears.
Not to mention that one reason the numbers aren’t any bigger is the general avoidance of places and situations is baked into the culture.
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Nothing about stranger danger is cute. Be aware of your surroundings and companions, regardless of your gender and age, obviously. But don’t assume every stranger is a potential threat.