On Women and Bears
This week’s inevitable social media storm has surrounded the claim that, apparently, many women would opt to meet a bear on a hike instead of an unknown male. Of course, this debate is mainly a case of female provocation which has the enjoyment its own self-expression as its goal. That is, the statement itself does not represent their honest-to-God sentiment but is instead a vehicle for enjoying a hysterical outburst, lambasting men and drawing attention to their own victimhood. This week’s bout of hysteria was more so a cry for attention to a genuine expression of preference.
My claim here is to, in some sense argue with the content of his claim but on a grander scale, to showcase how best to deal with it. And how to deal with it actually does not involve taking its contents at face-value because it is not a claim that has any meaning.
At a societal level, we suffer most profoundly from the problem that the ever-swirling thoughts of the mass of women are taken seriously. These thoughts not only inform the general public discourse but actually dictate and direct it. The effects of this societal phenomenon are hardly ever spoken about. To my knowledge, this phenomenon has no historical parallel. It exists at a lesser extent outside the West. In the past, women presumably often spoke in such ways, of course, albeit at a lesser level of derangement or venom. One mitigating factor in prior societies that prevented current levels of vitriol was likely a latent respect or consideration for the output men, bearing[heh] in mind that men are valued to the same extent that they are useful.
But, more than this, what I will for time’s sake simply term ‘the Reality’ was too much of a present force for women and men for such silly ideas to germinate for most sensible women. That is, the civilisation of abundance and security that men have now built had, in the past, not progressed to the extent that, when bequeathed to women as it is now, erased from their minds the prior brutality that it concealed. It is precisely these things (e.g., large predatory animals) that have long been ‘covered over’ that are severely misevaluated by women regarding their level of danger. Large bears are merely quite a prominent and striking example but they serve as a metaphor to many other things: war, societal breakdown, the elements, other animals, natural disasters and so on. Again, the core issue is not that women’s thoughts exist but the level of seriousness with which they are taken in both popular and ‘elite’ society.
Even in my own response, I almost fell victim to taking these claims seriously, as a claim about a sate of affairs to be debunked. It is a story as old as time (or at least the internet). Our classic male subject, upon seeing the routine and gleeful disparaging of his gender, smugly runs over to his facts and statistics to prove her wrong. He proudly shows how statistically frequently women encounter men in the woods without problem or to their own benefit. Or in the streets, on stairwells and in elevators (that they have built) or in society in general (that they upkeep). He might show her the information that, should she break her leg, fall down in a ravine, or become stuck in a mountain, it will most likely be a man who comes to her rescue.
In fact, there are a great many occurrences across the globe in which a man dies in the attempt to save a woman or women from, say, a fire or from drowning. Even in the most dangerous of mountains, the world of men extends out from civilisation itself and into the dangerous elements, providing a constant and unfaltering safety net should she slip and fall. Men maintain a constant ‘absent presence’ that enables her to embark or otherwise risky forays into dangerous natural environments which is no normalized it has become transparent. Keeping her safe has indeed often been a driving priority that has guided male ingenuity that has an overall societal benefit.
The Bear, on the other hand, will ignore her in the best case scenario. Certainly, he will not drown to save her. In the worst case, the bear will maul her to death. A painful and often prolonged death. This, of course, has been pointed out by many men. Armed with his little facts, our male subject is painfully disappointed when showing her that her thought process – apparently the cause of her distress – is demonstrably incorrect. Yet somehow by doing so he has only made things worse. “Why are women like this?” he thinks before chastising himself for the chauvinism of this very thought.
Indeed, we can see how such a response quite genuinely meets the criteria of ‘mansplaining’, which is itself an artefact of a typical misunderstanding between the genders. It is not just that the mansplainer proves her wrong, he robs her own a unique source of pleasure. Its about her moment, her feelings, her victimhood and her story. The world is a hostile place and she is at the centre of it. In showcasing her how this mental image does not correspond to reality, and in fact the opposite may be true, he has, as the feminist line often goes, ‘invalidated her experience’, which, according to the context in which it occurred, may earn him social sanction or a mild form of punishment.
Of course, this mindset can in some ways even be cast as sympathetic, if it wasn’t wrapped in so many poisonous barbs or, to repeat, a deciding factor in all corporate or state policy. Whatever we think about the validity and accuracy of women’s claims, powerful institutions take them EXTREMELY seriously, often to the letter. Thus, the gender conflict that has typified so much of the last decade is refreshed anew. But where can we go from here?
One avenue may be a temporary pause in the safety net provided by men so it is no longer transparent and thus can be used as a negotiating chip. Female hysteria, pathological pity-seeking and solipsism is no longer contained to circles of wives gatherings or even 20th century gossip mags. It has an impact on government and corporate policy, on advertising, even at high levels of international diplomacy. The US government and others openly pursues a ‘feminist foreign policy’.
The only way out of this dilemma might be to return to the global-historical norm and refuse to listen to, let alone solve, whatever unreasonable demands she has. This solution is deceptively simple; instead of hating women, simply ignoring them. Responding to the complaints of women has become so normalized yet it is abundantly clear that this motivates female complaining, it does not rectify it. The complaining itself is the point of it all. A return to ignoring and dismissing the multitude of concerns of women, and is and has been the human norm, appears to be our most obvious route to sanity. While this may sound harsh, the day in which we return to the historical norm of a ‘Yes dear, now run along’ is the day in which a new horizon of far more interesting, important, is brightly opened up.
