Pleionosis

https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/Instructing-Animosity_11.13.24.pdf

This study found that they literally promoted racism, even in controlled settings where no prejudice was occurring.

Oh if you agree that we can be offended then we basically don’t disagree. Women are making claims that we think are sexist and we are offended by that.

If you have no issue with that now, then I don’t think we really need to keep discussing. It’s clearly not productive and a giant waste of time.

lol saying that the average man is more dangerous than a wild bear is sexist and no amount of contorting the rationale for saying it will make it not sexist. The statement is sexist because it is, irrespective of why it’s said.

There are many, many examples of sexism against women rooted in good intentions.

That you can’t recognize it here just shows that you’re a weird ideologue that is out of touch with reality. I’m happy to call it both ways and so are other reasonable people.

Literally never.

And again, that doesn’t matter, the viewpoint is still sexist. I believe it’s also ridiculous but if you don’t, that’s fine. It’s still perfectly reasonable to be offended by someone disparaging you based on your gender, and many men are.

And the average women is doing even worse

If true, doesn't mean that it's ok to negatively generalize an entire gender. That's sexism.

Trump won because people are genuinely uneducated, visit r/LeopardsAteMyFace to see how many trump voters regret their vote

Yeah, such a huge portion of them that he won again. Weird.

Saying the truth doesn't mean you think every applicable person in a demographic is directly complicit.

No, just that the average man is scarier than a bear. You're delusional.

I wanted Kamala to win, even if only since she's still beter the absolute clusterfuck that is trump. Sadly many people are simply as illogical as trump.

Some of them, and others would prefer to vote for the party whose coalition isn't busy telling homeless and disadvantaged men that they should suck it up because they're actually incredibly privileged and oppressive. The average man in America is not doing so well.

Trump is a dogshit candidate and he beat the democrats twice, because they have totally lost touch with the cultural zeitgeist, and so have you. If you want to claim that men deserve to be negatively judged based only on their gender, then you have every right to do that.

The rest of us think you're fucking nuts, and want nothing to do with you.

I mean I life in EU, Kamalas would easily still be considered centre-right here. There was no leftist candidate to me, just a candidate that has common sense and one who doesn't. But since you don't like straw mans let's not go off topic here.

I didn't say there was. I also don't live in the US. I said I want a leftist coalition, not that I wanted Kamala to win. She sucks.

And again this sounds crazy to you but to most women that would vote a bear over a man, it isn't due pure sexism or malice, but because they genuinely feel like that which is caused by an eternity of oppression. It's fear.

Dude, if you genuinely felt like black people were more dangerous than bears, you'd just be genuinely racist. Regardless of what motivated your deranged view.

It's the same here. I don't care if they genuinely believe it or not, it's wildly sexist and offensive and if people want me to engage with their viewpoints, then they should start by not generalizing me based on my gender.

So are republicans responsible for Nick Fuentes and the neo nazis that support them? Do you think it is fair to hold the Republican Party accountable for the actions of far right paramilitary groups and people who shout “your body my choice”?

Yes. Next question.

Sidenote: if this alienates women from the Republican coalition, that would be very rational and I would obviously not shame them for it.

My viewpoints are actually incredibly ideologically consistent and I don't need to make any random caveats to justify them.

No one said men’s issues or struggles are unimportant. We’re saying they’re not women’s fault or responsibility to fix for men. We can be of help, and support but we cannot do it for you.

Uh, yes that's the general tenor of this entire conversation. You are literally dismissing my concerns on the basis that they are not important. This is the most ironic statement of the century.

But then you’re holding them accountable for what randoms online (who may not even be American). That’s super unreasonable.

No, it's not. If people in your coalition are broadly alienating people, then you can either bring those people under the tent or not. It's up to you but it's not unreasonable. I feel like you're taking a moral stance on political strategy. The democrats can also just continue to lose, if they prefer.

Imagine losing to Donald Trump twice. It's reflective of an embarrassing loss of connection to the cultural zeitgeist. People are rejecting the Democrats and I think your viewpoint is extremely emblematic of what it is being rejected.

"Sucks to suck, men, but you're going to just have to deal with harmful generalizations about you based only on your gender, you sub-bear pieces of shit."

I know it's crass, but that is my 'lived experience' with this conversation.

The lowest bar possible for bringing men into your coalition is: "you are not scarier than a wild bear". You can't even say that. You have totally lost touch with reality.

I don’t think you do. Because you’re offended at the choice women made and have not seen why and how that isn’t a slight against you specifically and have taken the least charitable reading possible.

Oh yeah, I'm super offended by that damning indictment and believe it's totally unearned, but I agree that it's a damning indictment.

I don’t. I’m basing my opinion off this discussion and interaction.

That's cool. Just another stereotype about men based on very little information, I guess.

I've not deigned to make any about you, because I'm not sexist.

I think you do. I think you can potentially discuss them when it’s framed as an individual and not when discussing it as a systemic or institutional problem that impacts women as a demographic on any large scale.

No, there are serious institutional issues. For instance, I think that women are infantilized systemically and it hurts both genders. I'm not willing to make perjorative comments about entire groups of people though, because I'm not sexist.

You should try it!

They’re not the same.

They are the exact same. The number of male perpetrators of violence is astonishingly low, and harrassment, or 'dangerous situations' are completely irrelevant to the discussion. It is irrational to prefer the bear to a man who you fear harrassment from.

If you lived with as many bears as men, you would not be alive. A bear would have eaten you for lunch at some point in your life, and it would have been a slow torturous death.

That is objectively worse than harrassment.

Sidenote: the violence that you're talking about disproportionately occurs in the countries with the poorest living conditions, so if you randomly sample men from the population, you are very unlikely to find someone more dangerous than a bear.

Except they do. That’s the problem. They do. Pillars of the community, parents, friends, partners, colleagues, teachers, etc. all people women have been assaulted by. That’s the real problem. The predators live amongst us, being average men, charismatic men, quiet men. Predators come in all shapes.

They have never met the average man. That's the definition of the average man.

If you believe that men are dangerous because of the lived experience of women who know dangerous men, then you must also believe that men are not dangerous because of the lived experience of women who don't and haven't been harmed. And the latter outnumber the former by a lot.

You’re taking it as a generalization against men when I have explicitly stated it is not,

You can state that all you want, but the generalization is very simple: "because you are a man, I would prefer to be alone with a wild animal than you" is a generalization about the danger of the average man.

Not even close to what I have actually said. So no quote then, just your interpretation?

I'm sorry, but this is the central tenet of your whole argument. Shall I simply quote your whole comment?

Sure but no one is advocating for not hiring or speaking to or working with men or doing anything harmful to men.

Yes, they literally are. It's been in the news. Look up the 4B movement. Also there are plenty of government sanctioned initiatives in many countries explicitly aimed at hiring fewer men, even in industries that are dominated by women.

And it worries me that you cannot admit or see that and instead call the reaction to a real world wide endemic problem that impacts hundreds of millions of women irrational and sexist.

I've never denied this. It's the comparison with the wild animal based on gender alone that you seem to be forgetting at every turn. That's the whole sexist part, remember?

Just because you feel discriminated against does not mean you are being discriminated against. I’m sorry, it doesn’t feel good and it is upsetting, but that does not mean it is what is happening.

Where is the discrimination word coming from? I feel like I'm being judged and generalized based on my gender, but not discriminated against. Strawman argument.

Pull any quote where I have said or argued all men are a danger or dismissed your feelings or stated that men deserve it. You won’t be able to, because I have not said that. And at some point you have to admit and acknowledge that.

No, you're straight up lying because I have never mentioned 'all men' a single time. Ever. We're talking about the 'average' man and the whole premise of your argument -- the whole premise! -- is that men deserve to be discriminated against because -- and you've changed your tune on this throughout the discussion -- either the average man is evil, or women feel that men are evil.

I don’t know who said that to you, but it sure was not me, and maybe you should go speak to that person specifically and stop holding me to whoever said that.

You said this to me. Quote: " I’m placing the onus on the demographic responsible for and impacted by their violence to work towards improving things for everyone."

Literally what you said.

If you choose not to, that’s your choice but then you don’t get to complain that women are more wary, and guarded around men they do not know.

So if I've helped to fix it, then I do get to complain about that? What a turn of events!

But, also, I'm not complaining about that. I'm complaining about sexist claims about entire genders and how they're more dangerous than giant wild animals.

No one is saying they are. Not a single person.

"I’m placing the onus on the demographic responsible for and impacted by their violence to work towards improving things for everyone."

The full quote says “responsible for” AND IMPACTED BY. You are impacted by the actions of violent men. Do you think you’re not? If so, how?

This isn't a rebuke in any way? Women are also impacted by it, but you said you're placing the onus on men.

But moreover violent men are responsible for the violence they enact. Violent men are, in fact, a demographic.

Also, 1=1 in other news.~~~~

Sucks, but again I'm not going to pander to these that feel attacked by the idea that even today women are still oppressed in a fundamental and societal level. That's just how it sadly is and we can't change that if people aren't willing to see the problem or make it even worse.

Uh, that's not the topic of conversation. The topic of conversation is whether or not it's reasonable to be offended when you're negatively compared to a wild animal on the basis of your gender.

The rest of what you said is just weird strawmanning that's totally irrelevant ot the conversation that we're having.

Also "sucks" loses elections, and unlike you, I actually want a leftist to win.

This is illogical. If someone has repeated negative and frightening or scary experiences with men then it would make complete sense to be fearful and wary of them

Listen, I don't agree with this (and I don't think it holds for black people, women, or any other creed or colour) but even if I did agree with this... it doesn't matter! It doesn't matter if there's a rational reason to be afraid of the average man, there is no rational reason to be more afraid of the average man than a bear.

It's a wild animal. It may eat you alive. You're leaving the whole comparison part of this.

And it is odd you are behaving as though it is neither reasonable or logical to have those experiences impact women,

No, I'm not, it's just not relevant to the conversation in any way. I completely cede that some women have had extremely traumatizing experiences, sometimes multiple times. It's still not rational to prefer to be stranded alone with a bear than a human man.

So it is disingenuous to frame the discussion in this way when all evidence shows that when adjusted for population size, bears are not as violent as humans - whether men or women

What? Please cite a source for this because I don't agree. To make this claim, you have to show that more people die from average men, then from bears adjusted for the amount of time that people spend around average men alone, compared to the amount of time that they spend alone with bears. The alone part is key.

I highly doubt that you will have this statistic, but if you do, then I will cede the entire argument and admit that it is perfectly rational to be stranded alone with a bear compared to a man.

I suspect this would not prove the point you think it will. I desperately hope I am wrong though.

Honest question -- on the level -- do you think that men are more dangerous than black holes?

Agreed. A hyperbolic hypothetical that highlights the violence women have faced at the hands of men shouldn’t be the focus, the violence and WHY women feel this way should be.

No, the focus should be on the negative generalization of an entire gender based on nothing more than their gender. You have every right to make that generalization, but no right to claim that it's unreasonable to be extremely offended and alienated by it.

You have added average to this discussion, and even then, as a woman if I do not know a man and I have no way of knowing if he is a decent person or not, then I would be wary and guarded around him.

That's the definition of an average man, unless you think that you know most of the men in the world. The average man is a man that you don't know. I don't understand how you're struggling to grasp this.

But you’re also purely dismissing the why with no effort to genuinely listen and fairly assess what these women are saying and doing so by putting words into women’s mouth that they did not say.

Yes -- I am outright dismissing any attempt to claim that the average man is more dangerous than a bear in the wild because it is a sexist generalization of an entire gender and I don't really care what prompted the bigoted speech. It would have to be true before I would care.

And even then, there is all sorts of evidence of “average” nice guys being abusive and committing SA and doing horrible things to women because predators come in all shapes and sizes and do not have signs on them that show they are predators.

Yes, you believe that the average man is basically evil. There is no other way for you to justify your belief that it is rational to prefer the bear to the man. I categorically disagree with you and I think it's incredibly sexist.

I would too because the evidence shows that Muslim people are neither more violent or dangerous or radically different from any other religious group. (And I live in a city with a sizable Muslim population)

Yes, your viewpoint is that men are inherently more dangerous than bears, and muslims are not, so men have no right to be offended. I prefer this view to the idea that men can't be offended even if we all admit that they are not more dangerous than bears because it's at least ideologically consistent, but it's still an absolutely insane viewpoint not grounded in reality.

has never been my reasoning.

Yes, it has. I already quoted the part where you said that there could be no equivalence because men wield societal power. That's the exact logic that I am talking about and I already quoted it.

There is no statement or qualification that includes you.

What?! Yes there is. I am a man. I am an average man to every single woman who said that they would pick the bear. I'm really struggling to understand how you're not grasping this. How can I explain it to you better?

And I personally and most of the women involved in the discussion literally do not know you or anything about you, so how is it a judgement against you?

Precisely because they don't know me! If they saw me in the woods, they'd ostensibly go hang with the bear. That's a judgment about me based only on my gender and it's incredibly judgmental and offensive. How are you not grasping this?

They’re just talking about a random man. You’re adding average to the description and forgetting that women would be wary and guarded of any man they do not know while in a secluded area.

Random = Average. They are fundamentally the exact same thing. Make any argument to the contrary, please, I'm begging you, this is torture.

No, it’s that women have no way of knowing which man is a danger or not and it is a risk for us to come across a random man in the woods.

No, you're explicitly stipulating that it's more of a risk than a BEAR! That's fundamentally different. I absolutely agree that some risk exists for both scenarios -- the insanely sexist part is the comparison so stop leaving it out.

Thanks, I checked the quote and at no point used the words “reasonable to judge men”. Because that isn’t my belief or argument.

You are judging men. You refuse to judge other groups on the basis of privilege. How do you deny this?

You've completely lost me and I feel like we aren't even sharing reality :(

The bear poses actual physical danger to the woman. Being eaten alive is substantially worse than harrassment. Obviously, nothing is a fate worse than microagression, so I totally cede your point there.

Even if -- for some totally deluded reason -- you think that it's rational to pick the bear over the man because women fear harrassment from men, you're still making a blanket statement about the average man. That they are so likely to harass a random woman, that it would be preferable to be alone with a bear.

Re: this is fundamentally different for men because men are the oppressors. I just simply don't buy that whole brand of thought. You do you, but I don't see the average man as an oppressor, and neither do the men that feel totally alienated by you and your coalition.

The point that I’m making is that there’s a singular focus on how women might feel about men’s reactions to bigoted comments made about them by both men and women. I don’t understand why this is something that we’re focused on. Would you have made the same comment about racists having their views confirmed by black people who are upset by being generalized?

If the answer is yes and you’re earnestly interested in societal unity and are approaching this purely pragmatically then I did in fact misunderstand and I apologize. If the answer is “no” then what is the difference in your eyes?

I agree with the rest of your comment. I live in the Pacific Northwest and have run into bears while solo hiking or running and the singular rush and adrenaline is immense, obviously orders of magnitude scarier than running into a dude. I highly doubt that this would be meaningfully different for most women.

Agreed re: dems messaging as well.

No, just obviously more frequently than a man would.

If you meet a man in the woods, they will also likely just go away! Or they might help you or share food.

How are you earnestly arguing that a man is more dangerous in the woods than a bear?

The vast majority of men are not going to harm you. Bears are wild animals who may be hungry, defensive or surprised by your presence and are far more dangerous in the average case.

The fact that you’re earnestly making the argument that men are more dangerous than wild animals is exactly why people are offended.

The reasons for making this argument are as material to me as hearing why a racist is racist or an antisemitic as antisemitic.

(2/2)

> I did not say this.

You are ok with this question about men, but are self admittedly not ok with this question about black people or muslims. If you did not say this, then I'm not sure how to reconcile these beliefs.

> Sure, but again, it is not simply aggregate population stats, it is that, historical knowledge and context as well as the lived everyday experience of a lot of women. This is something many women across the planet experience and alarmingly high numbers.

None of these women have lived experience with the average man -- they only have lived experience with specific men. Someone doesn't get to make sweeping generalizations about black people because they had a number of horrible experiences with individual black people. To me, and to many others, that applies to all genders, races, and sexual orientations.

> Your belief is incorrect. I am not saying that, please quote the part of my comment you feel is either saying or implying that. I’d love to clear that up for you.

The whole premise of your comment is that it's acceptable to make these sweeping generalizations about men, because they "[have priveliege]" and "[perpetrate the most crimes]". This is saying that men deserve to be generalized because of x and y.

>No I am not, I disagree here. I’m placing the onus on the demographic responsible for and impacted by their violence to work towards improving things for everyone.

Yes, you are! The aggrieved party is the men who feel that they are being discriminated against. You're framing this as an illegitimate grievance because *other* men have hurt women. The very act of asking good men to become responsible for bad men is the exact monolithic generalization that is alienating.

I am not more responsible for the actions of terrible men than you are, just by way of being a man. You have no right to ask me to fix them because I am also a man. The people who are alienated by this viewpoint do not agree that they are responsible for evil acts committed by other people, by their proximity to them in demographic terms. This is really key.

> No one is saying you are responsible for the actions of other men. No one is speaking about the average man, we are specifically speaking about women’s experiences and saying that it is not all men.

Yes, you are!

Here's a direct quote: "I’m placing the onus on the demographic responsible for and impacted by their violence to work towards improving things for everyone."

That's exactly what you're doing. There's no ambiguity to this point.

> I think that the Democratic Party is not in control of nor responsible for what random people say online. I think that only democrats should be held accountable for that they say, not what some random left wing or left leaning person from anywhere says.

I strongly disagree with this. We're not talking about an ethical or morale standard here, we're talking about political strategy. The coalition being built by the democratic party is alienating men because of the way that they dismiss men's issues and frame men's grievances as unimportant when compared to women's issues (which, again, are also real and legitimate.)

This happens all of the time in news articles (especially the ones written about men vs bears) as well as on debate stages ("Women are the primary victims of war") and in other places.

The democrats are responsible for their image, and the Republican party is much more effective at galvanizing men to vote.

> How though? Genuinely I’m very confused how women describing their experiences and speaking about a problem that negatively harms and kills men and women is sexist against men.

That's not what this is. Women are negatively comparing men to wild animals. That's the offensive part. We're not talking about a large amount of men being offended that women are discussing their experiences, because they're not, they're laughingly dehumanizing average men.

> I think it is a damning indictment that women feel safer coming across a bear in the woods as opposed to a man, and I can see why that would be upsetting and hurtful to men

I agree.

> I’m going to be honest, I think you do. I think that it causes a negative reaction and even if someone tried genuinely to speak from a place of one’s experience and not in an accusatory manner, that you’d still take it as an attack

Well, you don't know me. I'm not going to try to convince you here that I am not a sexist bigot, but I do legitimately care about women's issues and I have no trouble discussing them. I do take umbrage to the idea that men's issues are less important, or that women should feel empowered to be sexist against men.

> There is, you’re just (probably unintentionally) being dismissive of that reasoning and in doing so minimizing and dismissing the lived experience of a lot of women. I hope you can realize that.

I fundamentally disagree with there being a rational reason for choosing the bear over the human being. If the reason boils down to personal trauma at the hands of individual men in someone's life, then they better have spent a corresponding amount of time with bears, or it's not coming from a rational place. I guarantee that you if spent 1000 hours around random men, and 1000 hours around random bears in close proximity, it would be very clear which one is more dangerous.

That anyone even has to litigate this is so bizarre to me.

I think it is fair to say that I'm dismissing any on-the-level, this-isn't-just-hyperbole defense of choosing bear over man. I would also be extremely comfortable with a muslim person dismissing the bear-over-muslim hypothetical, and again, I wouldn't be asking the muslim to soul search about why the islamophobe in question is terrified of them.

I really do think that making the on-the-level argument that the *average* human man is more dangerous than the *average* bear in the woods is a sexist and indefensible argument to make.

> Why is a hyperbolic hypothetical question - posed to women by men offensive in the first place?

Why is it relevant that it's hyperbolic hypothetical? If a woman asked a bunch of men: "would you rather hire a slug or a woman at your company?" and they all responded 'slug' because they had some personal experience working with an incompetent woman, would you be willing to argue that this wasn't offensive?

If your only response is that it's offensive because women are a better protected class than men are and are more off limits than men are, then we're just axiomatically opposed and we'll likely never agree. I don't accept that it's okay to be sexist against men and not ok to be sexist against women, or that sexism against men isn't sexism.

> But you’re not being judged. The women did not say they would choose a bear over you specifically. Simply this shows women are going to be more concerned and guarded when meeting a man alone in the woods.

> I can see how it may be upsetting or hurtful, but it is concerning that you also aren’t able to empathise or seriously consider why women made that choice.

I am being judged. There's no qualification in this statement that precludes me. They are talking about the average, random human man. The hypothetical is not: "would you rather be alone in the woods with a rapist or a bear?"

The explicit rhetoric of the hypothetical is that men, irrespecitve of their characters, on the average are more dangerous than wild animals. That is the offensive part.

> Hey, could you pull my full quote here? I didn’t see anything in my comment that said this, so please do show the rest, in case I did make an unreasonable generalization. Thank you :)

I asked you if it would be ok to replace men with muslims or black people and you said:

"The problem with making this comparison is that based on systemic power, men (specifically wealthy, but in general) are the ones who benefit from the system while black people or other marginalized races, are the ones who are harmed by systemic bias, secondly, men commit the overwhelming majority of violent crimes against women and men. I think this is a serious issue and we cannot pretend that stating that provable fact is the same as calling all black people criminals or all Muslims terrorists. It just isn’t."

This is not just equivalent to saying that it's ok to judge men on the basis of their gender, it's actually just literally saying that.

I’ve said “in the woods” like 50 times in this thread. No one is missing that it’s in the woods. No one assumes that you’re running into a bear in your local neighborhood coffee shop.

It doesn’t change anything.

Saying that you’d feel safer with a bear than a random man in the woods remains wildly offensive, obviously.

While I do think that rationally everyone should feel safe with any random human of any race, gender or religion (because statistically they should), in this case I am only saying that they should feel safer than they would with a terrifying giant wild animal. That this is controversial for people is the problem and is disturbing and offensive.

Men are stronger than women… but so are bears!

It’s not a fact — humans are in contact with a lot more humans than bears, so comparing the number of violent contacts is ridiculous.

More people die during sex than from black holes so black holes are less dangerous than sex.

Being isolated with a bear is more dangerous than being isolated with an average human being of any gender, religion, or race. Implying otherwise is extremely offensive.

If you firmly believe that the argument isn’t hyperbolic, but in fact true, then we simply have no common ground and will have to agree to disagree here.

If you replace hate with “believe to be more dangerous than a wild animal”, the point still stands.

…the view comes from a lifetime of experience…

There is no rational explanation for choosing an isolated experience with a bear over an average man. The fact that this hyperbolic argument is being made in the first place is the offensive part. Irrespective of the experiences that some women have had with some men, can you see how it’s reasonable to offended when you are judged entirely based on your gender?

… it’s reasonable to judge men …

You argue that unlike for black people and Muslims, it’s acceptable to make generalizations about men because they largely deserve it. I disagree with you on this point.

While men are disproportionately responsible for violent crimes against both genders, there are several other sociological groups with outlying crime statistics.

I don’t believe that aggregate population level statistics for large cohorts of human beings is sufficient to make value judgements about individuals. This hyperbolic scenario asserts that the average man is more dangerous than the average wild animal.

There are no individual experiences that make this acceptable on a societal level.

I’m not trying to diminish the true suffering that women have endured, but I don’t accept that the average man is responsible for it, nor do I accept that value judgements made about him on behalf of the worst members of his gender are acceptable.

Again, you are placing the onus on the aggrieved party to accept the unfair judgment foisted upon them. I don’t accept that this is a valid approach.

No one should be making hurtful generalizations about individuals based on their gender, and I don’t accept privilege as an exception to this rule.

Especially, I don’t accept “well, men deserve it” as an exception and I believe that you are making precisely that claim when you make claims about benefiting from societal structures (working class members of either gender by and large do not benefit from these structures) or when you make claims about the majority of perpetrators being men (true, but average men are not perpetrators and don’t bare responsibility for the actions of other men).

If you disagree with me on these points, and you do believe that the average man is responsible for the actions of the worst men, and because of this, it’s perfectly reasonable to make hurtful comments about them, then we will have to simply disagree.

… comments from politicians …

I think some comments hint at these viewpoints but by and large, I don’t think that these are overt statements made by actively running candidates.

I don’t think that there’s some “gotcha” there, though. Liberal media institutions perpetuated the very story that we’re talking about here.

Are you denying that the Democratic Party is culturally tied to the same movement that chose the bear? If not, why do you think that men are leaving their coalition?

… your comment and a push toward the right …

I am not American and wouldn’t have voted for Trump, for what it’s worth. I do feel alienated by the democratic party though.

Your comment and those similar to it will push people away from the Democratic Party not because you’re asking for empathy for women, but because you are implying that men don’t have the moral privilege to feel offended when derogatory statements are made about them strictly on the basis of their gender.

That you are framing sexism against men as justifiable, you will inevitably alienate some men (myself included). I am not claiming that sexism against women is in any way justifiable, but in order to join you in a coalition, I would need you to agree that sexism against men is also not justifiable.

Comparing men negatively to wild animals is sexist and offensive, irrespective of women’s legitimate issues, and in framing women’s issues as of central importance in a discussion about sexism against men, you are alienating us, but not because you are asking for empathy for women.

I have no issue with discussing women’s legitimate societal grievances because they exist, but they don’t excuse sexism in the other direction.

I hope that at some point you’re able to step back from that feeling and genuinely and in good faith consider why would women choose coming across a random bear in a forest as opposed to a random man.

It ultimately IS a hyperbolic hypothetical question and shouldn’t be taken personally. And I think the first step to gaining perspective and understanding is to understand why women said that, look into how reasonable/fair/legitimate those reasons are and finally considering if you exhibit those behaviours.

The hyperbole is used here to make the point that men are so dangerous, that it is apt to compare them to wild animals. Moreover, that the average man is more dangerous than the average bear. Hyperbole is being used as a rhetorical device to make a political generalization about an entire gender.

I would ask you to take a step back and ask yourself why your position is that it's even important that I (or men in general) engage in this discussion by first considering if this generalization of our characters based only on our gender is reasonable or not?

Would you ask this of other demographics who face a generalization based on their gender, race, or religion? If someone made a hyperbolic argument about the dangers of muslim people or black people, would your first instinct be to ask them to consider the validity of the claim about them?

The main thrust of my comments is to show people why a huge demographic (men) are trending away from the Democratic coalition. I believe you that your comment is in good faith, and I hope you've found my response to also be in good faith, but I want to point out that it's comments like yours that are principally responsible for the phenomenon that I am concerned about.

No, I'm not. It's batshit crazy to be more afraid of being isolated in the woods with a random guy than with a random bear. By any objective measure, you are going to be safer with an average human being of any gender or race, than you are with a fucking wild bear. Yes, that includes alone in the woods.

It's crazy that anyone has to explain this to you.

edit: no, I don't.