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is the man or bear thing rhetorically or optically the perfect feminist meme that is beyond criticism? no.
but is it leaps and bounds better at getting men to understand the material consequences of patriarchy on the physical and emotional health of women than that stupid “kill all men” meme from last decade? definitely.
New thing I thought of, new idea, on top of all the other shit, about like, women vs man vs bear, right. If you choose the man, the chances that the average woman can outrun the average man I think are pretty high. I think the psycho outlier males maybe skew that stat a little bit, but I think on average, the chances are pretty good, and if I remember right, women can even, on average, run for longer than the average man. I dunno about faster, so the initial chase would probably matter more there, but, yeah. On the other hand, you can't outrun a bear, since they can get up to like 40-50 miles per hour and can pivot and maneuver way better on account of their quadripedaliness.
So I think probably that should be a good factor in the decision making, on top of all the other stuff.
Okay but now that I've got you locked in, I think I want to like. The hypothetical, the meme, is interesting, because it's obviously bait, right? Like it's obviously just something that's meant to be divisive but "illustrative", or something. It's not really successful at being illustrative and inspiring empathy, and as this meme posts, reading bell hooks would probably be a better maneuver for most men, or just like, engaging with a woman's experience of the world generally in good faith, or like, treating them like they're smart fellow human beings instead of just bringing up some counterpoint every five minutes that the chick's already thought of, and then instead of bringing it up as like a good faith question they bring it up in a way where it's like primed to treat the woman's stupid. But I dunno, maybe people just don't know how to talk, really. Small talk, sure, but real talk, no way.
Uhhh, but what I was saying, the original meme is bait, right? And it's so obviously bait that it sort of, I think, inspires two separate reactions. One treats the meme seriously because it's so absurd, right. Usually the male response, right, the idea is that we've never really had to think "oh do I take a man on this hike so I can feel more safe, or do I go alone, who can I trust to go along with me", right, the thought process would be more along the lines of like "who do I take on this hike". Existing in a male as default state, the idea is maybe that men are going to be less predisposed to gendered thinking because they don't need to think that way out of self-preservation, or culturally ingrained bias, or whatever. This doesn't mean they aren't biased, right, but it's sort of like, the white dude that's got a lot of racist notions floating around but then they don't realize it, it's implicit. So there's like, not good faith engagement, but like just total acceptance of the premise as an absurd notion to be toyed around with, right, sort of along the lines of, as I've heard another commenter say, along the lines of "what animal could I take in a fight" kind of discussions.
I think then women are maybe more likely to, on the opposite side of what I just said, actually relate more to the premise, treat it less as absurd maybe, or maybe understand more that it's meant to try to illustrate a point or get at something, and then with their responses they're going to do the same. Try to use their responses to get at something or illustrate some principle rather than just being like "oh I dunno I could probably take a bear in a fight" level shit. Like no shit that's not what they're getting at.
So, I dunno, in conclusion, the meme was primed to be bait from the onset, and, it's never not going to be bait, and, from the way social media works, the bait engagement is encouraged, the bad faith engagement is encouraged, yadda yadda. I think I will say, to put on my meme criticism hat for a moment, of this meme, this meme either operates on the assumption that someone will google bell hooks, or that someone already knows who she is, so that's kind of, narrowing the audience to those who already know, and probably don't need it as much. I'd probably go with like a bell hooks' book passage or quote which is both productive in itself for people to hear, and can maybe also drive traffic towards a book of hers. Maybe make the talking head quote that passage and then the chad soyjack can pog up on hearing it or be crying or whatever. Also I'd probably replace the "black woman" soyjack with a bell hooks specific soyjack, but that might be too high effort.
Also looked up bell hooks while writing this, didn't know she was dead as of 3 years ago, RIP to a real one, that sucks.
The initial expression of the poll regarding the bear hypothetical was categorically not intended as bait, but rather a sincere reflection of women's lived experiences.
The further out from the onset of the trend we get, yes, I agree with being more critical of those using this meme to get a rage reaction. However, while it is not the perfect rhetorical feminist meme, it is crucial to ensure that women are not silenced or even asked to soften their language when they speak out against sexual assault and rape culture.
I mean something can not be intended as bait, but still be bait, you know? It's the way in which it's framed in social media, which creates bait out of otherwise well-intentioned conversations and reactions. Strip out context, show someone this side by side with a feed of schlock about say, an ongoing war, a bunch of shitposts, whatever, and it can make it appear trivial by comparison, not worth engaging with, in good faith, you know?
I'd also say, right, like, sort of along the same lines of what I said up top about like, people not being able to have conversations anymore without making each other feel pissed off, right. Without pressing buttons, you know. Part of that communication, part of that speaking up and speaking out, is the back and forth. I think for that back and forth to exist, well, probably social media not being helpful to that is the biggest factor, but that back and forth also has to be like, a conversation. I dunno. Clarifying questions go a long way, or like, "oh what about this", you know, kinds of things. It integrates people into the conversation more than just like, a big chicago style dump on the chest, or like.
I dunno, have you ever been in those conversations where it's just someone kind of awkwardly venting for like 30 or 40 minutes, and then everyone else is kind of not engaging with them and is actively avoiding them? That's sort of like the thing I want to avoid. To be clear that's mostly the fault of the people actively avoiding or not engaging with it, for whatever trauma. I mean probably that's better than like asking shitheel questions that cause the venting person to go off more or just get mad, but yeah, still bad to just uhh, remain silent as a response to someone talking to you. Not to say that's what you're saying when you're saying like, make sure women aren't silenced or, asked to soften their language, right, but, I guess that's just my accompanying like, stipulation right. That conversations are two way kind of by definition, you know?
I'm also speaking in generalities right now, and yeah the bigger problem in general for sure is just that social media is kind of a context stripping machine that encourages pithy comebacks and imposes character limits and pushes human communication through image macros and other high pressure needle jets the size of a pin that can cut through diamonds.
No. What you are doing here is silencing the experiences of women, whether intentional or not. Be so very careful friend. Listen to women, and just move on if you don't have the emotional bandwidth for it. There is no excuse for tone policing the expression of people who have been violently attacked.