If you haven’t seen it, a few days ago a woman posted the question on social media to other women, if you were in the woods alone, which would you rather encounter, a man you didn’t know or a bear? Nearly every woman is choosing the bear. I chose the bear.

This has had the effect of upsetting many men, who don’t understand why a woman would choose the bear. They either mansplain why a bear is dangerous or they say they would never hurt a woman therefore no one should be afraid.

The situation is that with a bear you know what you’re getting. Most bears don’t want to attack a human. I live in the mountains and bears are frequent visitors to our property. Make some noise and they usually go away. There have been significantly fewer attacks on any people by a bear in the last 200+ years than there have been sexual assaults and murders of women by men. That man you encounter in the woods – I don’t know what he’s thinking. He could be a nice guy or he could be a predator.

Where I live we had the case of Abby Hernandez. She went missing while walking home from school. As we found out later, she was wearing new boots and her feet were hurting so when a guy pulled up and offered her a ride, she accepted. He abducted her and sexually assaulted her for nine months.

Women cannot assume any guy is a “good guy.” I had a policy when I was dating of meeting a guy for the first date. I broke that rule and got in a car with someone who sexually assaulted me. For years, I blamed myself. I let my guard down. It took 30 years for me to finally say he was wrong and I had done nothing wrong except trust someone I shouldn’t have trusted.

Men are raging on social media about this. Instead of listening to what women are saying, they are raging about it. Many of the comments I’ve seen show exactly why women would rather encounter a bear than a man they didn’t know. Some men get it. You can say to them, what would you rather have your daughter encounter and that’s a different perspective that some can grasp. Some men have even said they would rather encounter a bear in the woods than another man they didn’t know.

It’s not that all men are going to assault women, but we just don’t know when we come across a man what is going to happen. I was geocaching a few years back near a dam in the northern part of New Hampshire when a man came over to ask me to help him with his car. He even tried to get me to sit in the driver’s seat of his car. He was an older man, so I didn’t feel threatened at the time, but I knew better than to sit in the car. Did I just miss a possible predator? As I thought about it after I left the area, I was very uneasy; even more so after I talked to a couple of people.

I’ve encountered black bears raiding the dumpster at the hotel I worked at. Made a lot of noise and chased it into the woods when the guests were freaking out. I’ve had bears come right up to our front yard. One of our dogs ran after a bear when it was in the front yard and my son had been going to put the dogs out for their morning bathroom break. The dog came back an hour later, no worse for wear. I thought it was a goner. Bears are as afraid of humans as we are of them and will usually leave when there is loud noise. Just don’t get between a mother and her cubs or a bear and a possible food source.

Men do not respond like that. If you tell a man “no” there’s a good chance he won’t take that for an answer. Another hotel story is one time a man was staying with a group and came down in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep. I was doing my work and chatted with him nicely for a while. Then, he decided he was going to get his own room since the Dad he was rooming with snored. Then, he decided I should come up to the room. I told him no, which he didn’t take for an answer. Fortunately, he wasn’t aggressive, just suggestive, even to the point of calling the desk when he was in his room and telling me he left the door open for me and I should come up and take a shower with him. I honestly thought he was pulling my leg until I went to deliver the checkouts to the rooms and saw the door to his room propped open.

This is what women go through every day. Every woman has stories like mine. That’s the reason we choose the bear. The bear isn’t going to pretend to be nice and then assault you. If the bear is going to assault you, you’ll know pretty quick. When you report a bear assault, the police aren’t going to ask what you were wearing to provoke it. They’re not going to question what you were doing to cause the bear to assault you. The bear’s lawyer isn’t going to hold up your underwear in court, as if that’s a sign you were “asking for it.”