I think I need to clarify something. When women say we’d rather run into a bear than a random man, we’re not worried about running into normal guys. Obviously that’s better than a bear.
The problem is that we can’t guarantee that the man we run into won’t be someone like this, and I think I speak for a lot of women when I say the risk of a mauling is a better option than whatever this guy would come up with.
Most women don’t hate or fear normal, decent guys. In fact, if I were to encounter this man in the woods, I’d very much prefer to have one of my brothers or a male friend with me. We know, however, that there are some men out there who would do things to us that would make death a welcome release. Bears can be violent, but they’re not cruel. They don’t enjoy your suffering, or violate you as you die.
When women say we’d rather run into a bear, we’re not thinking about the majority of men. We’re thinking about the odds of running into a man like this — or someone even worse. Ted Bundy, for example, made a habit of taking his victims into the woods.
The choice of the bear isn’t about statistics. It’s about the fear of drawing one of the shortest straws a woman can. There are men out there who do things to women that most men, normal, decent men, can’t imagine themselves doing, not for any reason, and most of them never think about it because it just doesn’t occur to them that someone would do that kind of thing.
It’s not because most men are bad, or callous, or don’t care about women. It’s because it’s so far outside of their experience. For most men, sexual assault is not a part of their lives. The rapists they know don’t discuss their crimes with normal guys, which is why every woman knows a rape victim, but so few men are aware that they know a rapist.
Women don’t have that luxury. We have to be aware of the darkness that lives in some men, and the risks we run of attracting the wrong kind of attention. We have to remember that we’re almost always at risk. It’s a huge part of why men and women live in such different worlds. For decent men, SA is a distant problem, unless they’re aware that it’s happened to someone they care about. For us, it’s a hovering threat every single day of our lives.
If men and women are ever going to bridge the distance between us, we both have to understand that the other half of the species has a totally different experience with sexual violence. Men have to stop resenting our wariness, and understand that we do know that most of you are good people; it’s just that the ones who aren’t pose such a threat.