Text:

Panel 1 Man and woman in office clothes in a break room.

Man: So, if you were alone in a forest, would you rather run into a strange man… or a bear?

Panel 2 Woman: Oh, hmm… I think the bear.

Man (angry): How can you say that?

(Bear looking quizzically through the window)

Panel 3 Man (angry): You’re demonizing men! It’s misandry!

Panel 4 Woman: Good point. Why would I ever hear men’s reactions?

Man: Exactly! …where did the honey go?

Panel 5 Woman and bear sharing tea

Woman: At least if you maul me, pepper won’t say I made it up or I’m misinterpreting.

Bear: I hear you

  • ZDL@lazysoci.alOP
    8·
    11 days ago

    But generalizing the problem to all men is the biggest reason men who might otherwise be allies are pushing back.

    Except, of course, nobody’s¹ doing that. Hell, I said the precise opposite:

    Men are for the most part decent human beings. Most men you meet will not be monsters.

    This doesn’t stop “men who might otherwise be allies” from reading it as a personal attack on “all men”. Despite, as I just quoted here, me saying exactly the God-damned opposite.

    Which leads me to believe they are not actually men who would otherwise be allies since they can’t even muster up enough respect to read the words that are actually there choosing instead to beat the stuffing out of straw men.

    ¹ Before you trot out someone who did say that, do a quick count and a slight division to see if the proportion who you can find actually saying that are large enough to count as anything but a rounding error. Believe it or not, most of the women who would choose “bear” in the thought experiment have men in their lives.

      • ZDL@lazysoci.alOP
        6·
        11 days ago

        When I said “nobody’s doing that” (with the proviso that yes, surely, SOME people genuinely are that stupid) I meant it. I used myself as an example of someone saying the precise opposite and still having it interpreted as “MISANDRY!!!111oneoneoneeleventy!”

        With #ManOrBear, you can spend ten thousand lines explaining that you do not believe all men are evil, slavering monsters who will assault women if given the chance to do it and then one line asking the thought experiment and you’ll still get the “MISANDRY!!!111oneoneoneeleventy!” response. There is no way to communicate the very important message of that thought experiment without having a bunch of “men who might otherwise be allies” freaking out. (Which to my mind calls into question their value as potential allies.)