Are We Really Hearing Each Other?
Unpacking the “bear vs man” question
I’ve been thinking for a while about what I can helpfully add to the ‘bear vs man’ conversation.
My work is all about understanding each other better across the gender divide, addressing the frustration and polarisation that’s already wide and growing fast. So how can this question help us all do that?
How can we help men understand what’s driving so many women to choose the bear? How can we more effectively invite men into conversations like this about personal safety in a way that grows compassion on all sides, while not excusing dangerous and damaging behaviour? And what’s the relevance of this question to how we behave as leaders and colleagues in the workplace as well as in life more broadly?
The answers are more complex and nuanced than might first appear, for two reasons:
Really understanding why so many women said they’d rather be stuck in the woods with a bear than a man is incredibly difficult for many men, who know they’d never assault a woman and feel confronted and confused at “being positioned as more dangerous than a wild animal.”
Really understanding what good, decent, loving men are feeling in the face of this outpouring of female rage is not at all easy, for the millions of women who feel under threat and who are frustrated and angry, both at the defensive response from some men, and the lack of response from many more.
But mutual understanding is critical, even when it’s difficult.
Perhaps especially when it’s difficult.
If we don’t properly listen to and truly understand each other, we can’t build a better future together. So don’t shoot the messenger… but here’s what I’ve learned about how it feels for many on each side of the gender divide:
First a caveat: I’ve chosen to ignore here the hyper-vocal minority of men who are already angry about women in all kinds of ways, and who express that by publicly berating women for choosing the bear. Likewise, I’m also setting aside here those women who assert simply that “all men are evil.”
That’s because, although some will (angrily) disagree, I don’t believe that anger and blanket dismissal are helpful, whichever gender that response comes from. Algorithms are deliberately written to amplify these extreme positions, but I believe we must try to look beyond them and focus too on the vast majority of men and women if we’re to better understand each other, and work together across the gender divide to drive change.
So let’s explore how the ‘bear vs man?’ question has become a lightning rod for what millions of mainstream men and women are feeling right now.
How women are feeling
The feelings that women are expressing are as clear as they are harrowing: mostly, it’s an immense anger and frustration not just that sexual violence remains a horribly prevalent reality; but also that it’s exacerbated by the widespread shaming, blaming, and objectification of women and girls. A culture that’s so prevalent - even at school - that girls often don’t report the dreadful experiences they suffer, as they’re convinced nothing will be done about it.
Importantly, when we really listen to what women say about why they chose the bear, it’s the blaming and shaming, the objectification and gaslighting that feel as big an issue as the sexual violence itself.
A quick glance at the facts makes it clear that these feelings are far from unreasonable:
Here in Britain, the overwhelming majority of women have suffered sexual harassment, with only 3% saying they’ve never experienced that.
1 in 4 women has suffered rape or sexual assault.
Knowing or even loving a man is no guarantee of safety, as a woman is more likely to be murdered by a man she knows than by a stranger.
Justice being served feels remote as, for instance, it's estimated that 300 women will be raped today, but just 3 or 4 will see the perpetrator even make it to a court of law, never mind a prison cell.
The process of reporting and prosecuting sexual assault and violence is often intensely traumatising for women, with victim-blaming and shaming common.
And all around, from porn to AI to police WhatsApp groups to comments on the school bus, the objectification of women is positioned by many with power and influence as a trophy for alpha men, including when it’s aggressive and/or non-consensual.
I know this from personal experience. On average, a quarter of all women in our workplaces and friendship groups will do too. But even in this post #MeToo era, most victims choose not to talk about it. So, it’s easy for most men to underestimate the sheer depth and prevalence of this issue for women. And it’s hard for them to recognise the harm perpetuated by the narratives and images of women that surround them.
Recognising the scale and depth of this threat to their personal safety that millions of women feel every day is vital, if we’re to ensure women can move through life without literally or metaphorically having to hold their keys in their hand to be ready to defend themselves.
Women want men to lean into this and help solve it.
But here’s where we hit another problem: the huge barrier to understanding that exists across genders when it comes to sex and relationships generally, let alone when it’s about sexual and gender-based violence.
How men are feeling
The powerful ‘us vs them’ narrative that underpins the way we’ve been taught to think about gender rears its head here very quickly, meaning it’s surprisingly easy for the millions of good men who aren’t angry misogynists to feel personally attacked when they hear women speak these truths.
It’s hard for most men to realise that although you know you’re not a danger, a woman that you pass on the street who’s walking alone at night will most likely behave as if you might be… Because the data and her personal experience shows that the risks of assuming you're definitely not are just too high.
I've seen analogies featuring sharks, Maltesers and more being shared, and they do a great job of explaining this reality logically. But the feeling still remains a difficult one for many men to process.
And in the absence of a safe space to really process and work through those feelings, men can often respond to what feels like an unfair personal attack with the accurate, but unhelpful, “not all men” response rather than with a desire to help build a culture where fewer men become perpetrators in future.
That’s one reason why the vast majority of men respond with silence and inaction. But not knowing how to respond and fearing a backlash if they get it wrong is creating a veil of silence over something we all desperately need to be able to talk about together.
The aspects of personal safety we rarely talk about
Another key thing that’s generally missing from the “man vs bear” conversation is the fact that although the majority of victims of sexual assault are women, men do become victims more often than many of us realise too. In fact, here in Britain, 1 in 20 men have been victims of sexual violence. And, sadly, the societal pressures on men and boys around what it means to ‘be a man’ can often make it feel even harder for them to seek help.
The fact that this violence against men is almost entirely committed by other men challenges the way we often talk about violence and personal safety too. It’s very clear that we don’t just have a generic Violence Against Women and Girls problem; we have a problem with the way too many men and boys currently use violence and sexual assault, including against their own gender too.
It’s vital we start to acknowledge the fact that the overwhelming majority of sexual assault and serious violence that's committed is perpetrated by men. We need to talk more openly together about why that currently happens. And we need to be able to do it without men feeling like we’re attacking or accusing all of them.
Until we can start doing that, we can’t really work on what we can change as a society to start fixing this serious issue.
And if anyone at this moment believes that violence and aggression is just a natural part of being male, I’d ask you to explore the science. Dangerous aggression and entitlement isn’t inevitable in boys and men - just look at a how a typical toddler boy who’s become a big brother expresses love and kindness - but we need to change the narrative, and make space for models of masculine success and power that do less damage to all of us, men included.
There’s one other major part of the puzzle that we don’t talk about enough either: the fact that post #MeToo, millions of men now have a huge fear of false accusations from women.
We rarely make space to discuss the very clear data about how rare that is in reality, despite what much popular misinformation would have us all believe. But nor do we really talk together about how utterly devastating false accusations are for men’s lives, on the rare occasions when false accusations do happen.
Unsurprisingly, emotions around this topic in particular run incredibly high. But we need to have fact-based, open and compassionate conversations about these fears too.
We need to start understanding each other better in all kinds of ways
What I’m struck by most of all is this: how hard it is to have any of these conversations between the genders. It’s not something we’re used to talking about together, and it’s a subject that can, unsurprisingly, easily tip into upset, anger and animosity.
Issues as big as personal safety won’t be solved quickly. We need to be in this for the long game. But what we can all do, in our professional and personal lives, is to start to dismantle the “us vs them” narrative that’s so prevalent around gender, that reinforces a ‘menemies’ mindset and makes it almost impossible even to start to talk together about this most serious of issues.
If we can start to address the huge and growing ideological divide between men and women in all kinds of ‘safer’ areas, we’ll make it easier to make progress in such difficult areas as this one.
It may seem like the issues around gender are so big and complex that they’re simply overwhelming. Or that they’re too high stakes to even risk talking about at all, for fear of getting it wrong.
But I’m convinced that if each of us addresses in multiple small ways the huge issue of this ‘men vs women’, ‘gender wars’ mindset that we’re all still fed, we’ll be able to start building societies and workplaces that serve all of us better.
Really listening to understand, and not just refute, is just the start.
x
For more information
No More Menemies: Beyond the Fear & Frustration of the Gender Wars explores the links between the ‘Menemies’ mindset in all kinds of areas and these complex and difficult issues in some depth: https://www.theothersandme.com/nomoremenemies
Many organisations are dedicated to working to eradicate sexual harassment and sexual violence, including #timeTo (timeto.org) in the word of advertising, marketing and comms, and Everyone's Invited, who do incredible work with young people, schools and parents to eradicate rape culture.
And if you want to begin the journey by talking about how to foster a work culture where men and women work together more positively and productively in all kinds of ways, overcoming the growing ideology gap between men and women, The Others & Me can help there: hello@theothersandme.com
