Bear Vs Man: The Question

Written by Alisha Ahmed

Bear Vs Man: The question that sparked a viral debate on violence against women 

A year ago, women took to the internet to respond to the Bear Vs Man debate, leading to a series of activism online. Now in the UK the government have declared violence against women and girls a national emergency, and new law proposals have been introduced to tackle the issue. 

But what exactly happened? 

We all remember the posts on TikTok during spring last year. The viral debate circulated for months; images of wild grizzly bears paired always with the same question: ‘Would you rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear?’ My personal favourite of this series was the meme depicting the image of a bear clawing at the sliding glass doors of a garden. The caption read: ‘Girl, help please, there's a man in the forest!’. Ha ha.

But it’s not funny, is it? There's a reason why many women, like myself, found that ‘joke’ relatable. In April 2024, Gen Z-targeted media company Screenshot HQ first posed the ‘man or bear’ question in a series of street interviews on their TikTok profile; responses revealed that 7/8 women preferred the bear. The sad truth is that we live in fear of violence from men constantly.

 Maybe some men think the question posed is ‘stupid’ or ‘sexist’ and that we women need to watch more nature documentaries, and we are assuming the worst of the entire male gender. 

“Should women fear all men?”, a male responding to the phenomenon asked the public in a TikTok video.

Yes, we should, and we still do. It’s not girl math. It’s a reality for us. While men and boys also suffer from many forms of abuse, women are disproportionately affected by violence. A woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK according to National Police Chiefs’ Council. Just days ago, Richard Jones was jailed for life for the murder of his son’s girlfriend, Sophie Evans, yet another brutal attack to be remembered amongst other women like Sarah Everard, who was murdered by a police officer in March 2021. The Femicide Census, which documents women who have been killed by men in the UK, revealed that since Everards death at least 350 women have been killed.

 Comments under #manorbear videos justified the reasoning behind ‘choosing the bear’ and highlighted how women are often made responsible for the violence or harassment we experience. ‘A bear wouldn’t record what he did to me’, ‘If the bear attacked me, nobody would ask what I was wearing”, and ‘I will not wonder why the bear didn’t stop when I said no’ were just few of the statements given. According to Rape Crisis England & Wales, approximately 5 in 6 women who are raped do not report the crime due to stigma or lack of faith in the justice system, revealing the harsh reality that sexual abuse often goes unheard. 

However, the ‘man or bear’ discussion emboldened victims of sexual violence to share their stories and validate the argument, posting under the same hashtag. 

In the midst of this, celebrities also spoke out about violence against women. Saoirse Ronan iconically reduced the audience of The Graham Norton Show to silence after Paul Mescal joked about women using their phones as self-defence, to which Ronan replied, ‘That's what girls have to think about all the time’. Her comeback went viral and merited praise, leading to further discussion about women's safety on This Morning, , where one guest shared her habit of walking home with her keys clenched in her hands to protect herself. 

The truth is women do have to think about things that men don't all the time. We constantly embed our daily routine with habits and steps to protect ourselves. The do’s and don’ts are endless.

We carry pepper spray, avoid walking home alone at night, always share our uber trips with friends, check over our shoulder to make sure we are not being followed, jog during the day and not at night, go to bathrooms in two’s, never leave our drink alone at a bar because it might be spiked, are told to ‘Ask for Angela’ by signs in female toilets if we feel unsafe on a date, and hound our female friends after a night out to make sure they got home safe. 

During winter, the restrictions only get worse as it gets darker earlier. A survey of 18-25 year olds commissioned by ITV News revealed that 8 out of 10 young women say they feel unsafe walking home in the dark. Thankfully, the clocks going forward at the end of March will ease us into longer daylight hours, and travelling after 5pm won’t be so scary.

But on the dark side, the overcrowding crisis in UK prisons is another reason to be afraid. After hearing how one man freed early from prison under new policy reoffended and sexually assaulted a woman on the day of his release, it seems clear that justice systems are failing again to protect women. 

Despite this, the introduction of the Crime and Policing bill as of last week is a beacon of hope. The bill, which states that VAWG (Violence against women and girls) is being treated as a national emergency, proposes new law changes which include spiking being made a criminal offence. Other changes involve strengthening Stalking Protection Orders, criminalising the taking and sharing of intimate images without consent, and stricter risk management of sex offenders.

But we are yet to hear whether these proposals will become official law changes.

 The fact that a majority of women declared they felt safer with the possibility of encountering a wild animal rather than a man speaks volumes about our society. International Women's Day serves as a call to action for us all. If Violence against women and girls is a national emergency, then this should be a focal point for us during the annual movement.