Category: Mental Health

Content warning: This post makes references to verbal assault and threats of sexual violence.

There is a trend going around on social media: “Women, if you were hiking in the woods alone, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?” Overwhelmingly, women are saying, “Bear.” Even pre-teen and teen girls are saying, “Bear.” (My own fourteen-year-old went for bear when I asked her.) Why a bear? It’s a wild animal that could maul you. This is true. A bear can and will attack if it feels threatened or if you’re in the way of its getting food. However, in the grand scheme of things, bears don’t want to put up with humans. (Same, furry friend. Same.) In fact, if you see a bear and make distinctly human noise, it’s going to run away. The odds of getting attacked by a bear is 1 in 2.1 million. There are only forty bear attacks in the entire world each year, and maybe one of those that occurs in the US is fatal.

By contrast, over half–50%, more than 1 in 2–of women have been sexually assaulted. One out of every six women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape. Is it any wonder that women are choosing to take their chances with the bear? Given the statistical likelihood that men will be victims of violence from other men, even they would be smart to opt for the bear. (And why do some men feel the need to carry a gun everywhere they go, even church? In case they have to protect themselves from… Not a bear.)

As the discussion continues, there’s a catch-phrase that keeps emerging: “A bear would never.” At the same time, there’s a list developing. A bear would never:

• Rape someone.
• Attack someone just because they’re vulnerable.
• Take video of the attack to post to social media.
• Get other bears in on the attack.
• Brag about attacking someone.

Let me tell you something else a bear wouldn’t do. A bear would never threaten to cut off a young girl’s breasts to have them for himself.

I was in seventh grade, in junior high school. I rode the school bus to and from school each day. Living in the corner of the county farthest from the school, ours was about the third or fourth stop on the route which means a lot of time on the bus in the mornings and afternoons. Our bus driver assigned us seats. I was assigned to sit with a guy a named Mike who was two years older and considerably bigger than me. And he was an ugly mudda. As the late great Lewis Grizzard would put it, Mike could scare a dog off a meat wagon. And his inside was even less attractive.

I “blossomed” early. That means my genetic makeup ensured that I’d be needing a bra in fourth grade. I hated it! I was the first girl in my class to have breasts. By the time I started junior high school, of course I was no longer the only girl with breasts, but mine had gotten a head start on growing. I was self-conscious of them. We existed together. I neither flaunted nor hid them.

Mike was a breast guy. As we sat on the bus for those long rides to and from school, he made no secret of the fact he ogled my boobs. He didn’t go so far as to touch them, thank God. But what he said was just as bad. You see, he wanted to touch them. He let me know in no uncertain terms that he wanted to cut them off and hang them on his bedroom wall so he could play with them whenever he wanted. He wanted to mutilate me for his own pleasure. And he pretty much always carried a butterfly knife on him that he’d play with on the bus, hidden by the seat back in front of us, safe from the watchful eyes of the driver way at the front. (We were about four rows from the back of the bus.)

This is the first time I’m telling this story. I never told my parents what Mike said. I was scared to. I can, to this day, imagine my mom saying, “Just ignore him and he’ll stop.” I did ignore him, but he didn’t stop. I can imagine my dad finding out where Mike lived and going over and having a talk with him and his parents. They might would have even gone to the principal. But my parents would have still made me ride the bus. (It was the most pragmatic solution given the relative geography of the school versus both their jobs.) They couldn’t have protected me at school. Mike would still carry his knife every day. I didn’t talk because I was scared of the possible repercussions and probably retaliation.

My story is just one of a handful of stories I have personally, and one of but millions held by women all over the world. The endless degradation. Being reduced to our body parts–parts that aren’t sexual but have been sexualized by men through the centuries. Parts whose purposes are to give and sustain life in infants. Treated as objects rather than people.

Then there’s the fear. For me, it was, Is today the day I’ll get cut? The fear of pain. The fear of being killed in retaliation for speaking out. In this instance, I didn’t have the fear of not being believed. Note I said, “in this instance.” There would come other times when that fear governed my inaction.

So why would I choose the bear? Even if the bear were to kill me, it’d only be once. No one would blame me for enticing the bear to attack me, for looking tasty merely by existing.

And that’s what women deal with. We as a historical collective have been told through fucking centuries that we are to blame for men’s actions, that we’re tempting like Eve or we’re Jezebels who lead men astray away from their “godly holiness” when all we are doing is existing. So in this hypothetical situation, were the bear to attack the woman, no one would wonder what she’d been wearing. No one would blame her for the attack. People would be like, “Bears attack. It’s what they do.” Funny how people basically use the same excuse for men, that whole “boys will be boys” bullshit, then turn around and blame the woman, anyway.