Team “Not bothering to look for signs/flirting and just asking out people I like and crossing my fingers.”

I wasn’t intending to say we only like muscles as an indicator of lifestyle. I was saying they’re also an indicator of lifestyle, so even if we are attracted to them we may still pass because it doesn’t match the kind of personality we prefer, and personality is generally a lot more important to us than appearance (generally, but not always.)
For instance, I find muscles attractive. I like that they show somebody’s interested in staying healthy, but I don’t generally date muscular men simply because I’m not into the fit lifestyle. I much prefer a guy who’s more likely to join me playing my favorite games or watching my favorite movies, because I’m a nerd and those are the things I like, and a guy who’s a little chubbier tends to be exactly that kind of guy.

I can’t speak for every woman, but I can speak for my own experiences and report based on the things women I know have said. For me and those I’ve spoken to, we may like muscles, but the things you need to do to get those muscles often aren’t as attractive and cancel it out. Like, if you’re getting muscles by going to the gym every day, that’s only gonna attract women who are enthusiastic about the gym. If you get them from farm work, you’ll attract women enthusiastic about farm life.
That’s why a lot of us like dad bods so much. It’s not that it’s inherently more attractive, it’s that it’s a body type achievable by living the kind of life style people who’re into that enjoy.
In other words, yes, muscles can be attractive, but not nearly as attractive as shared hobbies and interests, and it just happens quite often muscles can be a quick indicator that you probably don’t share many.

Men being hurt by women is not an excuse for men to hurt women in return. It is possible for both groups to acknowledge they’ve been hurt by each other and work toward a solution. Pushing “they hurt me so they deserve to be hurt” helps nobody, especially when both groups are doing it.
That’s what I’m complaining about. This mindset that being hurt by men/women completely absolves you of the responsibility to allow them to feel safe. Any space dominated by women will be filled with “Well men are responsible for the majority of violence and sexual assault so actually you deserve to feel like shit.” every time a man speaks up. Any space dominated by men will be filled with “Well it makes me feel bad when you discuss the repercussions of your trauma so shut the fuck up.” every time a woman speaks up.
We can have a place where both genders can talk freely about the way these things effect them and the changes we need to make to fix them. The issue is people are only pretending to want such a space. What they really want is the other gender to sit down, shut up, and agree with them uncritically. Because in their head they’re definitely in the right and they’d rather not be confronted with alternate viewpoints from people who have lived experiences they’ll never have.

Worse, as a trans woman, you’d think people would be more willing to accept our viewpoints because trans people are some of few people who can have both lived experiences. But no, our experiences are only valid if they 100% allign with the men or women we share them with. Otherwise we’re brushed off like somehow our experience doesn’t count because we had the wrong experience to reaffirm their biases.
On Lemmy, dominated by men, when I say I fear women due to my lived childhood experience as a boy, being taken advantage of while I was still too young to fight back, I’m met with outpourings of support. People talk about why “this is why trans people’s life experience matters.” When I mention later in the same conversation that I also fear men due to my lived experience as a woman and not being able to fight back due the the hormonal muscle loss, suddenly, my experiences don’t count anymore. People think they get to pick and choose which of my experiences were valid and valuable and which aren’t based on whatever reaffirms what they already believe. And of course you can bet the exact same thing happens the other way around when I tell the same story to women.

But what’s going on here isn’t something within the control of most people. When you’re abused by somebody you don’t choose to fear those people, you fear them because that’s what your brain is wired to do to avoid repeated trauma. Like I said, therapy is the solution, but only part of the solution. The other part is fixing the issue causing the trauma in the first place. Men aren’t being victimized by the women who fear them, they’re being victimized by the other men who caused that fear.
And I want to be clear, because I’ve realized at this point that this isn’t obvious anymore in today’s world, fear is not an excuse for misandry. At the same time, fear of men is not misandry. Somebody saying they’d rather pick the bear should be met with “oh, we should fix the issue causing them to fear men more than bears,” not “oh, they should fear bears more.”
I also want to be clear that this isn’t even a gendered issue despite the fact that it’s been made into one. A man who’s been abused by women and would rather pick the bear should also be met with compassion and “how can we reduce the number of female abusers?” I’ve actually been abused by women too. In fact, more often than I have men. I want to be clear that even though this discussion has been about men specifically, I feel the exact same way about women. That we still need to be compassionate to their victims and accept that the people who traumatized them are the problem, not their trauma.
Fearing somebody is not an action you perform, it’s a state you’re in.

I realized this a long time ago when I made a simple complaint that I thought women’s issues were downplayed a lot here, and in response I was downvoted, ridiculed, people demanded sources for my claims then claimed my sources were invalid for whatever reason they could pull out of their ass, and one person even, and trigger warning on this, told me I should die giving birth to a rapists baby.
I’ve even picked up a downvote stalker during the course of this whole bear thing. Same time every day somebody goes through and downvotes every single new thing on my profile.

So yeah, Lemmy’s never been a great place for women. I only continue to participate because I’m disabled and have so few connections to the outside world that I’ll take anything now.

How about you miss the entire point and get aggressive for no reason?
Seriously, what kind of response to “I’ve been traumatized by men” is “you should traumatized by bears too?”

IRL, sure, but on Lemmy that’s not what’s happening. If you talk about trauma at the hands of women on Lemmy, you get outpourings of support and people sharing their experiences as well. Which is good. That should be happening everywhere.
The problem is you can’t do the same thing on Lemmy if you were traumatized by men. Instead, you get down voted to hell, get statistics quoted at you as if that’ll magically fix it, and when surprise, still traumatized after the stats, now you must be a misandrist so your trauma is invalid anyway.

I was just hoping one place would exist on the internet where men’s and women’s issues could get equal screen time and be respected just as much, but no, the genders have to be treated like sports teams and if you support one apparently you have to hate the other. I just don’t get why people are like this.

You’re free to disagree, but for me and many others, I’ve been through both, and I’m definitely waaaay more scared of being sexually assaulted again than being beaten half to death again. They have very different effects on your psyche. Physical violence I react far more with anger than fear, even if I was terrified in the moment. When it looks like it’s happening again, my brain says “Fight back.” When I’m afraid of sexual trauma being relived, my brain says “Escape, now. Can’t escape? Submit. Maybe that way they won’t kill you too at least.”

I agree. I never said it was a good mindset. Therapy is definitely something we need to learn to deal with this and think logically. The issue is so absurdly many women have been traumatized by men that the mental health support systems would be so overloaded that it’s just a fact that only a miniscule fraction of women would ever be able to receive help, even if we had absolutely perfect support systems.

So the only solution is to prevent them from getting traumatized in the first place. But the entirety of Lemmy seems really resistant to that conversation. Would rather quote statistics about “oh the average man isn’t likely to assault you” than to accept that the ones who do are dealing enough damage that the problem needs to be dealt with regardless of what the average man is doing.

There’s a serious difference in the level of trauma between these examples, and the level of exposure to the dangers of the counter. Sexual trauma is a hell of a lot more scarring on your psyche than simply being beaten. In addition, at least in the US we’re exposed to gun violence every day as opposed to basically never for bear attacks. Even in other countries with better gun control, you’re dramatically more likely to hear about somebody being shot than you are to hear about somebody being mauled by a bear. Not only that, but it’s really easy to process “get shot, you’re dead.” It’s not as easy to make yourself believe you’re definitely gonna be killed by an animal that has whole guides written on how to survive them.
Those two things combined make your example far from comparable. In addition, I’m not saying in any way that the fear is justified nor that no attempt should be made to fix it, what I’m trying to point out us that people don’t realize how intense a fear it really is when they get offended at people making this choice.

Obviously, therapy is important to learning how to handle that fear and think more logically, but if every woman who needs it sought therapy for this, there just aren’t enough therapists in the entire world to handle the load. Not even close. So a bigger part of the solution is, y’know, making sure women aren’t getting traumatized in the first place. But everybody here wants to skip that part for some reason.

I’ve never been downvoted anywhere for expressing that opinion. Lemmy especially there’s a huge disparity where saying you’d rather be with a bear than a man is unacceptable, but saying you’d rather be with a bear than a woman? A-okay. Source? I’ve said both. Only one was I not attacked for. Guess which?
Seriously, I’ve expressed my trauma regarding men countless times and every time been attacked for it. I’ve expressed my trauma at the hands of women and not a single downvote or attack or disparaging remark any time. Lemmy has a very clear bias.
I wouldn’t have a single problem with men getting upset about this bear thing if they got equally upset when somebody says something similar or worse about women, but they don’t.

As a trans woman who has also been sexually assaulted, it has more to do for me with what danger is more real to me. I’ve experienced zero bear attacks. Nobody I know has experienced a bear attack. Why would I fear one? Of course, consciously yeah, I know a bear is dangerous, but I have no real world experience to back that assumption up.
Men though? Yeah, I’ve been sexually assaulted by men. I’ve been physically assaulted by men. I’ve had family and friends who’ve been physically and sexually assaulted by men. That danger is real to me. I know that if a man I don’t know is nearby me he could do those things to me, and I have the real world experience to prove that assumption correct (the assumption that they could, not the assumption that they would.)
Therefore, of course I’m more scared of the man than the bear. And of course I’d choose the bear over the man. I don’t care if it’s the wrong choice, I’ll take my chances to not have to relive that trauma, even if it means risking my life. Not like I’ll have time to regret that decision if the bear decides to kill me. Probably. And most women I know when asked expressed the same sentiment in different words. We’re more scared of men than bears, but that doesn’t mean we literally think men are more dangerous than bears.
Is it the logical choice to pick the bear? Probably not, but humans are not logical creatures. I’d rather make the wrong choice than the scary choice.

Yeah, it’s a preventative measure, because repeated trauma is much, much harder to heal from, and also as a physical safety measure. In some situations where the trauma isn’t likely to reoccur or is caused by bad emotional coping skills, they still recommend minimizing contact until you learn to handle it or at least have stronger coping mechanisms (or at least they did in every case of my traumas.)

I agree that the way it’s been handled thus far has been awful, straight from the get go. It wasn’t a good way to put it and was obviously gonna rile people up, but I still think the popularity it’s gotten on social media can be used as a good tool to help people understand this better. And yeah, obviously, therapy is a huge thing, but it’s also worth noting that the one thing you’re supposed to do in nearly every traumatic situation, and will be recommended by any therapist you see, is to take healthy measures to prevent it from happening again. That does include doing what you can to stay safe and not be alone around men. Obviously there are people who take it too far and jump straight into misandry (and I can say from experience as a trans woman, misandrists are a problem for us too, because they don’t treat us like real women, just punching bags to treat in the most misogynistic way possible, because they only see you as a now vulnerable man to get revenge on.)
To be clear, I’m not suggesting men are inherently more violent than women and need to be avoided more often. I just think the messages society sends toward men and women as they grow up are vastly different which is what leads to violence being more prevalent in men. It’s a complex issue that requires huge societal changes to fix, but for now it’s just the truth that women need to look out for their own safety in the presence of men until these issues are solved to a reasonable degree.
But to reiterate, yeah, the meme is clearly inflammatory, I just think anything than can be used as a learning experience should be.

The statistics of how likely any individual man is to commit sexual assault or violence against a woman is irrelevant because the discussion is about trauma, not objective danger. That’s the part people don’t seem to understand.
People think we’re saying “men are more dangerous than a bear” when what we’re saying is “I’ve grown to fear men more intensely than even a bear due to my traumatic experiences as well as the traumatic experiences of those I know.”
Even if most men won’t touch a woman, the fact that enough will that the majority of women have been sexually assaulted means the majority of women are also traumatized enough that of course they’re gonna be wary of men who they fear could cause them to relive their trauma. That’s reasonable (don’t confuse that for rational though.)
It’s just an attempt to show men why we need the boundaries we do by putting into perspective how intense that trauma is, but instead of being met with understanding it’s been met with yet more accusations that it’s just proof women are irrational and hate men.
Pulling out another statistic to say “hey, um, actually, individual men aren’t statistically likely to be violent toward you” is useless for helping a trauma victim overcome that trauma. Especially if it becomes a repeated trauma, at which point your brain rejects any amount of healing you’ve done and resists any attempts at healing again, because it feels it’s been proven right.

Nobody said “men are more dangerous than bears.” You made that up in your head to be offended about. They said “I’d rather be alone in the woods with a bear than a man,” and I explained to you how that’s a very different thing. If you’re going to continue to be intentionally obtuse and ignore that I’m not interested in explaining again.

Therapy isn’t a cure all for trauma. And trauma that is easily relived is not trauma that is easily gotten over. Also, obviously they’re letting trauma dictate their actions. That’s kinda how trauma works. If you behave completely the same before and after your trauma then by definition you weren’t traumatized.
And the point of the statement isn’t that bears are literally less dangerous than men. It’s to show how real and intense the fear is. Not to say “men are more dangerous than bears,” but “women feel more threatened by men than bears,” which is not even close to the same thing. It’s a simple attempt to help men understand how we feel and make it clear why we need the boundaries we do. That is inherently an empathetic statement. You being offended by it doesn’t make it an insult.
Let me tell you, I happen to have also been the victim of other women, and fear them just as much, but mysteriously nobody pops up to quote statistics or tell me I’m the real problem here when I express that fear, especially not other women. I’ve never had a woman get offended by me not wanting to be in a room alone with her.

The average man isn’t going to rape me. The average bear also would rather leave me alone than maul me. But I have been sexually assaulted by men. I’ve never been mauled by a bear. I think it’s understandable one of those fears is a lot more real to me than the other.
You’re not talking to people who just decided to fear men for no reason. You’re talking to trauma victims and their family and friends. Traumas cause irrational fears. Getting upset that a trauma victim is afraid of reliving their trauma just straight up lacks any kind of empathy.

The generations are determined by what the biggest common experience they all have is (at least, that’s how it’s supposed to be.)
Millennials are millennials because they all remember the turn of the millennium. anyone born 1997 or later wouldn’t remember it, which is why the generation line was drawn where it was.
There are people who find that weird and prefer to call anybody born after 2000 gen Z because they were born after the turn of the millennium, so there’s a sizable amount of people who’ve taken to calling anybody born 1996-2000 a “zillennial” as a compromise. I use the term sometimes, but only when I need to demonstrate to somebody that there’s no clear difference between a young millennial and an older gen Z.