Dare I ask what the man vs bear meme is all about and why it seems to be upsetting men so much? [CW: sexism]
I don't go on social media so I don't really get it but I have seen memes here and there of women getting mauled by bears presented in a "heh, serves her right" kind of way.
So weird that dudes complain that they can't get women when the message they put out there is they hate women and make images of them being brutally mauled.
EDIT: I did not expect to see people I trust minimise SA here. I'm disappointed, that's something I expect from a random chud blowing in from another instance, not you guys. Most of you were extremely cool in your answers, but to the one or two that weren't. Do fucking better.
Can I add to this the "tell your male friends not to r*pe" bit too?
If I tell a rpist not to be a rpist, I doubt they'll have an epiphany and change their ways. And telling someone that wouldn't do it in the first place is obviously not gonna help against r*pists.
Well yeah, but you can curtail someone's behaviour. I knew a guy who was creepy towards lots of my friends. I confronted him in a 'bro' way - like 'hey man I know you're not trying to be weird but I've heard a lot of people complain about the way you're treating people.' He was taken back, absolutely squirming in his skin. At first he denied it, so I doubled down that I don't think they'd have lied to me and what they'd said does sound bad. He cracked under the pressure and started apologising - I was like 'hey don't apologise to me - apologise to them if you want.'
I don't know if he truly apologised, but I do know that those friends never endured his creepiness ever again. After a while he stopped hanging out in our circles completely.
Perhaps it made him introspect about that moment. Perhaps he just went somewhere else to carry on creeping. But if there's a person with convictions like me 'somewhere else', then 'somewhere else' will not be welcoming to him either. And if everyone could do their part in combatting it, he will struggle to find a place to be a creep.
The thing is, creeps creep far less if they know they'll be caught. Sure, some psychopaths might just do it anyway, but most of the time they work within what they know they can get away with. And the sexist undercurrents in society are what allow them to get away with it.
It's not 'hey guys, guys, before we go out tonight can we all just agree 'No raping!'. It's identifying times when your probably drunk friend is being overbearing towards a girl and telling him to cut it out. If your friend is talking about women as if they're pieces of meat, he's dehumanising them, and when people are dehumanised they're more likely to be harassed/attacked and so on. That's the part you cut out.
Maybe I'm taking the phrasing too literally, this makes sense to me and is absolutely the kind of thing I'd for someone and would want someone to do to me if I was coming off strong or giving off the wrong vibes.