What the Bible says about the ‘Man vs. Bear’ debate

A social media trend asking women if they would rather encounter a bear or a man in the woods sparked a massive debate last week, with one video response compilation receiving around 2 million impressions and the “#manvsbear” hashtag appearing in close to 8,000 TikTok posts (according to Forbes).

Most women chose the bear, citing reasons such as knowing what to expect from a bear and preferring death to a potential sexual assault. Predictably, a backlash occurred defending men against what is perceived as a stereotypical leftist attack against masculinity — but is that really what’s happening?

Common sense, social science, and Scripture say no.

First, let’s use common sense. Anyone who spends time in the wilderness knows they are entering the territory of wild animals. If you’re loud enough they will likely run and hide before you see them, and if not, at least you understand what they’re doing there. A man in the middle of the woods could be there for any number of reasons, so a woman might be startled. A bear is afraid of a human, but a man is not (generally speaking) afraid of a woman.

By virtue of her species a woman has an advantage over the bear that she doesn’t have over a man. Even Genesis supports this, with God having given mankind dominion over the Earth before the fall. If the bear does attack — especially an aggressive bear such as a grizzly — the woman doesn’t stand a chance, but a black bear is quite likely to flee if you play your cards right.

Women aren’t stupid, we know this.

Second, an appeal to social science (the study of fallen humanity). According to sentencingproject.org, 64% of male prisoners committed violent crime as opposed to 45% of female prisoners, and according to a statista.com article from 2017, “93.2% of the approximately 185,500 federal inmates are men, and only 6.8% are women.” Therefore, while most men are not physical or sexual predators, most physical and sexual predators are men. Many women have never been attacked by a bear but have been assaulted by a human male.

If the debate was woman vs. bear, that would be one thing. First, a woman is less likely to be predatory (going by the earlier crime stats). Second, a predatory woman is unlikely to physically attack another woman in the woods, as female psychopathy tends to manifest differently than male psychopathy (if you’re a movie person you might think of “White Oleander,” “Mommy Dearest,” “Mean Girls,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest,” etc.).

Even if a woman does encounter a violent predatory female in the woods, she has a decent chance of being evenly matched with her for strength and therefore of defending herself. Even in the unlikely event of encountering a sexually predatory and violent woman in the woods who does overpower another female, I’ll spare the graphic details but let’s just say she certainly isn’t at risk of pregnancy.

At this point I want to emphasize that there are predatory and psychopathic women in the world, and many men have been abused and destroyed by them (usually not physically). Two things can be true at once.

Margaret Atwood wrote a fascinating novel called Robber Bride which gives an uncanny depiction of predatory female behavior. At the very least, it accurately describes the predatory females I’ve known. (They aren’t likely to pose a threat to a man or woman alone in the woods — but hide your kids, your money and your husbands.) Most women aren’t this way, but they exist just as predatory men do.

Which brings me to the scriptural perspective. The battle of the sexes is written right in the original curse of the fall in Genesis 3:16: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

By design women were always at a physical disadvantage, but after the fall that disadvantage became dangerous. As Christians it’s intellectually dishonest to ignore this piece of information. A woman’s intelligence and gifts of persuasion were not meant to be used to control men, but we had the fall and sometimes they are.

A man’s strength was not meant to be used to rule and overpower women, but we had the fall and sometimes it is. Why would a Christian be surprised by women fearing an encounter with a man alone in the woods?

When King David had his season of rebellion, he was offered the choice of judgment at the hands of men or at the hands of God. King David’s own words in 2 Samuel 24:14 were, “I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” If King David preferred an act of God to falling into the hands of men, why are Christians offended by women preferring a potentially predatory bear to a potentially predatory man?

Indeed, a bear is quite a biblical form of God’s judgment as Elisha demonstrated in 2 Kings 2:24. Those female bears mauled 42 youth in response to a curse in the name of the Lord. Perhaps it isn’t a stretch to compare women preferring the bear in the woods to King David preferring to fall into the hands of God.

For instances of men physically overpowering women in Scripture, one can look at Dinah being violated by Shechem in Genesis 34:2, Tamar being violated by Amnon in 2 Samual 13, Bathsheba’s much-debated relationship with King David in 2 Samuel 11, and even we see Esther had little choice in being taken as a king’s concubine in Esther 2:8. Sarah had little choice in being handed over to Abimelech by her husband, Abraham, in Genesis 20.

Mosaic law recognized the reality of a woman being unable to resist a man’s advances against her in Deut. 22:25-7: “But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.”

Again, if Scripture recognizes the threat a woman faces when she encounters a man alone in the wilderness, Christians today should be supporting the women who say they would rather die at the hands of a bear than face a potential sexual assault.

The Bible also shows us predatory women. Potiphar’s wife sexually assaulted Joseph, and when she could not physically overpower him had him thrown in jail (Genesis 39:7-20). Jezebel was a predatory woman who relied on manipulation rather than strength, and so was Delilah.

Most of us have seen enough true crime shows and news reports to know that women are capably of physically attacking men given the right weapon and circumstances, and some have killed their own children. That a woman has cause to fear a man’s physical strength does not absolve all “womankind” of ill-intent or wrongdoing: abuse is not sex-specific. It is simply one reality of the fallen world we find ourselves in.

Rather than fall victim to the mad squabbling of our polarized generation, we would do well to open our eyes and ears to the suffering of the many women sharing stories of abuse without denying the stories shared by men in response. Our goal as followers of Christ should be to resist the effects of the curse of the fall by encouraging harmony, safety and understanding between men and women both within families and in culture. To do this in a day and age that commodifies strife is difficult, and that is exactly why it falls to us to do it.