The past few weeks have been showing many people’s opinion about the bear versus man debate.

If you are not familiar with it, there is video of a man asking random women on the street if they would feel safer with a man or a bear in the forest. With women answering bear, it has sparked a large debate on mostly two sides: the women and femme presenting sharing stories why they would not choose men, and the men whose responses prove why women would choose the bear.

Two bears, in one person’s case.

It’s not to say that there aren’t men who would also choose the bear, and while their reasons can be similar to any woman’s experiences, there are others I have considered.

There are men out here who at several points in their life knew they were the reason the bear was always a safer choice, long before this question started.

Men who, despite their progress in being better people, they are still occasionally haunted by who they were, no matter how long ago they had acted in any way that makes them shudder now.

It is fine to believe that to feel shame for past actions is proof of growth. But we also live in a world where allegations alone have become synonymous with a guilty verdict.

Men healing from their old selves have a right to feel scared about exposure when they consider that. Those who reflect even deeper may fear victims coming forward years later and naming them for what they’ve done. Whatever comes to that may vary, but it should not stop said man from continuing to be better than who they were.

Of course there are those men who do not have a history like that to reflect on, but they still have experienced enough to know how to treat women better. How to be the solution, and not the statistic.

While it’s clear for many that other men dismissing women’s answers and claims should do better, too many societies are not built to define “better” as something worth being for the sake of compassion or even altruism towards others.

As people, it is up to us to not add to anyone’s suffering. But as men, it is up to us to call out the insensitivity towards any woman’s boundaries and history.

Anything less is why the bear deserves to be chosen.

D.F.