If You Are Alone In The Woods, Would You Rather Run Into an Unknown Man or a Bear?

You may recognize the question that I asked above. According to KKTV, in 2024, it became a viral trend on social media to ask women if they would rather be alone with an unknown man or a bear. The KKTV article also said that in one TikTok video, 7 out of 8 women said they would pick the bear. People were kind of shocked when a good chunk of women responded this way. Several responses stood out to me: 

“No one will question if the bear attack really happened.”

“A bear would not film it and send it to his friends.”

If you delve a little deeper, you would discover that the black bear (the most common bear in North America) kills about 1 person per year. However, 1 in 6 women have been a victim of attempted or completed rape. Keep in mind we are in the 21st century, and women are saying this. Would women in earlier periods, let’s say 1870, have the same answer?

Well, the characters in The Southern Sorority of Superstitious Witches ask the same question, and they all chose the bear. That’s because things were a lot different back then. Ten women are invited to participate in a trial semester at a prestigious Alabama university. This trial will determine whether women will be allowed to attend university throughout the state. Unfortunately, a lot of men are not keen on women earning an education and resort to sinister methods to get them to leave. What will the ten women do against all these forces?

Several of the students are hoping this university allows them to get out of their current situations. Lucille wants to get away from her controlling father and farm life. Catherine is trying to escape an arranged marriage since she is a lesbian and the man she is to be married to is a hound dog. Victoria is hoping to escape the life of being a mill girl and the horror of that job. 

But the women soon discover that the university doesn’t have their best interests at heart. The academic institution set the women up to fail from the beginning. A fraction of the girls were religious and thought their duty was to be a wife and mother instead of pursuing an education, so the administration knew they would fall off. For the rest, they did two disruptive things: assigned teachers to the women who didn’t believe in a woman’s right to education, and let the male students run rampant against the women at the school. I’m not just talking about pulling a girl’s hair or calling her names. A good portion of the men made attempts to kill the women with poisonous snakes and fire. When the women would complain about their male counterparts’ wicked deeds, it was either “your imagination” or “our boys wouldn’t do something like this.”

So it wasn’t surprising when Lucille suggested the women at the university start to use magic against the men. Some might say fighting back with magic could be considered too much. However, I propose the following: If someone has made it known their intent to harm and kill you, wouldn’t you take any measure at your disposal? Well, these women did and called it a sorority, so it wouldn’t be suspicious that they were meeting as a private group. Quite frankly, magic was their only trump card. Back then, women’s only options were to marry or work in the mills (where they were physically and sexually abused). Education would offer them a way to lead a successful and healthy life. That is why Lucille, Catherine, Victoria, and the others felt that walking away would not only doom them, but all the women that came after them. 

Despite this book being fictional, I found it a profound read on women fighting for the right to be treated as equals. The book also makes you realize that women haven’t made that much progress in over 100 years and makes you question why things haven’t gotten better. As women, we do have some rights, like the right to vote, work, and get an education, but many men still consider women inferior, as the alleged gang rape at Cornell University shows. None of the men in that situation have faced any legal consequences. Jane Doe in this case is pursuing a civil lawsuit to seek punitive damages, and the case is being looked into more now by the New York Attorney General, who has also opened up a criminal investigation into the matter. 

So when people say they don’t understand why women would choose the bear over an unknown man, it is something that has been built within us for centuries, knowing that we are often considered inferior and, a lot of times, a toy to play with. The bear will either kill you or leave you alone. An unknown man can do so much more, which is one of the scariest things in the book and society in general. 

I believe that this is a book that everyone should read because it makes a wonderful observation. Not only do men need to change, but they also need to become allies. Men need to be involved in teaching and leading by example to shape the minds of young boys for the better. Hopefully, modern society will try this so that men and women can be on equal footing instead of women preferring the bear for company. 

Sources

KKTV: https://www.kktv.com/2024/05/07/viral-question-asks-women-if-theyd-rather-be-alone-woods-with-bear-or-man/ 

CBSNews: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/cornell-university-lawsuit-fraternity-rape-allegations/ 

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/nov/04/cornell-sexual-assault-prosecutor-jacqueline-kelly 

National Sexual Violence Resource Center: https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/statistics-depth/