The most horrific thing about the Handmaid's Tale, according the the Margaret Atwood herself, is that all of the horrors in the book were things that actually happened in recorded history. She meant for it to be a gut punch.
"The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) is a United States law enacted October 28, 1974. Before the enactment of the law, lenders and the federal government frequently and explicitly discriminated against female loan applicants and held female applicants to different standards from male applicants."
Happened to my mom after my parents divorced in the early 70s. She came out crying because a department store wouldn't give her a credit card because she was a woman. Once I had money I didn't shop at that store for 30 years. They're out of business now and I hope I helped.
The surprising thing there isn't that sexism was still so common, but that bankers' sexism exceeded their desire to make money. Some banks literally had to be coerced into doubling their customer base.
I watched the ending again, and I'm guessing it's not autobiographical, but it's probably a good sign for her audience's empathy capacity that there are *multiple comments* asking this.
@@GSBarlev Yes, came here to find out if Angela was outing a (presumably/hopefully) ex boyfriend/husband with that “fuck a bear” story. It seems like something a real person (who’s an asshole) would say rather than a crafted punch line, so I got worried.
Yeah, if my SO reacted that way, I'd get a hotel room (and take the kiddo). Or if he were my male colleague and told me about the incident the next day, I'd: 1. Try to talk some sense into him 2. Check in discreetly with all of his non-male direct reports
@@GSBarlev Lol - this is exactly what Joanna’s psych tells her to do in the original stepford wives movie. Joanna says that she thinks she’s going to be killed and replaced by a robot, and her psychiatrist is like “yeah, actually, I can see men doing that… take the kids, get into the car, and drive.” And somehow, it’s believable.
Yea, I kinda wish you would post a followup video to confirm that this either wasn't about you, or, if it was, that you're out of that situation and in a safe place.
Rosemary's Baby gives me that same sense of horror. It's on a more individual scale, but everyone's lying to her, taking away her agency, controlling her body, controlling her life, controlling the people around her. It's terrifying.
I read the book a long time ago, but I've seen the movie several times, and that scene where the "good" doctor betrays her to her husband and the witchy doctor. Just so chilling.
i read the Stepford Wives a few years ago for basically the same reason - all I knew of it before was the sort of weird dated slightly raunchy comic vibe because it had been flattened and parodied so much. But it genuinely just... ruled, I was shocked. Also UK law: "It wasn't until 1975 that women could open a bank account in their own name. Single women still couldn't apply for a loan or credit card in their own name without a signature from their father, even if they earned more." If you're over 40, this probably affected your mothers. It certainly affected your grandmothers. All I ever heard of this growing up was "angry women in the 70s burning their bras." Which now I think of it, is a similarly flattened and parodied version of events.
Great observations. It's all too easy to think of past events taken out of context and not realize that they were/are a part of a greater problem. We can see this with plights that involve people of color and queer people being reduced to a perceived nuisance. "Can you believe they held up traffic with a protest because they want basic human rights?"
-Bear- Keep in mind that voter suppression is a thing that targets liberals in a number of different ways. Voter turnout in 2020, IIRC, was 60%, and Drumpf got ~40% of the vote, meaning only about 1/4 of eligible voters actually voted for him.
I just want to say you're my favorite booktuber on the platform right now. I know it's not your main channel, but you are so articulate about your thoughts and don't rely on booktube cliches. You voiced soome insecurity about your ability to express yourself in your latest video, but I think you are brilliant at it within the context of your medium of youtube videos. I comment here specifically because this is my favorite video of yours in the channel. It's short but it's so well constructed and concise. Perhaps you did not intend for this to be a video essay, but in a time where "video essays" get bigger (justifiably in some cases of course) it was refreshing to see a video pack such a punch in such a short time frame, while still being conversational and light in tone which makes the ending all the more impactful.
I know it’s not literally real but the story at then end was very upsetting. Largely because I’m sure it’s real for some people. I haven’t read A Handmaids Tale or The Stepford Wives (though maybe I will soon), but you definitely captured the vibe you described.
Oh no, it was fought for the rights of rich, white, male property- and slave-owners to pay lower taxes and have more political power. That’s way more significant than the body autonomy of women
Reading A Handmaids Tale as a mother of two young girls was a truly difficult experience. I can barely make it through 3 pages at a time before I start weeping.
I feel like another aspect of this that men who get really mad about this meme aren’t understanding is that yes, getting mauled by a bear is horrifying, but there’s another kind of horror to getting mauled by another human. “you have a better chance of fighting off a man if he decides to attack” is not really the point. there’s a deep-seated indignity women feel about “becoming a statistic.” contrary to what conservatives will tell you, most people don’t like feeling like a victim. the only way I can describe it is that getting killed by a bear feels like a less degrading death than getting killed by a man. nature is harsh, but at least it’s not personal; the bear can’t victimize and dehumanize you the way another human can. it’s not “rational,” but it is what it is.
It is rational. Your humanity is valuable. Being dehumanized is painful and a direct attack on who you are, bypassing the organic interface. BTW I'm a man. I don't think this misconception of what is scary is restricted to men. You felt the need to say it's not rational, because that is how society views it. It shouldn't be hard to explain the bear meme to a man, just ask what they'd prefer: being punched by a man or slapped by a woman. Rejection is painful. (Not as bad as oppression.) I'm guessing that the men that responded badly to the bear meme were triggered by their own insecurity and misunderstanding of women. It's ironic that it's their own emotional pain that drives them to this.
the best example of the man vs bear meme I've seen was a cartoon of a woman in bondage gear sitting next to a big hairy guy also in bondage gear and the tiniest hot pants sitting next to a fire in the woods roasting marshmallows. And the caption was 'id choose the bear'. Just a silly little play on words. But the comments under were just filled with but hurt guys going on about how dangerous bears are, and how it's feminist ideology making women hate men that's destroying the world and whatever. While the cartoon literally shows a woman and a man sitting together having a nice time in the woods
Thank you for another great video and thank you so much for talking about these very important situations. I believe the point you made about how you had been telling people for 15 years that republicans were coming to take women's rights away (while everybody said you were overreacting) and then they took women's healthy care rights away is so damn relevant and real. This is exactly why I cried so much while reading The Handmaid's Tale. For me the biggest horror of this book was (by far) this slow but sure path towards women loosing all their rights, while everybody else kept saying "nah, it's fine, it's gonna be fine, you're worrying too much". As a woman, seeing this shit happening over and over again around me in the world keeps me up at night.
I work in IT, I wasnt able to articulate (still can't fully), this feels so much like the time at lunch where my superiors (all men) were all saying they want their babies to be boys rather than girls. They're great people but I felt hurt when its such a common sentiment with men.
What's really scary about that scene in Handmaid's Tale is that he seems to be just fine up until then. She married him after all. But then he gets permission to control another person and he suddenly has already started to. We saw this in 1930's and 40's Germany when people got permission to take their neighbors possessions because they were no longer legally people, and then it just happened. Not by the brownshirts, but by any citizen of a sanctioned ethnicity.
Except the men taking it literally seemed to be stunned that the woman would choose the tracks instead of the trolley, where he'd have no choice but to run her over
My favourite (but actually not at all) moment of man vs bear was when myself and a bunch of other women in a video comments section started discussing our experiences with SA and generally unnerving experiences throughout our lives, sympathising with one another. And a dude just showed up and was like "Women vastly overexaggerate their experiences, most of them lie about this actually". ......... Moments like that give me that exact same feeling I think you're talking about. Where it's just this huge sinking feeliing and you know any counter is going to lead to further argument, and you just have to sit there reminded real people think like this. And they not only think like this, but think it's fine to just tell a bunch of people discussing trauma that they're a bunch of liars. And it's even worse because they literally don't see the irony in the whole situation and will just get more and more aggro if you try and point it out. Thank god this was just an online interaction this time.
As a guy it was immediately obvious why the women would chose to run into a bear. A bear will attack you because it's hungry or thinks you're a threat. A man will attack you for fun. A man will keep you for fun. The lack of self awareness among guys is staggering. I get why it hurts to be compared unfavorably to a wild animal, but I also understand the reality of the scenario.
Assuming the worst in both cases you have a chance fighting off a guy relatively unscathed, though, as slim as those chances might be. The bear's just going to eat you alive.
@@cia4u401 The hypothetical isn't really about fighting odds, just that a bear wears its intentions openly vs a person which can communicate, gain your trust, and then still do awful things to you as pointed out in the video. They're choosing the bear for certainty.
@@StigmataTickles Would you do anything other than just exchange a few words with the man? If you're in the middle of the woods and it's not someone you trust you wouldn't try to stick around and have him gain your trust in any sort of way. Maybe I've just seen read/heard about too many bear attacks and it's made me biased. I just picture in my mind what happened to Allena Hansen or that couple who had a camera recording as a bear tore into their camp and ate them both alive and think I'd rather take my chances with a serial killer or malicious man since at least I'd actually have chances there.
I had few friends growing up and my only two close guy friends are both super sweet feminists, so I had no idea of just how f'd up so many men are until I started having more women friends. The stories I've heard have been absolutely chilling. Men, if you feel attacked by this meme, talk to some women about their experiences and learn. Offer to help keep them safe by doing things like being a check in when they go on a date, etc. When you hear other men saying sexist garbage, don't let it fly. If you treat women with respect, see them as equals, etc., then the meme isn't about you. But you should be aware that there are A LOT of men out there that I would rather not have my women friends run into in a forest instead of a bear.
Twenty years ago, that scenario happened to me. Asked my partner if she would mind peeling an orange because I had no nails at the time, and hers were longer. She started to oblige when our mutual best friend looked at her and said "He can peel his own fucking orange!". And I did.
As a man I read scenes like these with the horror in my own head. Are there little bits of that monster inside me? How do I make sure I never do this, or even veer in the direction of doing this? But the bit at the end… I felt that one from the woman’s point of view and it was like getting flattened by a truck. (And the storytelling and the acting - god I hope it was acting - was so good that I can’t be *quite* sure it’s not real)
I don't come here for this content, but so pleasantly surprised to see it and to see the reference back to Princess Weekes to whom I also subscribe. Keep rockin.
I guess I’m glad that my response to the bear memes was “Yeah, that’s reasonable. And my only response is to live in a way doesn’t prove it to be correct. First step, not taking it personally and feeling a need to try and show the entire internet the error of its ways.”
ty so much for Princess Weekes recommendation. Also Susu_jpg has a wonderful commentary youtube on the Bear or Man thing as well, seems to be the hot topic. All you science nerds also check that commentary out its great. I may have to read both books now!
9:15 I didn't believe that "God chooses the bear" meme, so I looked it up. It's in the book of Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 12. "Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool bent on folly."
You think that’s bad, go find “the greatest commandment” according to Jesus himself. It’s Leviticus 19:18. Your “neighbor” in “love thy neighbor” emphatically does not mean “your fellow human being”; it means “your fellow Israeli”. You can make slaves and war spoils of other races. Jesus knew it, his listeners knew it. Only modern people misunderstand
@@GreatBigBore Leviticus absolutely did define "neighbor" that way, but the whole point of the "Good Samaritan" story was to emphasize that "neighbor" should be defined much more expansively than that. Whoever wrote Luke, at least, seems to have thought Jesus considered non-Jews to be "neighbors".
A woman is walking into a remote, dark forest late at night with a man whom she does not know and says to him, “I’m scared”. The man responds, “I will be scared walking out of the forest by myself”.
The thing I love most about this video is how if someone asked me "What is the most horrifying scene in the Handmaid's Tale?" I never would have guessed that one, but your unpacking of that scene was *so real*. Great stuff.
Powerful video, omg, the CHILLING effect of magnifying "hush, hush." I'm thinking you might be familiar with Sarah Marshall's work on You're Wrong About, which is where I was originally convinced to watch The Stepford Wives - loved that Princess Weekes video too. Absolutely agree about the unique scariness and I can't believe what a cathartic relief it was to be reminded of Man vs. Bear 😂. Complete with Titanic reference hahahaha, I can never resist the urge to "well, actually" the men about that even if it feels so very 2012 Manosphere.
I had no idea where this was going, but it was compelling and thought provoking all the way through and the turn to modern discourse was a delight! I suspect that last line is going to be rattling around in my head for a while.
Stepford Wives is a helluva book. I read it the summer before junior year of h.s., and wouldn't let anyone within arms reach for two months. I was fortunate to miss the whole man vs bear thing (not surprising, I only heard about gamergate about 5 years afterwards). I'd just like to point out that not all bears will attack unprovoked.' Did not expect that ending. Delivered with visceral emotional truth. I hope it's a sign that, in addition to being an excellent (though reluctant) science communicator, you have serious thespian skill.
Tbh that scene sounds like something that probably happened in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over again. Like there are probably women going through this right now. This even isn’t some hypothetical that’s outside the realm of possibility. It’s just what happens when religious extremists and backwards thinkers completely take over a society.
Women were routinely denied their own bank accounts and credit cards in their own name in the US and UK as late as the mid-70s, when the law finally affirmed equal rights to banking services.
i have a bear who walks around my neighbourhood eating peoples organic trash bins and generally living her best life. It never crossed my mind that i should be afraid of a bear. If a random man was walking across my backyard though...
@@spellkowski oh i respect bears. I live rural though. Wild animals mostly keep to themselves unless something is mega wrong. I wouldn't say that I'm afraid of wild animals though. Not only that but bear is the last wild animal i would consider scary because they are not troublemakers. Coyotes are actually scary at night
Atwood has another somewhat famous set called the MaddAddam Trilogy. Kind of books about animals and the environment as opposed to women but still with the same general themes.
I hate to maybe add to others deeply unsettling feelings around current "things" but I had this same kind of experience except reading a wikipedia article about Total Fertility Rate. In the article there was a section on what countries had tried to do in the past to stop the decline of birth rates. it briefly mentioned decree 770, during the reign of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania. Women were monitored monthly by a gynecologist, abortion and contraception was broadly banned, childlessness was taxed, and so on. Thing is, briefly, total fertility went up. And that's something that terrifies me, because I know deep down, a narrative will be constructed around this success so that it will seem to people that want this the only problem was a lack of discipline or enforcement. We already see public handwringing from the usual suspects about declining birth rates. Margaret Atwood drew inspiration from contemporary events including Decree 770 and the rise of the evangelical right in America. The fact that this pattern is playing out in our current society is why it's so a scary, and why her writing is so good.
I always felt disturbed by that scene, but back when i read it i couldnt articulate why exactly it left me creeped out. Havent tought about it in a long time, nice video, that ending was brutal, love this new side content, short and relevant book commentary that falls away from the typical review videos feels fresh
The original 70s movie is genuinely one of my favourites, but the remake with Nicole Kidman has made everyone think of The Stepford Wives as an unfunny joke. It’s not - it’s a really terrifying movie. The scariest scene in the movie, to me, is when Joanna finds out her psychiatrist is going on holiday and she begs her for advice… she says “I won’t be here when you get back. Don’t ask me to explain it. I just know. There’ll be somebody, and she’ll look like me, and she’ll cook and she’ll clean, but she won’t take pictures and she won’t be me.” And the psychiatrist believes her. Something about a psychiatrist believing what should instantly be a redflag for schizophrenia really shook me… In weighing up whether Joanna is more of a threat to herself than her husband is, she comes down on the side that her husband is the threat. It shouldn’t be believable. In fact, nothing about that book/movie should be believable. But it all works so well. Unfortunately it’s a hard movie to see these days.
This is your best video yet. You really gave me goosebumps. I was part of this bear discussion among a few other men (not my friends, I do not claim them) back when it first started and they took the opportunity to blame feminists and their bear question for pushing men and women apart, but the way I see it, this discussion is just a flashlight in the dark exposing a divide that was already there. They seemed incapable of hearing my reason though, which is horrifying. I'm really worried about it all.
When the film of Handmaid's Tale came out, my wife at the time saw it in Oceanside CA and was visibly upset at the end. And a Marine from the base was in the theater, came up and told her they (meaning the Marines) would not let that happen. But now in 2024, who can say?
This was Atwood's comment on Marian Engel's 1970s novel "Bear", which is in fact about a woman who has relations with a bear. Here's Liz Davidson's measuredly favorable review of that book: ruclips.net/video/vL76XGBBdjE/видео.html
Great to see you take this issue and show the articulation across recent time, since 1970. I really hope humanity can stir up a compassion revolution / reformation.
So I've started doing standup comedy at open mics for fun. The host introduced this man bear Internet discourse at the start and a few comics riffed on it a bit in good fun. Some of the jokes were a bit offensive, but it's a standup open mic so you get what you get. People are figuring their jokes out. But this one guy just angrily ranted about how bears are more dangerous, especially nowadays when modern men barely look like men etc. Even as a man, I felt so uncomfortable. PS: In a shocking twist, I heard a rumor that that guy was fired from his job due to harassment.
It is maddening to have heard people claim Roe v. Wade was settled law and they'll never overturn it bc I was raised in an Evangelical household and was absolutely privy to the stuff they lie to outsiders about and like, not only was that exactly what we were trying to do (and our explicit goal since the ruling came down), pretty much all of the current Project 2025 agenda was what we were working towards. And the thing is, we/they were not and have not been subtle about it.
I’d love that too, but also it’s really crazy that the perspective has shifted so far towards dystopia that women having the most basic property rights and autonomy in general evokes comparisons to leftism.
@@cyclonasaurusrex1525 If anyone wants more leftist physics Dr Fatima is a good channel to watch. Though she does argue in favor of MOND for dark matter.
I was ignoring the bear/man discourse this entire time because i thought it was about who would win in a fight. Lmao. Thank you for informing me, Angela.
I watch the show Alone and there are plenty of bears who make an appearance. I suspect if you asked men the same question they would pick the bear even more often than women. “The bear could feed me for a month but the man would compete for resources.” Maybe he’d acknowledge the possibility of violence based on competition but never the fear of SA or other violence for control.
That scene lives in my head as well. When I first read it I was amazed at how clueless Luke seemed to be. Now that I'm 45 I'm even less sure what to make of him in that exchange.
I also read the Handmaid's tale when I was in highschool, and it didn't make much of an impression and I thought it was odd how much attention it got. In retrospect being Saudi made a lot of the book too normal for me to really understand how Americans experienced it
I grew up in the UK where banks could deny my mother access to a bank account, credit card, or loan in her own name without her husband's permission until 1975. It wasn't that different in the US before the law changed in 1974. Banks often considered women a much higher risk than men, so it wasn't that uncommon to reject their applications until the laws changed. That's a shockingly short amount of time ago -- barely 50 years.
If time on the internet runs faster does that mean it's a source of negative gravity? You're 100% a person, and you bring value to society, as a scientist and (you'll hate this) an entertainer (your videos are hilarious) and as a critical thinker with a sound opinion. It's so sad that even now women's rights is controversial. Clever trick with the last line. Hammered the point.
Sadly handmaid tale is actually a reality in many places of the world. I am not from the west and we really like to criticise west for colonisation and racism other shit but one thing that i hate is people criticising west for liberalism. Living in the global south you wish you had laws like west here and i hate the current alt right shit going there because if the only place with few liberal laws die yhen what will people here in asia , middle east and africa will aspire. Even here the right has started using american right wing terminology like woke and etc and it's fucking scary. Plus you see the people migrate to west from global south but then those guys would actually support the conservative govt back home and sit there in west enjoy the freedom there
Masterful finale. Reminds me of the science-fiction author Fredric Brown, who wrote short stories with humorous endings. He is the author of Martians Go Home.
I've watched the Handmaids Tale series recently (Had to take breaks because it's really hard to watch at times). Don't know if it's good compared to the books? But one thing that hit me hard is the thing that started the whole dystopian society in the first place. What if we couldn't have children anymore? What if we really were dying out? I think it's really hard for us to imagine that becoming a reality in our current overpopulated state (even with sinking fertility and low birth rates in western countries) and it doesn't justify anything that happens in the story in the slightest, of course. But in such a society (and for a lot of human history in reality too) healthy children are something very precious and in extension women who can bear children are precious as well. That's why in reality we had this strange ambivalent situation where women were at the same time oppressed and given special privileges like not having to fight in wars and getting food/shelter first etc. It's a really complex topic and the book uses it well to tell the story. But I think (or hope) that in the real world we would handle such a situation much more intelligently and I'd say the first mistake they made in the book is putting only men in charge of handling how women should have children, the most female thing there is... That's just stupid :D
Let me suggest A E. Van Vogt's novel Renaissance from 1979. A little later than Stepford Wives. I don't know if it's a direct response to the Stepford Wives but certainly is a response to similar literature at the time.
Havent finished the video yet but I do want to recommend the rest of Margaret Atwoods work specifically the Maddadam trilogy. Very much just as gripping as the The Handmaids Tale but with a slightly different focus.
@@Nobody_Nowhere_Never I'm so sorry! I totally misinterpreted your comment. I thought you were saying that she should leave her partner (having inferred that the story at the end was something that actually happened).
The bear question is interesting, both in that I would expect the responses to vary by both region and age, and also in that neither one of those options is actually likely to end up horrible if it only happens a couple times. Like, I'm not sure it even makes sense to bring in statistics, since the actual most relevant concern would just be which will cause more anxiety. ...also, I'd choose the bear. I'm not good with strangers.
Books like these make me so angry with people who refuse to engage with politics and ultimately vote with their gut. It reminds of this woman on a Vice interview who literally voted for Trump because she thought he was an outsider. A billionaire who had been in politics and public life for decades was supposedly an outsider.
I think you're right AND I think that what the bear conversation touches on for a lot of men (including me) is that it's dehumanising and hurtful to be treated like a constant threat. It's easy to feel, mistakenly, that the discourse we support is lurching into a place where men are depicted as assaults waiting to happen, because those are the representations that stick in your head days later (and because they're good at generating clicks). To have somebody say something that sounds, at first blush, like "Actually, I think men are less safe than an animal" feels in the gut like a confirmation of the fact that there are people around you who think that you, (sandwich-eater, toe-stubber, sock-owner) are an animal that wants to hurt them. It's not, of course, but it is alienating, and it brings up every memory of somebody crossing the street to keep away from you while you're carrying your shopping home with your headphones in. Being reminded of the lengths to which women have to go to keep themselves safe is confronting for a lot of us, (it's shocking to realise for the first time that knowing every thousandth blackberry is poisoned means you can never eat blackberries safely) but this feels like one step further (hearing someone say that they'd rather eat mistletoe than take their chances with a blackberry). The format invites the least charitable reading. It's a perfect, horrible, self driving little internet argument that generates its own power as it runs and works because everyone who interacts with it feels horror and fear and shame and disgust.
I missed the original discussions of the bear thing. I think it's just not that well crafted an analogy, and most of us dudes, younger ones mostly, even if not raging misogynists, just haven't the empathy or basic factual understanding of what's behind the analogy. (Many older dudes don't either). And their response reveals that ignorance, and lack of care, which fuels this discussion. Sad, but I get how it went the way it did. But that last line was incredibly well crafted. Short, punchy, and encompass the whole argument. Beautiful. Terrible.
I mean, I don't think it's a well crafted controversy because, as a man, *I'd choose the bear, too.* Like, a bear in the woods? That's his (or her) home, and they're just doing what they need to survive-if I'm not threatening their turf (or their cubs), and I'm not carrying a pic-a-nic basket, the bear is unlikely to even want me to be aware of its presence.
@@GSBarlev exactly, like what the fuck is a man doing in a forest??? stranger danger??? hello?? where that "i could fight a bear" spirit that most men have???
@@GSBarlev This is what confused me about all the people trying to "logic" their way through the discourse. I'd still pick the damn bear even if this was a problem you had to solve and not rhetorical device.
Please let us know if the ending was a joke. I mean, not a joke-joke, because it had exactly the effect you were looking for, and “haha” wasn’t it, but now I’m a little bit worried for you.
Very good video and pretty thought-provoking. Helped me again put into context the whole man versus bear thing even though I was starting to get caught up in the rage bait of it all. The issue I had with this thing is that, while I completely agree with the underlying sentiment, it really started to feel like something that would help to radicalize more young men to a more conservative view than actually helping them understand why women would feel that way. Let me try to put it in perspective: imagine you’re a young man who’s pretty average in all considerations. You’re not particularly bad (like you’re not some cartoonishly evil red pill guy who believes every woman is just a baby-making machine) but maybe clueless on some aspects. Just you’re average Joe. When you come across this TikTok and this whole trend, it feels utterly ridiculous from your point of view. When women on TikTok mention "The Men", you don’t take a stand back and view it as a general population in sociological terms but you imagine you, your male friends, or even your father or grandfather and it just feels dumb. You know, you wouldn’t randomly attack a woman in the woods, and the fact that some people would prefer to choose an animal as powerful as a bear feels ridiculous. It feels so ridiculous that then you feel almost outrage and that’s this reaction that leads to comments like "Not all men". Again, I totally side with the choice of the women but people need to realize that when communicating on the Internet, they aren’t talking just to one strawman archetype. Like not every man is a fresh and fit red pill. And worse of all, I believe this trend could ironically enough lead more people to become red pill bro. Because, after being confronted with something in their eyes that’s so ridiculous and outrageous, they could very easily gravitate to content that validates their feelings of outrage. All that red pill content creator has to do is make a video like "Look at these man-hating feminists, they think all men are disgusting monsters and they are so stupid that they think bears are cute harmless plushies that won’t rip them in half if given the chance". And just by doing that, they could very easily introduce a lot of men to these ideas because, at face value, it is what it looks like. I think you’d need to have some context on feminism to fully understand that it’s not actually about you but it’s more of a broader topic. Unfortunately, an average person doesn’t have that context and this trend is a very bad way to introduce them to it. Hopefully what I said made sense and didn’t come off as dismissive. Again, it’s a very good video, I’ll check out the books you mentioned!
It's alarmist right up until it's too late. That's what an alarm is for.
This line is a gut punch in the best way possible
The most horrific thing about the Handmaid's Tale, according the the Margaret Atwood herself, is that all of the horrors in the book were things that actually happened in recorded history. She meant for it to be a gut punch.
Came here to make sure this was included, it's hella important context when we talk about Handmaid's Tale.
Last line hit like a god damn freight train...
Would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a freight train?
Really truly
Seriously jesus christ
From the thumbnail I thought the terrifying scene was in stepford wives, then the handmaid's tale. Nope, it was the video essay.
"imagine being this guy's wife (derogatory)" i love the direction you are taking this channel. she goes hard and we respect the hell out of that.
"The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) is a United States law enacted October 28, 1974. Before the enactment of the law, lenders and the federal government frequently and explicitly discriminated against female loan applicants and held female applicants to different standards from male applicants."
Happened to my mom after my parents divorced in the early 70s. She came out crying because a department store wouldn't give her a credit card because she was a woman. Once I had money I didn't shop at that store for 30 years. They're out of business now and I hope I helped.
The surprising thing there isn't that sexism was still so common, but that bankers' sexism exceeded their desire to make money. Some banks literally had to be coerced into doubling their customer base.
Loved the connection you made between the bear jokes and the book, now I will be thinking about the last line of the video for the rest of my week
That ending hit like a bomb, amazing video!
wait a minute that last example was too specific. "Are you safe Dr Collier?"
I hope so, her line does say she was imagining the scene. I had to listen to it again to notice, my initial reaction was the same.
I watched the ending again, and I'm guessing it's not autobiographical, but it's probably a good sign for her audience's empathy capacity that there are *multiple comments* asking this.
@@GSBarlev Yes, came here to find out if Angela was outing a (presumably/hopefully) ex boyfriend/husband with that “fuck a bear” story. It seems like something a real person (who’s an asshole) would say rather than a crafted punch line, so I got worried.
Yes absolutely agree! Very upsetting the way it stopped so abruptly!!
I also really hope it was just for effect. I hope everything is OK!!
@@mehill00same!!
I hope that ending was artistically scary and not cry for help scary, but point well made
Yes please, exactly this 🙏
Yeah, if my SO reacted that way, I'd get a hotel room (and take the kiddo).
Or if he were my male colleague and told me about the incident the next day, I'd:
1. Try to talk some sense into him
2. Check in discreetly with all of his non-male direct reports
@@GSBarlev Lol - this is exactly what Joanna’s psych tells her to do in the original stepford wives movie. Joanna says that she thinks she’s going to be killed and replaced by a robot, and her psychiatrist is like “yeah, actually, I can see men doing that… take the kids, get into the car, and drive.” And somehow, it’s believable.
Yea, I kinda wish you would post a followup video to confirm that this either wasn't about you, or, if it was, that you're out of that situation and in a safe place.
Rosemary's Baby gives me that same sense of horror. It's on a more individual scale, but everyone's lying to her, taking away her agency, controlling her body, controlling her life, controlling the people around her. It's terrifying.
Same author as stepford wives if I recall
I read the book a long time ago, but I've seen the movie several times, and that scene where the "good" doctor betrays her to her husband and the witchy doctor. Just so chilling.
i read the Stepford Wives a few years ago for basically the same reason - all I knew of it before was the sort of weird dated slightly raunchy comic vibe because it had been flattened and parodied so much. But it genuinely just... ruled, I was shocked.
Also UK law:
"It wasn't until 1975 that women could open a bank account in their own name. Single women still couldn't apply for a loan or credit card in their own name without a signature from their father, even if they earned more."
If you're over 40, this probably affected your mothers. It certainly affected your grandmothers. All I ever heard of this growing up was "angry women in the 70s burning their bras." Which now I think of it, is a similarly flattened and parodied version of events.
Great observations. It's all too easy to think of past events taken out of context and not realize that they were/are a part of a greater problem. We can see this with plights that involve people of color and queer people being reduced to a perceived nuisance. "Can you believe they held up traffic with a protest because they want basic human rights?"
The part that gets me is how many women will vote for men who want to take their rights away. In 2020 Trump got a majority of the white women vote .
-Bear- Keep in mind that voter suppression is a thing that targets liberals in a number of different ways. Voter turnout in 2020, IIRC, was 60%, and Drumpf got ~40% of the vote, meaning only about 1/4 of eligible voters actually voted for him.
White women who voted for Trump voted for being white over being women
I just want to say you're my favorite booktuber on the platform right now. I know it's not your main channel, but you are so articulate about your thoughts and don't rely on booktube cliches. You voiced soome insecurity about your ability to express yourself in your latest video, but I think you are brilliant at it within the context of your medium of youtube videos. I comment here specifically because this is my favorite video of yours in the channel. It's short but it's so well constructed and concise. Perhaps you did not intend for this to be a video essay, but in a time where "video essays" get bigger (justifiably in some cases of course) it was refreshing to see a video pack such a punch in such a short time frame, while still being conversational and light in tone which makes the ending all the more impactful.
I know it’s not literally real but the story at then end was very upsetting. Largely because I’m sure it’s real for some people. I haven’t read A Handmaids Tale or The Stepford Wives (though maybe I will soon), but you definitely captured the vibe you described.
Observation: The Revolutionary War was fought over disputes far less significant than one’s bodily autonomy.
Oh no, it was fought for the rights of rich, white, male property- and slave-owners to pay lower taxes and have more political power. That’s way more significant than the body autonomy of women
Reading A Handmaids Tale as a mother of two young girls was a truly difficult experience. I can barely make it through 3 pages at a time before I start weeping.
This video is going to stick with me for a bit. Well done.
Well that was a gut punch
I feel like another aspect of this that men who get really mad about this meme aren’t understanding is that yes, getting mauled by a bear is horrifying, but there’s another kind of horror to getting mauled by another human. “you have a better chance of fighting off a man if he decides to attack” is not really the point. there’s a deep-seated indignity women feel about “becoming a statistic.” contrary to what conservatives will tell you, most people don’t like feeling like a victim. the only way I can describe it is that getting killed by a bear feels like a less degrading death than getting killed by a man. nature is harsh, but at least it’s not personal; the bear can’t victimize and dehumanize you the way another human can. it’s not “rational,” but it is what it is.
It is rational. Your humanity is valuable. Being dehumanized is painful and a direct attack on who you are, bypassing the organic interface. BTW I'm a man. I don't think this misconception of what is scary is restricted to men. You felt the need to say it's not rational, because that is how society views it. It shouldn't be hard to explain the bear meme to a man, just ask what they'd prefer: being punched by a man or slapped by a woman. Rejection is painful. (Not as bad as oppression.) I'm guessing that the men that responded badly to the bear meme were triggered by their own insecurity and misunderstanding of women. It's ironic that it's their own emotional pain that drives them to this.
the best example of the man vs bear meme I've seen was a cartoon of a woman in bondage gear sitting next to a big hairy guy also in bondage gear and the tiniest hot pants sitting next to a fire in the woods roasting marshmallows. And the caption was 'id choose the bear'. Just a silly little play on words. But the comments under were just filled with but hurt guys going on about how dangerous bears are, and how it's feminist ideology making women hate men that's destroying the world and whatever. While the cartoon literally shows a woman and a man sitting together having a nice time in the woods
Thank you for another great video and thank you so much for talking about these very important situations.
I believe the point you made about how you had been telling people for 15 years that republicans were coming to take women's rights away (while everybody said you were overreacting) and then they took women's healthy care rights away is so damn relevant and real.
This is exactly why I cried so much while reading The Handmaid's Tale. For me the biggest horror of this book was (by far) this slow but sure path towards women loosing all their rights, while everybody else kept saying "nah, it's fine, it's gonna be fine, you're worrying too much".
As a woman, seeing this shit happening over and over again around me in the world keeps me up at night.
I work in IT, I wasnt able to articulate (still can't fully), this feels so much like the time at lunch where my superiors (all men) were all saying they want their babies to be boys rather than girls.
They're great people but I felt hurt when its such a common sentiment with men.
common sentiment with women too (atleast in the east, where i live), which is ofc problematic too. scary world
What's really scary about that scene in Handmaid's Tale is that he seems to be just fine up until then. She married him after all. But then he gets permission to control another person and he suddenly has already started to.
We saw this in 1930's and 40's Germany when people got permission to take their neighbors possessions because they were no longer legally people, and then it just happened. Not by the brownshirts, but by any citizen of a sanctioned ethnicity.
The man, bear thing being taken literally reminds me of in "The Good Place", when they force Chidi to explore the Trolley Problem literally.
Except the men taking it literally seemed to be stunned that the woman would choose the tracks instead of the trolley, where he'd have no choice but to run her over
Another indication that Reddit is a good metaphor for Hell.
My favourite (but actually not at all) moment of man vs bear was when myself and a bunch of other women in a video comments section started discussing our experiences with SA and generally unnerving experiences throughout our lives, sympathising with one another. And a dude just showed up and was like "Women vastly overexaggerate their experiences, most of them lie about this actually". .........
Moments like that give me that exact same feeling I think you're talking about. Where it's just this huge sinking feeliing and you know any counter is going to lead to further argument, and you just have to sit there reminded real people think like this. And they not only think like this, but think it's fine to just tell a bunch of people discussing trauma that they're a bunch of liars. And it's even worse because they literally don't see the irony in the whole situation and will just get more and more aggro if you try and point it out. Thank god this was just an online interaction this time.
As a guy it was immediately obvious why the women would chose to run into a bear. A bear will attack you because it's hungry or thinks you're a threat. A man will attack you for fun. A man will keep you for fun. The lack of self awareness among guys is staggering. I get why it hurts to be compared unfavorably to a wild animal, but I also understand the reality of the scenario.
And most bears will just avoid you.
Assuming the worst in both cases you have a chance fighting off a guy relatively unscathed, though, as slim as those chances might be. The bear's just going to eat you alive.
@@cia4u401 The hypothetical isn't really about fighting odds, just that a bear wears its intentions openly vs a person which can communicate, gain your trust, and then still do awful things to you as pointed out in the video. They're choosing the bear for certainty.
@@StigmataTickles Would you do anything other than just exchange a few words with the man? If you're in the middle of the woods and it's not someone you trust you wouldn't try to stick around and have him gain your trust in any sort of way.
Maybe I've just seen read/heard about too many bear attacks and it's made me biased. I just picture in my mind what happened to Allena Hansen or that couple who had a camera recording as a bear tore into their camp and ate them both alive and think I'd rather take my chances with a serial killer or malicious man since at least I'd actually have chances there.
@@MathGrove it is pretty funny tbh
9:01 That quote, "The same men getting testerical..." is gold for giving us a new and much-needed word.
I had few friends growing up and my only two close guy friends are both super sweet feminists, so I had no idea of just how f'd up so many men are until I started having more women friends. The stories I've heard have been absolutely chilling.
Men, if you feel attacked by this meme, talk to some women about their experiences and learn. Offer to help keep them safe by doing things like being a check in when they go on a date, etc. When you hear other men saying sexist garbage, don't let it fly.
If you treat women with respect, see them as equals, etc., then the meme isn't about you. But you should be aware that there are A LOT of men out there that I would rather not have my women friends run into in a forest instead of a bear.
The memes have gotten way darker since the "Will you peel me an orange" days.
Twenty years ago, that scenario happened to me. Asked my partner if she would mind peeling an orange because I had no nails at the time, and hers were longer. She started to oblige when our mutual best friend looked at her and said "He can peel his own fucking orange!". And I did.
As a man I read scenes like these with the horror in my own head. Are there little bits of that monster inside me? How do I make sure I never do this, or even veer in the direction of doing this? But the bit at the end… I felt that one from the woman’s point of view and it was like getting flattened by a truck.
(And the storytelling and the acting - god I hope it was acting - was so good that I can’t be *quite* sure it’s not real)
Welp ... that's enough horror for me today :/
I mean, after this controversy, all the psychopathic murderers are clearly going to be wearing bear costumes, so...
I don't come here for this content, but so pleasantly surprised to see it and to see the reference back to Princess Weekes to whom I also subscribe. Keep rockin.
The specificity of the story at the end left me a little worried. I hope that wasn't autobiographical.
(good video)
I guess I’m glad that my response to the bear memes was “Yeah, that’s reasonable. And my only response is to live in a way doesn’t prove it to be correct. First step, not taking it personally and feeling a need to try and show the entire internet the error of its ways.”
Also, fantastic ending to your video.
ty so much for Princess Weekes recommendation. Also Susu_jpg has a wonderful commentary youtube on the Bear or Man thing as well, seems to be the hot topic. All you science nerds also check that commentary out its great. I may have to read both books now!
9:15 I didn't believe that "God chooses the bear" meme, so I looked it up. It's in the book of Proverbs, chapter 17, verse 12. "Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool bent on folly."
You think that’s bad, go find “the greatest commandment” according to Jesus himself. It’s Leviticus 19:18. Your “neighbor” in “love thy neighbor” emphatically does not mean “your fellow human being”; it means “your fellow Israeli”. You can make slaves and war spoils of other races. Jesus knew it, his listeners knew it. Only modern people misunderstand
But God did not write The Bible. Men wrote it.
The book of Proverbs really about dunking on fools, just relentless
@@GreatBigBore Leviticus absolutely did define "neighbor" that way, but the whole point of the "Good Samaritan" story was to emphasize that "neighbor" should be defined much more expansively than that. Whoever wrote Luke, at least, seems to have thought Jesus considered non-Jews to be "neighbors".
Change comments from "top" to "newest" and discover all the dudes writing variations of "Hush" in response.
A woman is walking into a remote, dark forest late at night with a man whom she does not know and says to him, “I’m scared”. The man responds, “I will be scared walking out of the forest by myself”.
I signed up for the science but now I just want MORE BOOKS!
Also, thanks for the insightful points.
Also, sorry for the all caps bit.
The thing I love most about this video is how if someone asked me "What is the most horrifying scene in the Handmaid's Tale?" I never would have guessed that one, but your unpacking of that scene was *so real*. Great stuff.
Powerful video, omg, the CHILLING effect of magnifying "hush, hush." I'm thinking you might be familiar with Sarah Marshall's work on You're Wrong About, which is where I was originally convinced to watch The Stepford Wives - loved that Princess Weekes video too. Absolutely agree about the unique scariness and I can't believe what a cathartic relief it was to be reminded of Man vs. Bear 😂. Complete with Titanic reference hahahaha, I can never resist the urge to "well, actually" the men about that even if it feels so very 2012 Manosphere.
I had no idea where this was going, but it was compelling and thought provoking all the way through and the turn to modern discourse was a delight! I suspect that last line is going to be rattling around in my head for a while.
Stepford Wives is a helluva book. I read it the summer before junior year of h.s., and wouldn't let anyone within arms reach for two months.
I was fortunate to miss the whole man vs bear thing (not surprising, I only heard about gamergate about 5 years afterwards). I'd just like to point out that not all bears will attack unprovoked.'
Did not expect that ending. Delivered with visceral emotional truth. I hope it's a sign that, in addition to being an excellent (though reluctant) science communicator, you have serious thespian skill.
Tbh that scene sounds like something that probably happened in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over again. Like there are probably women going through this right now. This even isn’t some hypothetical that’s outside the realm of possibility. It’s just what happens when religious extremists and backwards thinkers completely take over a society.
Women were routinely denied their own bank accounts and credit cards in their own name in the US and UK as late as the mid-70s, when the law finally affirmed equal rights to banking services.
i have a bear who walks around my neighbourhood eating peoples organic trash bins and generally living her best life. It never crossed my mind that i should be afraid of a bear.
If a random man was walking across my backyard though...
@@spellkowski oh i respect bears. I live rural though. Wild animals mostly keep to themselves unless something is mega wrong. I wouldn't say that I'm afraid of wild animals though. Not only that but bear is the last wild animal i would consider scary because they are not troublemakers. Coyotes are actually scary at night
Atwood has another somewhat famous set called the MaddAddam Trilogy. Kind of books about animals and the environment as opposed to women but still with the same general themes.
You are now most of the way towards understanding Twin Peaks: The Return
I hate to maybe add to others deeply unsettling feelings around current "things" but I had this same kind of experience except reading a wikipedia article about Total Fertility Rate. In the article there was a section on what countries had tried to do in the past to stop the decline of birth rates. it briefly mentioned decree 770, during the reign of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania. Women were monitored monthly by a gynecologist, abortion and contraception was broadly banned, childlessness was taxed, and so on. Thing is, briefly, total fertility went up. And that's something that terrifies me, because I know deep down, a narrative will be constructed around this success so that it will seem to people that want this the only problem was a lack of discipline or enforcement. We already see public handwringing from the usual suspects about declining birth rates.
Margaret Atwood drew inspiration from contemporary events including Decree 770 and the rise of the evangelical right in America. The fact that this pattern is playing out in our current society is why it's so a scary, and why her writing is so good.
I always felt disturbed by that scene, but back when i read it i couldnt articulate why exactly it left me creeped out. Havent tought about it in a long time, nice video, that ending was brutal, love this new side content, short and relevant book commentary that falls away from the typical review videos feels fresh
The original 70s movie is genuinely one of my favourites, but the remake with Nicole Kidman has made everyone think of The Stepford Wives as an unfunny joke. It’s not - it’s a really terrifying movie.
The scariest scene in the movie, to me, is when Joanna finds out her psychiatrist is going on holiday and she begs her for advice… she says “I won’t be here when you get back. Don’t ask me to explain it. I just know. There’ll be somebody, and she’ll look like me, and she’ll cook and she’ll clean, but she won’t take pictures and she won’t be me.” And the psychiatrist believes her. Something about a psychiatrist believing what should instantly be a redflag for schizophrenia really shook me… In weighing up whether Joanna is more of a threat to herself than her husband is, she comes down on the side that her husband is the threat. It shouldn’t be believable. In fact, nothing about that book/movie should be believable. But it all works so well. Unfortunately it’s a hard movie to see these days.
That last line gave me goosebumps. Wow. If you ever write a book, I'm reading it!
This is your best video yet.
You really gave me goosebumps.
I was part of this bear discussion among a few other men (not my friends, I do not claim them) back when it first started and they took the opportunity to blame feminists and their bear question for pushing men and women apart, but the way I see it, this discussion is just a flashlight in the dark exposing a divide that was already there. They seemed incapable of hearing my reason though, which is horrifying. I'm really worried about it all.
The first bit was so horrifying I forgot that "The Handmaid's Tale" wasn't even the book on the thumbnail.
When the film of Handmaid's Tale came out, my wife at the time saw it in Oceanside CA and was visibly upset at the end. And a Marine from the base was in the theater, came up and told her they (meaning the Marines) would not let that happen. But now in 2024, who can say?
“Bear is a strange and wonderful book . . . shapely as a folktale, and with the same disturbing resonance.” -Margaret Atwood
This was Atwood's comment on Marian Engel's 1970s novel "Bear", which is in fact about a woman who has relations with a bear. Here's Liz Davidson's measuredly favorable review of that book: ruclips.net/video/vL76XGBBdjE/видео.html
@@akuchling entire generations of canadians feeling like the bear discourse is trolling them
Gods I love your book channel.
Great to see you take this issue and show the articulation across recent time, since 1970. I really hope humanity can stir up a compassion revolution / reformation.
So I've started doing standup comedy at open mics for fun. The host introduced this man bear Internet discourse at the start and a few comics riffed on it a bit in good fun. Some of the jokes were a bit offensive, but it's a standup open mic so you get what you get. People are figuring their jokes out. But this one guy just angrily ranted about how bears are more dangerous, especially nowadays when modern men barely look like men etc. Even as a man, I felt so uncomfortable.
PS: In a shocking twist, I heard a rumor that that guy was fired from his job due to harassment.
It is maddening to have heard people claim Roe v. Wade was settled law and they'll never overturn it bc I was raised in an Evangelical household and was absolutely privy to the stuff they lie to outsiders about and like, not only was that exactly what we were trying to do (and our explicit goal since the ruling came down), pretty much all of the current Project 2025 agenda was what we were working towards.
And the thing is, we/they were not and have not been subtle about it.
Been digging all your vids, keep up the great work!
Is this going to become your leftist video essay channel? I'm totally here for it.
PLEASE 🔥
Physics + socialism?? Heck yes!!
Would love too, also anarchism? I'm basically an anarchist
I’d love that too, but also it’s really crazy that the perspective has shifted so far towards dystopia that women having the most basic property rights and autonomy in general evokes comparisons to leftism.
@@cyclonasaurusrex1525 If anyone wants more leftist physics Dr Fatima is a good channel to watch. Though she does argue in favor of MOND for dark matter.
I was ignoring the bear/man discourse this entire time because i thought it was about who would win in a fight. Lmao. Thank you for informing me, Angela.
I watch the show Alone and there are plenty of bears who make an appearance. I suspect if you asked men the same question they would pick the bear even more often than women. “The bear could feed me for a month but the man would compete for resources.” Maybe he’d acknowledge the possibility of violence based on competition but never the fear of SA or other violence for control.
The same Princess weeks video made me add Stepfird Wives to my tbr but I havn't gotten to it yet.
That scene lives in my head as well. When I first read it I was amazed at how clueless Luke seemed to be. Now that I'm 45 I'm even less sure what to make of him in that exchange.
Maaaan... I'm going through the back catalog of this channel and happened to watch this at a very uncomfortable time
Imagine that, we men are so down that we cannt accept that a bear is better than us... glory to the bear
I also read the Handmaid's tale when I was in highschool, and it didn't make much of an impression and I thought it was odd how much attention it got. In retrospect being Saudi made a lot of the book too normal for me to really understand how Americans experienced it
OK , that was a lot. Thank you again.. ❤
Im really impressed you make a lot of content.
just that last scene.., i would like to read a story like this set in the modern day, written by Dr, Collier
wow ... nice ending -- thanks for this.
Literature has power!
I grew up in the UK where banks could deny my mother access to a bank account, credit card, or loan in her own name without her husband's permission until 1975. It wasn't that different in the US before the law changed in 1974. Banks often considered women a much higher risk than men, so it wasn't that uncommon to reject their applications until the laws changed.
That's a shockingly short amount of time ago -- barely 50 years.
If you do re read The Handmaids Tale, consider read the follow up: the Testament
If time on the internet runs faster does that mean it's a source of negative gravity?
You're 100% a person, and you bring value to society, as a scientist and (you'll hate this) an entertainer (your videos are hilarious) and as a critical thinker with a sound opinion. It's so sad that even now women's rights is controversial.
Clever trick with the last line. Hammered the point.
Well, hell. That ended effectively.
I started reading The Handmaid's Tale a few years ago and I just got too distressed. I'll try again sometime.
Sadly handmaid tale is actually a reality in many places of the world. I am not from the west and we really like to criticise west for colonisation and racism other shit but one thing that i hate is people criticising west for liberalism. Living in the global south you wish you had laws like west here and i hate the current alt right shit going there because if the only place with few liberal laws die yhen what will people here in asia , middle east and africa will aspire.
Even here the right has started using american right wing terminology like woke and etc and it's fucking scary. Plus you see the people migrate to west from global south but then those guys would actually support the conservative govt back home and sit there in west enjoy the freedom there
Really wish I had money to immigrate lol
best channel out there...
Masterful finale. Reminds me of the science-fiction author Fredric Brown, who wrote short stories with humorous endings. He is the author of Martians Go Home.
I've watched the Handmaids Tale series recently (Had to take breaks because it's really hard to watch at times). Don't know if it's good compared to the books? But one thing that hit me hard is the thing that started the whole dystopian society in the first place. What if we couldn't have children anymore? What if we really were dying out? I think it's really hard for us to imagine that becoming a reality in our current overpopulated state (even with sinking fertility and low birth rates in western countries) and it doesn't justify anything that happens in the story in the slightest, of course. But in such a society (and for a lot of human history in reality too) healthy children are something very precious and in extension women who can bear children are precious as well. That's why in reality we had this strange ambivalent situation where women were at the same time oppressed and given special privileges like not having to fight in wars and getting food/shelter first etc. It's a really complex topic and the book uses it well to tell the story. But I think (or hope) that in the real world we would handle such a situation much more intelligently and I'd say the first mistake they made in the book is putting only men in charge of handling how women should have children, the most female thing there is... That's just stupid :D
Let me suggest A E. Van Vogt's novel Renaissance from 1979. A little later than Stepford Wives. I don't know if it's a direct response to the Stepford Wives but certainly is a response to similar literature at the time.
I am glad you are doing these and hope you keep this channel busy. Engagement! Feed the algo, everyone
Havent finished the video yet but I do want to recommend the rest of Margaret Atwoods work specifically the Maddadam trilogy. Very much just as gripping as the The Handmaids Tale but with a slightly different focus.
I hope you have the courage, support, and financial means to do what's necessary.
I'm guessing it's not autobiographical, as Angela (to my knowledge) doesn't have kids; didn't get married in high school; is still wearing her ring.
@@GSBarlev Why would that affect what I posted?
@@Nobody_Nowhere_Never I'm so sorry! I totally misinterpreted your comment.
I thought you were saying that she should leave her partner (having inferred that the story at the end was something that actually happened).
The bear question is interesting, both in that I would expect the responses to vary by both region and age, and also in that neither one of those options is actually likely to end up horrible if it only happens a couple times. Like, I'm not sure it even makes sense to bring in statistics, since the actual most relevant concern would just be which will cause more anxiety.
...also, I'd choose the bear. I'm not good with strangers.
Books like these make me so angry with people who refuse to engage with politics and ultimately vote with their gut. It reminds of this woman on a Vice interview who literally voted for Trump because she thought he was an outsider. A billionaire who had been in politics and public life for decades was supposedly an outsider.
Isn't this what the second ammendment is for?
I think you're right AND I think that what the bear conversation touches on for a lot of men (including me) is that it's dehumanising and hurtful to be treated like a constant threat. It's easy to feel, mistakenly, that the discourse we support is lurching into a place where men are depicted as assaults waiting to happen, because those are the representations that stick in your head days later (and because they're good at generating clicks).
To have somebody say something that sounds, at first blush, like "Actually, I think men are less safe than an animal" feels in the gut like a confirmation of the fact that there are people around you who think that you, (sandwich-eater, toe-stubber, sock-owner) are an animal that wants to hurt them. It's not, of course, but it is alienating, and it brings up every memory of somebody crossing the street to keep away from you while you're carrying your shopping home with your headphones in.
Being reminded of the lengths to which women have to go to keep themselves safe is confronting for a lot of us, (it's shocking to realise for the first time that knowing every thousandth blackberry is poisoned means you can never eat blackberries safely) but this feels like one step further (hearing someone say that they'd rather eat mistletoe than take their chances with a blackberry). The format invites the least charitable reading. It's a perfect, horrible, self driving little internet argument that generates its own power as it runs and works because everyone who interacts with it feels horror and fear and shame and disgust.
I missed the original discussions of the bear thing. I think it's just not that well crafted an analogy, and most of us dudes, younger ones mostly, even if not raging misogynists, just haven't the empathy or basic factual understanding of what's behind the analogy. (Many older dudes don't either). And their response reveals that ignorance, and lack of care, which fuels this discussion. Sad, but I get how it went the way it did.
But that last line was incredibly well crafted. Short, punchy, and encompass the whole argument. Beautiful. Terrible.
I mean, I don't think it's a well crafted controversy because, as a man, *I'd choose the bear, too.* Like, a bear in the woods? That's his (or her) home, and they're just doing what they need to survive-if I'm not threatening their turf (or their cubs), and I'm not carrying a pic-a-nic basket, the bear is unlikely to even want me to be aware of its presence.
@@GSBarlev exactly, like what the fuck is a man doing in a forest??? stranger danger??? hello?? where that "i could fight a bear" spirit that most men have???
@@GSBarlev This is what confused me about all the people trying to "logic" their way through the discourse. I'd still pick the damn bear even if this was a problem you had to solve and not rhetorical device.
it seems that if the option was 2 bears it would still be safer
Please let us know if the ending was a joke. I mean, not a joke-joke, because it had exactly the effect you were looking for, and “haha” wasn’t it, but now I’m a little bit worried for you.
blink twice if youre in danger :(
Very good video and pretty thought-provoking. Helped me again put into context the whole man versus bear thing even though I was starting to get caught up in the rage bait of it all.
The issue I had with this thing is that, while I completely agree with the underlying sentiment, it really started to feel like something that would help to radicalize more young men to a more conservative view than actually helping them understand why women would feel that way. Let me try to put it in perspective: imagine you’re a young man who’s pretty average in all considerations. You’re not particularly bad (like you’re not some cartoonishly evil red pill guy who believes every woman is just a baby-making machine) but maybe clueless on some aspects. Just you’re average Joe.
When you come across this TikTok and this whole trend, it feels utterly ridiculous from your point of view. When women on TikTok mention "The Men", you don’t take a stand back and view it as a general population in sociological terms but you imagine you, your male friends, or even your father or grandfather and it just feels dumb. You know, you wouldn’t randomly attack a woman in the woods, and the fact that some people would prefer to choose an animal as powerful as a bear feels ridiculous. It feels so ridiculous that then you feel almost outrage and that’s this reaction that leads to comments like "Not all men".
Again, I totally side with the choice of the women but people need to realize that when communicating on the Internet, they aren’t talking just to one strawman archetype. Like not every man is a fresh and fit red pill. And worse of all, I believe this trend could ironically enough lead more people to become red pill bro. Because, after being confronted with something in their eyes that’s so ridiculous and outrageous, they could very easily gravitate to content that validates their feelings of outrage. All that red pill content creator has to do is make a video like "Look at these man-hating feminists, they think all men are disgusting monsters and they are so stupid that they think bears are cute harmless plushies that won’t rip them in half if given the chance". And just by doing that, they could very easily introduce a lot of men to these ideas because, at face value, it is what it looks like.
I think you’d need to have some context on feminism to fully understand that it’s not actually about you but it’s more of a broader topic. Unfortunately, an average person doesn’t have that context and this trend is a very bad way to introduce them to it.
Hopefully what I said made sense and didn’t come off as dismissive. Again, it’s a very good video, I’ll check out the books you mentioned!
Wow that is horrifying.
well damn i guess i gotta read that book before i finish this video. i need to experience this for myself first.
I didnt take it personally, and I have experience running into both in the woods. Seemed fine to me.
This is very relatable and honestly one of the main reasons why I don't want to marry a man...