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Joy

For refugee women trapped in limbo, 'The Sisterhood' offers a vital lifeline of hope and support

For refugee women trapped in limbo, 'The Sisterhood' offers a vital lifeline of hope and support
The Sisterhood/Instagram

I'm sitting in an outdoor eating area in Jakarta, sweat dripping down the back of my sundress, gazing at the young Muslim woman across the table from me. It's a thousand degrees and humid, and I can't figure out how she can look so comfortable in her black hijab and long sleeves.

The physical contrast between us feels emblematic, as does the table that separates us. It may as well be an ocean. Neither of us belongs in Indonesia, yet here we are—me as a middle-class American on an overseas work trip, her as an Afghan refugee trapped in a country that has no place for her.

I'm keenly aware that neither of us has chosen these identities, that it's merely the happenstance of our births that has placed us where we are. My obvious privilege hovers over us like a disco ball, but neither of us mentions it.

As we begin chatting, a few things strike me immediately. Her voice seems soft, but only on the surface—below it runs a stream of strength and determination. I'm impressed by her excellent command of English, then stunned to find out she only started studying it in 2017. She is warm, honest, and smart as a whip. When she tells me she had planned to be a lawyer, I'm not surprised. This is clearly a young woman who can do anything she puts her mind to—a reality that makes her current life circumstances all the more heartbreaking.

I will call her Roya, though that's not her real name. She doesn't want me to publish any details about her personal life, partially for her own privacy and partially because she's not here to talk about herself. She's here to tell me about The Sisterhood—a supportive community for refugee women in Jakarta that she helped found.

To understand the full significance of The Sisterhood, you first need to know what it means to be a refugee in this place. Traditionally, Indonesia has been a brief stopover spot for refugees and asylum seekers making their way to safe third countries, but that has changed in recent years.

RELATED: The refugee crisis is daunting, but Canada offers an inspiring example of how to help.

Currently, 70 million people are displaced from their homes around the world, largely due to conflict—a number which has more than doubled in the past 20 years. The increase in refugees worldwide combined with countries like the U.S. and Australia slashing refugee resettlement numbers has resulted in a clogged drain situation in Indonesia. For years, refugees have streamed in, but barely trickled out.

Now, they are stuck here. In 2017, the UNHCR (the United Nations refugee resettlement agency) told the 14,000 refugees living Indonesia that their chances of being resettled in a third country are slim to none, and that they should plan on remaining in the country indefinitely. But since Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is under no obligation to provide protection to refugees. The government has decided that they are allowed to stay, meaning they won't be deported back to their dangerous places of origin, but they have no legal status. That means they can't legally work, can't get a bank account, and can't officially participate in the education system.

Refugees in Indonesia live in limbo, relying largely on charity, holding out hope for a life they may never see. Government and NGO funding is limited, and homelessness among the refugee population has been an ongoing concern in Jakarta. Immigration detention centers have been overrun by refugees who prefer detention to living on the street, causing severe overcrowding. Many live in shared housing and apartments funded by local religious groups and other charity groups.

Basic shelter and sustenance is one thing, but what about life beyond mere survival? I look at Roya, this extraordinarily bright and capable young woman in the prime of her life, and it seems impossible that she could have no options. She's been here for five years already. What exactly are these people supposed to do? How do they maintain hope under such circumstances?

This is where The Sisterhood comes in.

All refugees experience insecurity and uncertainty, but refugee women face specific challenges in terms of personal safety, trauma, discrimination, and family responsibility. Recognizing this fact, a small group of refugee women, including Roya, decided to form a supportive community center for refugee women in Jakarta in 2018. Some outside partners have helped with some of the organizational logistics, but the now thriving community is entirely led by refugee women themselves.

Thanks to a local citizen who donated a former orphanage building to the women rent-free for three years, The Sisterhood has a beautiful facility where the women can gather. The center offers free classes (the first term included classes such as tailoring, Indonesian cooking, and self-defense), and a playroom allows mothers to bring their children with them. The space is also used for socializing, wellness programs, and basic services.

The founders make sure that the needs of the women The Sisterhood serves stay front and center, with regular evaluation and consultation. After the first term, the self-defense class was changed to yoga and mindfulness, based on attendee feedback. Computer skills, beauty, and basic English literacy classes are all currently on the docket. Occasional health and dental checkups are offered through the center, as well as dispersement of hygiene products and other necessities.

Opportunities for learning, skill-building, and emotional support are vital for refugee women to stay mentally and emotionally strong. But perhaps the most important element of The Sisterhood is the feeling of safety it provides for these women. Roya says refugee women don't always feel safe even within the refugee community, much less outside of it. The Sisterhood gives them a place where they can feel safe and equal.

I ask Roya about mental health services for women at the center. Trauma is a common theme among refugees for obvious reasons, and women are most likely to be survivors of sexual violence and other atrocities. From my Western perspective, I wonder if bringing in counselors might be helpful, but Roya says the mental health needs are different for unsettled refugee women.

"We are not in a safe and secure situation yet," Roya points out. She says that sitting down with a psychologist and going through their past trauma would be like scratching a wound that can't heal in their current circumstances. Security has to come first.

Instead, focusing on learning and building skills in the present makes refugee women feel helpful and useful, says Roya, which helps with their mental state. And preparing for the future—even an uncertain one—helps them maintain hope, so that if or when they get a chance to resettle, they'll be able to say, "I'm ready."

Keeping a sense of hope is a lifeline for refugees, which explains the fire in Roya's voice when she talks about what the UNHCR has said about their chances of resettlement. "They are trying to steal our hope," she says. Refugees are constantly told to "be calm" and "be patient," she says, but they are also told that they are essentially trapped there. The UN agency has said they're just trying to be honest with the refugees in Indonesia, but Roya contends that kind of honesty isn't helpful.

"I tell my friends that a visa is coming soon, even it if's a lie," she says, a sad smile crossing her face. "I love this sweet lie."

Without hope of resettlement, the only choice refugees have is to resign themselves to a life with no sense of productivity, no opportunity to contribute to society, and no means of providing for themselves. That's not a life, and why refugees in Indonesia have gathered at the grassroots level to provide education and support for themselves whenever possible.

I find myself enamored by the resilience and strength of the refugee women I've met here, but again, I have to check myself. Roya points out that people tend to see projects like The Sisterhood and the refugee learning centers in Jakarta doing wonderful work and get the impression that refugees here are doing well.

"It's not that we're doing well," she says. "We are doing what we have to do to survive." Under the circumstances, resilience and strength aren't character choices, but survival mechanisms.

At the same time, by definition, refugees are survivors. Escaping danger in the first place requires a certain measure of courage, fortitude, and problem-solving. Surviving in a foreign country where you didn't plan to stay and have no legal rights takes a whole other level of strength, creativity, and perseverance. The refugees I've encountered have capacities that put most of us to shame.

Roya and her fellow refugee women who created The Sisterhood are perfect examples. They are making the most of their situation and using constructive resilience to serve the needs of their community, despite severe limitations.

Throughout our conversation, I'm thinking about how absurd it is that the U.S. government is currently resettling the lowest number of refugees in our history. The refugees I've met are exactly the kinds of caring, productive, ambitious, and innovative people you want in a society. It's nothing short of abject foolishness that we aren't begging these people to come resettle in our country.

RELATED: America should be clamoring to take in refugees, and not just for humanitarian reasons.

Roya's passion for helping her fellow refugees is summed up in something she wrote about the mission of The Sisterhood:

"We want to bring hope to refugees lives.

We want to keep their dignity up.

We want to help them tolerate every bad situation.

We want to remind them that even when life is dark it is not going to last.

We want to remind them it is not the time to give up.

As a refugee, I know the most important thing that can help people to stay positive is having hope. As Stephen Hawking said: 'While there is life, there is hope.' So there is hope for a better future for us. It is time to use our capacity and our ability to help each other thrive together side by side. Maybe we don't have enough sources and enough experiences, but I am proud to say we are moving forward. We found the right path and nothing will stop us."

As our conversation wraps up, I walk around the table to say thank you and goodbye, trying to balance professionalism with what's pushing on my heart. I want Roya to know that I recognize the injustice of my unearned life of ease compared to her unearned hardship. I want her to know that I see and hear her struggle, even if I can't possibly put myself fully in her shoes. I want to tell her I wish I could work miracles, walk across the ocean that separates us, tie a disco ball above her own head and watch her dance.

Instead I take her hand and thank her for sharing her thoughts, her story, and her experiences with The Sisterhood with me. Then I walk away, wondering how I'm going to do any of it justice.

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Joy

Now's your chance to help someone doing good in your community win $1000 towards the charity of their choice

Upworthy and P&G are back with the #ActsOfGood Awards.

Images provided by P&G

Three winners will be selected to receive $1000 donated to the charity of their choice.

True

Doing good is its own reward, but sometimes recognizing these acts of kindness helps bring even more good into the world. That’s why we’re excited to partner with P&G again on the #ActsOfGood Awards.

The #ActsOfGood Awards recognize individuals who actively support their communities. It could be a rockstar volunteer, an amazing community leader, or someone who shows up for others in special ways.

Do you know someone in your community doing #ActsOfGood? Nominate them between April 24th-June 3rdhere.Three winners will receive $1,000 dedicated to the charity of their choice, plus their story will be highlighted on Upworthy’s social channels. And yes, it’s totally fine to nominate yourself!

We want to see the good work you’re doing and most of all, we want to help you make a difference.

While every good deed is meaningful, winners will be selected based on how well they reflect Upworthy and P&G’s commitment to do #ActsOfGood to help communities grow.

That means be on the lookout for individuals who:

Strengthen their community

Make a tangible and unique impact

Go above and beyond day-to-day work

The #ActsOfGood Awards are just one part of P&G’s larger mission to help communities around the world to grow. For generations, P&G has been a force for growth—making everyday products that people love and trust—while also being a force for good by giving back to the communities where we live, work, and serve consumers. This includes serving over 90,000 people affected by emergencies and disasters through the Tide Loads of Hope mobile laundry program and helping some of the millions of girls who miss school due to a lack of access to period products through the Always #EndPeriodPoverty initiative.

Visit upworthy.com/actsofgood and fill out the nomination form for a chance for you or someone you know to win. It takes less than ten minutes to help someone make an even bigger impact.

From Your Site Articles
best of humanity
Friendship

Little boy mistakes multimillionaire for homeless man and they end becoming good friends

The boy got to keep his dollar and gain a friend.

Screenshot WBRZ2|YouTube

Boy mistakes multimillionaire for homeless man forming friendship


Kids can be amazingly empathetic people, many of them doing what they can to help others in need unprompted. Homelessness has been an increasing issue across America and some kids have taken small steps to try to help when they can. Kids are seen doing things like volunteering at a soup kitchen with their family, handing out personal hygiene kits and even making sandwiches in their own kitchen to give out.

One kid has been noticing a growing homeless population and wanting to lend a helping hand, but every time he encountered someone without a home, he had no money. But Kelvin Ellis didn't stop the desire of wanting to help so the next time he came across a man that appeared homeless, he was excited that this time he had a dollar in his pocket.

Kelvin, who is 9-years-old spotted a houseless person standing in the corner of a restaurant and knew it was his chance. The boy approached the man who was standing with his eyes closed and held out the only money he had–a dollar bill. But to Kelvin's surprise, the man refused the kind gesture and instead bought him breakfast because it turned out the man wasn't homeless at all.

Matthew Busbice, the man standing in the corner, was simply doing his morning devotional prayer after having to leave his apartment in a rush when the building's fire alarm went off. The man stepped across the street to the coffee shop after it was confirmed to be a false alarm at his building. That's where Kelvin spotted him and attempted to give charity to Busbice, a multimillionaire.

Busbice launched and owns several brands and outdoor companies with his family. The multimillionaire also starred in two popular reality television shows with his family, Country Bucks on A&E and Wildgame Nation on Outdoor Channel. His money and niche fame didn't stop him from chatting with Kelvin over breakfast while the little boy's dad was at the eye doctor.

"You gave the only money in your pocket to me and thinking I was a homeless man, and that speaks volumes of your character and what this generation that's coming up. If their more like Kelvin and they're going to give, they're going to be filled with joy, they're going to be happy. They're going to change the community then change the parish and change the state, and they can change the world," Busbice tells WBRZ 2.

Kelvin didn't expect to make a friend that day, but he did. You can see how Busbice repaid the little boy's kind gesture below.

From Your Site Articles
multimillionaire homeless mistake
Science

Bartender in Patagonia takes sustainability to a whole other level

Wait til you see how Federico Gil uses glaciers—yes, glaciers—to distill his signature gin.

Annie Reneau

Federico Gil puts his passion for sustainability into practice.

When people talk about sustainability in the food and drink industry, there's a lot of talk about plastic straws and reducing waste. But at Bar Pionero, the sustainability standard is set much, much higher. They do things I didn't even know were possible, and they don't do things a lot of people—those who put profit before protection of the environment—would do in the name of conservation.

And most of it comes down to the vision of elite bartender Federico Gil.

Gil and his brother founded Bar Pionero 14 years ago, after moving to Chilean Patagonia from Uruguay. The bar sits adjacent to the main lobby of the Las Torres Hotel, just inside Torres del Paine National Park, and with its wall of windows framing a towering mountain, just being in the bar is an experience. The food is good, and as someone who doesn't drink, I was delighted by the incredible mocktail offerings. But the highlight of the bar is Gil himself.

Watching Gil speak about sustainability was mesmerizing, even with him speaking in Spanish and me only understanding a few words of what he said. For the details, I needed the English-speaking translator, but Gil's passion for sustainability needed no translation; it was genuine and palpable.

bartender standing in front of a table full of drink-making materials.

Federico Gil shares how Bar Pionero creates its sustainable cocktails.

Annie Reneau

On a practical level, here are some of the zero-waste practices the bar has implemented:

- Not only do they not use plastic straws but they use signature copper straws. Chile is the world's largest copper producer, so the metal is plentiful. It's also naturally anti-bacterial (though they have a sanitation process they use to clean them, of course).

- They repurpose bottles and jars into drinking glasses and tools for the bartenders. Sometimes they even combine them with copper. Check out this gorgeous glass made from an upside down glass bottle top and copper.

Cocktail glass sitting on a table

Cocktail glass made from a glass bottle top and copper

Annie Reneau

- They make their own mixes, spirits, bitters, vinegars, etc. from the plants that grow naturally in the surrounding landscape as well as from the organic garden on site.

- They also make vinegar by capturing and repurposing the dribbles of beer that come out of the tap after a draft beer is poured.

- They brew their own beer using pure glacial water and hops grown in the garden. The byproduct of the brewing process then goes back into the garden as fertilizer.

glacier

Glacier in Torres del Paine National Park, part of the Southern Patagonia Ice Field

Annie Reneau

- They distill their own gin in small batches, using glacial water, 13 botanicals from the natural landscape and the clay left behind from the moving glaciers. Gil says his goal with the gin is to convey the "spirit of the ice." Glacial gin. Who knew?

The gin is so unique, Gil could certainly make money distributing it around the world, but he refuses. Same with the beer.

"The world doesn't need one more gin or one more beer," he says. The most sustainable way is not to sell it outside the hotel, where it would have to be shipped and transported. "We're not thinking about how much we can sell, but what impact we have," he adds.

It's literally putting their money where their mouth is, knowing they could have a lucrative product on their hands but not capitalizing on it because of the environmental impact that would have. And it's not just a guess—Gil says the bar actually keeps track and calculates their environmental impact using various measures.

bartender painting a rock held in tongs

Federico Gil painting a lemon extraction onto a frozen rock from Torres del Paine National Park

Annie Reneau

On top of all of that, watching Gil craft a cocktail is like watching an artist at work. He's as passionate about creativity as he is about sustainability, and it shows. I watched him light herbs on fire and set a glass bottle top over the flame to capture their essence, then paint a homemade cold extraction of lemon onto a frozen stone from the park, then shake together various liquids created from park botanicals and put it all together into glass made of layers of jar and glass tops.

I'd never seen anything like it, and I've rarely seen anyone who walks the sustainability talk so clearly in their work. It not only gave me hope for the conservation of Torres del Paine and Patagonia (which is stunning—a place bucket lists are made for, seriously), but also made me realize how much we have to learn from one another as we strive to protect our beautiful planet.

If you'd like to see Federico in action, check out this video from my experience there:

This writer was a guest of Las Torres Patagonia. This article was not reviewed by the hotel or anyone associated with it before publication.

From Your Site Articles
sustainability
Joy

We've been Airbnb hosts for 7 years. We agree—cleaning fees and check-out chores are bunk.

This is why Airbnb guests actually make the best hosts.

Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash

People are right to complain about being charged a cleaning fee and being asked to do chores.




In 2016, My husband and I started renting our basement apartment out as a short-term rental on Airbnb. We live in a college town and figured we'd get some guests during football game weekends and graduations. We didn't realize how many people come to our town to visit their college kids or check out the school, so we were pleasantly surprised by how regularly we were booked.

In 2019, we bought the house next door and now rent out both floors of the old house as separate units. We love being Airbnb hosts and have had a very successful run of it, with hundreds of 5-star reviews, Superhost status and lots of repeat guests.

We also don't charge a cleaning fee or make guests do check-out chores. In fact, we find both things rather loathsome.

What makes us good hosts is that we've been Airbnb guests for years. As a family of five that travels a lot, we've found far more value in Airbnbs than in hotels over the years. We love having a kitchen, living room and bedrooms and feeling like we have a "home" while traveling. We even spent a nomadic year staying at short-term rentals for a month at a time.

When you've experienced dozens of Airbnbs as a guest, you learn what guests appreciate and what they don't. You see what's annoying and unnecessary and what's to be expected in comparison to a hotel. We started taking mental notes long before we started our own rental about what we would want to do and not do if we ever had one and have implemented those things now that we do.

As guests, we know the pain of the cleaning fee, so we don't charge one.

via GIPHY

It helps that my husband has a flexible schedule and grew up helping with his parents' janitorial service, so most of the time he cleans the apartments himself. We could charge a cleaning fee for his time and labor, but even if we were paying for outside cleaners, we still wouldn't put a separate fee onto guest bookings. It makes far more sense to us to just wrap the cleaning fee into the per-night price.

From a host's perspective, the one-night stay is where the cleaning fee question hits the hardest. Whether someone stays one night or 10 nights, the cleaning cost is the same. But spreading the cost over 10 nights is a very different beast than adding it to one night, especially from a guest's perspective. On the host side, if we had to pay cleaners without passing that fee onto guests, we've barely make anything on one-night stays. But on the guest side, a $100 a night stay suddenly jumping to $150 because a cleaning fee was added is painful, and often a dealbreaker. You can see the conundrum.

The way we see it, and as other Airbnb hosts have found, wrapping cleaning costs into the base price comes out in the wash over time, as long as you have some longer-term stays mixed in with the one-nighters. And it's a much better experience for the guest not to get hit with sticker shock on the "final cost" screen, which is already eye-popping when service fees and taxes are added on.

(I will say, this may only ring true for smaller units. If you're renting a huge home, cleaning costs are going to be higher just because it takes longer to clean. But I still don't think the full cost should be passed onto guests as a separate fee.)

As for check-out chores—asking guests to do things like start laundry, sweep the floor, take out the trash, etc.—those have never made sense to us. Hosts should have enough switch-out linens that laundry doesn't have to be started prior to checking out, and none of those chores save enough time for the cleaning people to make it worth asking guests to do it. I can see taking out trash if there wasn't going to be another guest for a while, but usually you'd want to clean right away after a stay anyway just in case it does get booked last minute.

The only thing we ask guests to do is to start the dishwasher if they have dirty dishes (as a guest, I've never found that an unreasonable request), lock the door and have a safe trip home. Don't need to pull the sheets. Don't need to take out any garbage or recycling. Those things don't take that long, but that's just as much a reason not to ask guests to do it. Annoying your guests by asking them to do something extra isn't worth the tiny bit of time it might save the cleaning people.

And you know what? This approach works really well. Approximately 95% of guests leave the apartments clean and tidy anyway. In seven years, I can count on one hand how many problems we've had with guests leaving a mess. That's been a pleasant surprise, but I think part of the reason is that guest are simply reciprocating the respect and consideration we show them by not making them pay extra fees or do chores on their way out.

To be fair, it probably also helps that we aren't some big real estate tycoon that bought up a bunch of apartments and turning them into short-term rentals run by impersonal management companies. People's complaints about how short-term rentals impact local housing economies are legitimate. We're more aligned with the original "sharing economy" model, renting out our home to guests who come through town. And in a small college town with a large university, there often aren't enough hotel rooms during busy weekends anyway, so it's been a bit of a win-win.

I think being right next door, having personal communication with our guests (but also leaving them their privacy), and not charging or asking anything extra of them makes them want to be respectful guests. From our perspective, both as guests and hosts, cleaning fees and check-out chores simply aren't worth it.

From Your Site Articles
travel
Family

Parents keep triplets' birth order a secret until a big reveal on their 18th birthday

Why did they wait so long?

via Allan Foster/Flickr

Representative image. Triplet babies in "Thing" outfits.

Many people believe that someone’s personality can be determined by their birth order within a family. Older siblings are often seen as more responsible and the youngest is frequently characterized as the most laid-back. Although there isn’t much research to back up these claims, there is evidence that birth order can affect someone’s intelligence.

So, does birth order have any effect on multiples? In a unique case like triplets, there can be a small, self-fulfilling prophecy effect. Parents and siblings may project stereotypes onto one another, such as, “You were born first, now you’re first at everything,” or “You were born last, no wonder you’re lazy.”

Triplets on TikTok are going viral because they were never able to have any squabbles about their birth order because they never knew it until they turned 18. Janie Hilbert, 18, shared a video in February featuring her triplet brothers, Luke and Wright, that showed their reaction to learning their birth order for the first time.

The video is touching, but it didn’t reveal the actual order, just their reaction and it was still viewed over 20 million times.

x3 🤷😆

@janie.banie4

x3 🤷😆

After the post, TikTok was shouting for a follow-up video that revealed the results. A few days later, Janie posted a video that revealed their birth order, set to the theme song from “Full House.”

triplet birth order reveal!!!

@janie.banie4

triplet birth order reveal!!!

The post showed that Wright is the oldest, followed by middle child Luke and then Janie. Janie was not excited about being the youngest. “I did not want to be the youngest,” Janie told Today.com. “That’s the one thing I really hoped I hadn’t been waiting 18 years to be the youngest and then here we are.”

The triplets’ parents, Stewart Hilbert and Clay Hilbert, told Today.com why they decided to wait until their 18th birthday to learn the truth about their birth order. The decision was made because Clayton, their oldest child, was born three years before the triplets.

“He was also definitely precocious, a rule follower and very literal,” Stewart said, adding that he would probably tried to enforce an “olest gets the bottle first” mentality when the triplets arrived. “We just didn’t want to play his game, and we were like, alright, let’s just keep it a secret. It’ll be fun. They won’t have to subscribe to any of the stereotypes of oldest, middle, youngest, all that.”

It was tough keeping the birth order a secret for all those years, especially with the children constantly begging to find out the answer. “They definitely wanted to know, and that made it even more fun,” Stewart explained.

“We tried to figure it out for so long. We begged and begged. They wouldn’t crack,” Janie added.

The funny thing was that their father secretly revealed the truth in the family group chat which featured the children’s names in birth order. But the triplets never put it together. "I was so excited to try to tell them that it was in front of them the whole time," Clay said.

From Your Site Articles
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Internet

Women were asked if they'd rather be trapped in the woods with a bear or a man

Their answers left some men scratching their heads.

Representative photos by Aaron J. Hill and Greta Hoffman

Women choose being alone with bear instead of man in interview

There are often hypothetical scenarios that people get asked just to see what their answer will be. In most cases, the scenario is something that has a very slim chance of ever happening in real life, but it can be fun to allow your brain to wander. A hypothetical scenario is taking over social media right now and it has women nodding in agreement while many men are left scratching their heads.

Screenshot HQ took to the streets and asked random women if they would rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear. Overwhelmingly women chose to take their chances with a bear, some providing the inquirer with a reason as to why they'd chose a bear over a man. Unsurprisingly to most women, the participants saw the bear as the safer option.

Some men had a hard time understanding why women would risk being mauled by a bear, but several men did understand and took to social media to attempt to explain.

Some men seemingly easily knew why women would choose to be in the woods with a bear when their partners asked them the same question but the hypothetical woman was their daughter. In the video, one woman makes her case for choosing a bear.

"Well I've heard about bears, they don't always attack you right unless you f**k with them? So maybe a bear," she laughs.

Luis Torio responded to the video with an explanation for men who seemed confused by the amount of women choosing a bear. In his video he asks, "why would a woman choose a man over a bear when the number one predator of a woman is a man and not the bear?" He goes on to explain that if a woman is put in the woods with the wrong man, she could be in a much worse situation than with a bear.

@yourtango

Women were asked if they would rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear - and their answers are sad #manvsbear

YourTango jumped in on the debate and dropped a few facts with the most staggering being, "the 750,000 black bears in North America unalive less than one person per year on average. Men aged 18-24 are 167 times more likely to unalive someone." The woman in the video also cites assault statistics for women.

That's not to say that all men would be dangerous if trapped in the woods with them, commenters and content creators point that out. The concern seems to be more about the predictability of bears verses the predictability of an unknown man.

You can watch the original video that started this weeks long debate below:

@screenshothq

The question of being stuck in a forest with a man or a bear is circulating on TikTok right now and sparking some interesting conversation.... we know what our answer would be 🐻🌳 #manvsbear #tiktok #tiktoktrend #trending #challenge #streetinterview #voxpop

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