Just to bring the three people who haven’t heard about the man and the bear up to speed:

A woman on social media asked her husband if he would rather have their daughter alone in the woods with a bear or a man. You can see his tortured thought process in the brief video. What kind of man? Can I pick the man? How far away is the bear? When his wife shifts the question to whether he would want his daughter in the woods with a bear or a woman, he doesn’t hesitate — “A woman.”

The internet has erupted with this conversation, and women are saying a LOT:

• “Now you know why we walk to our car with our keys between our fingers like wolverine claws.”
• “The bear won’t try to convince me he’s a friend before he attacks me.”
• “At least people won’t question whether I led the bear on or dressed too provocatively.”

Men also have a few things to say, but their defensiveness often proves the point. One meme shows a cartoon man walking away from a woman being mauled by a bear and saying, “Hey, you chose the bear.” That’s not quite the flex the meme creator believes it is. Implying that women should be mauled for seeing you as a danger makes you . . . dangerous.

But this question really isn’t about men. It’s about maleness, and more specifically, toxic masculinity. It’s about years of patriarchy, both social and religious, that have created an extreme imbalance of energy. It’s about the way we belittled and buried the necessary qualities of feminine energy — gentleness, intuition, non-hierarchical collaboration, receptivity, nurturing — and emphasized the masculine energy — leadership, assertiveness, power, strength, protection.

It’s important to remember that female and feminine are not synonymous. In the same way that my Aries nature often causes me to express as an assertive and strong woman, many men I know excel in following their intuition and nurturing those around them. Those men in touch with their feminine energies seem remarkably silent in the man-and-bear debate. It’s almost as if . . . they get it.

In religious circles, the slow recognition of the need for more divine feminine energy has sometimes led to a placebo that seems to have an effect for a time but doesn’t really heal. I’m talking about women in leadership. The answer to so many well-intentioned religious organizations who want to balance patriarchal energy is to put more women in leadership. But, if those women have been steeped in the same masculine soup of traditional religiosity, they are likely to perpetuate the divine masculine because they have learned that’s how you survive and succeed.

Eastern religions have long revered the divine feminine. Perhaps that is why their popularity in the West has grown so impressively over the past several decades. People may not always be able to put it into words, but when droves run from a religion that systematically reduced the role of women, Mary Magdalene in particular, and move toward wisdom traditions with goddesses and yin-yang balance, it seems a connection could be made to the yearning for balance.

You see, the real question is bear or toxic masculinity, and we’d all be better off with the bear, women and men alike.

And for those men who don’t know how to respond to the man v. bear question, here’s a suggestion: Don’t. Just listen. Acknowledge that women are generally terrified of toxic masculinity. And work to balance your feminine energy so you’re the Gentle Ben who would protect those around you.