Running a lazy eye over a display of artwork yesterday afternoon, one picture reminded me of Kristor’s recent post on the gedanken experiment that asked women if they would be more distressed to meet a man or a bear on a lonely forest path. It appears that females of our species nowadays dread the masculine more than the ursine, at least when the setting is sylvan. The painter, and one presumes subject, of Saturday Morning appears to share the prejudice of her sex, for as you can see, she and her bairn are blithely skipping through bear country, with no dude or dad to be seen.
This led me to wonder if our species is becoming ursine in its mode of procreation, and to ask if there is a dark significance in the increasing popularity of the phrase “Momma Bear.” For, you see, outside of the charming story of Goldilocks, a “Papa Bear” is a deadbeat dad.
It so happens that I and my womenfolk once encountered a very large grizzly bear on a lonely forest path. I am able to tell this tale because this hairy mountain of ursine mayhem was at that moment very nearly comatose from a surfeit of blueberries, but I daresay my wife and daughter were comforted by my swashbuckling simulation of masculine gallantry.
But seriously, wake up ladies! Any bear will do you wrong in ways no dude would dream of.
The Orthosphere 
Without wishing to stretch the metaphor past breaking point, suffice it to say that Late Stage Karen will not be satisfied with ‘Just Right’.
Having made sheep of her menfolk, her gene-coded hybristophilia must needs drive her to seek out Bears. Perhaps more often Apes, should the Subaru be away at the shop being serviced. Denial, as always, is a river in Africa.