It’s nonsense. Out of 100 bear encounters about 1 turns violent. Now, how many men does the average women come in contact to daily and how many of them turn violent? I’m pretty sure the numbers are much, much lower than that for a bear encounter.
My Wife walked passed approximately 1’000 just today. No one even talked to her in a weird way. This whole argument is just fear mongering with sociallly acceptable sexism. This doesn’t solve any problems.
Also, statistically, strangers are the last people tk worry about. The overwhelming majority of abuse victims know their abuser or are even related. You should be more afraid to see uncle Frank and aunt Jenny in the woods than any random man.