Gender and Guns

[Gus Dddysgrl]

Ok so last night in my Advanced Composition class we were talking about gender roles. The prof asked what gender roles we had resisted. Since no one was talking I decided to put in my 2¢. I said most girls don't like guns, and since I was raised by a gun nut I am unlike most other girls. I love guns and enjoy going to tha range with my dad. My prof gave me the most horrified look. It was as if I had shown her one. The cool thing is one of the other girls kicked in and said she doesn't go shooting or anything much, but she used to do archery. She said was fine with guns and all, but doesn't have time to do it.

I know there are a lot of females here who like to shoot and collect guns and all that. So I guess what I was wondering is it really that big of a "gender role" and stereotype that only guys like guns? Maybe I'm just a sheltered little gun nut raised by a gun nut.

Gus

 

[Keith]

Yeah, it's true - most women don't like guns. And it IS a gender role reinforced by a male dominated society (or some other politically correct description...). And unfortunately, THIS particular gender role is one that is also reinforced by the feminists themselves - which makes no sense to me...

And it's a shame, because not only are guns a great equalizer (men ARE generally stronger than girls, sorry...), but women make up 50% of the voting public and without them on our side we are at a disadvantage.

Bring your wives and women friends to the range. Teach your daughters to shoot. Make efforts to recruit women into your shooting club or range.

Change the atmosphere and the perception, and the change in reality will soon follow.

Keith

 

[C.R.Sam]

Both my grannies were gunnies.
One for pot fillin with rifle or shotgun
The other for sport, shotgun; and packed a .44 for defence when travelin.

Mom was heavy duty trap shooter and also enjoyed rifle and handguns.

Daughter, the professor, is into sport shootin , self defence and RKBA.

And the grandkids are genetically gunnies.

A family thing I guess.

Sam

 

[hillbilly]

I teach college composition.

I want to say that I would have paid $20 American cash money to have been in the classroom when you announced to the class that you like guns and shooting, and subsequently horrified the prof.

hillbilly

 

[shermacman]

My 12 year old daughter is being raised by a gun nut... She loves my collection of .22 rifles and pistols. She is still a little terrified of my U.S Rifle, Caliber .30, M-1 rifle. But recently we did a few rounds of trap with a 20 gauge shot gun that fit her just fine. Every once in a while she will shock her friends' parents and her teachers with a knowledgeable comment about firearms. Like the time she confronted our bliss-ninny State Representative about the fact that trigger locks actually increase the danger to home owners and their families. I was so proud of her!

 

[Detachment Charlie]

ARRRGH

And, I'd pay $20 just to hear the word "sex" used appropriately instead of the misused "gender." ARRRRGH:banghead:

But, my daughter loves to shoot. And if I hear any of y'all talking about sex and my daughter in the same paragraph, you'll learn more about shootin' than y'all ever wanted.

 

[Sparker]

Gus Dddysgrl,

You have the same wicked glee inside you as my daughter does.

In her sophmore year, one of her teachers started ranting lies about guns and danger in the home. She stood up, when the teacher finished her spiel, and gave the class actual numbers of how many people defend their homes with firearms, how many deaths are caused by doctors poor care and how many kids drown every year.

The teacher didn't reply, she stood there frozen with her mouth open and thankfully the bell rang about ten seconds later. My daughter was one of the last kids to leave the class and she told me the teacher was still frozen to the floor. I wonder what the rest of her day was like after being made an idiot by a 14 year old?

 

[Sunray]

Quit calling yourself a 'nut'. You aren't a nut. You're are a participant in a healthy safe sport. So's yer da.
"...The prof asked what gender roles we had resisted..." What remarkable restraint. I'd have jumped up and said, "Female English teacher.". Except I'm not female and can't run that fast anymore. Especially when doubled over laughing.
Yes, there is a gender role. Mostly from guys. Women are inherently better shots than men are. Has to do with the way their arms and shoulders work. I think. It also has to do with movies and TV. Most guys think they can pick up any firearm and immediately shoot it well. It's called the John Wayne syndrome. Every guy at some point in his life thinks he's John Wayne and can ride, rope and shoot just because he's a guy. These guys think they have to live up to John Wayne. The worst are the guys who have never taught females to do anything also get extremely angry when their female can shoot better than they can. It goes away when you fall off your first horse or you go into the Services. The first time a female of superior rank tears a strip off you, usually wakes 'em right up.
Women do not have John Wayne to live up to. They just shoot they way they were taught and usually do quite well. Women are much easier to teach too. They listen and don't pretend they know stuff when they don't.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I inherited guns from both of my grandmothers and one of my great-grandmothers. My mom used to sign for my gun purchases when I was underage and even now, she buys me guns if she comes across a good deal.

Hopefully, more women will become interested in guns....

"An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun in a given population reduces the murder rate for women by about three to four times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men."

- The Bias Against Guns by John Lott, Jr.

 

[Trisha]

Hi, Gus!

Gender roles are fabricated/created by the current, or sociopolitically dominant patriarchy, funded and implicitly enforced by it as a survival mechanism. That sub-cultures resist gives me hope. President Bush is vehemently defending the 'traditional' marriage as we speak - as an example.

Want to explore the concept? Consider starting a Second Amendment Sisters club on campus!

Being an openly gay woman at whatever shooting range I visit raises a few eyebrows occasionally, but not nearly as much as when I go lingerie shopping, wearing my faded denim jacket that has Old Glory sewn above the Rainbow Triangle, above Glock, HK and Kimber patches on the left sleeve (or going to the gorcery store during the day, etc)!

Breaking stereotypes is a good thing!

Way to go, girl!

Trisha

(Detatchment Charlie - please, feel free to talk to me - off the board - about 'sex' and 'gender,' for the two aren't mandatorily synonymous. . .)

 

[spacemanspiff]

i think it has a lot to do with the community a person is raised. my mother was raised in a village off of kodiak. everyone had rifles and shotguns for hunting, and my grandparents made sure their kids knew gun safety and how to shoot.
my other aunts and uncles arent gunnuts, but they are no strangers to them. the women dont hunt, nor do they do target shooting. in fact, the last time my mother did any shooting was when she was still a teenager. apparently she got in trouble for shooting at buoys in the harbor.

after moving to a more populated area, and letting her mind be reworked by religion, my mother has more anti-tendancies than pro. i chalk it up to a mere lack of knowledge, as she still sticks by the 'it could go off on its own' myth. it would do no good for me to re-educate her, so i concentrate my efforts on convincing her that i know how to operate my weapons and that i am more concerned than anyone about the safe handling of them.

even among my brother, and cousins, they arent into guns much. most of them know how to shoot, but it isnt a hobby to them.


more and more women are showing up at the firing range, and thats a great sign that societys fears are being broken down. a couple weeks ago a gramma showed up with her teenage granddaughter, the gramma knew her way around pistols and the granddaughter almost never gets a chance to do shooting because no one has time to take her to the range. the high schools do have airgun competitions, and they are trying to get into the middle schools to get more awareness among the students. most of the airgun members are girls.

 

[sm]

I too would have paid $20 to see the prof reaction. Or course I'm the one whom left an anti prof to her own devices when asked of myself and my party to walk out to her vehicle...reactions are priceless.

Mom was the one whom learned to shoot , hunted, cleaned game and such. She and her brother often set out on their own. The other sister can set a table and will smack your hands if you use the wrong fork. Dunno whom taught herthat because grandma was was toter and shooter too.

Gus being a "nut"...nope she was born that way and sounds like raised right too.

Social expectations I guess. Hey I'm a guy and enjoy going to plays/live theatre... beats TV and movies where stuff is edited umpteen times...more human interaction, and less computer enhanced wizard effects. Want to blow a child's mind...take them to a Children's Theatre...watch them jump when during Swiss Family Robinson guns are fired and they smell the gunpowder...not just see and hear it.

 

[Gus Dddysgrl]

Wish y'all could have been there to give me the $20. I could use it. Yeah well seeing her reaction this time was good. Wait till we get to the final project. It has something to do with non traditional discourse. I think that's the name. It's where you can do anything to get your point across other than just writing a paper. I plan on doing something like a poster, T-shirt or something like that with a pro-gun statement on it. Can't wait to see what she and the rest of the class says.

Gus

 

[jade]

all i know is that i get really irritated when i walk up to the counter and ask for some ammunition and all i get is "YOU SHOOT GUNS!? "

it gets old.

 

[sm]

Hey Gus, about that project...
Oh that's easy, I put a trigger lock on a fire extinguisher, set trash can on fire...instructor didn't like the point I made.

Yep same UK anti instructor. Yes I informed campus security and used all the precautions outside and had them present.
She still doesn't like me I've been told.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I put a trigger lock on a fire extinguisher, set trash can on fire

That is a brilliant way to get the point across!

 

[sm]

HK thanks.
I got really sick and tired of this instructor whom from the UK,had been in US for 14 years, pinching noses and trying to get students to swallow her anti thinkking. She crossed the line one day about the evil gun...Me being me...well...I regret I had only one trash can to give...

She never managed to unlock , never , panic set in big time...and I still have the FE...I tossed the lock. That one example probably did more for classmates seeing the truth than anything I could ever said or had them read.

I then made the matter worse, I used the day care kids on campus and Eddie Eagle rules to educate about not getting into fire extinguishers, and finger off trigger. "But everyone knows to stop, don't touch, get an adult mister". Out of the mouth of babes...this one cute little girl about 5.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Trisha,

Gender roles are fabricated/created by the current, or sociopolitically dominant patriarchy, funded and implicitly enforced by it as a survival mechanism. That sub-cultures resist gives me hope.

I respectfully disagree with this statement.

While gender roles do exist, and not all of them are egalitarian, (in other words, I think most are BS too, don't get me wrong!) I believe that casting them in such terms of intentionality and militancy begs the question of their cause, and interferes in understanding of the subtle societal mechanisms in play.

There is a continuum of explanations for societal emergent phenomena that generally runs from conspiracy to cockup, and conspiracy is a seductive explanation.

I generally use the IRS (which I consider to be an evil institution) as the case example here. Is the IRS the enforcement arm of a cabal of scheming taxationists? Or is it the sum vector of a fairly large list of cruft and bureaucracy grown wild and out of control? What would Occam's razor suggest?

Having been male from the day I was born, I simply never got any invitations to meetings of the local chapter of the "Great Patriarchal Conspiracy", and considering that even matriarchal societies have gender roles, I'm not sure that these terms do more than reinforce a "woman as victim" paradigm.

 

[Lancel]

My mother's a southern lady who was tolerant but wary of guns. That changed when she and dad returned from vacation to find their house burglarized and ransacked.

Then she became the best shot in the family.

Larry

 

[Brian Dale]

Field Trip!

" non traditional discourse:"

Take the class to the range for a first lesson! How much time 'til the project is due? Logistics would be an issue, but what the heck?

You could also dress up as Annie Oakley (flame suit on: some have called her the best rifle shot ever - she wasn't a combat shooter, but she could hit anything) and include some history about women with guns. It's plain that you'll open some eyes, whatever you do.

 

[Moparmike]

Good job Gus and re1973!

Gus, if I lived in PA, I might just ask you to dinner. Just something about a woman with guts to speak her mind...

 

[Gus Dddysgrl]

Fun fun. I wish I could do a field trip, but the class is held from 7:30-8:45 so it would be dark out. I am still thinking of stuff I want to do. I'll consider any in-put, but it's not due till late Nov or early Dec.

Mike-maybe someday, but that is if my fiancee says I can.

Gus

 

[Sean Smith]

I've been trying to get my Secret Patriarchy ID Card and Decoder Ring for years, but the paperworks keeps getting lost by the Bureaux of Ovarian Destruction.



Even on this reasonably enlightened gun forum, you will see alot of nonsense about how somebody needs a "chick gun" for the "little lady" in "something she can handle."

Just keep 'em away from me or I'll work 'em up to a 10mm... or maybe only a .45 if they are a real Priss Miss.

 

[Detritus]

I did not find out till i was around the age of 17 or 18 that my mother HAD learned how to handle and even be exceptionally good with firearms..... it was just never discussed.

then again 4 years prior to my birth, she lost her only brother to a shooting incident (won't go into it here) and has had understandably uneasy feelings about firearms ever since (not just her, my grandparents suffered the same type of reaction).

sometimes i wish i could have found out what my firearms background would have been had my uncle not died in such a tragic manner. would my mother as well as my father have been in on my early training? would i have started learning about guns earlier in life?

as for the here and now, i'm married to a wonderful woman who is veryt eager to learn and become proficient, the only reason she isn't already is b/c she has to finish her recovery and Physical therapy after surgery on her right shoulder. Heck the guns she wants are even higher up the "evil, black, sinister, scary, gun index" than mine!!

and i DID try to get my step-daughter involved but, well i think the school system and the whole "oh no guns are evil" societal thing (plus a distinct case of noise sensitivity) sort of soured her to the concept.

 

[Soap]

My biggest gender-related complaint about the shooting world is the blatant advances that people make if you bring some good-looking ladies to the range. Most of the females that I know well are very attractive...this makes it impossible for them to enjoy range shooting unless no one else is around. Even if people don't stare or make blatant advances, they think they're the girl's own personal shooting coach