NRO Weekend, October 7-8, 2000
Women Warriors
Locked, loaded, and ready for battle.

By Jennifer Mamich, director of external affairs, Independence Institute

Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in America, by Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster (New York University Press, 240 pp., $25.95)

he debate over gun control and the 2nd Amendment has never been hotter than it is today. Generally, feminists have taken the anti-gun rights side of the debate. However the new book, Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America challenges this long-standing feminist viewpoint.

Authors Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster combine an in-depth view of the past and present use of firearms by women in America with a heavy dose of feminist ideology based on a naturalistic worldview. Gun Women is a wonderful blend of data and statistics with intriguing stories about real women using guns for a variety of purposes. Gun Women explores women using firearms for self-defense, as police officers, as soldiers, as hunters, as "cowboy" entertainers, as competitive athletes, and just for fun. It also includes seven biographical "snapshots" of women detailing how they came to know and use firearms.

Stange and Oyster grapple with the question "Should women have guns?" in the first chapter, providing lots of background information. Stange and Oyster take on anti-gun notions that women are incompetent to use firearms and that by arming themselves, they are contributing to a violent society. The rest of the book is devoted to exploring the many reasons women do have guns. Gun Women is about "women's capacity for taking instruments of power into their own hands, ideas with which feminists and anti-feminists have often been equally comfortable."

Gender boundaries and how women who use guns cross those boundaries are prominent themes throughout the book. Gun Women attempts to amplify the millions of voices of gun-owning women who aren't afraid to cross over the gender barrier into a role of wielding power that can protect, thrill, and kill.

Are women really capable of using such power? Gun Women takes to task the feminists and "progressive" intellectuals who apparently are more comfortable thinking of women as victims than capable warriors. Under some condescending views, women must be protected from themselves due to their naiveté. For instance, feminists endorse the notion that women are so easily deceived that "gun advertising directed at women ought to be highly regulated, if not outright prohibited."

Similarly, many feminists propagate the myth that women attempting to use guns are more likely to be harmed by the gun they would use to protect themselves.

Feminists know that the police are not legally obligated to come to the aid of citizens and promote self-defense courses. However, they harshly condemn women who wish to use the best technology available — firearms — to take the upper hand when attacked. Women remain the victims waiting for someone to rescue them.

Stange and Oyster comment, "It is precisely on the issue of fighting back that feminists like Pogrebin, Brown, and Jones have drawn the accusation that they would rather wallow in their 'victimhood' as women than confront the implications, for men and for women, of what it might really mean for women to claim their equality."

Hypocritically, the same anti-gun feminist zealots who argue that weak, armed women are dangerous to themselves, try to make the case that these same women will become like Rambo, contributing to violence in our society.

Stange and Oyster provide a voice of reason:

We live in a violence-saturated culture, it is true. It is also true that males are the prime offenders, women and children far too often the victims. But it hardly follows that if women take an active role in protecting themselves, they are 'escalating' the violence. This idea is bizarre. In the best of possible worlds, we like to think we could just make all the violence stop. But we do not live in that world, and no amount of fretting about the sorry state of human affairs is going to get us there.

The reality is that millions of women do not have a victim mindset. They have already taken up arms and are ready to use them.

So just who are these millions of quietly courageous gun women? They are a very diverse group. They hail from all age, professional, and socio-economic categories. Stange and Oyster state, "We have written this book because we believe that American gun women, invisible and silent no longer, can make an enormous difference in the way we understand ourselves, our culture, and the problems we as a society are confronting today."

So why has such a large and diverse group been silenced? One reason is the obvious: media bias has led to unfair and inaccurate reporting on gun issues.

America's gun women have a voice — no actually, many voices. And many stories to tell. To deny them their place in the conversation, or in any other way to demean or trivialize or oversimplify their experience as women, as gun owners, and as citizens of a free society is explicitly anti-female, and implicitly anti-feminist."

Another reason that gun women are invisible is that the use of firearms by women (and men also) is socially unacceptable in some segments of society. Most gun women treat the subject as taboo and never mention their involvement with guns.

I confess that I still make sure all of the curtains are drawn before I disassemble and clean my firearm. How scandalous that an electrical engineer turned piano teacher and soccer mom might be seen in possession of a firearm — especially one that she purchased and learned to use all on her own, without the encouragement of a man.

While most of my women friends are not feminists, most do share the anti-gun sentiment of feminists (and a fear of firearms). The anti-gun fears are based on the emotion of wanting to protect children and ignorance about the realities of gun safety and the use of firearms. I have yet to meet a woman who says, "I tried shooting and really hated it." Most women, myself included, were initially very apprehensive about handling firearms, thinking of guns as live creatures that behave unpredictably. But after blowing through my first box of 50 bullets on the firing line, my apprehension fell and my confidence rose. I liked shooting and I was good at it.

Gun Women introduces us to many female shooters, both historical and contemporary. You'll meet Annie Oakley, who learned to shoot as a girl to help feed her family, later performed in target shooting shows, and eventually wrote articles for sporting magazines. Gun women include Christine Thomas, an avid outdoors woman and founder of what has become a national women's outdoor-skills training workshop called BOW. You will go on hunting trips with Mary Zeiss Stange, Susan Ewing, and others who ponder what it means to be part of the hunt.

Interesting women such as Abigail Kohn take you on her journey from being an anti-gun, graduate anthropology student in search of a thesis topic, to playing the role of Abby Oakley (Annie Oakley's citified cousin) in a cowboy action shooting show. A number of women share their stories of self-defense.

You will also learn about the big hearts of most women shooters, as illustrated by shooting events like the Ladies Charity Classic now held in dozens of towns across the country to benefit various charities. You will learn about the history of gun women in the police force, the military, Olympic games and many other venues. Each of the millions of gun women in America has a special story about how they learned to shoot and how guns have benefited their lives.

Gun Women explains why wherever guns are used, they are called the "great equalizer." This is because men and women of all ages are capable of shooting very well, regardless of physical size and strength. In a self-defense scenario, an armed woman can easily chase away a large bully. Her gun shifts the balance of power to her favor. In competitive shooting, men and women can compete side by side on the same team because guns negate performance differences due to sex and age.

During their discussion of women as hunters, Zeiss Stange and Oyster refute the connection between feminism and the anti-hunting aspect of animal rights ideology. Many feminists align themselves with animal rights ideology, preferring to view man as the hunter and women as the non-aggressive gatherer. One vegetarian feminist writes "no woman will be free until all animals are free and nature is released from man's ruthless exploitation." However, Stange and Oyster reason that if the nature of women renders women incapable of hunting to provide sustenance, feminists end up endorsing gender boundaries that violate their own equal employment principle.

Further, if women are denied access to advanced tools and knowledge of how to use these tools, women are kept from reaping economic benefits. On the primitive level, women are denied a meal that includes meat. On a contemporary level, women who lack training with contemporary tools will be denied desirable, well-paid employment.

If you are a feminist, you will find common ground with these authors, particularly if you value the diversity that exists among your sisters. Stange and Oyster speak in feminese, discussing gender boundaries and norms, male dominance and oppression, and what it means for women to have access to advanced tools (guns) that equalize power across the gender gap. They show distaste for men playing the part of the knight in shining armor, while the wife plays the "dainty helpmate." The authors challenge fellow feminists by championing women's gun use, stating "that feminists should pay serious, constructive attention to the fact that millions of women are not only armed, but also derive immense satisfaction and empowerment from owning and using guns."

Pro-gun women who are not feminists will agree with many of the authors' conclusions, but will struggle with the underlying value system and thought processes. I found the numerous attempts to show that women were superior to men in a number of areas relating to the use of firearms distracting. While the authors did praise men occasionally, men were, for the most part, presented as unenlightened, immature, and domineering. Additionally, pregnancy and child rearing were generally presented negatively — as a barrier to equality with men.

Any mention of traditional marriage was laced with contempt. I am an advocate of traditional marriage and bristle when wives are portrayed as weak and unthinking. The wife described in the Bible's Book of Proverbs (31:10-31) is a strong, wise woman who makes decisions for herself, protects and provides for her household; she is not a helpless, weak-minded, second-class human.

To illustrate using a "gun woman" story, one Saturday night at 4 a.m., my husband (who's big, strong, and handsome), and I were awakened by our eldest son. He was screaming, "Burglar, burglar, there's a man in the house." My husband raced down the stairs empty handed in his boxer shorts — his only thought was to get to the kids as quickly as possible. I flew out of bed, grabbed my .45 Colt Commander, slapped in a loaded clip, and chambered a round. Later, my husband said that when he heard me pull back the slide (to load the first round), it was a great source of comfort. I was his very lethal, "dainty help-mate."

Would I have been much of a comfort to him cowering in the dark — hoping the 911 operator would send help, as many of today's feminists advocate? I, like my husband, chose not to be a victim.

On page one, Zeiss and Stange state, "This does not mean we are opposed to reasonable gun control. Indeed, quite the opposite." They never define their idea of reasonable gun control and never discuss their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. The portion of the book concerning women in the military was particularly difficult for me, because I intensely disagreed with what is a skewed presentation of the facts. Making the military "less aggressive" by adding more women to the ranks is not a desirable goal.

Gun Women is so multifaceted that it is sure to challenge each reader on at least one of her beliefs about women and guns. The authors state that their aim is to initiate a discussion among people interested in all sides of the gun debate. They definitely achieve their goal. It is much more comfortable for the various splinter groups of the gun debates to talk among themselves. Gun Women adds immensely to the national conversation. No one can read this book without rethinking at least one of her previously fixed beliefs. Expand your view of guns in America. Read Gun Women.