Question of the Day: Are Women Reluctant Shooters?

My wife is from Asia, and is skilled in knife fighting and kick boxing. She was eager to learn about using firearms, but she is from a VERY different culture than the typical American female. Ladies I dated before getting married (this would be about 20 years ago) at best tolerated my firearms hobby as long as it didn’t take away too much time from them.

“Has our “male dominated society””

Have any references for that claim?

“On the face of it, “Men don’t protect you anymore” is nonsense. As long as women carry eggs and have children men will protect them. ”

It isnt nonsense, unless I’m sleeping with the woman, i’m not going to do shit. I know there are only downsides to me getting involved in someone elses shit, and its not like she’ll give me a hand job for helping her out. The most she would do for me if I was in trouble would be to call 911, and since i’m a self described creepy looking guy, she would likely say she thought I was the perpetrator.

Gender roles went away a long time ago, and i’m assuming the only reason RF continues to think they exist is due to his age, and that he has most likely been married for a while. It isnt my job to protect women, since all the ones i’ve dated havent known how to cook, sow, tend a garden, or had any other home economics skills.

I am of the impression that in fact women are far from reluctant to get behind the trigger.Based on m/y own family history id state that women have been as active in the shooting sports as men;they simply never spoke up about doing so as vocally.Guys can’t wait to show off their new gun or new toy,whereas women generally won’t go to such lengths to ensure everyone on the planet knows they are armed or own guns.I’ve met more young women under 30 with firearm experience than men in the same age category.

Id assign the ‘reluctance’ label to the concept that women just prefer to fly under the radar regarding gun knowledge and useage,which is something I believe men can learn to benefit from.

…As long as women carry eggs…

You mean steak, right? I do have some standards.

I don’t know as if it is that men don’t (won’t) protect women any more so much as it is many (most) men don’t feel obligated to do so any more. I suspect this is due in no small part to feminism. If for decades it gets drilled into a man’s head that women are just as competent and capable as men to the point they can now serve on submarines and in combat units in the military the logical extension is that they can fend for themselves. The death of chivalry came with feminism.

“If not, why are women reluctant to take up arms in their own defense?”

At the risk of overgeneralizing, women tend to be nurturing by nature which leads to multiple lines of thinking that make guns an unappealing choice. We look at people and think of them as being someone’s son or daughter, and think about how we would feel if someone shot our child. Not to mention that many women see people as “mostly good.” I know quite a few who can’t wrap their minds around the idea that there is even such a thing as an evil person.

This is all in the abstract, of course, because if actually faced with a murderous attacker, those thoughts are likely to be nowhere even close. Even more so if someone is threatening our children. But at that point it’s too late to choose a deadly means of self-defense. That decision is made in the context of safety and the abstract ideas mentioned above, as well as other ideas, including that either their man or the police will protect them.

Thinking about this some more, and I remembered my mom was the one that initially taught me to shoot. So her generation, at least in the rural area she grew up in wasn’t afraid of firearms. She was a pretty good shot with rifle and pistol. I know that my one grandmother could handle firearms, not sure about the other one as it never came up as a topic of discussion. But ladies of my generation (I’m 55 years old) tend to have a pacifist streak in them that makes them anti-gun at least in my experience. Might be residual stuff from the “flower power” era.

I can’t think of an American society more male dominated than the western frontier, where many women could shoot a rifle or a shotgun as well as a man. It’s not “male dominance” that leads men to protect women; it’s male genetics.

But men’s nature can be overcome. Women are equal now. They can pay for their own dinners, open their own doors and shoot BGs all by themselves.

“Men don’t protect you anymore” is nonsense. As long as women carry eggs and have children, men will protect them.”

— I completely disagree. Many men would like to have a wife and kids yet they can see the realities of modern misandrist society right in front of them so daily there are less and less men being chivalrous and/or seeking marriage or just having kids. Womyn generally have a stronger desire to procreate than men and since the Family/Divorce Courts along with alimony and child support are on their side they are the sex pushing for kids more than men. Men are considered by society, government, and womyn to be disposable commodities sorta like bullets once they’ve shot their load and lost their presumed value, men can be discarded. Consider the recent Italian tourist boat that grounded. The old chivalry standard of letting womyn go first (before kids of course too) didn’t hold up very well.

BTW, on the Titanic, more womyn selfishly pushed their way onto lifeboats resulting in a higher percentage of adult womyn surviving than children! Boys who were thirteen years old and older were told they are men (and should dioe for females) so eighty-five year old womyn lived and fourteen year old boys died. Thankfully those views are changing. Men now increasingly value themselves too.

In ancient times, womyn were vital to re-populate a tribes/clans losses. Today, with @ seven-billion people on the planet, womyn are not an asset for a large nation or community. Womyn are now a social problem since they require and use up far more limited resources than men. Men are usually the ones mining diamonds out of the earth yet it is womyn who are demanding the diamonds. Womyn account for eighty-five percent of consumer spending. Men can live simply om little and be happy and fulfilled.

OK, if it came to protecting a good wife I think most men would still protect her and some foolish men would still protect a bad wife. Let’s face it: in modern society most womyn have been ideologically conditioned to view themselves as victims, and entitled princesses deserving special class status without being held accountable. However, men are increasingly less inclined by old school brainwashing to not value their own life and safety.

“Has our “male dominated society” deliberately (or subconsciously) led to female disarmament?”

Led to female disarmament? Modern society (post frontier) led to a change in roles (for some decades) with the female often living a nice sheltered suburbia life. If anyone still had an interest in the traditions of protecting and hunting (not usually needed for survival) it was the male. Putting the gun ownership burden on men led to men being the sex that sacrificed when danger surfaced. Cultural institutions have traditionally pushed males to be the warriors and females to be the caregivers. Males were conditioned to be the cannon fodder for endless and usually dumb-ass wars that served the wealthy and politically powerful elites, and helped womyn and society too by keeping and expanding America’s political and economic empire.

A society with a relatively small percent of alpha males in key power roles does not lead to or create a society that is pro-male dominant. How the heck are womyn oppressed in our western society? In what ways? In the past men and women somewhat took advantage of each other and ‘oppressed’ the other sex. Society oppressed both. Government and the super wealthy oppressed society and all underneath it.

I think your question was worded or asked incorrectly. A different question that does not assume male dominance and rather asks about gun-ownership with sex-based roles and behaviors would have been more objective.

The t-shirt message: “Men don’t protect you anymore” is in my guess present in a design school’s gift store to encourage womyn to take up self-defense classes, buy guns, and become more ‘individualistic and independent’ than ever. I doubt the t-shirt is there to lament the loss of chivalrous men.

It is amusing to many MRA Men’s Rights Advocates that the more power and influence feminism has gained over society (the past forty plus years) transforming laws, creating social programs, and changing attitudes and lifestyle the more womyn have become less happy and fulfilled. Yet, the path keeps expanding and their control keeps growing over men and our freedoms and assets. Meanwhile kids are increasingly messed up, feeling unhappy and unsafe. Thats an ok price for kids to pay for modern womyn.

Perhaps this will provoke a world record for hateful responses, but Chivalry was a custom that needed to die.

By whose standard is it mandated that a man’s life is worth less than a womans? If we are to hold that all people are Equal under God , then it stands to reason we should act like it.This is an issue of equality that mandates a choice-either all people are equal regardless of sex, or we pedestal one party at the expense of the other. If a man is expected to take responsibility for his own defense, so should a woman. I consider it no less foolish for a man to disregard that than a woman.

Going slightly off topic,in my admittedly short time on Earth I would assert that the most common reason men end up dead , injured, or in a jail cell is on account of a woman. Why do street gang bangers post on corners selling drugs & robbing people? Its not because they like being arrested and getting shot. Why do police execute unlawful and illegal orders? Because being fired by the cheif for taking a stand means the wife is leaving for a wealthier suitor. If one were to take the time to do the homework on the matter id bet that a majority of the horrible things that take place in this world can be tracked directly back to a female who wanted a material power or possession for her own uses.

Go ahead and diss on women, some of us will take up the slack,.

There are some real whacko He-Man Women Haters Club members that comment here. In my experience they generally turn out to be inept, inadequate, physical abusers who are overall failures, and not just with women.

Hey don’t be dissin’ on Zoey, man…