Editorial from Women and Guns January 01, 1997
by Peggy Tartaro
Executive Editor
From The Editor...
Somewhere on my desk is a tattered file folder without a label.
It's distinct from other tattered file folders in that it contains bits
and pieces from various sources that are not quite news. In it are
chunks of information that folks are kind enough to send me, clippings
from newspapers, info from the Internet, advertisements, book chapters,
postcards with a line of commentary and whatnot.
By themselves, most of these tid-bits don't make much of a meal,
but they are often reminders of other things, or jumping off points, if
you will.
Just as I was casting about for a subject for this month's
column, I remember the file, and thus can spare you rantings about winter
and why the first of the year should be in May and not January.
One item in my file is an Associated Press report on Glamour
magazine's Women of the Year. Every year, this women's magazine picks the
females who have had a national impact on other women. This year's
group included talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, astronaut Shannon Lucid,
Rep. Susan Molinari (R-NY), NEW YORK TIMES Columnist Maureen Dowd,
diplomat Charlene Barshefsky, breast cancer activist Frances Visco,
novelist Terry McMillan, college president Ruth Simmons, Olympic swimmer
Amy Van Dyken and the US Olympic Women's Basketball Team.
This seemed like a pretty good group of women who range across
the American landscape, from politics to entertainment to education to
science to sport.
In the words of the magazine, these women, "blasted their way
into history on the strength of their clout and chutzpah." I found it
somewhat interesting that a women's magazine would use the term
"chutzpah" to describe how theses women achieved "clout." I thought we
were past the point where it was considered "impudence" (my dictionary's
definition of chutzpah) on the part of women who wanted to achieve in
their vocations and avocations. And "blasted" seemed a rather lively
verb, as well.
The inclusion of Van Dyken and the "Other Dream Team" on this
list of bold achievers was one more signal that sports are no longer just
for men. These athletes were "amateurs" at the time of their Olympic
glory and not the zillionaires of sports we associated with the best
known names in male athletics.
Which is not to say that women are better athletes because they
don't get paid as well as men, just that instead of the kind of chutzpah
it takes to say you're worth upmteen million a season, perhaps a better
descriptive work would be "dedication."
Another item from my file is also sports-related. It is a
brochure promoting a quarterly publication from SPORTS TREND MAGAZINE, a
sporting goods industry publication aimed at buyers in that business. It
is called SPORTS WOMAN, and it highlights sporting goods equipment for
women. The January issue will highlight skiing, snowboarding and tennis
and tell marketers how to "capitalize on the Olympics." April's
editorial highlights are swim and beachwear and activewear. Pictures in
the brochure show various women running, rock climbing, skiing, swimming,
and playing tennis, lacrosse and soccer. There's also a picture of what
looks to be a woman (she's wearing quite a bit of gear), bungee-jumping,
something that I would think requires more chutzpah than skill. Alas, no
hunters or IPSC competitors, no trap and skeet shooters, although to be
fair, SPORTS TREND may well cover those in different editions.
What struck me about the brochure was that some of the language
seemed awfully familiar: "The fluff and frills of women's sporting goods
are a thing of the past. So are the days of women buying products
designed for men just to get the look and feel of high performance.
Today's female athlete demands quality, durability and performance...and
she demands it in products designed specifically for her."
Or this quote from a merchandising vice president (male) in
Oregon: "We're bringing in more equipment designed especially for women,
and doing more promotions directed at women...In addition, we're trying
to make our stores more friendly to women by hiring female sales-people."
It's just possible that the growth in women's sports in one area
(for example, basketball) may increase at least the acceptance of women's
participation in other sports (say, shooting) among the general public.
In time, Kim Rhode may be deemed a "Woman of the Year" outside of just
the shooting sorority and her name might be as well known to young girls
as Rebecca Lobo, or Amy Van Dyken or Martina Navatilova. Since Kim is a
young athlete (the youngest American shooting gold medalist in history),
there's every reason to believe, that by her sheer dedication, her name
will be cropping up well into the next century.
Certainly the awareness of sporting goods retailers that women
are a major marketing (SPORTS TREND'S brochure says 35% of all sporting
goods purchases are made by women), is also good news for women
shooters. Some major sporting goods outlets carry firearms and related
products, so if these outlets become more accustomed to women customers,
and begin to value their female clientele more, it stands to reason that
it may be easier to find products of interest specifically to women
shooters. Those type of outlets that don't carry firearms products might
begin to wonder a bit about that decision if enought women walked in
looking for shotshells, a recoil pad or glove, or hunting boots. It is
the nature of business, after all, to meet the demands of its existing
customers, and to expand to reach out to would-be customers.
If there were suddenly a lot of women walking into Acme Sporting
Goods and saying, "I need a new lacrosse stick and I'm in the market for
a sporting clays gun," retailers would do more than take notice; a smart
one would begin to realize that there are a bunch more customers out
there to be had.
The final item from my "hmm file," is a copy of a chapter of a
book called THE GENDERED OBJECT (Manchester University Press, distributed
by St. Martin's Press and edited by Pat Kirkham). The book appears to be
a study of designed objects and gender identification and vice versa.
One of our readers sends me, from time to time, articles from books and
magazines circulated in Europe, as was the case here. It's instructive
to see how the rest of the world views women gunowners, since arguably
women gunowners are almost exclusively and American phenomenon (but
that's another article altogether).
I haven't been able to find a copy of the book, which I would
like to read in its entirety. (I am intrigued by a chapter called
"Barbie and Action Man" as well as one titled "The tie: presence and
absence.")
The chapter sent me is written by Susie McKellar and called
"Guns: the `last frontier on the road to equality'?" McKellar says "it
is hard to conceive of something more apparently masculine than a gun,"
and discusses some of the traditional perceptions about the American male
gunowner. But, says McKellar, regardless of how male gunowners are
viewed, the increase in the number of women gunowners is not attributable
to the same factors.
McKellar sees the increase in women gunowners as credited to two
factors: pragmatism (the need for women to protect themselves) and
political, quoting Paxton Quigley in ARMED & FEMALE that firearms
ownership by women is "the last frontier needed to be won by women on the
road to equality." Although appropriating the quote for her title,
McKellar sees this phrase as a "highly problematic an contentious
generalization," and it is with this concept that she wrestles for the
rest of her article.
Not adverse to a little generalizing of her own, McKellar cites a
handful of American films to buttress her contention that "women and guns
are more closely associated with sex than sexual equality." This
provocative notion, based on the FEMME FATALE film icon alone, asserts
that the women and the gun are jointed objects of male fantasy, rather
than a representation of a woman who has a gun for her own protection,
her job or her own reasons.
From there McKellar spends considerable time reviewing the design
and marketing of firearms specifically for women, including Smith &
Wesson's turn-of-the century introduction of the first LadySmiths, High
Standard's 1950's foray into the women's market and the modern line of
LadySmiths.
McKellar contends that firearms are marketed to women on mainly
an "emotive" basis, an appeal to stereotyped views of women as nurturing
and protective and responsive to "fears." Similarly, she says the
anti-gunners are using the same language and images to make their case.
"consequently," she writes, "whether intended to promote or dissuade
women to arm themselves, such literature highlights the sexual asymmetry
of our society, rather than suggesting an equalization of gender roles and
relations."
To further make her case, our own Lyn Bates is quoted in a 1992
review in these pages of Thunderwear, in which Lyn discusses the efficacy
of this concealment system. In the quoted section of the review, Lyn
praised the aspects of the product that provide concealment without bulk
or the necessity of a belt.
"Women may want to arm themselves as a way of making themselves
equal, but as long as they are represented primarily as being fashion and
figure conscious, even when dealing with such a serious issue as
self-protection, gender divisions are reinforced," McKellar chides.
Well, VIVA LA DIFFERENCE, I say. While the sociological aspects
of the debate are important and even interesting, they beg the paramount
question: women and men are different and, as those differences (some
physical, some cultural) impact a decision to own a carry a firearm, men
and women will diverge on their responses.
Most women don't, for any number of reasons, dress like men, so
carrying a firearm becomes something of a challenge, a challenge that is
intuitively met by devising the means to carry without interrupting
normal dress; thus Thunderwear and similar systems, holster purses, etc.
It has less to do with any desire ot maintain gender identification than
it does with a desire to maintain the status quo. If suddenly appeared at
working toting a shotgun and festooned with bandoleros of ammunition, you
would, as Ricky Ricardo once said, " have some explaining to do."
I would also argue that pretty much all marketing, from design
to advertising, regardless of the intended consumer, is
emotive--otherwise everything we owned, from sneakers to cars to jars of
peanut butter, would be generic.
Viewing ourselves through other's eyes is vitally important. Not
so that we can change ourselves to fit others' image, but so that we can
straightforwardly address their concerns.
Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor
