Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (Fast Track Books) [Hardcover]

Mary Stange (Author), Carol Oyster (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814797601 | ISBN-13: 978-0814797600 | Publication Date: September 1, 2000

Women, we are told, should not own guns. Women, we are told, are more likely to be injured by their own guns than to fend off an attack themselves. This "fact" is rooted in a fundamental assumption of female weakness and vulnerability. Why should a woman not be every bit as capable as a man of using a firearm in self-defense?

And yet the reality is that millions of American women--somewhere between 11,000,000 and 17,000,000--use guns confidently and competently every day. Women are hunting, using firearms in their work as policewomen and in the military, shooting for sport, and arming themselves for personal security in ever-increasing numbers. What motivates women to possess firearms? What is their relationship to their guns? And who exactly are these women? Crucially, can a woman be a gun-owner and a feminist too?

Women's growing tendency to arm themselves has in recent years been political fodder for both the right and the left. Female gun owners are frequently painted as "trying to be like men" (the conservative perspective) or "capitulating to patriarchal ideas about power" (the liberal critique). Eschewing the polar extremes in the heated debate over gun ownership and gun control, and linking firearms and feminism in novel fashion, Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster here cut through the rhetoric to paint a precise and unflinching account of America's gun women.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As one of the `normal, well-balanced [female] adults' who own guns and as one of the 10 percent of hunters who are women, I applaud this eye-opening, complex, challenging book, a frank account of why we hunt and why we love guns which effectively punctures the myths about women, hunting, and guns."

-Diane Humphrey Lueck,University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Outreach Specialist, International Becoming an Outdoors-Woman Program

"The first feminist manifesto on women and guns. Closely reasoned, meticulously researched, yet accessibly written, this book's appeal spans the entire political spectrum. It will enlighten committed pacifists and feminists no less than advocates of self-defense, with its theme that so long as women are perceived—and perceive themselves—as too weak to defend themselves, non-violence is not a choice, but merely a culturally assigned role."

-Don B. Kates,coauthor The Great American Gun Debate

"Gun Women explores the relationship between firearms and women from many perspectives, both historical and modern, while also acknowledging the role guns have had in shaping our national character. The authors continually remind us that women who own guns are not the victims of their own fear of being attacked nor of the efforts of the firearm industry to market to them. Introducing "gun women" as intelligent, capable people, this book breaks down the gender and political stereotypes that people have about women who use guns."

-Shari LeGate,Executive Director, Women's Shooting Sports Foundation

"What should people do when they must face a criminal by themselves? Passive behavior is certainly not the safest course of action. Stange and Oyster take on the hard questions about women's fears of--and use of--guns, in virtually every imaginable context. They convincingly show that these fears are more likely to endanger women's lives and those they love than they are to save them."

-John R. Lott, Jr., -John R. Lott Jr.,Senior Research Scholar, School of Law, Yale University, and author of More Guns, Less Crime

"A lively mix of memoir, cultural and historical analysis, statistics, and cross-generational profiles of women who shoot
—blasting the notion that feminism and firearms are incompatible."

-Peace News,

About the Author

Mary Zeiss Stange is Associate Professor of Religion and Women's Studies at Skidmore College and author of Woman the Hunter.

Carol K. Oyster is Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse and author of Groups: A User's Guide.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814797601
• ISBN-13: 978-0814797600
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,843,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Zeiss Stange, Ph.D.

As the author of Woman the Hunter (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997/1998), the first cultural history of the relationship of women and hunting, Mary Zeiss Stange has gained national recognition as the primary scholar working on the subject today. She has been profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, and in widely syndicated Associated Press stories; has been interviewed by The New York Times, Sierra Magazine, Outside Magazine and the BBC; and has done numerous interviews on National Public Radio, including "Talk of the Nation" and "To the Best of Our Knowledge." Stange and her work were the subject of "She Got Game," a lengthy feature interview by Barbara Ehrenreich, in the June/July 1999 issue of "Ms." Magazine.
Her second book was a collaboration with psychologist Carol K. Oyster. Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (New York: New York University Press, 2000). It deals with women's various positive relationships with firearms (self-protection, hunting, recreational and competitive shooting, careers like law enforcement and the military). Stange's third book, Heart Shots: Women Write about Hunting, a critical anthology of historical and contemporary women's outdoor writing, was published in August 2003 by Stackpole Books. She is also general editor of the "Sisters of the Hunt" series of classic women's writing about hunting, which Stackpole published from fall of 2003 through 2005. Her next book, Hard Grass: Life on the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch, traces the changing realities of high plains ranch life. It will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in June 2010.
Stange leads something of a double life--college teaching in upstate New York, and ranching and hunting in Montana, where she and her husband Doug operate the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. In her writing, too, she moves between, and is equally at home in, two distinct worlds, having authored numerous articles in both scholarly and commercial publications. The author of over fifty academic articles and reviews, she additionally writes regularly for USA Today and is a member of its editorial Board of Contributors. She also writes about women and feminism, contemporary religion, environmentalism, and various other political and social issues for such national publications as Big Sky Journal, High Country News, Bugle, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Women's Review of Books, and the Los Angeles Times. Her essay, "Last Man Out of the Hunting Lodge, Please Turn Out the Lights," was in 1998 awarded the Izaak Walton League's "Thinking Like a Mountain" prize for cutting-edge writing on environmental issues, and in Spring 2006 she won first prize in Sierra Club's "Why I Hunt" essay contest.
She is Professor of Women's Studies and Religion, and formerly Director of the Women's Studies Program, at Skidmore College. Stange was the 2004-2005 Edwin R. Moseley Faculty Lecturer at Skidmore, an award which "acknowledges an exemplary level of scholarship and achievement that sets a standard for academic excellence at Skidmore. It is the highest honor that the Skidmore faculty can bestow on one of its own."
Here is a link to her Skidmore College web page:
http://cms.skidmore.edu/religion/faculty/mary-zeiss-stange.cfm

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A welcome affirmation for female gun owners, December 19, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (Fast Track Books) (Hardcover)

This very readable book is both informative and interesting. Brief presentations of a more scholarly nature (e.g. examinations of statistics on crime and gun ownership, debates over the advertising techniques of gun manufacturers, law enforcement policies) are interwoven with the personal accounts of a variety of gun women, including police officers, hunters and competitive shooters.

The authors of this book state they hope to "open up the conversation about women and guns in America." From my perspective as a female gun owner and avid participant in the shooting sports, such conversation is desperately needed. I found this book a valuable source of information and support on several fronts. First, it provided insight to the thoughts and beliefs of those people who react with shock and dismay to the discovery that I actually own a gun. Second, it provided some hard facts with which intelligent responses can be made to the disparaging comments of those same people. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I discovered that many more women than I expected share my love for the shooting sports.

I highly recommend this book to any woman who owns a gun and participates in any of the shooting sports. It is also an excellent source of information for anyone who is interested in learning about what motivates females to become "Gun Women."