Customer Reviews

Woman the Hunter

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I enjoyed "Woman the Hunter" very much. I read through the reviews and decided to write this because I am so tired of "feminists" appointing themselves as the official "women" who can tell the rest of us outside the privileged world of academia how to live. I believe that Stange makes some excellent points. But I think what is more important is the responses she has drawn in these reviews. They are predictable which is to say that since I first encountered feminism in the early 70s, it hasn't changed: same old, same old. First attack Stange's writing, then her scholarship, then her nerve for affiliating hunting with "feminism." And the ever classic, oppression of any type is really the same and conveniently defined by what your narrow definition of feminism is. How many times must feminists invent the wheel, and yes, mention a connection with hunting and rape without mentioning the study. Yawn...

Why is it that feminism is so completely out of touch with women? If I have a complaint at all about Stange's book, it is that she doesn't invent a new term for women who refuse to be told by women academics how they should live their lives. And what they should or should not enjoy because it could, God forbid, imitate men. Instead of men defining us, now women are defining us?

Read the book. If you really think about the book, you may well enjoy the book, as I did. You don't have to let the "tyrannical feminists" know that you can think for yourself or that you can decide for yourself how to spend your time. I no longer call myself a feminist because I am my own person, a woman, a woman hunter, a woman who takes responsibility for the meat she eats. This book made me think about my long tradition as a woman hunter. I have been with groups of women hunters, and we have shared our reasons for hunting and our love of the sport. The feminist reviews reveal that the writers don't really know any women hunters. Perhaps they would rather we sit in a classroom and talk about women's creativity, but for me, I'll discover my "feminism" on a deer hunt, in the woods, with another woman hunter, matching our wits against an animal we will clean and prepare for our table. You see Stange is right; there are many ways to be a feminist, but the most radical way is to free yourself from the politically correct notion of what academics tell us a woman should be. After all, what's the difference: men telling us to stay home or feminists telling us to stay home?

We are not that far removed from the time when we were all hunters, and Mary Zeiss Stange understands that better than most. How refreshing to read a book on hunting by a feminist! Too often we hear "Men are hunters and women are gatherers." This book shows how the hunting spirit lies within us all.

Stange is an observant hunter and a skilled writer. She understands the hunt, a very rare perception in this world of post-modern nitwits who don't understand where their meals come from, let alone the basic life cycles.

I doubt this book's biggest detractors have even read it. Read it with an open mind, and learn to see the world through the only eyes we possess...the eyes of hunters.

I was disturbed to read reviews trashing this book as "false" feminism or an "encouragement" of violence. Please. Stange has written an interesting and scholarly account of how women throughout the ages have hunted and continue to hunt. She contributes to research that proves women can be as powerful and complex in their behavior as men. Women hunt, they work as police, they become soldiers, they kill their attackers. Which leads to the conclusion (gasp!), women are people too. For the "real" feminists who think ending patriarchy is about fainting in horror at violence in general, thereby washing their hands of men's and women's actual behavior, I say, "grow up." Stange helps make the point that these issues are complicated, and she joins other feminist voices in illustrating that women can be every bit as noble, savage, courageous, and dangerous as men. Some women have just bought the claptrap telling them they shouldn't be.

As a scientist I find this book an excellent addition to the field of contemporary cultural anthropology. I have not encountered such a thoughtfully written book on the subject of female hunting. The author provides a critical analysis of our current myths and taboos about "Woman the Hunter". She particularly clearly challenges the "eco-feminist" viewpoint of hunting as a distructive, violent, male-only activity to be shunned by enlightened females. Dr. Zeiss Stange arques that this "eco-feminist" analysis is actually a rehashing of the old chauvinistic argument that females are too weak and helpless to kill there own food. This controversial book should definitely be required reading in Women's Studies and Ecology.

As a historian, I find Mary Zeiss Stange's *Woman the Hunter* an effective rebuttal of ecofeminism and the notion that female *Homo sapiens* are, *by nature*, kinder and gentler to animals than their male counterparts. She persuasively argues that women have not hunted as much as men in recorded history because of cultural traditions restraining them, not because they were programmed by evolution to be "gatherers." Stange's book should help men and women alike to rise above "political correctness" and understand that whatever our gender, we share this drive to hunt.

Over a decade later, it's nice to reflect how far culture has come since this book has come out. More and more women are interested in producing their own food and preserving food traditions. Because of that, they are having to confront death and the realities of the human place in the ecosystem. I am glad Mary paved the way for women not afraid of this.

Many women I know are farmer-activists and some have received positive press in The New York Times and other media outlets. Slaughter, hunting, and butchering workshops led by them are selling out in places like New York City. Most people are positive and joyful about these- happy to engage with their food and to not be dependent on industrial monocultures.

The post-vegan feminist culture has come to the fore. When I lead butchering workshops, many of the attendees are women who formerly subscribed to the vegan ecofeminist paradigm. Most have abandoned it because of their health suffering, but others have told me that that after volunteering on farms or at nature preserves they simply couldn't subscribe to a philosophy so alienated from nature. I often recommend this book and Lierre Keith's The Vegetarian Myth in their journey to heal their bodies and embrace humanity's econiche.

Thank you Mary for providing this resource for celebrating the joys of hunting and our place in the universe.

Whether individual men, women, academics, or feminists like the fact,human beings are predators. Whether we stalk our own food or allow others to provide it for us is an issue that is one of the focal points of the controversy surrounding the sport and psychology of hunting. Currently there is virtually no scientifically credible psychological research on the reasons why people continue to hunt. Certainly polemics are readily available from animal rights activists and others who fail to take into consideration that wearing leather, eating meat raised for the purpose of food, or maintaing a vegan diet which ultimately results in more animals losing their lives through the destruction of their own natural hunting grounds to human cultivation of edible plants, are actions not necessarily on a higher, simply a different, moral plane. To eschew any form of hunting would so entirely eliminate sources of food and clothing (for to take the argument that humans should not use animals as a source of food to its logical conclusion would also require the position that animals are not superior to plants, thus plants should also should not suffer from exploitation) that it would require that critics make their comments sitting naked at the computer. The reality is that the largest growing group of hunters is women. In the anecdotes Stange employs to introduce each chapter, nonhunters who are willing to keep an open mind are introduced to the powerful emotional and bonding aspects (among hunters) of the hunt, as well as the importance of the strong ethical principles and discipline required of hunters. This book is an honest, rigorous investigation of the various myths which have been employed to maintain the image of women as somehow purer and morally superior to men in the feeding of their families, and takes an important look at the lengths to which ideologies will go to interpret ancient evidence through the more ideologically convenient lens of 20th century stereotypes. A truly excellent book.

Professor Stange has written a unique book, half paeon to the hunt, half academic feminist tract. Seldom in the world of field sport has so incisive an intellect been brought to bear on the question of human hunting and come down squarely on the side of Mankind the Predator. Those men who go hunting primarily to escape from the eye of their women are likely to be offended by her condemnation of the sportsman as macho troglodyte. For those of us who rejoice in the chance to share the emotional fire of pursuit with all who would enjoy it, this book comes as a delight. Probably the finest book on the subject of the decade.

I am currently doing research for a book on modern feminism, how it has changed since its inception and where it is headed. I bought this book hoping that it would provide some insight on a new trend: Women who find release and equality by engaging in dangerous, predominantly male activities. I have read accounts of women who participate in traditionally male sports, such as auto racing, hockey and sky-diving and have found their testimonials fascinating and even uplifting. I assmumed that, like these, Mary Stange's own account would reveal a smart, positive, adventurous woman unafraid to embrace what has been perceived as a "real man's" ritualistic rite of passage. Instead, I found the author angry and defensive and, even worse, unable to articulate her arguments. Instead of proudly celebrating groundbreaking experiences, she seems to be contstantly attempting to difuse possible attacks from all angles, in the process contradicting herself. Often, she raises arguments only to drop them, which was truly frustrating. For example, when she raises the potentially interesting issue of the animal rights movement's opposition to hunting as well as its relationship to feminism, she provides a few vague quotes attributed to animal advocates, but never actually counters them. Instead, she lets them stand on their own, as though the reader should simply be outraged and not require an explanation or argument against them. This is particularly confusing for the reader who is not well versed in the current animal rights debate. I felt cheated, as though Mary Stange herself did not know how to respond and instead brought up the possibility of an animal cruelty-feminism link only to let it drop without addressing it. By the end of the book, I was still unsure as to why women should hunt, and what, exactly, this particular woman gets out of hunting. It obviously isn't exhilaration or freedom - in fact, it seemed more like a kind of revenge against some shadowy, imaginary detractors. An odd book, and, in terms of its possible scholarly value, a true disapointment.
Dr. Jacqueline Smythe

For years, hunting has been on a steady decline in this country - less than 3% of Americans engage in this controversial blood sport. Much of the shift towards our culture's condemnation of hunting can be attributed to the efforts of animal interest groups, as well as numerous scientific studies that clearly indicate a compelling link between cruelty to animals and interpersonal violence.

Recent pyschiatric studies have shown a particularly disturbing connection between hunting and rape. That makes Ms. Stange's thesis rather curious: "Woman the Hunter" seeks to explain, and even promote, a rare phenomena - the female hunter as the ultimate feminist.

Although it is certainly an interesting perspective, Ms. Stange's arguments are generally unconvincing, primarily because many of those opposed to hunting (and animal abuse in general) are feminists, as well as civil rights activists, such as the writer Alice Walker ("The Color Purple"). In fact, there seems to be a growing literary trend among academics toward the exploration of man's treatment of women and minorities as compared to his treatment of animals. Readers interested in a provocative treatment of this topic should refer to Marjorie Spiegel's "The Dreaded Comparison," which provides a truly chilling look at the similarities between slavery and man's treatment of animals.

In that book's forward, Ms. Walker observed, "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men."

Although not particularly comforting, this point of view seems far more relevant to the current social issues between men and woman, and "whites" and "non-whites," than Ms. Stange's indulgent, "I-am-Woman-see-me-kill" premise.