Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America

by Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol Oyster

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814797601
• ISBN13: 9780814797600
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A welcome affirmation for female gun owners

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."