Friday, May 08, 2009

Weening Women from Oprah

This from Karen De Coster at LewRockwell.com...a pretty cool article:
Women never cease to amaze me. The majority of them are still "afraid" of guns. Afraid, as in "oohhhh, they are so scary." They say things like "I don’t like them around" and "they’re dangerous." I know of women who have defense-minded, pro-gun husbands and they will not let their guy talk about those nasty things in their presence. Shhh, the children will hear, or, they might actually see an evil gun! Keep them locked away. Don’t tell the neighbors you have a gun in our house, or we’ll be outcasts. And in the background you can almost hear another feeble Oprah sermon keeping women stupid, but oh, they feel good about themselves and their newfound self-esteem.

All the time, women are shocked, shocked! to hear that I have a gun, and worse, I have several guns. And then, oh no, I actually carry one with me. That’s so odd, they think. Oh she’s different. Why more than one gun? She must be the aggressive type. After all, the Oprah way is to trust everyone and insist that all people have good intentions always.

Although I tend to think that most women don’t make sense, period, I especially believe this concerning the gun issue. It’s not only difficult to get women to come around to wanting a gun of their own, but they still can’t get to the point where they will understand and accept why others want to own them.

Let’s face it – women are more vulnerable to attack because, most likely, their aggressor will be a man. Women are physically weaker, and criminals know that we are less willing to be mentally prepared for aggression because, unlike men, most of us just aren’t wired to be combative. A woman’s attacker will be bigger, stronger, and faster than her, and by nature they will be more aggressive, and that’s before considering any mental or drug problem that may be associated with a criminal attack. So why do women not want to take that into consideration and equalize the situation by learning to use and love guns? Dr. Thomas Szasz, libertarian scholar and Professor of Psychiatry at Syracuse University, once stated, "self-defense is not merely our legal right but our moral duty; because women are more vulnerable than men, their need and obligation to defend themselves is even greater than that of men." Dr. Szasz is a wise man.

Here’s my favorite scene: a woman is walking in a parking garage or parking lot, all alone, wearing 3-inch skinny heels, head down, flicking her mane of endless hair, and chatting mindlessly on the phone. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah," but not a single shred of awareness about the inherent dangers of time and place, who is around her, and what they are doing. She is a Bambi in the woods.

I witness this kind of thing all the time. Women tend to function in the fog of the unknown, making themselves easy targets. The first rule of self-defense is awareness. Situational awareness can, and will, save your life. Be conscious about your surroundings. Stay off the phone, keep your head up, and survey the area around you. Walk boldly. You do not want to give a potential attacker the impression that you are an easy target. Avoidance is the ideal. How many times do women think about this? Probably never. But then again, this is not meant to be a self-defense, how-to guide for women, but rather, a call to women to stand up and take control of their personal security. Women who have the habit of entering the mindless, no-think zone while consistently ignoring potential threats are ripe for something awful to happen. Remember, criminals who attack women frequently scrutinize potential prey for easy pickings. They don’t want to tangle with a woman who appears to be alert or tough as nails. They are looking for women who are unaware, unassertive, and fragile.

10 comments:

ericire12 said...

http://www.babeswithbullets.com/

Anonymous said...

Good post. Re: title: The word's spelled weAning, with one e.

Anonymous said...

Actually, only semi-good post.

"I tend to think that most women don’t make sense, period,"

that's rather patronizing. Yeah, the author's a woman herself.

RKL said...

My formerly anti gun wife has finally come around. We've encountered a couple of situations together that she now admits it's better to be prepared. That plus tons of debating over the last couple of years.

RKL

alfsauve said...

Miss-use of the "Bambi" analogy. Bambi was a virile, male deer. He was "king of the forest". Why people name their baby girls Bambi is beyond me.

G. said...

I agree its only semi good.

The author seems arrogant and looks down on all the girlie-girls in the world.

The best way to get women in general to understand guns and not fear them is to take away the whole fear aspect of it.

If you re-enforce the thought that guns are only used for self defense (which in many anti-gun people's minds means killing) then you're going to make that person even more anti-gun.

Now if you can get these women to think of a gun like a cell phone, then you win.

I was listening to an old podcast from guntalk radio where the "caster" interviewed the previous president of the NRA, and what she said is very important.

"We must get into the hearts of the soccer moms"

She's right.

Create a shooting sport that lends itself to novice shooters that are wary of guns.

If you take away the intimidation of the gun (And yes, to a person who has never seen a gun, but on the news, movies or on TV, they are intimidating.) you can instill confidense with the new shooter.

Don't expect this to happen overnight. It will probably take months for it to happen. You have to remember that they've been gun wary for years!

Also, you gotta stop ontificating about politics.

Most of these women the author complains about voted for Obama.

If you carp on him and other "DemoRATS" you're just gonna push them away and give them more reasons to be antigun.

To be honest, The author would have a much better chance of getting these women to listen to her if she explained her gun beliefs the way that Oprah does.

Anonymous said...

The great thing about having a wife that never wants to see my guns is, I don't have to 'sneak' new ones into the house.

She's the same way with knives. How can a woman who is perfectly comfortable in the kitchen with an 8" chef's knife, recoil in horror when I pull out an Al-Mar Falcon to open a package or trim some flower stems?

Rastus said...

My wife is a girlie-girl that likes guns and thinks that women don't make sense. Eat your heart out guys.

Anyway, all of this...kumbaya, we are the world, hold hands, can't we all just get together stuff and would you please like our guns stuff has worked really well, hasn't it? Not to be sarcastic, but to highlight, what good has that thinking done...insanity--doing the same thing over and over hoping for different results. OK..so keep it up and see if you win their hearts and minds...

I tend not to patronize women by being "nice" to them all the time...that in itself is sexist. What's the matter...do you have to treat the "weaker" sex differently..and then "dis" a woman who says women are different? How much sense does that make...that's either tacit agreement with her or sexism..which one is it posters?

If they don't like you and are lost to the gun-hating-gods, like ooprahoo, then what are you going to do by being firm, frank and taking a stand with a woman...scare them into the 3rd ooprahoo heaven? Get real. And yes, that's a definite "dis" on ooprahoo. If you are sugar sweet polite to a woman you are actually saying that your issue is something they really don't have to act on ya'll are just trying to get along and it's allright because it's not really important enough to really stop being "friends".

Gee guys, have at least the balls to match the spunk of this women.

Gun lovin' hippie said...

Being patronizing is wrong, but so is being beligerant and that is what I got from Ms. De Coster's editorial.

The one thing to realise is that not everyone wants to own a gun. That goes for men as well as women. It is their choice to do so. We always talk about how important our freedoms are, so how imortant is the freedom to choose whether to own a firearm or not?

Now, you can choose to talk to a gun fearing person anyway you want (if you choose to talk to them at all), but remember that the way you talk to that person WILL be set as the example of how all gun owners are. You are the example to society. What do you want to be referred as:

The gun enthusiast -or- The gun nut!

Windy Wilson said...

Something alluded to in the original excerpt but not mentioned by anyone in comments is that many women seem to think the cellphone creates some sort of "safety zone" if they are walking and talking, no one will attack them because there will be this telephone witness. My girlfriend's parents wanted to get her a cell phone when she began to work late, so she could call when she got off work and again when she got to her car. I bought her a pepper spray to pin inside her coat. We can see how well the cellphone strategy worked with Dru Sjodin, who was abducted and murdered in 2003 apparently while talking on the cellphone.

Windy Wilson