Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (Fast Track Books)
by Mary Stange, Carol Oyster

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Book Reviews of Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (Fast Track Books)

Book Review: A welcome affirmation for female gun owners
Summary: 5 Stars

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."

Summary of Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (Fast Track Books)

"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

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.

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