O.K. I get that, but it’s a gun, not an iphone.
That’s not an attack. The thing is, never think anything is the ONLY option. Fuck, I may be a guy, but I think feminism is about creating options, and embracing those already there.
eta: To put it another way: I think all women should know how to cook. I also think all men should know how cook. It’s a basic skill. Use it and make it your own.
…wrong thread.
You assume wrong, buddy.
[QUOTE=armedmonkey]
What’s wrong with pink?
[/quote]
Nothing at all. However, there’s a lot wrong with the idea that women will automatically prefer things that are pink, or that only pink things are appropriate for marketing to women (especially when they’re items that are more typically purchased by men, such as guns and hand tools).
There is also a separate issue of the wrongness of commercially manufacturing lethal weapons with a “cute”, toy-like appearance that may result (and in at least one documented tragedy, has resulted) in more frequent confusion between toys and real guns.
Well, now you are talking about guns in general, rather than gender. You and I may view guns differently.
I view them as tools. A weapon is a tool. Your problem, I think, is you think that things normally associating with women are somehow weak or “cute”. I disagree.
I view a pink gun the same way as I would a pink power drill. If it’s merely a fashion statement, that’s fucking ridiculous. But if the woman wants it pink, and she can use the tool, why should anybody care? All it is, is marketing. Sure, it’s crass, but so what? I think it’s actually kind of feminist, actually.
To the extent women are in the market for guns, and to the extent they want anything different in guns from what men want, I should think what they want is a gun that’s light and easy to carry in a purse but still effective against a rapist or mugger. It needn’t be pink.
Oh goddamnit. No.
Let’s imagine a woman. She likes to fucking hunt deer. She wants her rifle pink. That doesn’t fit in a purse. What is the fucking problem? There isn’t one, because of course there isn’t one. Now extend that same concept to handguns.
As much as y’all are trying to dress it up, this isn’t about the color of guns, is it? This is about guns and an underlying sexism that y’all are far more guilty of than the firearms industry. The firearms industry thinks if they put some pinkwashing on their products, they will sell. You idiots are thinking that that your average woman has never seen pink washing. Have some fucking faith in females.
Uh, no, I’m talking about marketing guns with a “cute”, toy-like appearance (e.g., pink coloring, floral decorations, etc.) specifically in order to gender-code them as “something for women”. That’s talking about both guns and gender.
[QUOTE=armedmonkey]
Your problem, I think, is you think that things normally associating with women are somehow weak or “cute”. I disagree.
[/quote]
Then you disagree with a metric fuck-ton of marketing research that confirms that popular perception does associate traditionally “feminine” presentations of objects with being “weak” or “cute”.
Look, I get your not-very-original observation that “cute” “girly” packaging of an object doesn’t necessarily imply that the object’s owner is actually weak or silly. But you are missing the point that strongly embedded gender expectations in popular culture do in fact produce those associations and perceptions. (You’re also ignoring the abovementioned related issue that “girly” packaging designed to market to women is all too often accompanied by inferior design and inflated price.)
You don’t have to like these facts (neither do I), but you don’t get to simply assert that it ain’t so.
[QUOTE=armedmonkey]
I view a pink gun the same way as I would a pink power drill. If it’s merely a fashion statement, that’s fucking ridiculous. But if the woman wants it pink, and she can use the tool, why should anybody care? All it is, is marketing. Sure, it’s crass, but so what? I think it’s actually kind of feminist, actually.
[/QUOTE]
Make up your mind: is it fucking ridiculous , or is it kind of feminist? Is it merely a marketing ploy, or is it what women intrinsically want? Is it “crass” to market objects to women primarily as a “fashion statement”, or should everybody just not “care”?
You don’t have anything even remotely resembling a coherent point here. I mean, for a self-identified monkey it’s not at all bad, but it’s a long way from the benchmark for human reasoning skills.
How about if she wants her rifle teal blue, or emerald green? She can get one of those just as easily as a pink one, right? How about if a guy happens to want a brightly colored rifle? Lots of those on the market, are there? I mean, it would be rather odd if the only brightly colored rifles just happened to be pink and just happened to be marketed to women, right?
Your disingenuous implication that marketers “pinkwashing” guns for women just happens to be a neutral response to something that female consumers are spontaneously demanding is not convincing.
[QUOTE=armedmonkey]
As much as y’all are trying to dress it up, this isn’t about the color of guns, is it?
[/quote]
Well yes, as a matter of fact that’s exactly what it’s about.
Why do you keep thinking guns are being sold like iphones? They are not.
Admit it. You think pink is feminine and “cute” and therefore doesn’t belong on something traditionally masculine.
That’s my point. Guns don’t come in a range of designer colors. Manufacturers are making and marketing pink ones deliberately to capitalize on the popular perception that “pink = for women”.
[QUOTE=armedmonkey]
Admit it. You think pink is feminine and “cute” and therefore doesn’t belong on something traditionally masculine.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not what I personally think, you poor confused monkey. It’s the recognized fact that people in general perceive packaging that is “feminine and cute”, including the color pink, as not belonging on something traditionally masculine.
Therefore, manufacturers of “traditionally masculine” products such as tools, sports equipments, guns, electronics, etc., sometimes try to “feminize” the packaging of certain versions of their products specifically to present the “feminized” versions as “something women should buy”.
I’m not sure why this unremarkable and by no means novel concept is proving so difficult for you to grasp.
I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. You think marketing to the feminine side of women is innately wrong, and I don’t. So be it.
Sometimes.
Sometimes I go into a weapon shop and I’m offered the full range of options. Sometimes, though, I get pushed toward the “girl guns” in pink even when I state plainly I want to look at other models. In the context of the first shop there is nothing offensive about pink guns. In the context of the second shop, it’s not the pink guns that are offensive, it’s the salesman’s attitude that I couldn’t possibly want or be offered anything BUT pink guns.
You are, as usual, wrong in your assertion. What I think is “innately wrong” is making real guns look like toys, not because of marketing-sexism issues but because it’s dangerous.
The more general sexism-in-marketing issue about “pinkwashing”, which isn’t by any means limited to weapons manufacturers, isn’t so much “innately wrong” as just kind of dumb and unnecessarily limiting. When marketers put “feminine” packaging on a certain subset of their products, they’re implying both that the pink girly-looking products are for women, and that products that aren’t pink and girly-looking aren’t for women. As the “pinkwashing in tech” article that I linked to earlier discusses, that tends to shunt female customers into a more limited product range that is not only “feminized” in appearance, but often inferior in quality and overpriced.
What the “pinkwashing” gun manufacturers ought to do, if they really want to encourage serious interest in gun use and ownership among women, is simply to market their regular products to women by showing ads with serious, competent female shooters using their products, the same way they show serious, competent male shooters when they want to market to men.
But of course, in that case male consumers would be likely to think that the products are not sufficiently “manly”, since the ads show women using them, and would resist purchasing them for themselves.
And so we’re back again on the tired old sexist-consumerism treadmill where OMG we can’t have men and women using the same stuff!!! :eek:
“The fairer sex”? That’s a bit chauvinistic isn’t it? Or is that just politically incorrect?
Women shoppers want (demand?) a broader selection of colors to choose from. Green, blue, black, nickel, chrome, parkerized, pink, camo, etc. Pink products sell. Mostly to women, but men buy them also. Many companies provide pink products in order to increase sales.
From the NRA linked article in the Thinkprogress progressive/anti-2nd/pro-gun banners linked article you provided -
In 2001 there were 1.8 million registered female hunters in the U.S., but by 2013 that number almost doubled to 3.3 million. That’s an 85 percent increase in the number of female hunters nationwide.
Give the customers what they want. Overall firearms sales are up and firearm sales to women are up.
Still have one. It’s stained, so I need another to wear with a tie at work. And I need another orange Oxford. I’m very secure in my heterosexuality, but I draw the line at pink donuts, since I’m allergic to the dye.
Fuckin’ A! Except browning is older than bluing, so Adam probably had a brown barrel. Except with God, all things are possible. The Bible doesn’t clarify it.
Garand or Carbine? 'Cuz the M1 Carbine was totally girly.
Back in the '80s, didn’t S&W market .38s with engraved and enameled pink roses? No wonder they didn’t sell. I mean, did they think about how gunky a revolver would get in a woman’s purse?
Lel the feminists are up in arms over the color pink.
This’ll really get the boys on y’r side, mesdames.
It’s interesting that gun enthusiasts in this thread evade this central point. I guess they don’t have a problem when toy guns are confused with real ones. Huh.
It didn’t use to be this way. Back in the 1960s the NRA favored gun safety. Now they are all about enriching their leaders, who pull in more than $1 million per year, as they jizz up their marks. Heck, I seem to recall previous threads on this message board where responsible gun owners said that they personally didn’t let their kids have toy guns, because it sent the wrong message. Under proper supervision and careful evaluation of the individual kid, they would let seven year olds shoot a rifle. With those caveats, that sounds reasonable to me.
Responsible gun ownership. A declining institution.
That’s the problem when gun enthusiasts are marinated in the crazy. They get crazy themselves. I’m personally not convinced that all pink firearms necessarily look like toys. I do think this is an issue though. From what I can tell, gun enthusiasts on this message board disagree. Such a stance doesn’t strike me as serious or responsible.
OTOH, I would find it difficult to deny any kid a few rounds of chocolate ammunition. That sounds awesome.
NM
There is nothing inherently toy-like about a pink gun that doesn’t also apply to a black gun. It’s nothing more than colored plastic. The problem isn’t colors, it’s the owners that allow children unfettered access to a gun. Satisfied now?
Oh come on, Airman. I’ve got nothing against responsible law-abiding people owning guns, but surely you’re not trying to deny the simple fact that bright-colored plastic objects are often more attractive to young children than plain black plastic objects, because they are typically associated with playthings.
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
The problem isn’t colors, it’s the owners that allow children unfettered access to a gun.
[/QUOTE]
That is definitely by far the biggest part of the problem, but the color issue is a problem in itself. Blurring the distinction between bright-colored gun-shaped objects which are toys and sober-colored gun-shaped objects which are not toys is simply not a very smart idea.
Shee-heeesh. What’s next, car owners whining because many people think it’s a bad idea for private vehicles to be painted with the black-and-white pattern of a cop car, or with allover chrome paint that reflects a blinding glare? "But it’s MY car/gun, I should be able to have it look however I want it to look! I’m not going to sacrifice MY FREEEEEEDOM just to avoid confusing or endangering people!! :mad: :mad: "
