# Why doesn't feminism support female gun ownership? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 12, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159 "2013-05-12T16:24:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/1 "2013-05-12T16:24:38Z")
There are a [substantial number of women who own guns](http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/02/rise-of-the-female-gun-nut.html) and having a gun in the face of a physical threat would seem to be an empowering thing to do in protecting yourself. It seems, however, that feminist political and ethical perspectives [really are not all onboard with gun ownership](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/women-gun-control_n_2318156.html)… at all. > [@](#): > > “If you look at the incidence of violence against women, the presence of guns in the home escalates lethality dramatically, and that is part of the feminist case for getting rid of these automatic and semiautomatic weapons in the home,” Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told HuffPost. “So we’ll be making the case from the perspective of the women’s movement for working with anti-gun groups.” > > O’Neill said that her organization is reaching out to the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence to join forces on the cause, even though she doesn’t believe that access to guns is to blame for these mass shootings. “It’s the mental illness that’s the problem,” she said. “Our pop culture is just astonishingly violent, and that needs to change. But the low-hanging fruit here is machine guns, for God’s sake, so you go after that first. They call them semi-automatic, but let’s be clear – they’re machine guns. It’s like Chicago in the 1920s.” > > While NOW is using the feminist angle to galvanize its female members, other women’s groups are simply tackling the gun control issue straight on. Ultraviolet, a women’s rights group that fights sexism in politics and the media, circulated a gun control petition on Monday that makes no mention of women or gender. [This woman believes](http://bitchmagazine.org/article/target-market) it’s because they still adhere to cliched gender expectations. > [@](#): > > For women, part of the tension around this topic is that female gun owners are marginalized in a feminist culture that promotes unarmed resistance and “clean” fighting techniques. These send the message that as long as a woman does not have a lethal means of protecting herself, she is still feminine and worthy of “real” protection—either from a man, or from the police. I grew up with the notion that self-defense achieved via martial arts, pepper spray, and the biggest keys on the key ring are how women combat sexual assault. Movies, media, and college self-defense classes reinforced the emphasis on clean fighting as the feminist way. And as I got older, my reporting on public safety in Texas led me to stories about pink personal Tasers and women involved in restorative justice—but never to women (rape survivors or not) who had decided to use more assertive means to protect themselves. To be a gun-owning feminist, to prepare to protect oneself against two of the most frightening enemies of female-identified people—rape and/or domestic violence—still strikes at the heart of what could be described as a feminist identity crisis, wherein women oppress each other with our inability to make room for alternative models of self-protection. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/2 "2013-05-12T16:37:24Z")
Because feminists don’t consider gun ownership a feminist issue. The fact is that there is no gender discrimination involving gun ownership – woman can buy guns as easily as a man. Feminism is about equality – in wages, in health care, in sexualty, and in health care. Guns are not a factor. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/3 "2013-05-12T16:43:33Z")
I think some feminists do support gun ownership. And some feminists own guns. I would guess most don’t but still, it isn’t a monolith. There’s differences of opinion. As to the feminists that don’t support gun ownership, I think it’s a combination of factors. Firstly, feminism is generally a liberal movement, and liberals/democrats generally are more supportive of gun control. Also, as your first quote mentioned, many women are killed by guns in the home. Statistically, they do not make women safer, it’s the opposite. So that’s a good reason. Also, feminism is generally associated with the social justice movement as a whole, and gun violence is something that causes a lot of problems in cities and among the lower classes. So where those groups overlap, there’s going to be agitation for gun control as well. eta: as mentioned above though, I think feminism as a movement doesn’t actually have a lot to say about gun control. That’s been my experience, and in so far as the feminists I read have written about gun control it wasn’t as much from a feminist perspective as from a liberal one. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/4 "2013-05-12T16:53:27Z")
Thankfully my wife is the opposite. She is much more likely to shoot, is a better shot & always is armed. Yes, legally, we both are. Like most ‘movements’ it is the wanting of equal & the keeping of the perks that causes the problem. Most equal rights folks have some of this issue to deal with. Really hard to have it both ways. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/5 "2013-05-12T17:12:51Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > feminism is generally a liberal movement, and liberals/democrats generally are more supportive of gun control. This is the obvious answer. Feminism is a leftist/liberal/progressive movement, and leftists & liberals do not support gun rights, generally speaking. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/6 "2013-05-12T17:21:46Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#): > > Thankfully my wife is the opposite. She is much more likely to shoot, is a better shot & always is armed. Yes, legally, we both are. > > Like most ‘movements’ it is the wanting of equal & the keeping of the perks that causes the problem. Most equal rights folks have some of this issue to deal with. > > Really hard to have it both ways. > > YMMV In what sense do you believe feminists\* are wanting things “equal” yet keeping the perks when it comes to gun control? \*feminists =/= women ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/7 "2013-05-12T18:09:40Z")
Could it be that many feminists would prefer to eliminate the flaws in society that require women to physical defend themselves rather than simply giving them more ways to defends themselves? Or, to put it another way, once when the neighborhood I lived in got really, really bad I didn’t go out and buy a gun to defend myself, I moved to a better and safer location where I didn’t need a gun. Instead of arming every woman why not build a society where people don’t feel a need to buy arms? Of course, there are some feminists who are pro-gun, just as there are those that are actively anti-gun, but I suspect most don’t view it as a priority issue. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/8 "2013-05-12T18:50:14Z")
That’s a better way of saying what I meant about social justice. I think feminists generally would like to see violence decrease as a whole, instead of just arming themselves. But again, opinions differ. I am a feminist, and I have very mixed feelings about gun ownership and gun control. Personally, i don’t feel the issues have much to do with each other, and my feelings about one do very little to inform my opinions about the other. The only time I’ve seen feminists discuss it at all is when gun rights groups used the threat of rape or domestic violence to say women should have guns, and then it mostly was just a rebuttal pointing out that statistically, a gun in the home is more likely to kill a woman than save her. It is my opinion that gun rights groups tried to latch themselves onto the feminist movement, without really informing themselves, and are generally not a friend to feminists, which was resented by the feminists I know. Ugh that’s wordy. I mean, look. Conservatives all of a sudden started agitating about how guns can help with domestic violence, which pissed off feminists because the issue is more complicated than that an also, hey, where were you assholes when it was time to pass VAWA? Don’t use our lives and safety in your political games. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/9 "2013-05-12T19:23:28Z")
As others have said, I don’t see much reason for feminism to be concerned with gun ownership one way or another. If women weren’t legally permitted to own firearms or were in some other way discriminated against when it came to gun ownership then there would be feminist reasons to be upset about that, but this is not the case. Feminists as individuals may certainly have opinions about gun ownership, and since most feminists are liberals then most (but not all) will likely share common liberal views about gun ownership. But these views aren’t rooted in feminism per se. Anecdotally, I know only two women who (to my knowledge) are strongly in favor of gun ownership. Here is how they describe their political views on Facebook: Woman #1) “Very Conservative” Woman #2) “Pro-choice, anti-death penalty, feminist, gun nut.” ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/10 "2013-05-12T20:59:51Z")
I wasn’t aware that ‘feminism’ was some monolithic thought pattern. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/11 "2013-05-12T21:26:49Z")
Might as well ask why feminism doesn’t support the space program. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/12 "2013-05-12T21:30:04Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > I wasn’t aware that ‘feminism’ was some monolithic thought pattern. I don’t recall anyone in this thread saying it was. You seem to be trying to construct something that isn’t there. However, even with different perspectives within feminism one commonly held aspect of feminism is that it focuses on female empowerment. Guns would seem to be a tool that correctly used can empowers women to protect themselves and yet guns are anathema to most feminists. As the last article writer pointed out > [@](#): > > To be a gun-owning feminist, to prepare to protect oneself against two of the most frightening enemies of female-identified people—rape and/or domestic violence—still strikes at the heart of what could be described as a feminist identity crisis, wherein women oppress each other with our inability to make room for alternative models of self-protection ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/13 "2013-05-12T22:45:39Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Guns would seem to be a tool that correctly used can empowers women to protect themselves and yet guns are anathema to most feminists. I don’t see any particular reason to believe that guns are anathema to most feminists. I could believe that most feminists aren’t really pro-gun, but that’s not the same thing as guns being _anathema_ to them and correlation isn’t causation anyway. I would guess that in the US more feminists are vegetarians than non-feminists, but there’s nothing about feminism that requires one to be a vegetarian. And while guns might _seem_ to be a useful tool to empower women, I’m skeptical as to whether that is in fact the case. I don’t own a gun because I don’t see that I have anything to gain from owning a gun. I do not believe I’d feel any more empowered than I do right now if I went out and bought a gun. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/14 "2013-05-12T23:32:43Z")
As I said, statistically a gun in the home will not be used by a woman to protect herself, in the event of domestic violence. It is far more likely that gun will be used to kill her. So the idea that feminists should support gun ownership by women to defend themselves from abusers doesn’t hold any water. Which isn’t to say all feminists hate guns or whatever. They don’t, in my experience. But you can’t invent a scenario that is the opposite of real life and then act puzzled as to why feminists don’t fall in line behind your position. They don’t agree because they know better. Also, again, many feminists resent conservative politicians feigning concern about domestic violence now that they see it can benefit their cause, when they were uninterested just a few months ago in doing something as basic as passing the Violence Against Women Act. Clearly, (some) conservative politicians are using this as some kind of “gotcha” and feminists resent it, because domestic violence isn’t a game. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/15 "2013-05-12T23:41:18Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > As I said, statistically a gun in the home will not be used by a woman to protect herself, in the event of domestic violence. It is far more likely that gun will be used to kill her. So the idea that feminists should support gun ownership by women to defend themselves from abusers doesn’t hold any water. > > Which isn’t to say all feminists hate guns or whatever. They don’t, in my experience. But you can’t invent a scenario that is the opposite of real life and then act puzzled as to why feminists don’t fall in line behind your position. They don’t agree because they know better. Also, again, many feminists resent conservative politicians feigning concern about domestic violence now that they see it can benefit their cause, when they were uninterested just a few months ago in doing something as basic as passing the Violence Against Women Act. Clearly, (some) conservative politicians are using this as some kind of “gotcha” and feminists resent it, because domestic violence isn’t a game. Also, there is the soccer mom crowd, who is fairly convinced that their precious Austin will be over at Sam’s house when Sam decides to show Austin his Dad’s cool gun - kept in the bedstand loaded because a gun you can’t get to doesn’t keep you safe, and Sam has been told to never touch the gun. And, unfortunately, that scenario isn’t unheard of. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-feminism-support-female-gun-ownership/658159/16 "2013-05-13T01:05:01Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > As I said, statistically a gun in the home will not be used by a woman to protect herself, in the event of domestic violence. It is far more likely that gun will be used to kill her. So the idea that feminists should support gun ownership by women to defend themselves from abusers doesn’t hold any water. Yeah, it’s never been clear to me how a battered wife is supposed to be able to keep a gun in the home she shares with her abusive husband so that it will be accessible to _her_ but not to _him_. I’m not sure it would even be legal for her to shoot her abuser with a gun she purchased for the specific purpose of shooting him with the next time he abused her. That sounds more like premeditated murder than self-defense. I also don’t see guns being very useful against rapists except in those rare cases where the rapist breaks into the victim’s home. I can be pretty confident that a home invader is up to no good well before he’s close enough to touch me. But it seems like in most other rape cases, whether the rapist is a stranger or an acquaintance, the victim couldn’t be 100% certain of his intentions until he actually attacked her. (I’m pretty rapists don’t typically stand several feet away and announce their intentions before proceeding.) At that point pulling out a gun might well result in the rapist wrestling it away and using it to threaten the victim. If women were to just open fire on any man who seemed creepy _before_ he attacked then there probably would be fewer rapes, but again this sounds like murder to me and would result in the deaths of many creepy-seeming but totally harmless men as well as actual would-be rapists.