Femininity and Firearms

Why Pink?

By Kathy Jackson

"Why does it have to be so ... girly? I mean, it's pink! Why pink instead of some more neutral color?" The question came from a friend of mine the other day. It's a valid question, one that I get fairly often from people who know me in person and then stumble across the Cornered Cat website for the first time. These folks who know me in real life all realize that I'm not really a pink-and-frilly type of person, more down to earth practical, usually wearing blue jeans and the earth tones that set off my reddish hair and brown eyes to best advantage. So what's with all the pink on the website?, they wonder.

While the question is common from curious friends, it also comes to me as a genuine concern or even a criticism from other gun owners, both male and female. The men who complain sometimes do so because (as one so charmingly put it), "How can I learn anything from a pink website?! Someone might see me reading it!" The women express concern that female firearms owners won't get taken seriously if we're all about pink this and frilly that -- that if we want to be respected in this male hobby, we should strive to be all business and no nonsense. That translates, of course, to meaning we should shun the merely feminine. Femininity is the opposite of competent, in the firearms world. So if we want to be taken seriously as competent and adult human beings, we should avoid any appearance of being strongly feminine. Anything but pink!

So here's the truth: when I decided to put together a website for beginning firearms owners, I deliberately chose a pink background set off with lots of frilly, lacy, feminine accents simply because I was fighting the exact same stereotypes that folks react against when they express surprise or concern about the color the site. It has always bothered me, this perception that shooting and self-defense are masculine activities. Once upon a time when I complained of some very rude treatment on a firearms message board, one of the participating jerks replied, "Well, honey, if you don't like being treated the way men treat each other, you should go find another hobby!" (Yes, really ... sigh.) This person was under the impression that the only reason a woman would get into shooting, enjoy being at the range, or show an interest in learning about self-defense, was if she really wanted to be "just one of the guys," being treated like a guy and acting like a guy herself.

Well!

My best friends have (until recent years!) always been guys, but I'm not a guy. I'm a woman, and I happen to enjoy firearms – especially self-defense firearms – and related topics. So what that person said just really got under my skin. That guy put it rudely and obviously, but I looked around and that assumption was everywhere. It was on every black-and-red website about firearms. It was on every page of every firearms magazine in the business. It was in every advertisement for "EXTREME!" this and "TACTICAL" that. It was everywhere, this assumption that firearms owners are all male, or women who want to be male.

So that was when I started plotting about building a very pink, very frilly, very feminine website about firearms. Truthfully, it was my response to this widespread and pernicious assumption that women who like firearms have to be masculine to be taken seriously. Nonsense, I said to myself. That's not true. We can be as absolutely feminine as we want to be, as long as we're competent and capable. People will take competence and visible capability seriously, whether it's wrapped in a pink and frilly cover or not.

Basically, I chose to reinforce a stereotype about women simply in order to kick the stupid out of a really annoying stereotype about firearms owners.

And along the way, I've discovered something: people do take my pink-and-frilly website seriously. They take it seriously not because it's pink, but because I've done my homework and have worked hard to provide accurate, realistic, honest information in a balanced way. So I confess that it's sometimes amusing to me when an email correspondent writes in apparent amazement, "Your site isn't just for women! There's stuff there that's useful for everyone..."

Well, yes. I hope so. That was one of the points I was trying to make with it. But only the people who are capable of seeing past the pink, frilly, feminine sugar coating are ever going to notice. And that's just fine with me.

Except where otherwise noted, all articles and images on this web site © 2006-2009 by Kathy Jackson. For permission to quote, please contact author.

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