0:03

Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told

0:05

You from how Stuff Works dot Com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

0:14

and I'm Caroline. And since this is

0:16

the first brand new podcast

0:19

of this brand new year, we

0:21

decided to start things off with a bang. Literally,

0:26

yep, hunting a bang, shooting

0:28

things. We're starting off with a

0:30

bang in a pun because we're

0:32

going to talk about women and hunting, and

0:34

I feel like we should go ahead and just foreworn

0:38

vegetarians and vegans and animal

0:41

rights supporters listening

0:43

that we're going to be talking unabashedly

0:46

about hunting. Although

0:49

this in no way reflects our

0:51

personal views on hunting.

0:54

Yeah, we're not advocating one way or another.

0:56

Yea. We simply want to talk

0:59

to you about out uh

1:01

women hunting stuff. Yeah,

1:04

because hunting is an important

1:06

and very stuff mom never told you ish

1:08

topic to cover because,

1:11

in the words of feminist scholar

1:13

Mary's Stage, hunting

1:15

might be the most male identified

1:17

cultural pursuit and

1:20

things don't get much more gender e than

1:23

hunting. Whether you're thinking about mythology

1:26

with Diana the Goddess of the Hunt, whether

1:29

you're thinking about evolution where

1:31

you have hunter gatherer societies

1:33

with men going out to hunt and women going

1:36

to gather and take care of the children.

1:38

And then are more modern

1:40

conceptions of hunting,

1:43

which are usually men with guns,

1:46

right exactly. And so it's interesting kind of

1:48

in our in our research to watch as the

1:51

attitudes about hunting and about

1:53

women and hunting in particular kind

1:55

of evolved. But to kick

1:58

things off, there's this theory out there. It's

2:00

called the man the Hunter theory, and it was popularised

2:02

during the nineteen sixties and seventies, and

2:04

the focus really is on the word

2:06

man, because this theory

2:09

is about how we

2:11

evolved as upright

2:13

types of creatures based on the

2:16

fact that men we're

2:18

going out into the savannah grass

2:20

and they were hunting and they had to stand up on

2:22

their legs, they had to stand upright

2:25

to be able to hunt their big prey.

2:27

And there's just very little

2:30

in this theory that even mentions

2:32

women or their role or whether they were

2:34

out there hunting alongside men. But

2:37

there are some wrinkles in this man the Hunter

2:39

theory, not only in

2:41

terms of women's role in

2:44

these early societies, because first

2:46

of all, you have researched by Jane Goodall which

2:48

found that male chimps hunt

2:51

monkeys, And why this is significant is

2:54

that those chimps, which are our closest

2:56

living relatives, which are

2:58

not upright creed yours,

3:00

are also engaging in this hunting behavior.

3:03

Right, so it's possible that we had ancestors

3:05

who were hunting before they could

3:08

stand up right. And now there's

3:10

this research that was published in the journal

3:12

Current Biology UM talking

3:15

about chimps in particular. And it's not

3:17

really news that they use tools. We know they fashioned

3:19

sticks to dig worms out of logs and

3:21

things like that, but researchers

3:24

in Synegal saw chimpanzees

3:26

using tools to hunt and kill. And

3:28

they saw the chimps fashioning sticks

3:31

into spears and ramming

3:33

them into trees to kill and eat bush

3:35

babies, and that sounds horrifying. And I was

3:37

like, okay, well bush baby

3:39

sounds really cute, um, but I

3:42

don't know what it is, so let me google it. And

3:44

I assumed it was going to be a worm or an insect

3:46

of some type. And it's maybe like one

3:48

of the cutest little animals

3:50

I've ever seen. It's called a gala ghost. Yeah,

3:53

like galaghos or galagos or something.

3:55

It's like these big eyes, and I'm like, oh

3:57

my god, they're getting hunted by chimpanzee.

4:00

And while that is tragic that these

4:03

adorable animals are being

4:05

killed by other animals, which is

4:07

exactly what human hunting is. But anyway,

4:10

um, in terms of these chimps

4:13

in Senegal, what the researchers

4:15

noticed that only one out

4:17

of twenty two instances that they witnessed

4:20

were male chimps doing

4:22

the hunting. Thirteen of

4:25

those hunts were actually

4:27

led by female chimps,

4:29

right, and so that pairs with the whole theory

4:32

of Okay, so it's possible that we had ancestors

4:34

who were hunting before we were upright, Well, it's

4:36

also possible that those ancestors were

4:39

female, and in considering the

4:41

divisions of labor among our ancestors

4:44

human ancestors like chimpanzees.

4:47

There has also been a recent

4:49

theory postulated about Neanderthals

4:53

and weather women. Neanderthals

4:56

were also hunting because their

4:58

body frames were massive, they were

5:01

pretty close in size to male

5:03

Neanderthals, And this was

5:05

reported on in The New York Times in December

5:07

two thousand six, and it

5:10

was brought up by

5:12

a pair of anthropologist at the University

5:14

of Arizona, who say that modern

5:16

humans, starting with the hunter gatherer societies,

5:19

had a division of labor, and

5:21

the division between the hunting and the gathering

5:24

is really what allowed them to outlast

5:26

Neanderthals, where everybody

5:29

was probably pitching in to hunt large

5:31

game, right, So

5:33

that gender equality among the

5:35

Neanderthals, the fact that males

5:38

and females were out there hunting large

5:40

game, which is broody, dangerous, to get

5:42

up really close to big animals. That

5:45

left the vulnerable children,

5:47

the young Neanderthals, and the women exposed

5:50

to basically getting trampled just the same

5:52

as the men. Yeah, because the kinds

5:54

of animals that they would have been hunting

5:56

would have been bison, dear gazells,

5:59

and wild horses, the types of animals

6:01

that that flourished in Europe in the

6:04

Ice Age. So that means they had to get up pretty

6:06

close. Yeah, they were. They were getting up close to trampling

6:08

types of animals, right. But by the Upper

6:10

Paleolithic era, which is around forty to

6:13

ten thousand years ago, we have that

6:15

pretty solid division between the

6:18

men going out to hunt and the women still

6:20

gathering but protecting the quote

6:22

unquote reproductive core Yeah, I

6:24

like that. That sounds like really advanced.

6:27

That's reproductive core. Yeah, that's

6:29

what they call their their huts, their old

6:31

school years. Stay at the reproductive

6:33

core while I go bison hunting,

6:36

That's right, and not get trampled. Yeah.

6:39

Well, so moving really really

6:42

a lot far forward. Let's

6:44

look at the wild West and just kind of the

6:46

West in general, westward expansion with the pioneers

6:49

and and everybody moving out west, and how

6:51

we have talked in the podcast before about

6:55

kind of the suspension of gender norms

6:57

almost with with pioneers and people

6:59

moving out west, because they're moving out of the comfort

7:01

of their Eastern Seaboard

7:04

homes and going out

7:06

and having to deal with situations and conditions

7:09

that certainly the people they left behind we're not

7:11

dealing with exactly. And Karen

7:13

Jones writes about this in her

7:15

paper Lady Wildcats and Wild Women

7:17

Hunting. Gender in the Politics of show

7:20

womanship in the nineteenth century

7:22

American West, and she talks

7:24

about how in that wild West environment,

7:26

where you obviously need

7:29

to survive their wild animals

7:31

around, you're going to have to kill them and eat them in order

7:33

to do that, and it's not going

7:35

to be so much up to whether

7:38

you are male or female as

7:40

to who's going to go out and procure

7:43

said meat, right, is that the

7:45

fact that there were women out there alongside

7:47

men, And despite that fact,

7:50

that reality of having to have both

7:53

men and women pitching in alongside each

7:55

other, Despite that, the narratives

7:57

from the nineteenth century American West focus

8:00

mainly on male hunter heroes, and

8:02

they're, you know, these heroic, brave,

8:05

rugged types of gentlemen, and

8:08

the women in these stories these narratives are

8:10

still portrayed even though they were pitching in. We're

8:12

still portrayed as more of these subservient

8:14

companions. Even though, as

8:17

Jones talks about in this paper, hunting

8:20

was very much a part of surviving

8:23

in the West, and she writes,

8:26

hunting became part of the subsistence culture

8:28

of the pioneer, a recreational pastime

8:30

for lady adventurers, and a performative

8:33

device for the public articulation

8:35

of the wild woman. And in

8:38

no other figure is that

8:40

articulation of the wild woman more embodied,

8:43

and in that of calamity Jane

8:45

who Jones talks about, Yeah, in the

8:47

kind of hierarchy of

8:49

the different types of women that um

8:52

Jones discussed us out West, Calamity

8:54

Janes kind of at the top as far as wild women

8:56

go. She pursued traditionally

8:58

male activities, life style, and dress.

9:00

She hunted alongside men, and she described

9:03

herself as a fearless rider and a good

9:05

shot. She sort of represented that

9:07

whole Western frontier novelty

9:10

and as Jones points out, performative

9:12

displays of sporting masculinity.

9:16

And I mean, so, you

9:18

know, she was this incredible pioneer

9:20

figure who captured americans

9:22

imaginations back east, back

9:25

home, but she was certainly not

9:27

the only type of woman out there.

9:29

Jones moves on to the ladies

9:31

sportsman. Hunting for this type

9:33

of figure out West was sort of, uh

9:36

an empowering excursion almost.

9:38

She talks about loving the adventure

9:41

out in the wild, learning

9:43

to shoot and ride horses, transcending

9:45

the boundaries of conventional feminine

9:48

behavior. These ladies sportsmen were

9:51

mostly, for the most part, I would say, upper class,

9:53

upper class white women who were wealthier,

9:56

and they weren't necessarily

9:58

having to go out on a hunt and then gut

10:01

and clean all of the things that they killed.

10:03

But they were out there sort of communing with nature.

10:06

Yeah, they're out there to sort of find themselves.

10:09

And this is this too, is where

10:11

we really start to see that highlight

10:13

in the United States of

10:16

sport hunting as opposed to subsistence

10:18

hunting, like hunting for things because you need to

10:20

survive. But you see

10:22

sport hunting being so closely

10:24

interwoven with class because

10:27

obviously in England you

10:29

have the tradition of wealthy people going

10:31

fox hunting, and that is something that's

10:33

carried over in certain areas

10:35

of the United States, and very much

10:38

the lady sportsman is

10:40

the manifestation of that rich

10:44

white person going out for

10:46

sport because it would better

10:48

themselves. Yeah, and Jones points out

10:50

that, you know, despite the fact that a lot of those

10:53

narratives from the time, from the nineteenth century

10:55

West, focus on hunter heroes, male hunter

10:57

heroes, she says that women were just

10:59

as likely to be enticed by those

11:01

stories by the idea of going out west

11:04

with Theodore Roosevelt and his breed of sportsmen

11:06

adventurers to get

11:08

out there on the game trail with

11:11

personal development of mind. Well, and imagine

11:13

how exciting it must have been at the time. Because

11:15

this is something that popped up in our

11:18

episodes on Madam's

11:20

in the wild West, and also on the

11:22

history of women in photography, because

11:24

it's really in the West that photography

11:27

flourishes. And also brothels,

11:31

but they're led by women because

11:33

these are spaces where there

11:36

aren't those rules, and so you

11:38

could go out there, you could hunt, you could explore

11:40

things, you could literally achieve

11:42

a different kind of enlightenment

11:45

in a way by being so close

11:47

to nature. Um,

11:50

but we you have to round out that list

11:52

of the types of women

11:54

in the West and hunting with the homesteader.

11:57

Now, these are more of the women who would

11:59

be involved in straight up subsistence

12:02

hunting, because this is the Laura

12:04

Ingalls Wilder style need

12:07

to survive and put food

12:09

on the table, right, And those sports

12:11

sportswomen, I guess sports hunter

12:14

women, lady people would have looked

12:16

down upon the homesteaders

12:18

to some degree because these people were

12:20

not, you know, the elite from

12:22

the east. They were actually, like Chris

12:25

and said, they were actually out there trying to make a

12:27

living. And Jones cites homesteads

12:29

like Evelyn Cameron, who was part

12:32

of a female hunting culture that was really

12:34

more utilitarian and domestic. You would

12:36

be out there alongside your husband,

12:39

you would be gutting those animals, and you would be

12:41

cleaning them and doing all of the dirty work while

12:43

still having to worry about the laundry and the cooking

12:45

and the cleaning. Yeah, and it's actually

12:47

with that homesteading where you see

12:49

more of the reinforcement of traditional

12:52

gender norms, with women taking care of

12:54

more of the domestic, staying

12:57

close by the reproductive core right

12:59

while the men would venture out.

13:02

Um. But also though, if we look at

13:04

the turn of the century, moving up into

13:07

the late eighteen hundred's and early nineteen

13:09

hundreds, the culture of sport hunting

13:12

has gotten, has has developed

13:15

to a point to where you have entire

13:17

magazines like Outdoor

13:19

Life that are completely devoted to

13:21

hunting, and women

13:23

were very much a part of

13:26

that culture. And this is also when we're talking

13:28

about more of looking at hunting

13:30

through more of a classes lens, where

13:32

it's seen as a leisurely pastime

13:35

rather than a necessity.

13:37

And there was in nineteen

13:39

o five an Outdoor Life profile

13:42

of a quote unquote tireless Diana

13:45

mythological reference there, who would

13:47

leave her corset at home to go

13:49

out on the hunt. How much

13:52

fun to take the corset off

13:54

and then go hunting any excuse

13:56

to take the freaking corset off. Well. At the

13:58

turn of the century though, as Andrea Smalley,

14:01

who researched a centuries

14:03

worth of the sporting magazines

14:06

to look at how women are discussed

14:08

in the context of sport hunting, uh,

14:11

women at the turn of the century were desired

14:15

in the hunting world because

14:17

that demographic was seen as

14:20

sort of a legitimizing factor

14:23

for hunting. They took some of the

14:26

perceived savagery out of hunting

14:28

and lent some respectability to

14:30

it. So you had in

14:32

nineteen o five these profiles of tyroless

14:35

Diana's and other women who would go

14:37

out and hunt. Yeah, because this hunting

14:39

that they're talking about is that sports

14:41

sportsman's hunting, and so they have

14:43

you know, women have a softening quote unquote

14:46

softening influence on the men that they're going out

14:48

hunting with, which we will get

14:50

too shortly. Is a sentiment that's echoed

14:52

about women and hunting today as well. Well.

14:55

And the one thing too that was

14:57

mentioned in one of the papers that I wanted

14:59

to look more into but just didn't

15:01

have time, was how also

15:04

at the turn of the century, you have

15:06

these women who are figuring out how to

15:09

sort of subvert gendered

15:13

norms and also be able to hunt at the same time.

15:15

So by creating their like homemade

15:18

bifurcated skirts, so they could either

15:20

ride a stride or mastering side

15:22

saddling in such a way that they could still

15:25

hunt at the same time, which seems impossible.

15:28

I mean talk about reproductive core, Like literally,

15:30

your core would have to be so strong to keep you on

15:32

that horse and balance a gun at the same

15:34

time. I can't imagine. Yeah, so

15:36

it's pretty incredible that these women

15:39

were going out and doing this. But

15:42

once you move into the

15:44

mid nineteen hundreds, there

15:46

is such a major shift in the perception

15:49

of hunting. Obviously, there's

15:51

always been this idea that it is

15:53

more of a man's sport, but

15:56

by the mid twentieth century,

15:58

they just really didn't women around

16:00

at all. Yeah, And the

16:03

turning point that Smalley

16:06

uses as an example is when

16:08

Kristen Sergle wrote a defense of

16:10

hunting and her gender really wasn't

16:13

a topic at all. In the article

16:15

that she wrote, she said, I just like

16:18

to kill things. And while she certainly wasn't

16:20

alone during this period, in the mid

16:22

twentieth century. It wasn't exactly a transgressive

16:25

act either. You know, this was still, like we said, sportsman's

16:27

hunting, sportsman's magazines. They weren't

16:29

trying to necessarily contradict

16:32

notions of femininity. They were just saying, like, I like

16:34

to kill things, and I like to be outside, and I want

16:36

to, you know, be out there, whether it's alongside

16:38

my husband or not. But it's

16:40

around this time after World

16:43

War Two that men start to respond

16:45

really negatively to women

16:48

being in sport hunting because it was during

16:50

that post war period that hunting

16:52

got it sort of modern day connotations

16:55

of it's a man's man kind

16:57

of activity. I go out there with my buddies

16:59

and I'm going to bond with them, especially

17:02

at this time military vets.

17:04

Yeah, it makes perfect sense that that's going

17:06

on because you have these

17:09

men who are coming home who have been bonding

17:11

with other men while hold

17:14

up, you know, in trenches with

17:17

guns, hunting for

17:19

the enemy in a way. So of

17:21

course they're gonna recreate

17:24

that kind of activity

17:26

when their states side. And

17:28

when you look at some of the commentary

17:32

in magazines like Field and Stream and Outdoor

17:34

Life at the time, they are,

17:36

they're so appalled to even

17:38

have women around because that

17:40

was that was their method of

17:43

of bonding for some of them. I

17:47

really feel like this whole

17:49

thing with men feeling like women's

17:52

participation in hunting undermines the

17:54

sport is echoed so strongly

17:56

in today's discussion about women in football,

17:59

like men liking football, women

18:02

being fans and going to games, women being

18:04

on the sidelines reporting. I feel

18:06

like it's the same thing because around

18:08

this time, men are saying that

18:11

women are undermining basically

18:14

the significance of the sport, the

18:16

the like the genuine aspects

18:18

of it, well in the sacred space that

18:21

they have. It's like, women, listen,

18:23

don't you have the entire home. You

18:25

have all these new appliances post

18:27

World War Two that you're being given

18:30

and it's making your life amazing. Let

18:32

me go out by myself into

18:34

the woods and commune with nature. And

18:37

you also have to remember too that after

18:40

World War Two we have that shift

18:42

of women from the workplace

18:44

back to the home. You have the baby booms start

18:46

to happen, and this resurgence

18:49

of traditional domesticity.

18:52

But I love that observation though, about football

18:54

being that modern day hunting,

18:57

it seems so true. Well, just thinking that

18:59

women participation in something

19:02

is inauthentic, that women have a

19:04

different version of it, when really, I mean, during

19:06

this time, women didn't stop writing in

19:08

these magazines about their own hunting experiences.

19:11

It's just that, you know, men were sort

19:13

of drowning them out. Yeah, there was

19:15

smally sites one

19:18

one cover of Field and Stream that features

19:21

a woman in the foreground with

19:24

a gun and then a guy in the background,

19:26

And apparently it was pretty radical at the time

19:28

to have a woman on the cover of Field and

19:30

Stream, even though fifty years prior it

19:33

wasn't so uncommon for something

19:36

like that to happen. But as those

19:39

ideas of masculinity

19:41

and hunting become even more tightly

19:44

bound when you move forward and

19:46

look at hunting rhetoric,

19:48

not so much today. I have a feeling the dial

19:51

has probably shifted a little little

19:53

bit away from this as more women are starting

19:55

to participate in hunting. But according

19:57

to a paper from two thousand

20:00

for called Animals, Women and Weapons blurred

20:02

sexual boundaries in the discourse of sport

20:04

hunting that again looked

20:06

into advertising

20:08

and articles and the just the language used

20:11

in hunting magazines mentions

20:14

of women are almost exclusively

20:17

sexualized, where

20:20

you have things like, you know, women

20:22

being the prey, men being predators,

20:25

those kinds of uncomfortable

20:27

dichotomys. Well, the author

20:29

the study authors literally bring up

20:32

a an example of this, this video

20:34

called Hunting for Bamby from two thousand three,

20:36

which sounds absolutely horrifying.

20:39

Um. Basically, viewers watch naked

20:41

women hunted down and shot with paintball

20:44

guns. And so the

20:46

authors used that to illustrate just

20:48

like the actual literal sexualization

20:51

of hunting and women

20:53

and guns. Well, and with our just

20:55

everyday language too. If you think about

20:58

how we even just talk about eating

21:00

and being, you know, on the hunt,

21:03

on the prowl, on the chase, looking for

21:06

prey. And I remember, this is

21:08

a total tangent, I realized. But

21:11

I remember in college,

21:13

Caroline seeing a

21:16

girl wearing a T shirt from a

21:19

Greek party, a sorority party

21:22

where the theme was the hunters

21:24

and the hunting, and

21:27

it was men in camo and the

21:30

women were dressed like dear,

21:32

I knew you were gonna say it. I didn't want you to say

21:35

it, but that's it ties

21:37

in though, and I will never forget

21:39

that. And she was just blively wearing this

21:42

T shirt around, and even

21:44

when I was probably like nineteen and seeing

21:46

that, I was horrified. Yeah,

21:49

you want to be like, don't you know what you're wearing? But

21:52

yeah, the study authors say, um

21:55

that things like that video um

21:57

are resilient popular culture images

22:00

that celebrate and glorify weapons, killing,

22:02

and violence, laying the groundwork for the perpetuation

22:05

of attitudes of domination, power,

22:07

and control over others. So if you had said

22:09

that so the girl on the shirt, she probably would have been

22:11

like, what are you saying to me?

22:14

Well, and this also isn't demonizing

22:17

every man who enjoys hunting as

22:20

some kind of closet misogynists,

22:22

But you have to look at how the

22:25

culture in the language around it has

22:28

developed up to this point where you do have

22:30

those problematic intersections

22:33

of hunting and the sexual

22:35

objectification of women, where

22:38

it's like whoa, no, we don't want that,

22:40

which is maybe one reason why theoretically,

22:43

in a way, you could say that it's great

22:45

that more women are hunting,

22:48

because what you're seeing now, it seems like, is

22:50

more of a return to that turn

22:52

of the century appreciation

22:54

and desire for women to be hunting.

22:57

As a legitimizing

22:59

fact. Yeah, yeah, no, I

23:01

could totally see that, and more more women are

23:04

getting into it for kind

23:06

of all of the reasons we talked about from the

23:08

beginning of time. I mean, there are women

23:10

getting into it for the sport aspect,

23:13

to bond with other women, to get

23:16

meat to keep in the freezer for the rest of the year.

23:18

I mean, for every possible reason that we've already talked about

23:21

exists in the resurgence we're seeing now. Yeah,

23:23

I mean, because you could look at it in

23:26

terms of traditional gender roles, where

23:28

women even today tend

23:31

to be the ones who

23:33

are overseeing a households

23:35

food choices, and so you

23:37

have some women being motivated to get closer

23:39

to the sources of their food. You have

23:42

tied in with that desires for

23:44

sustainability and conservation because

23:47

hunting licenses and a lot

23:49

of pro hunting groups are very

23:51

pro conservation because without the conservation

23:54

of land and habitats, you can't have animals

23:56

to hunt um. And then you

23:58

also just have the heightened

24:01

visibility of more women

24:04

who are hunters. For instance,

24:07

the rise of women hunting

24:10

since the mid two thousand's has

24:12

been referred to like it or not as the

24:14

Sarah Palin effect, because

24:17

she was a prominent hunter. You know, she was all

24:19

about that and that was part of her whole campaign

24:21

pitch and still part of her personality today

24:23

where she is living in Alaska,

24:26

told her gun around and

24:29

yeah, and I mean she she is cited by by

24:31

a lot of the women that we read about in some of these

24:33

articles as far as like not because they

24:36

like her politics or don't like her politics or

24:38

whatever, but just like, Okay, well, she's a mom

24:41

who's out there carrying a gun around in the woods, killing

24:43

animals for food, and so it's you

24:45

know, it's like, oh, well, I guess okay, people

24:47

do that, women do that. She can do that and still wear makeup

24:49

and be feminine, and so I'm not scared of it. Maybe I'll

24:51

try it. Yeah, And you have Brenda Valentine,

24:54

who is considered the first Lady of

24:56

hunting, and she's also a spokesperson

24:58

for the National Old Turkey Federation.

25:01

And then someone who's not so much identified

25:03

with hunting but more that homesteading

25:06

and pioneering resurgence that we touched

25:08

on a little bit in our Crafting episode

25:10

a few weeks ago. The pioneer woman

25:13

read Drummond, who's very much

25:15

about you know, getting back to the land

25:17

and cooking and working with meat,

25:21

order with meat, meat, maybe meat pies

25:24

tying in all of our episodes together. Um

25:27

well, so let's look at the stats. It is

25:29

very interesting to see these sharp increase

25:31

in women hunting. Men

25:34

do still account for the majority of the

25:36

thirteen point seven million US

25:38

hunters, but as National

25:40

Geographic reports, women who

25:42

are active hunters are on the rise.

25:45

The total number of women hunters has surged

25:47

by from two

25:49

thousand and six ton after

25:51

holding steady for a decade, according to

25:54

the Census, And that adds

25:56

up to today eleven

25:58

percent of all US hunters

26:01

being women, compared to nine percent

26:03

in two thousand six. And

26:05

even if you look at just target shooting, not

26:08

just going out to try

26:11

to hunt down animals,

26:13

female participation has grown forty

26:15

six point five percent from

26:17

two thousand one to two thousand ten according

26:20

to the National Sporting Goods Association.

26:23

And if you look just at plain old gun ownership,

26:26

of women now own a gun, according

26:29

to a Gallop Pole from

26:31

and if you are wondering, now, why

26:33

aren't they doing a podcast on gun

26:35

ownership? We did do one years

26:38

ago, but maybe it's time

26:40

for an update with all of the conversations

26:43

nationally that have been happening around gun

26:45

ownership. So side

26:47

note there if you'd like to hear it, Yeah,

26:50

let us know. But we in the US

26:52

are certainly not the only ones seeing a

26:54

rise in women hunting. In

26:57

Japan, for instance, they're the

26:59

number of hunters have like radically

27:01

dropped by by about more than half, and most

27:04

of the hunters remaining are older

27:06

men. But Japanese women

27:09

in their twenties and thirties are emerging as one

27:11

of the hunting populations whose numbers are

27:13

growing or staying the same.

27:16

In Norway's on an increase of six and

27:18

the number of women hunters over the past ten years,

27:21

and Germany, of all the new hunters getting

27:23

their licenses in nineteen

27:25

point eight percent were women, showing a steady

27:28

increase. So women are getting

27:30

more into the hunt around the world.

27:32

It's not just in the United States, and not surprisingly,

27:35

as more women have shown

27:37

more interest in hunting, so

27:40

have marketers looking to tap

27:43

into this not so new demographic

27:45

who has all of a sudden raising their hands

27:47

saying that they would like to go out and

27:49

so you're now seeing more

27:52

apparel, more guns specifically

27:55

designed for women, more bows designed for women,

27:57

because it's not just guns that people

27:59

use in hunting, um and more,

28:01

just equipment in general designed

28:04

for the female hunter. And

28:06

at first when this was happening, it

28:08

was all pink it and shrink it right. This

28:11

was has reported on in the Wall

28:13

Street Journal a few years ago when they first

28:15

noticed this uptick in female

28:18

hunters. It was oh,

28:20

the worst, the worst descriptions

28:23

of products, which were pink

28:25

guns, pink camo, pink

28:27

this and that. Just assuming that if,

28:30

as a number of gun manufacturers did

28:32

that, if they sawed off about half

28:34

an inch on the stock of a gun to

28:37

account for women's typically

28:40

shorter arm span,

28:42

that that would that would be fun, especially if they coated

28:44

it in pink, than women would just gobble

28:47

it up. Well, it's good to have pink

28:49

camo and guns and stuff though, so you can blend

28:51

in naturally with the oh

28:53

wait no, um

28:56

yeah. So as the marketers

28:58

have followed the money, basically giant

29:01

companies like Bass presh shops have started to

29:03

feature blogs on basically

29:05

how to buy clothes to go hunting if

29:07

you're a woman. So I mean there's this major

29:09

push to make things specifically for

29:12

these types of consumers. Yeah, and they're even companies

29:14

like She Outdoor Apparel and others

29:17

that have popped up specifically to serve

29:19

this need. And there there

29:21

was one gun advertisement

29:23

that I just want to point out. We found this

29:26

over at Field and Stream and

29:28

it was a video that they made at a gun

29:30

expo, and it was this guy who

29:32

was demonstrating something called

29:34

the Savage Lady Hunter Rifle, which,

29:38

whether you're program or not, it's kind of an amazing name

29:40

for a product. But he was talking

29:43

about how it was actually

29:46

designed to accommodate women's

29:49

length of neck. It's a little bit lighter,

29:51

has a shorter barrel, all

29:53

things which are are great because they're

29:55

clearly trying to keep the female consumer

29:57

in mind in a serious kind of way instead of just

30:00

pink and shrink it. But in

30:02

his explanation for it, he did raise

30:04

my eyebrow when he suggested

30:07

that whether you're a woman or someone who's

30:09

just unsure of his or her

30:11

sexuality, this would be a great

30:14

choice. Some trying

30:16

to be funny. No, I don't think so. No. I

30:19

think he was sincere but

30:22

interesting, But it gave me

30:24

pause, But hey, I remembered

30:27

the remember the gun. That's

30:29

right, the Savage Lady Hunter rifle. Yes.

30:32

And with all of these new products being

30:34

peddled to these supposedly

30:37

new female hunters on

30:39

the scene, you're seeing

30:42

a culture that is reminiscent

30:44

of that nineteenth century upper

30:47

middle class lady sportsman

30:50

of the wild West going out to

30:52

discover herself in the woods.

30:55

Yeah. The New York Times Style

30:57

magazine did this huge profile

31:00

out on Georgia Pellegrini,

31:02

She's an investment banker turned chef

31:04

turned outdoors

31:06

woman extraordinaire um

31:09

talking about how these, like

31:11

you said, upper middle class white women were going

31:13

out on this excursion. They they you know,

31:15

specified that one of the women was going

31:18

through a divorce and so she was out there like

31:20

reclaiming her independence by shooting

31:22

animals and stuff. And it was noted

31:25

that this woman was also wearing

31:27

a necklace that had a talisman on

31:29

it made from the

31:32

bone and a raccoon penis. Yeah,

31:35

and she was wearing it from Ojo. I believe

31:37

it was from Mojo. So

31:39

there was that and also notable

31:41

too that this article was published in

31:44

their Style magazine, Right, absolutely,

31:47

Yeah, they're called Pellegrini's

31:49

adventures are called Girl Hunter Adventure

31:52

Getaways, which is kind of a clunky

31:54

name, but it's basically groups of professional

31:57

urban women who were eager to get out

31:59

there and hunt, gut, and eat their own

32:01

wild game. And they get to enjoy

32:04

fly fishing, horseback riding, falconry,

32:07

a TV outings, pheasant hunts.

32:09

And it is interesting to

32:11

see how Pellegrini has made

32:14

an entire entrepreneurial

32:16

business around the fact that she

32:19

is an especially attractive

32:22

woman who really likes

32:25

to hunt, not and there is absolutely nothing

32:27

wrong with that, but it's clear in the way that

32:29

things are marketed that it is

32:32

for this high end customer.

32:35

And she wrote that book, Girl Hunter,

32:37

in two thousand twelve. Her next book,

32:39

which hasn't been released yet, is

32:41

called Modern Pioneering, and its slogan

32:45

is this self sufficiency

32:47

is the ultimate girl power. So

32:50

I feel like this, you

32:52

know, and again there's nothing wrong with it,

32:54

but I feel like this is kind of the equivalent of making

32:57

science kits for girls

32:59

pink, you know, like taking something that

33:01

is traditionally a masculine interest

33:04

and making it girly to attract women.

33:06

And I'm saying, you know what, if if you're interested

33:08

in doing that, that's totally cool, and if

33:10

that's what gets you out there, then fine. Um,

33:13

everybody has their own path

33:15

to tread. But like we

33:17

kind of hinted at earlier talking

33:20

about um women hunters

33:22

in the early twentieth century

33:24

being kind of a softening influence

33:27

on hunting and especially sports hunting, Pellegrini

33:30

herself has been called a softer

33:32

version of the usual pro hunting

33:34

voices like Ted Nugent and

33:38

Field and Stream in June referred

33:40

to her as polished and pretty, and they sounded

33:42

very grateful that she was on the scene as a

33:44

pro hunting woman. And it's not

33:46

that her attractiveness in any way

33:48

should diminish from her authenticity,

33:51

because she does talk about how, as

33:54

a chef by trade, the

33:56

first time she cooked

33:59

an animal that she had killed, it was this

34:02

revolutionary experience for her, as she talks

34:04

about of really connecting with food

34:06

in a whole new level. And there are other people

34:08

like Lily Rath Macaulu, who's author

34:11

of Call of the Mild Learning

34:13

to Hunt My Own Dinner, who talk about similar

34:15

experiences of of really feeling

34:17

this new connection to nature to

34:20

your food, to understanding how

34:23

things go from being in the wild

34:25

to being on your table and in your belly.

34:27

And I definitely think that's a that's

34:29

an interesting new aspect of today's

34:32

sport hunting, but it's something

34:34

that requires hefty

34:37

disposable income a lot of times to

34:39

be able to do that. I mean, there are probably plenty of

34:41

women who are living

34:44

in and surviving more in a subsistence

34:47

way off of hunting.

34:49

But I feel like a lot of what we're hearing about now

34:51

in these glossy profiles

34:53

are almost a glamping

34:56

version of hunting. Glamping as in

34:58

the glamour camping

35:00

portmanteau, where you pay

35:02

a lot of money to go hang

35:05

out sort of in nature and

35:07

very nice accommodations. Like I just stayed

35:09

at a cabin with some friends and took a whole

35:11

bunch of champagne so we could drink a whole bunch of mimosas.

35:14

That could be glamping because the cabin was in the mountains.

35:17

Yeah, but you weren't exactly roughing

35:19

it now roughing it yeah. But there

35:21

are groups like the Wyoming

35:23

Women's Foundation, as reported on by NPR,

35:26

who put on the Women's

35:28

antelope hunt, which they

35:30

say is all about teaching self sufficiency

35:33

and economic independence, and the women take

35:36

meat home as a part of

35:38

that. Yeah, and many state

35:40

departments of natural resources are getting in on

35:43

this. They've begun testing becoming an outdoors

35:45

woman or bow And as National

35:48

Geographic points out reporting on this

35:50

rise in women hunters, they talked to uh

35:52

Lily mccalu, who Kristin mentioned

35:54

a second ago, and she says

35:56

that this is kind of part of the local war movement,

35:59

you know, wanting to eat locally, buy from

36:01

local farmers, that kind of stuff. And she was

36:03

saying that hunting offers an alternative to the

36:06

grocery store and lets women provide truly

36:08

free range and organic meat

36:10

for their families while also helping create

36:12

a more sustainable food system.

36:14

So, I mean, if you're looking at

36:17

being like a true local war, she argues,

36:19

like, you know, hunting the

36:21

animals you put in your mouth as part of that. Well,

36:23

but that's also if you're probably

36:25

living in an area that would support that.

36:28

Right, if you're living in a superurban

36:30

space, you shouldn't go

36:32

out in your backyard with the gun now,

36:35

because you might just shoot raccoons or rats

36:37

or something that wouldn't be a good idea and it's probably

36:39

illegal. Um, But I also

36:41

see this. The more I read

36:44

about it and think about this resurgence

36:47

and hunting among women, I feel like it ties

36:49

in to this larger

36:52

conversation that we've been having for a

36:54

year now actually about

36:57

new domesticity and the

37:00

rise and handmade and crafting

37:02

in this just basic interest in

37:05

a slower way of living

37:08

and paying more attention to where

37:10

things are sourced from and locality

37:13

and all of those things also though,

37:16

do tie again into

37:18

class. And that was one thing that I

37:20

didn't find a lot of information

37:22

about that I was disappointed to

37:25

not see more on, which is the socioeconomics

37:28

of sport hunting, because a

37:30

lot of these stories paint

37:33

the rise of women and hunting as

37:35

this really cool thing because we're you

37:37

know, transgressing those gender

37:39

norms and whatnot. But it's

37:42

like if you can, if you

37:44

have the money and the time and

37:46

the means to do so, right I kind

37:49

of, I mean, yeah, you're right. While we didn't find

37:51

anything specifically talking about that issue,

37:54

I feel like there's kind of an unspoken hierarchy

37:57

as far as subsistence hunters kind of

37:59

being on the bottom, like people who hunt

38:02

for food and to you know, feed their

38:04

families. They're kind of on the bottom,

38:06

with like Safari hunters

38:08

being up here like way and above

38:10

anyone else, people who just want to have like a giraffe

38:13

head on their wall or something like that. Right,

38:15

you have this gorgeous

38:17

photo essay on these

38:20

women out at Georgia Pellagreni's

38:22

Girl Hunter Adventure Getaways.

38:24

And I want to read the story about maybe

38:27

women who are in Appalachia who

38:29

might still be hunting, or women in rural Alaska,

38:32

or women around the world who

38:34

are not hunting for the self

38:37

fulfillment of it, but more for

38:39

the survivability. And I wonder

38:42

why we don't hear at least more

38:44

of that side of the coin um.

38:46

But speaking though globally,

38:49

you mentioned those statistics from Japan,

38:52

Germany, Norway of how hunting is

38:54

also on the rise for women there, and the

38:56

reasons for the women's

38:58

site for being more in used in hunting

39:00

are similar to what we see in

39:02

the United States, where in Japan um

39:05

part of the attraction is being able to come home

39:07

with delicious food. There's one blog

39:10

in Japan of of women hunters

39:12

and I think their slogan is something

39:14

as simple as shoot and eat. It's

39:17

like that panda joke. Never mind eats, shoots

39:20

and leaves that grandma book. It's

39:22

a handy grandma book. I know. Well.

39:24

Yeah, Germany the foremost quoted answers

39:26

to their survey about why you hunt as a woman,

39:29

enjoying being in nature, applying conservation,

39:32

the joy of hunting, and dog training.

39:34

Actually getting out there yeah with like with a cute

39:36

puppic and now there with your pup pup um.

39:38

Yeah. And then in Norway, where I did not

39:40

realize how popular

39:42

hunting is in Scandinavia but totally

39:45

makes sense. Um, But there has been

39:47

a specific recruitment effort

39:49

to attract more women to hunting there,

39:51

as we're starting to see more in

39:54

the United States as well, with those

39:56

state departments of Natural Resources offering

39:58

those outdoor or as women workshops.

40:01

But in Norway you have groups

40:03

like the Norwegian Association of Hunters

40:05

and Anglers who are focusing on

40:07

recruiting women to hunting

40:10

and fishing. Yeah. Well

40:12

have you ever have you ever hunted, or thought about

40:15

hunting or wanted to hunt? I have never shot

40:18

more than a BB gun. Um,

40:20

largely because I

40:23

fear the kick back and

40:25

I am not a fan of loud noises. I'm

40:28

not squeamish in the kitchen around meat at

40:30

all, but going out and

40:32

killing something and bringing it

40:34

back holds no appeal to me. But

40:37

at the same time, though I enjoy

40:39

fishing, I haven't done a ton of fishing,

40:41

but I would much rather go

40:44

fishing than go hunting.

40:46

Yeah. Although I enjoy nature, I'm

40:48

not anti nature. Yeah. It's it was

40:50

interesting reading the comments under a lot

40:52

of these stories and studies online because

40:55

a lot of people argue that

40:57

if you're going to be a meat eater, what

41:00

better way to kind

41:02

of get in touch with your own self and

41:04

the things that you're putting into your body than to go

41:06

out and hunt it and be face to face with

41:09

that little face that you're then going

41:11

to put on a plate. And and I I see

41:13

that argument. I myself, I'm not really interested

41:16

in hunting. Um. I had,

41:18

like I was thinking about this earlier. My

41:20

dad's best friend is

41:22

a huge hunter, or was a huge hunter, and

41:25

we would go over to his house and he had

41:27

this deer head mounted on the wall that I

41:30

named Bamby, and I

41:32

would ask to go see Bamby

41:34

and then I would pet it. I

41:36

would pet the deer head. And now as an adult, I think

41:38

back on that and I'm like, that's kind of morbid and weird.

41:41

Yeah, there is that just basic

41:43

morbid fact of it. And

41:46

I'm sure there are a lot of people listening

41:48

to who simply disagree with hunting,

41:50

not so much from a gender perspective,

41:53

but just on the basis of animal

41:55

rights, ethics, the

41:58

whole issues with you, the whole issue

42:00

tying in with gun ownership and

42:03

questions around what

42:05

what the limits should be for that. So

42:07

it's like you start talking about hunting and

42:11

you're talking about so many things.

42:13

Yeah, I mean I think that it's it's hard

42:15

to have a discussion about hunting. Um,

42:18

well, it's easy in the podcast studio because we don't

42:20

have commenters right now, But it's hard

42:22

to have a story post about

42:24

hunting, for instance, where people

42:26

don't on some side or another feel very

42:29

attacked about their their views. Whether

42:31

you're hunting for subsistence, whether you think

42:33

hunting is terrible, whether you're a vegetarian

42:35

or a carnivore, whatever, there's a lot

42:37

of political aspects to it. Yeah, but if

42:40

you look at it through a purely gendered

42:43

lens, and thinking about

42:45

that quote at the top of the podcast

42:47

from that feminist scholars saying that

42:50

hunting might be the most masculine

42:53

cultural pursuit, then I think you

42:55

really get into some some

42:57

interesting meat, horrible

43:00

on sorry of our

43:02

concepts of what masculinity really

43:04

is, femininity, gender

43:06

roles, domesticity,

43:09

violence, all of these different

43:11

things tied up with it. So

43:14

with that, let's stop talking about hunting

43:17

and here from hunters out

43:19

there or people who are completely

43:21

opposed to hunting, Caroline, Like you said

43:23

a lot of times, this is an issue where you

43:25

strongly support or you strongly opposed. We

43:27

want to hear from all of you about that. So

43:30

Mom stuff at Discovery dot com is where

43:32

you can send your letters, or

43:34

you can also find us at

43:37

stuff Mom Never told You dot

43:40

com with all of the links to all of

43:42

our social media. So yep,

43:45

we are live, folks. Go

43:48

check it out. And in the meantime, we're

43:50

gonna take a quick break and come right back with

43:52

some of your letters. And now back

43:54

to our letters. Well,

43:58

Caroline, I have a letter here from our

44:00

episode on Pie that's

44:02

p I E. Not p I

44:05

This is from Victoria, who writes, I

44:07

just finished listening to your pie episode, which came

44:09

with perfect timing as I wrapped my holiday

44:12

penia Colada nougat and bacon caramels.

44:15

Wow. As a trained pastry chef,

44:17

I have the skill to make both cakes and pies, but when it

44:19

comes to personal preference, I prefer eating pies

44:22

and then making and decorating of cakes.

44:24

Pies are delicious in their construction takes

44:26

a skill that is often not recognized.

44:29

As you said, Ltte, work is tricky, as is a texture

44:31

of the crust and even making the pie border appealing

44:33

without too thick of a dope. Even

44:36

after all of this, the crowd reaction to a pie

44:38

is most often less than that of a simple

44:40

cake. Regarding the

44:42

view of pie making being for women, it certainly

44:45

is not. I chose to attend culinary school and

44:47

worked hard to become the best in my class, and

44:49

when I try and tweak a recipe ten times,

44:51

I'm driven by my passion, but not my need

44:53

to be a good housewife. I take issue

44:55

and people assume that I do what I do to please anyone

44:58

but myself and those eating my creation. Feminism

45:01

to me means choice, and I choose to spend

45:03

my days in the kitchen instead of fighting for a

45:05

quote unquote dream job and making lots

45:07

of money. Sometimes it feels like feminism

45:10

means acting like men, which doesn't sit well

45:12

with me. Beyond that, anyone can

45:14

make a pie and the Internet is full of how twos

45:16

and helpful resources. I also recommend

45:18

the book The Science of Baking for anyone

45:21

interested in what their ingredients are

45:23

doing together and why it's

45:25

fascinating. Well, thanks

45:27

Victoria, and those Pina Colata,

45:29

Newgatt and big at caramels sound incredible.

45:32

We will gladly accept them. Yeah, if you want

45:34

to mail to us, sure, um.

45:37

I have a letter here from Phoenix with the

45:39

subject line Asians have hairy issues

45:41

too. Uh. She's responding

45:44

to our episode Beauty Parlors versus

45:46

Barbershops, and she writes as a Chinese

45:48

Canadian female who is obsessed with getting a good

45:50

haircut. I can add another dimension

45:52

of complexity to the discussion. I personally

45:55

choose salons based on the kind of hairstyle I

45:57

actually want and the kind of stylist I would

45:59

trust my hair with. Growing up, I've

46:01

had many disaster stories going to a regular

46:03

quote unquote white salon where the stylist

46:06

just didn't know how to cut my Asian hair, which is thin,

46:08

soft and straight. They tend to give me more

46:10

blunt cuts that suit wavy texture but look

46:12

terrible with my limb hair. And they also have never

46:15

been able to color my dark hair correctly.

46:17

Nowadays, many Japanese hair salons

46:19

have popped up in Vancouver, so I don't have

46:21

that issue anymore. Not to cast more stereotypes,

46:24

but Japanese mail stylists are simply the best,

46:26

at least with my hair type. So I wonder

46:28

if the segregation we still observe is not partly

46:30

due to people simply wanting to take their car

46:33

to the right shop. I would definitely trust

46:35

my civic with a Honda dealer rather than a GM

46:37

shop. And you raise a good point,

46:39

Phoenix, But I think one of the issues that we

46:41

raised is people at salon, certain

46:44

salons and barbershops simply saying no.

46:47

But we do appreciate your story and I'm

46:50

glad you did find a salon to treat your hair. Rat

46:52

So thank you for writing in Yes, and thanks

46:54

to everyone who's written in mom stuff at Discovery

46:56

dot Com is our email address, and

46:59

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47:01

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47:03

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47:20

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47:22

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