I was forwarded a link to share, SurvivorJane, a website that is, apparently, female-oriented. This is also something I see spattered across various preparedness forums as well…threads with topics like “Preapredness for women” or “women after TSHTF” or “guns for women” or similar gender-specific themes.

Except for having to stockpile tampons and that sort of thing, how exactly is preparedness, for either sex, a gender-specific situation? Or, to put it another way, other than the ‘feminine hygiene’ stuff what are preparedness needs that are limited to only one sex? Guys need guns, food, water, backpacks, radios, knives, boots, etc. whereas women need…uhm…the same things.

Usually, but not always, the assumption is that because girls chicks ladies Breasted-Americans are of different build/stature/physical ability their needs are different. Well, yes, thats true up to a point. Yes, it’s harder to find high-end boots in their sizes. Ditto for framed packs, body armour, and similar ‘size-specific’ gear. But other than being slightly ‘hard to fit’, thats pretty much it as far as physical limits regarding gear. (Physical limits regarding ability is something we’ll get to in a minute.)

The biggest offender I see is the guy who want’s his wife to be ‘on board’ and then while he’s running around with an M1A and a Kimber 1911 he gives her an M1 Carbine and a .380 because, you know, she’s the ‘little woman’. And yet at the same time we see guys posting bragging pictures of their 13 year old daughters shooting competition with .45′s and AR-15′s. Doesn’t that seem a little…I dunno…inconsistent? I mean, if your 13-year-old daughter can run-n-gun with an AR and a Glock it would seem your wife could also.

I’m the first to admit there are some guns out there that are, to put it mildly, big heavy and clunky (that’s actually the name of the law firm that represents me in copyright issues). An FAL is a big, heavy gun and so is a full-sized steel-framed 1911….but, there’s plenty of women out there that shoot such beasts. There’s probably an even greater number of them that shoot the ‘mid-sized’ stuff like AR carbines and Glocks.

So, really, guns aren’t gender-specific. (In fact, wasn’t that the whole point behind guns? They’re an ‘equalizer’ making the 115# woman a match against a 225# man?) Guns may be size-specific….someone who is 4’11″, male or female, may want less of a flagpole than the FAL but that’s a limitation brought about by size, not gender.

If you were dating some 6′ Amazon who runs marathons on weekends and teaches Krav Maga in her spare time would you tell her that she should have an M1 Carbine and a .380 because she’s a chick and chicks can’t handle bigger guns? Probably not. Now, switch it around, you have a buddy from work who wants your advice on guns. He’s a little guy from Cambodia whose parents came over in the boat lift. He’s 5’2″, weighs 135#, and is so skinny if he turned sideways he’d disappear. But…he’s a guy, so he automatically gets the M1A and HK USP .45, right? Sure…and the first time he has to actually carry or shoot the darn things he starts thinking that maybe something a little smaller might be in order for him.

So, as far as preparedness goes, the girls don’t get different guns because of their gender. They get whatever guns they can handle and shoot well. If its an M1 Carbine, great…if its an M4, cool…if it’s a Saiga-12, awesome. But just automatically figuring that because she’s a chick she gets the itty-bitty guns is just, well, stupid.

Next up, pushing the mommy-buttons. This harkens back to the ‘security mom’ archetype that was supposedly coming into being shortly after 9/11/01. Women who were previously unconcerned about things like food storage, personal security, etc, were suddenly becoming vigilant grizzly-moms who were taking an interest in preparedness not for their own sake but rather for the sake of their kids. After all, every good mom protects her kids, right? Well, yes. And so does every good dad. So, really, every good parent wants to protect their kids. But it seems that this became one of the strings to pull to get the little woman on board if she was reluctant. “It’s for the kids.” The implication being that if you didn’t start to fall into the preparedness subset of moms, you were a bad mom who didn’t care about her children’s safety. Funny how they don’t do that to single dads, though, isn’t it? Wonder why that is. Here’s the deal, if youre a parent, regardless of gender, you want to protect your kids. Aiming this “do it to protect your children’” line at women is disrespectful on several levels. It assumes that a woman doesn’t have the sense or self-awareness to do something without using motherhood as a motivator and it assumes that the childrens safety and security is strictly her responsibility. If I were a single dad I’d be a bit offended. If I were a mom I’d also be offended that I was thought of as that easily manipulable.

Are there some things that are limiting factors between the two genders? Yup. Women, typically, aren’t as physically strong as men. Sure, there are exceptions…there’ll be some 5’11″ chick who can pick up a 50# bag of rice in each hand and walk it up a flight of stairs, and there’ll be some 5’3″ guy who can’t carry a bag of groceries across a parking lot. People are funny that way…one size does not fit all. But other than those physical differences/limitations are there any other differences that would make any part of preparedness ‘guys only’ or ‘girls only’? Well, men and women are about as intelligent as each other. I’ve met some stupid men, and I’ve met some brilliant women…and vice versa. So no real difference there. Do they handle stress differently? Probably. But, again, I think those differences are more individual than being gender-based. Yeah, some chicks fly apart at a fender bender and some guys have ice water in their veins….but some guys come apart like a pinata when they lose their job and some women develop steely resolve when theyre diagnosed with cancer. Again, the differences are more likely to be from individual to individual rather than a result of gender.

Recap: there are no issues in preparedness that are singular to a specific gender, there are issues that are singular to a specific size or level of ability.  Safety and security of children isn’t solely mom’s responsibility. The best person for a high-stress situation is the person who can handle it, which can be either gender. Automatically assuming that because “he’s the man” he should be the one doing all the planning and preparation makes about as much sense as assuming that “because she’s the girl” she should be carrying a .22 and watching the kids.

The reason this bothers me enough to drop 1200 words on the subject is because if a person is so amazingly short-sighted as to handicap themselves by automatically discounting their spouses needs and abilities because “She’s a girl”, then they are probably so dogmatically-bound in other areas that they’re limiting their options elsewhere. Plus, it’s just narrow-minded enough to rub me the wrong way.