Women in Gun CLubs

[Mikey]

Recently there was a post that asked opinions about gun clubs some of the posters on these forums belong to.  In responding I let out that one of my pet peeves with my personal club is that the membership is closed to women.

I have felt for a long time that it is both essential and necessary to have more women involved in the shooting sports and that gun clubs, fishing and hunting clubs, or whatever you want to call them, should open their membership to women who wish to join.

The club I am a member of now always leave this to vote at a general membership meeting but in doing so always manages to entreat that section of the membership, basically the 'good ol boys' who have to shake the moths out of their club jackets once a year to attend, who would vote that notion down.  

I don't know what their reasons are.  I think they are just being parochial but, it's time to cut the bs and open the membership up to women.  If there ever was or is a time when we need women properly informed about gun rights to speak for themselves, not as puppets for some organization or 'this is the way the boys have always wanted/done it', it is now.  I think anyone who continually tries to exclude women from the shooting sports, either through membership restrictions or range use limitations or the like, is just cutting their own throats.  I have long been in favor of open membership for women, and polling local Police Departments to offer discounted membership to those female LEOs who would like to join.  

I think the issue of gun rights and 2nd Amendment rights is getting to become an 'all or nothing' situation, regardless of how many frivolous lawsuits may have been won by our side.  This to me means that either All of Us join the fight, women included, or we will have nothing to fight about.  

I just don't understand some of the attitudes.  Gee, what do some of these guys think women are going to do, put doilies on the shooting benches?  Make us pay a dollar for every cuss word we use in front of children (good idea)?  Whistle or laugh at us if they catch us whizzing behind the target berms (oops)?  Make us pay up 25 cents for every lost arrow they find?  

Have the times changed?  Yes, they have and the time for opening membership at shooting ranges and gun clubs to women is, I think, at hand.  M2C.  Mikey.

[1GLOCK]

I would love to see more women in the shooting sports, beats the hell out of looking at all the other slobs. Im 100% for women as club members and would NOT belong to any club that didn't allow it.

[Questor]

That's too bad, Mikey.  I don't see why it can't be open to women unless it's a front for other masculine adventures like drinking, swearing, crotch-scratching, b*tching about wives,  and spitting.  I shoot with a few women in bullseye matches and I'm glad they are there. Women are definitely in a minority at my club, but it's a welcome minority.

[Dragon31]

Mikey:

Thanks for stating the question.  I belong to a club that is open to female and male members on a equal bases.  Our club is not what I would call a social club, we don't get together as a club to socialize.  We do socialize among the individual shooting events in the club.  Example, members of the Thursday night bowling pin group eat Pizza after we shoot.  The Sub gun group has a cook out once each summer after a match, and the Cowboys, don't think know how to shoot without having a chuck wagon present.  So what we do as a club is shoot, and we encourage everyone who wants to shoot to belong.
If a club exists to be a male bonding society with shooting as a secondary motive then thats fine; say it like it is and live with it.  If the clubs purpose is shooting think of the opportunity to do what you like and take your daughters, wives and female friends and give them the same opportunity to enjoy the sport that you have.  
It kind of interesting to see a bowling pin match between a husband and wife that has been taught by her husband and he gets beat.  It is a mixture of pride in her success and the pain of personal defeat.
I think our club is stronger for the women who are members and I think most of the guys will tell you that too.

[TScottO]

Well… maybe if they let their wives in they wont have and excuse anymore for “suppose to be being some where”….or maybe they wont be able to come home to the wife and brag about how well they shot because their wife would be there to actually see the buck shot patters they are shooting with metallic rounds. lol

On a serious note: I fully agree that women should be entitled to membership of clubs, ranges, and hunting camps just like men. For a club to deny a woman the right to enjoy firearms in a good safe atmosphere and promote our heritage seems to me as though they are overstepping their boundary. The constitution grants females the right to bare arms. I personally don’t think a gun club should deny ladies the chance to shoot them. The more people enjoying firearms the better off we are.

As far as a club voting to accept women or not….I don’t think it should be up for vote. I think it should be stated by the club officials that women are allowed. That may never happen because it may run some members off but ya never know you may make it up with female members.

I hope your club and other clubs that do not allow women make a turn around sometime soon.

Good luck and be safe,
Scott

[jfruser]

...of any club that won't allow my wife to shoot & belong.  

Most clubs & whatnot I have visited have been very accomodating to women and my wife has always been made to feel welcome.  Much more so than the average business.  It could be that some of us old-fashioned "gun nuts" still know how to treat a lady.  That's the way it should be.

Now, I wouldn't support lawsuits mandating co-ed clubs, but merely exercise my choice to shoot elsewhere.

jfruser

[markc]

and I agree.  I think allowing women to be full members of the gun club would go a long way towards strengthening the sport and assuring that it advances to the next generation.  

My wife goes hunting with me and if any of my hunting partners don't want a woman along, they have kept it to themselves thus far.  She sometimes feels out of place, but this past weekend at a hunt in the hill country, there were two other women there, and she felt mroe comfy not being the only woman.

markc

[securitysix]

I like women with bare arms, it's kinda sexy.   :-D  Sorry, couldn't resist...

I suspect a lot of the attitude out there is that women, in my experience, shoot better than men, and it embarrasses the men.  I say "suck it up and deal".  Does it embarrass you when some dude comes out with a Remington 788 that has seen its better days and outshoots your $3000 target rifle?  Yeah, maybe a little, but you still gotta be impressed, cause he can shoot.  When a guy comes out to a pin shoot and beats you by a few seconds, does it embarrass you?  Nope, he's just faster than you, which means you need to practice.

If a chick beats you in a pin match or shoots a smaller group, the only difference is that she looks better doing it.  Get over it.  I say let them in.  Course, they are allowed in our club, and actually encouraged.

[Dragon31]

Markc:

Another great topic,  How many of you have a hunting partner that's female.  My hunting partner is female.  Markc please phrase the question and start a new thread.  We are bow hunting KY tomorrow and I'll add my thoughts when I get back.

[Mikey]

Fellas:  Your responses have been extremely encouraging and I intend to take them up at the next general meeting, 3rd Thursday of every month.  Each of your responses contained exactly the type of language and information I have been looking for to bring this up to the general membership.

I think the 'bonding' issue spoken to by Dragon31 and the 'front for masculine adventures' raised by Questor are the most accurate of all calls and these are the types of phrases that are going to make a lot of guys shrink down in their seats and hopefully rethink their attitudes.  

Thank you all for your responses, I hope I hear from more of our posters, including some of the Ladies who frequent this site.  And truly, for every 'set in his ways' guy in this club who threatens to leave because 'womens' might join, I know I can fill those empty membership slots with those shooters of a more genteel nature.  

We do have women who participate and shoot but unfortunately they have to register as 'guests' of their husbands.  And yes, the bare arms shor do add a much more pleasant sight than something I could easily mistake for an old bear or boar in the woods.

Thank you all.  You have helped.  Mikey.

[TC Shooter]

Wow! What a policy  - no women? Frankly , if the club I belonged to instituted such a policy they could forget about me renewing my memebership. The last time I shot at the pistol club the two members that were on the range at the time were both women! We welcome women shooters and some have even participated in our league matches.