Private gun ownership for self-defense remains a major personal and public issue in the United States, driven by concerns about crime, vulnerability and a range of ‘ideological’ factors, including race and gender. As media attention centres upon the extent to which women are taking up firearms, with the gun lobby and firearms manufacturers celebrating the ‘new armed woman’, and guns being promoted as ‘Rape Prevention Kits’, this book explores the changing gendered aspects of gun ownership.
Can ownership of firearms by women be considered, as some have claimed, the embodiment of what might be termed ‘pioneer feminism’, as women resist male violence in a dangerous world, or are different stories told by the prominence of women in firearms control campaigns, or the fact that women remain frequent victims of male gun ownership? Analysing representations of the ‘armed woman’ in firearm and gun lobby marketing and advertising campaigns, together with television and popular music forms, Gender and Firearms: My Body, My Choice, My Gun examines the directions taken in the public debate on weaponisation in the United States, considering the role of women in the politics of gun safety and gun control. The book draws on statistical evidence in order to shed light on trends in gun ownership, whilst engaging with feminist scholarship on the relationship between gender, violence, risk and vulnerabilities, thus opening up critical new debates surrounding identity, performance, gender and risk in contemporary societies.
As such the book will be of likely interest to sociologists and scholars of sociology, criminology, and cultural and media studies with interests in gender, embodiment, risk, crime and violence.
By:
Peter Squires (University of Brighton UK)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781032686394
ISBN 10: 1032686391
Series: Routledge Research in Gender and Society
Pages: 242
Publication Date: 01 April 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
,
A / AS level
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1 Introduction: Opening shots and signs of change 2 Rights speak and responsibilisation: Gun advertising, feminism and the production of the woman gun-carrier 3 Packing pretty: Towards the armed action women 4 The weaponised women of the movies 5 Personal choices and public consequences 6 Numbers games 7 Doctrine versus practice: Contradictions of gun ownership and ‘Stand Your Ground’ for women 8 Concluding themes, other women and looking forwards
Peter Squires is Professor (Emeritus) of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton, United Kingdom. His research interests include gun crime and gun control; youth crime and disorder; anti-social behaviour; weapons, crime, and violence; community safety; crime prevention; surveillance and policing. He is the author of Gun Culture or Gun Control: Firearms, Violence and Society (Routledge, 2000) and Gun Crime in Global Contexts (Routledge, 2014), Rethinking Knife Crime (2021) and the co-author of Shooting to Kill: Policing Firearms and Armed Response (2010) and several other books.
