SOCIAL ISSUES CENTURY CENTURY FRAMING 21ST GIRLS WITH GUNS Firearms, Feminism, and Militarism France Winddance Twine Girls with Guns A nuanced understanding of state violence and gender (in)equalities must consider the varied and contradictory experiences of armed civilian women, female soldiers, and opponents of gun possession. How are “feminism” and “femininity” negotiated in the early 21st century by civilian and military women in a nation that fetishizes guns? Th is book addresses this social problem by off ering a comparative analysis of the par- ticular dilemmas that gender inequality, class inequality, race/racism, and U.S. nation- alism generate for women of diverse backgrounds who are struggling to balance conventional gender roles, femininity, and gendered violence in the United States. France Winddance Twine is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is an ethnographer, a critical race theorist, and a documentary fi lm- maker who earned her degree at the University of California, Berkeley. She has pub- lished more than 60 books, journal articles, book reviews, and essays. She is the author and an editor of eight books, including Geographies of Privilege (forthcoming, 2013), A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy (2010), Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class, and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market (Routledge, 2011), Retheorizing Race and Whiteness in the 21st Century (with Charles Gallagher, Routledge, 2011), and Feminism and Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice (New York University Press, 2000). She has served as deputy editor of American Sociological Review , the offi cial journal of the American Sociological Association. Twine currently serves on the international editorial boards of the journals Ethnic and Racial Studies ; Sociology , the offi cial journal of the British Sociological Association; and Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power . Framing 21st Century Social Issues Th e goal of this new, unique Series is to off er readable, teachable “thinking frames” on today’s social problems and social issues by leading scholars. Th ese are available for view on http://routledge.custom- gateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html . For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now off ers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide “overviews” to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses. As an instructor, click to the website to view the library and decide how to build your custom anthology and which thinking frames to assign. Students can choose to receive the assigned materials in print and/or electronic formats at an aff ordable price. Available The Future of Higher Education Dan Clawson and Max Page Body Problems Running and Living Long in a Fast-Food Society Waste and Consumption Ben Agger Capitalism, the Environment, and the Life of Things Sex, Drugs, and Death Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi Addressing Youth Problems in American Society Rapid Climate Change Tammy Anderson Causes, Consequences, and Solutions Scott G. McNall The Stupidity Epidemic Worrying About Students, Schools, The Problem of Emotions in Societies and America’s Future Jonathan H. Turner Joel Best Outsourcing the Womb Empire Versus Democracy Race, Class, and Gestational Surrogacy The Triumph of Corporate and Military Power in a Global Market Carl Boggs France Winddance Twine Contentious Identities Changing Times for Black Professionals Ethnic, Religious, and Nationalist Confl icts Adia Harvey Wingfi eld in Today’s World Daniel Chirot Why Nations Go to War DIY: The Search for Control and A Sociology of Military Confl ict Self-Reliance in the 21st Century Mark P. Worrell Kevin Wehr How Ethical Systems Change: Eugenics, Torture the Final Solution, Bioethics A Sociology of Violence and Human Rights Sheldon Ekland-Olson and Julie Beicken Lisa Hajjar How Ethical Systems Change: Abortion Terror and Neonatal Care Social, Political, and Economic Perspectives Sheldon Ekland-Olson and Elyshia Aseltine Mark Worrell How Ethical Systems Change: Tolerable Girls with Guns Suffering and Assisted Dying Firearms, Feminism, and Militarism Sheldon Ekland-Olson and Elyshia Aseltine France Winddance Twine How Ethical Systems Change: Lynching Forthcoming and Capital Punishment Sheldon Ekland-Olson and Danielle Dirks Are We Coddling Prisoners? Benjamin Fleury-Steiner Nuclear Family Values, Extended Family Lives Identity Problems in the The Power of Race, Class, and Gender Facebook Era Natalia Sarkisian and Naomi Gerstel Daniel Trottier Disposable Youth, Racialized Memories, Traffi cking and Terror and the Culture of Cruelty Pardis Mahdavi Henry Giroux Beyond the Prison Industrial Due Process Denied: Detentions and Complex Deportations in the United States Kevin Weher and Elyshia Aseltine Tanya Golash-Boza Color Line? Oversharing: Presentation of Self in the Race and Sport in America Internet Age Krystal Beamon Ben Agger Unequal Prospects Foreign Remedies: What the Is Working Longer the Answer? Experience of Other Nations Can Tell Tay McNamara and John Williamson Us about Next Steps in Reforming U.S. Health Care iTime David A. Rochefort and Kevin P. Donnelly Ben Agger Girls with Guns Firearms, Feminism, and Militarism France Winddance Twine University of California, Santa Barbara First published 2013 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Taylor & Francis The right of France Winddance Twine to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Twine, France Winddance Girls with guns : fi rearms, feminism, and militarism / France Winddance Twine. p. cm. — (Framing 21st century social issues) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Firearms—Social aspects. 2. Violence in women. 3. Shooters of fi rearms. 4. Sex role. 5. Feminism. I. Title. HQ1233.T95 2013 305.48'42—dc23 2012029134 ISBN: 978-0-415-51673-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-07113-7 (ebk) Typeset in Adobe Garamond pro by Cenveo Publisher Services University Readers (www.universityreaders.com) : Since 1992, University Readers has been a leading custom publishing service, providing reasonably priced, copyright-cleared, course packs, custom textbooks, and custom publishing services in print and digital formats to thousands of professors nationwide. The Routledge Custom Gateway provides easy access to thousands of readings from hundreds of books and articles via an online library. The partnership of University Readers and Routledge brings custom publishing expertise and deep academic content together to help professors create perfect course materials that are affordable for students. Contents Series Foreword ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii I. Th e Woman’s Gun Market 1 II. “Bad Girls” in a Gun Nation: Race, Citizenship, and Political Dissidents 12 III. Th e Mommy Wars: Th e National Debate on Gun Regulation 25 IV. Firearms Feminism and Militarized Femininity 36 V . Th e Economics of Military Motherhood 56 VI. Double Jeopardy: Female Soldiers in the Military–Sexual Complex 60 VII. Conclusion: Gender Equality in the U.S. Armed Forces 68 Bibliography 72 Glossary/Index 7 7 Contents vii Series Foreword Th e world in the early 21st century is beset with problems—a troubled economy, global warming, oil spills, religious and national confl ict, poverty, HIV, health prob- lems associated with sedentary lifestyles. Virtually no nation is exempt, and everyone, even in affl uent countries, feels the impact of these global issues. Since its inception in the 19th century, sociology has been the academic discipline dedicated to analyzing social problems. It is still so today. Sociologists off er not only diagnoses; they glimpse solutions, which they then off er to policy makers and citizens who work for a better world. Sociology played a major role in the civil rights move- ment during the 1960s in helping us to understand racial inequalities and prejudice, and it can play a major role today as we grapple with old and new issues. Th is series builds on the giants of sociology, such as Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Parsons, and Mills. It uses their frames, and newer ones, to focus on particular issues of contemporary concern. Th ese books are about the nuts and bolts of social prob- lems, but they are equally about the frames through which we analyze these problems. It is clear by now that there is no single correct way to view the world, but only para- digms, models, which function as lenses through which we peer. For example, in analyzing oil spills and environmental pollution, we can use a frame that views such outcomes as unfortunate results of a reasonable eff ort to harvest fossil fuels. “Drill, baby, drill” sometimes involves certain costs as pipelines rupture and oil spews forth. Or we could analyze these environmental crises as inevitable outcomes of our eff ort to dominate nature in the interest of profi t. Th e fi rst frame would solve oil spills with better environmental protection measures and clean-ups, while the second frame would attempt to prevent them altogether, perhaps shifting away from the use of petroleum and natural gas and toward alternative energies that are “green.” Th ese books introduce various frames such as these for viewing social problems. Th ey also highlight debates between social scientists who frame problems diff erently.