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Women Hunters, Part 1: An Ethnographic study


A few weeks ago (Jan 12), I posted the beginning of a sentence here as well as on my personal Facebook page. The sentence started: "Women Hunters..." The following are the responses that I got on FB. The picture is of me and my best friend Jodie who is also a hunter.

1. rock!
2. should bring me some meat...
3. Turn me on. (earned 1 like)
4. can climb my tree stand anytime !
5. Are awesome!
6. ...are probably not vegetarians (earned 1 like)
7. Get bigger animals than boys do. (earned 1 like)
8. SUCK!!!! Lmao. But I love you!!!!
9. are the same as men hunters
‎10. . . .are a better shot :-)
11. have pet squirrels.
12. aim to please
13. scare the hell out of me..because they can shoot well ;o


4 of the 13 comments are men (#2, #3, #4 and #13)
To my knowledge, only two are hunters (#1 and #4)
Two are my best friends (#1 and #7)
One is my sister (#9)
One is my pseudo brother (#13)

Things that I noticed:
~ None of the comments made by men are encouraging or positive (although #13 is far better than the others)
~ 2 out of the 4 comments made my men have sexual undertones
~ 2 of the 13 comments have the 'women are better than men' tone (#7 and #10)
~ 2 out of 13 hate hunting (#6 and #8)
~ My friends like exclamation points!!!!! =)

Questions:
~ WHY are there ANY comments that have a sexual undertone to them?? I would wager a guess that when I post the second half of this test (men hunters...), no one will make a sexual comment. But why not? Why is it ok to sexualize a woman that hunts but not a man?
~ Will as many people respond? (I will post the 'men hunters' this Thursday at 9:16am -same day of the week and time)
~ Why do my FB friends (I currently have 98 and usually keep it around 100), who know I am a hunter, still post comments like this?



And I would love to hear what you all think! I will have 2 more parts with this topic; one after I post the second half with the results and the last one to wrap it up.

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