[Jammer Six]

Vanya, different is not the same.

Everyone wants to think of themselves (and be thought of) as different-- but the weapon doesn't care. And they aren't.

If you are teaching something beyond shooting, then I agree with what's been said about women being different, and having different needs.

I would also say that a class that only teaches shooting is more ethical when viewed from the viewpoint of instructing-- you can use precious minutes (and they are precious) to deliver a lecture on bra "holsters" or you can run one more type of drill, and teach your students one more thing about hitting the target and winning the fight. Personally, I can start teaching the instant we're all present, and teach as fast as the students can keep up for as long a time as is available and never teach anything except another drill, another method or another way to hit the target and win the fight. Then we can turn the lights out and do it all over again in the dark. Or with one hand. Or with a jammed weapon.

I do not see how a class that delivers less in the name of... well... what is it in the name of? Political correctness? Understanding?

I think not. I think it's in the name of "women can't shoot as well as men without different instruction."

I understand that there are thousands of different instructors, each with their own idea about what is important and what isn't. That's why I brought up the guy at Kenmore who only lectured on Why People Own Guns-- to demonstrate that it can get out of hand so fast and so completely that it can easily become an ethics question.

If women are held to the same standards in separate classes that men are, then the classes do nothing academically other than serving to reinforce the idea that those women need (or desire) a separate class. Frank has gone so far as to imply that there are women who will come to class if it's separate and won't come to class if it's mixed. He's reiterated those statements, in case anyone missed them the first time. In spite of his statements laying out the basis of the stereotype, there are those who still insist it's not a stereotype.

I guess I need to add an additional complaint to my list against women's classes: methinks thou doth protest too much.

If the standards in women's classes were the same, I don't believe you would need to defend them, let alone italicize them. I am, therefore, starting to believe that the standards must be lower.

Finally, I recognize from the posts here that I have stepped on toes and gored sacred cows, and for that, I'm sorry.

Even if none of us agree (and I doubt very seriously that we ever will) this discussion is valuable for two simple reasons. People who clearly have never considered this issue before have now thought about it, and others have read it. Those facts have value in their own right, and I'm pleased to have been a part of it.