"The cultural message is strong and very deep: a man who is not the primary defender, the primary protector of his family, is no man at all.
How then can it be proper or feminine for me, as a traditional wife and mother, to usurp that role and call it my own?"
Again I point to the strong and capable women in our American history and legend. Settlers, pioneers, and farmwives who had their men's backs when danger threatened and who protected their homes and families when the men were away.
Did anyone ever say they were unfeminine?
Did anyone ever question the manhood of their husbands and sons?
I have no hesitation in saying that a man who tells his daughter that shooting is for boys and not girls is acting wrongly.
But I also see no reason for a normal adult woman, one who was not physically or emotionally abused so as to have her spirit broken, to fail to understand that some of what her parents, teachers, and peers taught her was incorrect and to make her own judgments on those issues. Making such judgments -- separating what one was taught and what was assumed without explicit teaching from what is right and embracing the right to go on with -- is an essential part of becoming an adult.
One can refuse to be a victim of the culture as well as refusing to be a victim of the predators who walk among us.
