NCJ Number
247839
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 20 Issue: 3 Dated: March 2014 Pages: 369-377
Date Published
March 2014
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article calls attention to a problematic binary produced by public debates surrounding gun rights and gun controlnamely, that women must choose armed self-protection or no self-protection at all.
Abstract
I argue that both anti- and pro-gun discourses, drawing on and reproducing race and class privileges, use assumptions about women's physical inferiority to further their agendas. I highlight how both sides have used guns as the proxy for self-defense and conclude by calling for a shift in public discourse to focus on the broader question of the right to self-defense rather than the narrower question of gun rights. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage.