HAMMONTON, N.J.(WOMENSENEWS)-Marina Liedtka is afraid that if Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state, becomes president she'll want to take away the teen hunter's gun.
“Guns play a big role in our country,” said Liedtka in this news video by Tevya Paretti.
Even though the number of hunters nationwide is declining, “the number of women hunters is surging,” said Kelly Oliver of Vanderbilt University and author of the forthcoming book “Hunting Girls.” “With hunting heroines like Katniss Everdeen (“The Hunger Games”) and Merida (“Brave”), the girl hunter has become a new cultural icon.”
In her 2008 bid for the Republican vice presidency, Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, promoted images of herself shooting rifles and the “manly image” of the commander in chief was transformed, Oliver said in an email interview.
In her Teen Voices video, Paretti interviewed three teen girls who hunt and asked them about their views on the presidential frontrunners through the lens of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which includes the right of citizens to bear arms. From maintaining a family tradition to protecting those they care about, these girls see gun control, which has been focused on semi-automatic weapons and not hunting rifles, as an active attempt to restrict their constitutional rights.
“Whatever our views on killing animals, and whether or not we agree with their political opinions or their perceptions of gun control legislation, these teenaged girls' passion for hunting and defense of their rights highlight some of the most poignant contradictions in feminism today,” said Oliver.
[This story was updated March 20 to correct the title of former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin. Due to an editing error Palin had been incorrectly identified as a former U.S. senator.]
