pdb has a great post up on walking the line between supporting new shooters and giving them a condescending head pat full of false support.
Photo by Yamil Sued
I think he absolutely hits the nail on the head; because I’ve found myself guilty of doing it. Despite the efforts of people like Julie Golob, our own Shelley Rae, and plenty of other women in the shooting sports this is still largely a boy’s club. We rightfully get excited when we see women taking an interest in our sport, and the natural desire is to support and nurture that interest to hopefully create a lifelong shooter. But when we cease to offer legitimate criticism of that same person for any reason we’re actually doing them a disservice.
I guess it’s one thing to believe in equality and another thing to live it. Withholding criticism because of the gender of the author is just as illegitimate as criticizing the author because of their gender. There’s a lot of space between being supportive and being a condescending snot, but if you’re ever in doubt, just ask yourself: “What would I say if this was a guy?”
Think about it – if you take someone and build them up on mountains of praise despite the fact that they’re actually not very good at the act of actually shooting if that person then decides to take a real class, they’re going to get destroyed. Imagine being told “oh you’re doing so well” over and over again and then when you decide to take a class based on what all these people have been telling you, the instructor politely informs you that everything you’re doing is wrong. I’ve seen it happen to male and female shooters, and it’s not pretty. I’ve personally seen people quit shooting because their ego had been inflated by empty praise and it couldn’t handle the reality of competition or actual training.
We don’t help anyone in the sport by blindly praising new shooters of any gender or age. Positive reinforcement is good; but don’t tell someone that they’re doing something right if they’re clearly not.
I think that what it is, in many ways, is a distrust that the person is *hooked* the same way. We want so hard for them to *like* our hobby, we’re so afraid of scaring them away, that we don’t raise the same entry bar that’s normally required to become competent. There’s sort of an underlying assumption that if a guy is getting into a guy hobby, then he’s going to be just as obsessive as you are, and put up with whatever crap is needed to get better at it. And if he doesn’t, loser needed to grow a pair.
Whereas we both assume the girl doesn’t want to push as hard, and worry more about “losing” her if she gives up. I see it happen in every traditionally macho hobby I have – shooting, racing, computers… it’s not *quite* as bad as telling them they can’t do it, but it’s not exactly healthy, either.
Hey, I had a ingrained misogyny post of my own queued up for the weekend. Serendipity.
That is definitely a great observation.
I make a significant effort to try and separate words of encouragement from critique or criticism. Phrases like “Keep it up” and “Good work” help keep moral high while not implying that everything is perfect. I also tend to try and soften criticism to keep ‘softer’ individuals from being rubbed the wrong way. Teaching – and motivating for that matter – are definitely deep subjects.
Competency comes with time and experience, new shooters must practice! I agree, teaching and Directing is valuable but a condescending attitude can hurt a shooter that simply needs help.
What I love is random people walking up and telling me how bad my groupings are. They get upset after I explain to them that my cheap rifle, cheap ammo, and the fact that I’m a horrible shot might have something to do with. None of which stops me from having a blast doing it.
When it comes to shooters like “Destinee” who is mentioned in the article, the reason I would never offer constructive criticism is that I would be swarmed with about 50,000 negative comments from internet white knights in about 4 seconds.