Range Day for Ladies

Specifically, Harmeet K. Dhillon and some of her comrades from DOJ. The target shows some fliers at 30 feet; but Dhillon isn't a professional shooter. DOJ has designated shooters. Harmeet Dhillon is Assistant Attorney General. Nobody expects her to have to fire a pistol except under extreme circumstances of self-defense; there are plenty of people whose job is shooting at that department, and in every court where she'll be engaged in litigation.

A lot of people decided to be highly critical. Kerry Slone (of women-focused Second Amendment group called We the Female, which focuses on arming women for self-defense) has strong words for such people, but that's to be expected. What I think she gets to that's central is this point: 

So how do we start to combat this First, is understanding that men and women are naturally biologically and psychologically different.  In relation to firearms, when a man is mocked, it does not typically have the same result that it does for a woman when it comes to firearms. Negative comments towards men when learning how to use a firearm typically makes them want to train more. When a woman is mocked, it makes her even more intimidated and insecure and can lead to her to not continue to grow in capability. 

A couple of framing points first. One, Harmeet is not a fragile flower. I don't know how much she cares about mouthy idiots on social media. 

Two, using a firearm or other weapon effectively is generally more central to mens' self-image than womens'. The fact that mockery of that ability drives men to train harder doesn't mean they aren't as hurt or as embarrassed; it means that they are so embarrassed and hurt by looking foolish in front of the others that they redouble their efforts to get good enough to be respectable. The mockery is meant to encourage this reaction; if a man was really thought too weak or incompetent to improve, the reaction would be much gentler rhetorically but more devastating because it would be a reaction of pity. The humiliation of this is much worse. 

"Not everyone was meant to be a soldier."

That said, I think Ms. Slone is basically correct. As we learned from reading Aristotle, 'equality' rarely means 'exactly the same' when we are talking about ethics or politics. It doesn't have to for the I.3 reason we kept mentioning: equality as a term of mathematics, like a proof from strict logic, doesn't belong in ethics or politics. All the terms in ethics and politics are analogies. The reasoning is analogical, not logical. Treatment doesn't have to be exactly equal, and often shouldn't be, but it does need to be proportionate to be fair. 

With rare exceptions like our own Texan99, who genuinely seems to want to be held to exactly and only the standards men ask of each other, most women don't want 'equal treatment' in the sense of 'exactly the same treatment.' Most women I know would prefer that you were encouraging; that you demonstrate that you care about them and are proud of them; and if you help them improve, you do so in a practical way that highlights that you, too, once were a beginner who had to learn as everyone does.

If you provide them with that, they will be happier and feel more engaged. However, sometimes we have the same problem as Leonidas: the unit is sometimes more important than the individual. 

Not this time. Harmeet is hell on wheels at her actual job. She can get as good at range day as she cares to bother doing, but where she's really doing good for all of us -- especially in the Second Amendment community -- is her real job. I have no doubt that she'll accomplish more over the next few years on this front than I will be able to, to the benefit of us all.