Advantages and disadvantages of female body in practical shooting

[Brankica]

Hallo girls, am I glad I finally found a "girl forum" on this subject!

I really need your help!!!

I will try to explain but still make it simple. I am a practical shooter from Europe with not too much experience but some medals - you can imagine the level this sport is on in my country when sometimes all it takes is to go to a competition and you can be sure a medal is yours.

Anyway, practical shooting is what I love the most in the world and I am about to graduate from Sport University and obtain a Shooting Trainer diploma.

That is where the problem is. I need to do my final paper work to get the diploma and I am having problems with finding books, articles and any other kind of resource to do my work.

The subject is Advantages and disadvantages of female body in practical shooting. I need to write about 35 pages on this and as you know there is very little or no material on this subject. In my country, although we have some good competitors, this wonderful sport is on low branches since it is extremely expensive (in a poor country) and the laws are not so helpful.

In addition I am not supposed to write about "how to shoot", techniques or tactics, that is secondary here. The things I should write about are differences between us and men in matter of anatomy, psychology, physiology, etc. As the title says - advantages and disadvantages of our body and mind compared to men.

I would have to write about so many things that are different, we have different reaction time (beeper sound), we have different kind of vision, we deal with stress especially competitive differently. Average female is shorter than average male which again makes the stages different for us.

I don't have to tell you anything, you all probably know this better than me.

What I need from you?

Links to resources, books, articles, anything that could help me with this matter.

Also, I would love to hear your opinions and experiences that could help me with this. If you have some time and want to give me some real data I can even put you in my work and write down that I interviewed you

If there is someone from area of psychology, medicine, sports I am sure you can give me some advice.

Not to forget I am going to focus on pistol shooting, but if I read some good stuff about this subject that has something to do with rifles and shotguns I will make a way to include it in my final work.

I hope I explained this well and that you will be able to help me, if you are in the mood

Thank you in advance!!!

PS I will do this in a way to show my professors that we are in no way inferior than man in this sport!!!

[Wendytww]

I am relatively new to this sport. I was very frustrated when my husband was trying to teach me to shoot as it seemed that we were speaking a differnt language. I have since attended 2 Babes with Bullets/Ladies Practical Shooting camps and spent a lot of time learning on my own as well as with the guys. I can't say that I am good at this yet but I do know where I need to improve and how to get there and finding that path is an accomplishement by itself.

Here are a couple resources that I would recommend:

Women Learning to Shoot: A Guide for Law Enforcement Officers and Teaching Women to Shoot: A Law Enforcement Instructor's Guide both by Vicki Farnam and Diane Nicholl. These have a lot of great information about the differnces in instructing women to shoot and how they are different. It helped me tremendously! Both are avalible from Amazon.com.

Babes with Bullets... Women Having Fun with Guns by Debbie Ferns. This book has some great information and personal stories about women shooters. Deb is also a great resource by herself and she LOVES to talk so I would contact her also. Her website is http://www.babeswithbullets.com/.

http://www.corneredcat.com/ This is focused on conceal carry but also has great resources on concerns that women have in the shooting world.

I will write a bit more about my personal experences if you are interested but I will have to do that later as I have to go to a family Christmas party now.

[Brankica]

Here are some ideas to make this more clear

talking about average male and female: anatomical differences i.e females have smaller hands - it influences the grip, females are shorter so it is easier to kneel and shoot while harder to shoot through higher holes, fast muscle tissues stops developing at 26 year old female but 36 old male (influences running speed) etc.

Wendy, thanks for the post, definitely will do what you recommended!!

I also found this PM very interesting and so true so I will post it here. It came from AlamoShooter and I want to thank him:

"...

my Observation is the biggest reason men do better than women in competition is a genetic "Responsibility level"

Men are willing to practice a irresponsible amount. A man will spend too much money and time to shoot.

Women are more likely to budget time and money to real life better than men.

This is the thing that will put men ahead in games. the lack of Responsibility to the measurement of Real life value

..."

[Jane]

Julie Goloski / Golob has written some articles on the subject for the IDPA magazine.

Here are links:

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=241

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=233

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=197

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=177

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=169

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=159

http://www.idpa.com/tj.asp?ID=150

(sometimes their website is slow. be patient.)

[Brankica]

Wow, this is great.

There is one more thing we are better at than man.

You girls got it straight away and linked me to stuff I can really use and I can not say the same thing about guys in another practical shooting forum

[BritinUSA]

You girls got it straight away and linked me to stuff I can really use and I can not say the same thing about guys in another practical shooting forum

It was a guy that told you about this forum

[99gski]

Hi there!

Have you seen WomenofSUSPSA.com? There are a number of bios of women from all walks of life and different ability levels. If you are on Facebook, consider posting to the Women of USPSA FAcebook page as well:

http://www.facebook.com/jgolob1?ref=name#/...72838691?ref=ts

If I can help with any other specific info, please feel free to email me: julie @ juliegolob.com

All the best,

Julie

[carinab]

Hey Brankica

Psychology: The Mental Athlete by Kay Porter is a good book on sports psychology that you may be able to find a few male/female tidbits in as the author is a woman. Related to coaching indirectly, You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen explains the different conversational styles between men and women. I was on a all lady team with a male coach. We bought him this book and it helped dramatically.

Physiology: I've always wondered how much grip strength and upper body strength play in the male versus female shooter question. Ron Avery wrote a really good article about grip strength in an issue of Front Sight (the USPSA members magazine). I would contact someone at the USPSA headquarters and see if you can get a copy of the article.

[Brankica]

I have been working a lot so didn't have the chance to say thanks for recent post, you guys are really helping and I promise as soon as I finish it and get my diploma I am gonna make it available for everyone to see and read

Just a short funny info: I talked to my sniper instructor, he is really good, shot snipers in peace and war. He is an IPSC shooter too, wins medals all over Europe, gets medals in GB, Greece, Germany, Russia etc. Shoots shotgun and pistol. You know what was the first thing he asked me? "How come you were so stupid to take a subject like that?" He has a point

But I never give up.

Julie, I will definitely contact you as soon as I write down some questions in a logical way!

BritinUSA, sorry, but you know how we girls are. I never admit if I am not right and I love that girls have been more helpful than guys

Anyway, I will post more questions very soon, in next day or two, since now I am moving from general stuff to more specific.

Gotta find all those book and get them shipped from the States.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

[COMATZD]

Some things that may or may not help is something I've known from my rock climbing experiences. In general, women have a lower center of gravity than men of the same height. This may make someone more or less stable when moving or not. Also, men tend to try to use upper body strengths to try to control things, women will use core body strengths. This may affect how recoil is handled.

Again, these are generalities I've observered, obviously there are plenty of exceptions all around.

[Brankica]

This is a good info, forgot all about that. You gave me a good "road sign", I will just go through a bio mechanic book and I am sure I can find something about this. Thanks

[Jake Di Vita]

Center of gravity is usually located somewhere between pelvis and navel for the vast majority of humans (depending of course on your individual anthropometry).

Unfortunately it's a simply fact of physiology that women are not build to be as strong or as powerful as men without some significant "hormone therapy." Keeping this in mind, on average most women have greater flexibility, less weight to move, and no problem getting into low ports when compared to a lot of men.

The actual act of shooting is controlled by coordination, accuracy, agility, and balance. These skills are not preferential to either gender. The issue with most women I see (not all by any means, and obviously I see this issue with most men as well) is a lack of physical conditioning. Either to where controlling recoil is an issue, or simply falling out throughout the course of a match. I think that this issue is a significant reason why we haven't seen a female GM yet - although I'm sure it's coming soon.

So when it comes to shooting, I think women are at a disadvantage when compared to men right out of the gate simply from a strength and conditioning standpoint. This can be addressed through training to where it should be a non-issue as I've trained with and competed against some pretty damn fit women that made me look like a little kid. I'd love to see a female D1 class athlete pick up a gun and give USPSA a try (which could already be happening that I just don't know about).

I also think that women tend to take advantage of having a good mentality and focus when compared to most men. Afterall, every "guy" already knows how to shoot right? lol

Also as to the comment of what muscles are used to control recoil, the answer is: Experienced shooters use all their muscles to control recoil. Grip, arm, and shoulder strength all do play a significant part though.

[Duane Thomas]

The United States Army has conducted significant amounts of testing as to how much grip strength women have compared to men, because they believe grip strength is a good indicator of overall upper body strength. So has the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). In both cases the answer was that the average woman has from 1/2 to 2/3 the grip strength of the average man.

Based on this, I have always been of the opinion that women get a greater advantage from, and can actually be safer when, running lighter trigger pulls than men. Think about it, with half the hand strength a 12 pound double action trigger pull feels like a 24 pound trigger pull to a woman. This gibes with my experience of talking to an old friend of mine (mentioned recently in a different thread), a very experienced, very prolific female firearms instructor who taught mostly women who told me once, "Duane, I've pretty much gotten away from recommending revolvers for women because I've just seen too many women couldn't pull the trigger on a revolver, double action, even once, much less do it smoothly enough to shoot accurately." In my own experiences as a firearms instructor I have seen the same phenomeon many times. But also consider, a two pound single action trigger pull to a man feels like a four pound single action trigger pull to a woman. Thus women are innately safer at lower trigger pull weights because to them they don't feel like particularly low trigger pull weights.

At least, that's my theory.

[jkatz44]

The United States Army has conducted significant amounts of testing as to how much grip strength women have compared to men, because they believe grip strength is a good indicator of overall upper body strength. So has the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). In both cases the answer was that the average woman has from 1/2 to 2/3 the grip strength of the average man.

Based on this, I have always been of the opinion that women get a greater advantage from, and can actually be safer when, running lighter trigger pulls than men. Think about it, with half the hand strength a 12 pound double action trigger pull feels like a 24 pound trigger pull to a woman. This gibes with my experience of talking to an old friend of mine (mentioned recently in a different thread) who was a very experienced, very prolific firearms instructor who told me once, "Duane, I've pretty much gotten away from recommending revolvers for women because I've just seen too many women couldn't pull the trigger on a revolver, double action, even once, much less do it smoothly enough to shoot accurately." In my own experiences as a firearms instructor I have seen the same phenomeon many times. But also consider, a two pound single action trigger pull to a man feels like a four pound single action trigger pull to a woman. Thus women are innately safer at lower trigger pull weights because to them they don't feel like particularly low trigger pull weights.

At least, that's my theory.

Duane,

I never really thought of this. Good post!

[Duane Thomas]

Thanks.

[Jane]

Thanks.

I took my P229 out of the safe the other night. For some weird reason, felt like doing some dry-firing. I haven't played with that gun in some years... have basically only been shooting Glocks.

The SIG has a short trigger installed. It also has a really nice set of Nill grips (the old stippling that they don't make any longer).

I have above average hand strength for a woman. I've played piano for years. And a year or so ago, bought some grip-strength devices based on the article that Carina referenced.

But I was still really struggling with the SIG's first DA pull.

I think when I had shot the gun in the past, I had rotated my grip somewhat to get more finger on the trigger.

I wound up taking off my lovely Nills and putting the stock plastic grips back on. They're a bit slimmer, and I have better leverage.

Which, I guess, is a long-winded way of saying, "good post, Duane".

[Duane Thomas]

Thanks, Jane.

[LPatterson]

Good post Duane and the other corollary is not having the strength to pull back the slide to load it in the first place. Women usually do not go shopping for a gun by them selves, it is usually with a husband or significant other. The gun is cleared and cocked and presented with "here try this", which is a means of asking if they can pull the trigger. I have had numerous women come to a basic pistol class with a just purchased gun that have to go into contortions trying to pull the slide back. Several states mandate the gun be locked with a trigger lock and ammunition in a separate location. In a stress situation fine motor skills go out the window but sometimes those gross skills go too and it becomes fumble city. This is where continual training comes in, Jane said after not using her SIG for years she had trouble with the DA trigger pull and changed grips. How competent would she have been in a stress situation and grabbed this gun first?

Without drifting this thread any further into self defense, I don't see disadvantages I just see things that women have to work harder at than men.

[BritinUSA]

Brankica, When you finish your paper perhaps you could also write a synopsis of it (less than 2000 words) and send it to Front Sight magazine for publication?

[Chills1994]

coming at this from the Human Factors Engineering perspective...

in some circles human factors engineering falls under the scope of "engineering psychology".

I wasn't all that into shooting when I was at the college level being a human factors major, but looking back on it now, IPSC style of shooting seems to be a tracking task.

There are at least two types of tracking tasks. One is called pursuit tracking and the other is called ______ tracking.

Sorry, it escapes me now. I have forgotten. It has been 15 years already.

Driving a car is supposed to be a tracking task.

If there is some way that you can access the past journals of the Human Factors and Ergonomics society via the internet, I am sure you could probably do a search for "gender differences + tracking".

Also, I am sure you are aware that men and women giving driving directions differently. A man might tell another man "go 3 kilometers straight ahead. Then at the stoplight, make a right, then go another 2 kilometers."

A woman usually has a tendency to focus on landmarks, I think, so she might say, "Head straight until you see the WalMart. At that intersection, make a right turn. Then keep going until you get to Conoco Phillips gas station."

Now, this may, or may not be applicable to your big 35 page paper on women in IPSC. If you have done a walk through on a stage, a woman might map it out differently in her own mind versus how a man might remember it.

And getting back to the anthropometric (body measurements) aspect of it:

versus

[Duane Thomas]

What you're describing re driving directions sounds more like a difference of personality type, i.e Sensor versus Intuitive, than a gender based difference.

[Duane Thomas]

Re the photos Chills is showing above, FLETC also found that the average woman's grip length, i.e. the distance from the center of the web of the hand to the crease at the index finger's distal joint, was approximately one inch shorter than the average man's. Upshot, most women can't handle guns with larger grips and forward-set double action triggers, thus long trigger reaches (the distance from the center of the backstrap to the trigger), like the Beretta 92 shown in the top photo above, and do much better with guns like the 1911 shown in the bottom photo which have compact grips, a trigger located much further to the rear on the gun, and thus much shorter trigger reaches.

[Chills1994]

Gender differences in way-finding strategies: Relationship to spatial ability and spatial anxiety

Abstract Differences between women and men in the self-reported use of two different way-finding strategies were examined in a sample of primarily white middle to lower middle class college undergraduates. Women were more likely to report using a route strategy (attending to instructions on how to get from place to place), whereas men were more likely to report using an orientation strategy (maintaining a sense of their own position in relation to environmental reference points). Women also reported higher levels of spatial anxiety, or anxiety about environmental navigation, than did men. The orientation strategy was found to be positively correlated with spatial perception ability and negatively correlated with spatial anxiety.

[Duane Thomas]

Did they also correlate it to personality type? Is it possible they simply had high levels of female Intuitives and male Sensors?

[Chills1994]

Duane, this gets us to cross into the gray areas or rather the uncharted waters of the psychological academia world itself, and to the very root of most "sciences": Which is the cause and which is the effect? As in, to what extent is personality influenced by gender? Or said another way, Does gender cause personality?

Additionally, you are trying to throw a third variable (personality) into the mix. That brings up all sorts of confounding issues that I feel are beyond the scope of this undergrad's required 35 page paper.

At this paricular juncture, such a discussion doesn't seem prudent insomuch as our OP specifically asked about gender differences when it came to the various aspects of IPSC style of shooting. In other words, I never saw her bring up the topic of personality in her OP.

If I was our OP, in her shoes, I think I would rather focus on tracking tasks differences between the genders, and push "way finding" to the back burner. I would only dredge up the way finding gender differences if for example I was on page 30, and I needed to bull _ hit my way through another 5 pages.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Chills1994