Why I started hunting

It’s a funny story really. I was never that interested in hunting. I always thought it was something that the “boys” did. But then, one day, I was at a sporting goods store with my man. He was looking at guns (yawn) and talking with the salesmen about calibers, gauges, loads and other stuff I really couldn’t care less about.

I was posting a selfie on Instagram and was waiting for the likes to start rolling in and someone ran into me while I was staring at my phone (how rude!). I looked up to scowl at the person and it’s lucky I did because I saw something that would change my life forever: pink camouflage.

Hunting wasn’t just for men, it was for me too! All it took was a corporation to understand my needs, make the product and then charge twice as much for it as men’s hunting clothes.

All it took was the color pink.

How could I feel like a woman in army green and dull pukey yellows. Ugh. Or, even worse, orange? Even just a little bit of pink on the clothes makes me feel more like a woman while I’m hunting. Underneath it’s all pink camo lingerie. (It’s so comfortable when you’re hiking around and you can still feel sexy while you’re elbow deep in deer guts..am I right ladies?) And, don’t even get me started on pink camo guns. Thank god they make them. There are so many guns in the gun department! It’s confusing.

The color pink is like a homing beacon for my vagina.

Honestly, I don’t need hunting clothes that fit me or really any other options. I need clothes that are made in a color that has been arbitrarily assigned to me because of my gender. Recently I’ve been reading about how legislators in some states are making blaze pink legal for hunting. It made me feel, I don’t know, like someone really understands what motivates me to pick up a rifle and kill an animal for food.

Getting up early (I have to get up even earlier than the men so I can put on my makeup), in the cold, stalking an animal, taking its life, gutting it, hauling it out and then spending a couple of days butchering it just wasn’t something I was willing to do before pink camouflage came along.

Critics might argue that this is all just a marketing strategy by corporations to sell more stuff and that the people who introduced the blaze pink legislation are completely stereotyping women and are out of touch with why most women hunt. And, sigh, they would also probably say that the time, energy and money spent on these pieces of legislation would be better used for outdoor skills workshops for people who want to learn how to hunt. Whatever.

Critics be damned.

I, for one, understand that if anything, hunting is just another opportunity to be a consumer. Hell, just slap that pink on whatever you want us ladies to do and we’ll be there, no questions asked.