Girls and Women a Growing Market in Shooting Sports

Photo © Pavel Losevsky | Dreamstime.com

Shooting sports want to capture lightning in a bottle the same way flag football and wrestling have: By harnessing the power of women and girls. 
 

Some organizations are already at work doing this:
 

• Shoot Like a Girl, an event marketing company focused on safety and empowering women to participate in shooting sports (archery and gun sports) with confidence, is ramping up its appearances nationwide as well as the visibility of archery and gun sports overall.
• A Girl and A Gun, meanwhile, is a female-only shooting club focused on education and training.
• Armed Women of America (formerly the Well-Armed Woman) is an organization for female gun owners. 

Multiple efforts have been underway to increase the number of women involved in shooting sports. But it wasn’t an easy road. In American Rounds, it is noted:
 

In the early 2000s, women represented a relatively small percentage of the firearms market. Industry surveys from this period typically estimated that women accounted for approximately 10-15% of gun owners in the United States. The firearms industry at this time made little effort to specifically cater to women consumers, with most marketing, product design, and training focused almost exclusively on male customers. 

This period saw limited data collection on women’s gun ownership, but available statistics from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and small-scale academic studies indicated that women who did own firearms during this period primarily cited home defense as their motivation, with a smaller percentage interested in recreational shooting.

In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-2000s that manufacturers began to recognize the power of the women’s market and added women’s programming and merchandising, as well as encouraging training courses. And by the period between 2010 and 2015, there was a significant acceleration in women’s firearm ownership. 

And SlayClays notes that those efforts are continuing to pay off, with women now making up about 30 percent of target shooters (defined as those participating in trap, skeet and sporting clays) in the U.S. However, the site notes, much still needs to be done.

Multiple steps to growth have been identified by SlayClays:

1. Prioritize Education and Outreach Programs: Organizations can achieve success, provided they make the effort by offering beginner-friendly workshops specifically for women, covering fundamentals like gun handling, safety, and basic shooting techniques, as well as by partnering with local women's groups, universities, or community centers to spread the word.
2. Removal of Barriers: Free introductory sessions to lower entry barriers and build confidence from day one.
3. Elevate Female Instructors and Role Models, including female coaches who can relate to newcomers' experiences and provide tailored guidance
4. Create Comfortable, Inclusive Environments, using women-specific amenities, such as well-maintained restrooms, changing areas, and family-friendly zones.
5. Improve Equipment Accessibility and Fit by stocking women-specific models of equipment as well as those with lighter recoil.
6. Host Women-Only Events and Competitions
7. Emphasize Safety Training Tailored to Women
8. Leverage Social Media and Digital Promotion
9. Establish Mentorship and Support Networks

Some organizations focus on one market, while others are more broad-based. A Girl and a Gun notes that the interest in gun classes for women in Nashville, for example, has surged, with more women enrolling in firearm safety, concealed carry and advanced tactical training courses than ever before. 
 

Then there’s archery. According to World Archery, the sport was among the first to include a women’s event at the Olympics (in 1904) and World Archery was the first international federation to have a female president. (Additionally, NA Bowhunter notes, the 1904 Games were where Matilda “Lida” Howell led the U.S. women to three gold medals.)

Additionally, by getting more girls and women involved in shooting, other multi-sport and multi-disciplinary events, such as biathlon and modern pentathlon, stand to benefit.
 

And what Lord of the Rings started, the Hunger Games perfected. Seven in 10 girls say that Katniss, the character from the Hunger Games stories, and Princess Merida, from the movie “Brave,” influenced their decision to take up archery. 
 

And when they compete, women have been doing well. In fact, a recent article in The Guardian noted that women have been outperforming men in shooting, leading to a headline that read: “Women often outperform men in Olympic shooting. Is it time for open events?”