“What Real Empowerment Looks Like”: White Rage and the Necropolitics of Armed Womanhood

Advertising Frames and the Legitimation of the Armed American Woman

“…Future research could investigate the legitimizing effects of advertisements for other categories of armed people; specific guns, such as modern sporting (i.e., “assault-style”) rifles; and particular gun practices, such as concealed and open carry. Consistent with prior work on gun advertising and NRA appeals (Light 2021), we observed that armed American women and men are predominantly depicted as white, indicating that notions of armed racialized Americans are not currently legitimate. Future research could examine the success, or lack thereof, of the emerging Domestic Defender frame in legitimizing women gun owners of color, and depictions of racialized Americans in gun advertising more broadly, including as a legitimate American gun-owner, or as the threat that motivates others’ gun ownership.…”

“…There are references to hunting (Figure 11, ad #3), training, and protection (ad #1), but the consumer benefits are largely left to the viewer's interpretation. This is consistent with the emergence of “Second Amendment” gun culture that focuses on gun rights activism and subverts conventional ideals about femininity and firearms (Boine et al 2020; Light 2021; Talbot 2005).…”

“…In addition, the visual and textual discourse of the ads aimed at women beyond NRA members portray gun use as empowering for women, but in a different and more nuanced way than it was previously portrayed by the NRA. Extant research reveals that the NRA's notion of women's armed empowerment, embodied in NRATV spokeswoman Dana Loesch from 2016 to 2019, is entrenched in white nationalism (Light 2021), and that the NRA has tried to appeal to white women by integrating gun ownership with conservative ideals, stoking fear of being personally attacked by a stranger and of the government stripping citizens of their gun rights, and glamorizing guns, gun-centric communities, and political engagement (Lacombe 2021; Schwartz 2021). While white women dominate the ads in our sample, and the Capable Carrier frame is consistent with the threat of being attacked by a stranger, we observe an absence of overt politicization of women's gun ownership, likely in an effort to appeal to less conservative women who may count themselves among the 62% of American women who favor increased gun control (Brenan 2022).…”

“…Other research is needed to investigate types of appeals that are more or less effective in different media channels. For example, gunfluencers – “sexy, young, gun-brandishing Instagram influencers” (Light 2021, 912) – embody the sexiness frame that seems to have been abandoned in print ads, and have successfully attracted hundreds of thousands of followers in pursuit of an ideology built around gun rights activism (Drenten et al 2023). Future research on portrayals of armed women should examine media channels targeted to current and potential women gun owners.…”

“…In sum, while the armed American man is an enduring, legitimate consumera naturalized, taken-for-granted blend of masculinity, capability, responsibility, and self-sufficiency (Carlson 2015b;Stroud 2015) the armed American woman has not shared this same degree of legitimacy and has only recently become more legitimate, as indicated by increases in women's gun ownership and purchasing. In the decades preceding our study, gun advertisers have attempted to establish the armed American woman as an empowered defender of herself or her family who is either overtly sexual (Browder 2006) or subverts feminine ideals by embracing a powerful symbol of white masculinity and violence (Light 2021;Stange and Oyster 2000;Twine 2013). However, at least until the late 2010s, she was still not taken seriously by menthe "real" gun owners (Browder 2006;Schwartz 2021).…”