Women hunters reject pink hunting clothes and gear

pink hunting clothesWhen pink guns and clothing arrived in the marketplace for women hunters, I remember that one of my friends, a leader of the outdoor women’s movement in Maine, was terribly offended. Women just want hunting clothes that fit them, she told me.

Deirdre Fleming’s news story today about pink clothing for female hunters makes the same point. “When pink came along, it just enraged me,” Liz Walker of Carrabasset Valley told Fleming. “For our clothes to have pink all over it, it’s almost like a slap in the face. Then they came out with turquoise. Well, we don’t need a special color. We want the same stuff (as men). We just want it to fit us.”

Walker has been hunting for 30 years, so she knows what she’s talking about.

Fleming interviewed manufacturers and staff at LL Bean and Cabela’s, in her serious – but also entertaining – story. You can read it here.

And good luck to all those women hunters out there today – regardless of whether they are wearing pink.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.