John ~
My point was that women come in different flavors just like men do, and present different challenges to their instructors.
Some men come onto the range ready to listen, ready to follow suggestions, ready to learn. Some don't. Some really want to learn, but can't seem to make their hands do what their ears are told. And some are there only to stroke their own egos or to show off their abilities and thus will never hear a single word the instructor has to say to them.
Some women come onto the range ready to listen, ready to follow suggestions, ready to learn. Some don't. Some really want to learn, but can't seem to make their hands do what their minds are told. And some are there only to please a boyfriend or placate a nagging husband and thus will never hear a single word the instructor has to say to them.
The biggest difference between men & women in this context is that, culturally, a guy who isn't ready to learn for whatever reason will say so, straight up. He'll argue with the instructor and annoy the snot out of people next to him. That's how people in our culture teach their male children to deal with such situations.
But a woman who isn't ready to learn generally won't say so out loud and thus her attitude will often escape the notice of her classmates & even her instructor. She'll smile and be pleasant and curl just a little further into herself and keep doing it her own way when no one's looking. That's how people in our culture teach their female children to deal with such situations.
The woman with this attitude is not going to learn a whole lot more than the guy will, but because of the cultural difference in the way they deal with their frustrations, at the end of the day the instructor thinks the woman was truly trying and the guy was not.
Furthermore, a woman who hasn't learned nearly as much as she could have in class often escapes notice for one more reason: most people, in their guts, are surprised when a woman shoots even moderately well. Even if she does poorly, it's kind of like the old saw about the dancing bear. You know, "The wonder isn't how well the bear dances, it's that it dances at all." A lot of guys are just so thrilled to see a woman shooting that they look at her actual accomplishments through rose-colored lenses. They remember her doing better than she did ... or they remember her being soooo lousy at the beginning of the day that a very very mild improvement is touted as being something wonderful.
And that's why I say that women aren't necessarily better shooting school students than men are, nor are they any more apt to learn to shoot easily. For both men & women, there is a wide spectrum of abilities and attitudes students bring to the school. Neither sex is born knowing how to shoot and, once you realize what's going on, neither sex has a lock on being the best students.
They're just different.
pax
