Prepping And Women: Is There A Schism Between Male and Female Preppers?

(Source)

    I occasionally will just do searches about prepping and survivalism on Google News to get a perspective on how the topic or people are being treated in main stream media, get a sense of developing issues, and because sometimes there is good advice or tips to found or new sources to explore (if you haven't noticed, small prepping blogs tend to pop up for short time and die with some frequency).

    My most recent search yielded an article titled "The Schism Breaking Apart the 'Prepper' Community" by Lili Loofbourow at Slate. I don't follow Reddit’s r/preppers board, but according to this March 2022 article, there was a revolt among some of its members over the alleged exclusion of female-centric posts leading to the formation of new Reddit boards that are more female oriented; although from how it is described in the article, I wonder if the real schism is between the "woke" and those that are not. 

    From the article:

    In late February, a post on r/preppers titled “Will the female preppers please stand up” lightheartedly complained about how equipment necessary for survival was aggressively gendered male. Some of the responses from female preppers evolved into a more general complaint about how the community discussions had a masculine cast to them: “Lol one time I made a post on here about stoking birth control and plan b and it got taken down,” a user replied. “I don’t think getting pregnant would help me survive when SHTF but what do I know?” Another user replied: “I remember that post and yes it got taken down by mods who felt that advice relevant to half the country isn’t actually relevant to prepping and we apparently aren’t allowed to talk about things like birth control and preventing yourself from sexual assault without it triggering some people.”

    A debate ensued about whether posts were really being removed—that is, downvoted or reported by members, resulting in their removal by the auto-moderator. Some moderators expressed concern, saying that removing posts about female concerns went against the very spirit of the community. Another moderator claimed it hadn’t happened; only one post he could find in the logs (about “bugging in” with a baby) had been removed by an auto-moderator. He claimed no one had appealed the removals of any posts and complained that the subreddit was needlessly hemorrhaging women over one post no one had complained was gone. Skeptical members requested proof that the removals had actually happened. In the middle of the debate, a user replied with an innocuous announcement. “I just made r/TwoXPreppers,” she wrote. Hundreds of users immediately started subscribing.

    The subreddit description reads: “A place where women can talk about prepping for their specific needs. Even though I used XX in the name this sub is trans inclusive and pro LGBTQIA.”

    It wasn’t a hostile secession. In fact, evidence that female-centered posts on r/preppers had been removed was shared on r/TwoXPreppers at the request of r/preppers moderators, in the hopes of addressing the problem. “The report button is there for a reason,” a screenshot showed a moderator saying, “and if so many members Reported your post that it got removed then I would have to say that the community has spoken.” When this screenshot was posted, another r/preppers moderator wrote: “I am sorry that this happened and am trying to fix the issue. We in no way want to exclude women topics and I really have no idea if the other mods are male or not, but I do assume that they are.”

    It was telling, however, that this conversation was happening on the new, spun-off sub. The cat was out of the bag. Right now, about a month after its creation, r/TwoXPreppers has 7,500 members.

It notes that this was followed by a prepper board for queer preppers and another female board that expressly forbids men. 

    The Reddit post that started it all is here. The original poster, the_queen_of_nada, wrote:

    I'm mostly posting this because I find it humorous, not here to offend anyone.

    We're just one month out from the spring solstice so I've been thinking about updating my bag & getting a few incidentals. I'm only 22 and have only had the money to do this for a year, so up until today, I haven't even had a first aid kit. And for some reason neither do my parents.

    Anyway, I hike as well and plan on taking the kit with me for that too (it's very compact) but while I was browsing other supplies, I couldn't help but notice the bizarre way ALL of this stuff is gendered.

    Multitools? Knives? General survival books? First aid kids? Lanterns?

    Oh no. These aren't just products. They're for HUSBANDS BIG DADDY MANLY MAN STOCKING STUFFER BIRTHDAY PRESENT.

    Like...what? I get this is a male-dominated pursuit but Amazon is just so heavy handed with it, it's hilarious to me. I'm surprised there isn't some company just making all of this shit in pink and then marketing it to women because lord knows that's the only way we'll take responsibility for our own survival /s

So, we have someone that is young (immature) with obviously very little experience with prepping (she still working on a first aid kit for goodness sake!) who doesn't like how Amazon (not the prepper community, but Amazon) had marketed some items to her. She obviously must be referring to an advertisement or email that she received because if you go to Amazon (which I did to make sure) it doesn't specify that multitools or knives, for instance, are just for men. 

    Even looking through the product photographs and videos I didn't see it. Perhaps because some (and I emphasize "some") of the photographs showing someone using the products show men's hands, that somehow communicated to her that women aren't allowed to use the product? Because, if so, it seems a little deranged. I can guarantee that just because a vacuum cleaner box or hair dryer box shows a woman using the product I never think: "I can't use that because it is only for women." 

    There are literally hundreds of responses to queen of nothing's post, some of which spawned their own long series of replies and comments, so I obviously have not been able to read all of them. But I got the general sense scrolling through that most of the responses and comments fell into four main groupings:

1.     Those, like the author of the original post, that are triggered because the product advertisements or marketing material are not specifically tailored to women or POC. 

2.     Those that are just bitter that they are women and so feel compelled to complain about men and argue why women are better than men. 

3.     Those complaining that the men in their lives are not supportive of their prepping.

4.     Those wanting to discuss issues specific to women such as dealing with menstruation, stockpiling birth-control and abortion drugs, and so on. 

    I think you can see why many of the women that had read or contributed to the thread were eager for a space away from prying eyes that might see how they really believe.

    Being a good sport, I decided to find some articles on female prepping to see if there was something inherently different between how men and women should approach prepping. The top ones offered up by Google were:

• "Female Preppers: Women with Prepping Sites" by Morgan Rogue, SHTF Blog.
• "10 Tips for Female Preppers" by Diane Vuković at Primal Survivor. 
• "10 Skills Female Preppers Should Have That Aren’t About Food" by Ash Duncan at Mind4Survival.
• "How to Become a Female Prepper" by Kyt Lyn Walken at Bunker Basics. 
• "Best Doomsday Gear for Female Preppers" by Kyt Lyn Walken at The Prepper Journal.
• "Women and Prepping - Special Considerations" by Ally Corless at Primer Peak.
• "Prepping Tips For Ladies" from Survival Frog.

    To be blunt, most of the seven articles above, four were just about skills and mindset and gear that could have been lifted from any article or book on prepping: there was nothing specific to one sex or the other in them other than the obligatory "you're special" or "go girl" comments. That is, everyone needs to learn to start a fire, how to filter water, how to use a knife or ax, how to defend themselves, etc. I suppose that the main benefit of such articles is that they appeal to women that, for whatever reason, object to being instructed by men and would rather listen to (or read) something from a woman.

    Another article--the first one above, from SHTF Blog--merely lists female bloggers with a short blurb about each. 

    The last two articles from Primer Peak and Survival Frog were the only ones that focused on issues that really are unique to women: dealing with periods, surviving while pregnant, how to avoid getting pregnant, and tips on how to avoid having to engage in the sex trade to survive after a collapse. All useful topics. And the Survival Frog article included links to videos on those topics as well if you learn better that way. 

    But other than the last point on trading sex for food or supplies, which is strangely ignored by most books on prepping, most of the comprehensive books on prepping that I've read (i.e., those that try to cover, however briefly, all aspects of prepping) will typically at least mention feminine issues, even if it is just to refer the reader to other sources. So to the extent that the queen of nothing and those that responded to her post are suggesting that the prepping community has historically not been concerned with prepping issues unique to women, I would say that is incorrect: there has been a concern even if the author did not delve into it in great detail. Which makes sense if the writer is male because there are some topics that men simply can't cover and where the input of women is critical. For instance, even if I wanted to personally test and review a menstrual cup, I would not be able to do so. 

    In the end, I suspect that this is less a schism among the Reddit board members and more just a very small, unpleasant group that simply dislike men. With the exception of a few female specific topics such feminine hygiene and birth control, the advice women are giving to other women do not appear to be different from the prepping advice from men.