Not to derail, but I thought this was funny.

My wife can take it or leave it. I'd rather spend my tent time with someone to snuggle with, but my camping buddies don't appreciate that, so I will save it for the home scene.

Now my daughters are a different story. They will get grubbier than me if I let 'em. The older one gets hairy legs so bad if she rubbed them together after a week at camp we'd be swarmed by locusts!

LTHTPR, got it.

This why some of us were in favor of a "you-caught-it-you-eat" gourmet section here, with Blast's Culinary Corner as a special feature.

But it depends where they live. My mother, a fashionably dressed business woman in NYC, now EDCs an N95 mask, flashlight, water, first aid supplies, and a couple of other odds and ends in her gigantic Loius Vuitton pocketbook. You'd never know it from looking, but after 9/11, many NY women started bringing EDC kits with them. And of course with pocketbooks, they have a major leg up on us guys. God help some establishment that tries to separate a New York woman and her pocketbook. (And my nutty father carries enough junk in his "high-tech" fanny pack to outfit a small nation. It must run in the family... )

I wasn't there, but knowing her, she probably had a good case of shakes after her roommate moved on. But ice cold in the clinch- she's better at that than I am.

Okay, second female opinion...

You're going to have to know her a little before you know how she feels about camping and survival stuff. It's really hard to work survival into a good pick-up line, isn't it?

Many women are actually interested in survival and preparedness, but may not know quite how to start. If they ask a guy, they're often buried by an avalanche of information, and that cures them of asking again.

Many guys are really quite obnoxious about their skills. Why do you think gun classes for women taught by a woman are more popular than gun classes taught by men? Because of that macho I-Know-Best-You're-An-Idiot attitude. That sigh and rolling of the eyes, the talking down to us like we're infants, none of this helps. Some of these guys start in the middle of a subject, lose their audience immediately, then suddenly act like they're teaching a kindergarten class and start with the basics (like they're offended we aren't smart enough to keep up with them), but using very small words and very short sentence, like we're babies.

Here are some basics. K.I.S.S. (everyone knows that acronym, right?)

Use the news -- there's an overwhelming number of stupid, ignorant and careless people out there, plus a bunch of natural and manmade disasters. If some incident takes place, kind of idly ask her what she would do if that happened where she was. Think about what she says; ask more questions about why she would do that, what she would do if help wasn't immediately forthcoming, make a few suggestions. Get her thinking. Planting a small seed of thought can reap a ton of results.

Keep your information in short bites. Nothing makes a woman's eyes glaze over more than an hour of verbal diarrhea (on any subject). Attempting to tell her every single thing you know about anything is just an ego trip. (Can I say 'ego trip', or is that too '60's?)

If you think she should have a GetHome bag, give her a few things that she would ordinarily use, like a decent flashlight, first (not the bag). Give them to her one at a time ("I thought you could keep this in your purse, what with all the power outages and brownouts that have been going on." "Here's a little first aid kit I put together for you.") Give her stuff she could reasonably be expected to use. Graduate to the bag. Hold off on the multi-tool, kaybar and the flare gun.

If she keeps asking you to pull out your multi-tool to do something for her, or asks to use yours a few times, grin and give her her own. You might even giftwrap it.

Use the familiar to teach about the unfamiliar.

If you're teaching her firemaking skills, don't start with some cool thing like a Blast Match or a fire piston, start with a MATCH. She knows what a match is for, how it works, and she's used them before. Focus on showing her how to start with small, dry tinder, then adding small twigs, then larger twigs, etc. Give her a success right away. Toss in a few facts about using absolutely dry materials, wind, rain, etc, as you go. Take it easy, keep it simple. Don't overwhelm her with information that she's not ready for.

Shelters: Start simple, like with a tarp, and show her how to anchor it down. A few simple knots are good to know.

Collecting water: She will probably feel better about collecting rainwater in a mylar blanket than scooping mucky water out of a hole and treating it with a tablet.

Wild foods: always start with the ones she can easily recognize: blackberries (all the cluster-type berries like blackberries and raspberries are edible; many of the single berries are poisonous) and cattails (the root has a sweet, mild taste; before the flower forms the shoot can be peeled and eaten like asparagus).

Like homeschooling children, you can work bits and pieces of survival into everyday situations and conversations. Just avoid overdoing it.

Sue

You the woman!

Thanks.

Wise advice, Sue.

There are many reasonable ways to approach the subject that aren't macho, guns blazing, end-of-the-world with zombies etc. That stuff spells k-o-o-k to a lot of of women.

Red Cross publications?

First-aid courses?

Environment - reducing impact, 100-mile diet, etc.?

Self-sufficiency - gardening and storing produce?

Pandemic planning - from the local health authority?

There's also the historical angle. Pioneer women -- our grandmothers and great-grandmothers -- knew more about "survival" in a practical everyday sense than the rest of us put together. There was no macho about it; it was just life, and most of those skills hold up today.

That is some very wise, straight forward advice. Advice that I will start working on using. It should help improve my "sterling personality friction" that I seem to work so well with so many.

It's rather sobering when I am having to admit guilt to having done some of the aspects that you mentioned. I will go to my room now and say some "Hail Mary's".

Thanks, Sue

I'll second what Sue just said. Adding that some women are probably even interested but might not openly let on as it might be seen as a bit different -- maybe not different to the guys -- but a lot of women will look at you like your hair is on fire when you enter the yarn store in camo. (yes I did and yes I knit--like I'm going to change after leaving the shooting range--geesh!)

Also be patient with us -- just because we haven't hunted, etc., doesn't mean we can't or won't. It often means we had mother's who wouldn't let us get dirty.

But Dweste, if they have every cosmetic known on the planet in their purse, if might not be a good fit.

CBP

"Clay Bustin Princess"