I'm a woman, and I have no problem with knives.

Dad always made us wear watches and carry knives. He would sometimes spring an unexpected test on us, "Let me use your knife," even though we knew perfectly well he had his own knife in his pocket.

In Junior High, I was the opener of stubborn ketchup packets and divider of shared candybars. When the pricipal caught me spreading mustard on a hamburger with my SAK, (this was before students were searched for weapons on a daily basis) he asked me where I got it. My Dad gave it to me. "Well, don't go threatening anyone with it." And that was it. My cutom engraved SAK (Dad gave it to me!) fell out of my pocket one day during marching band and I was heartbroken!

These days, my job requires me to carry heavy duty pruning shears that are always sharp. Because of that, I've slacked on on my knife carrying, but now that I am reading the forum I realize I need to get back in the habit. Pruning shears are great and all, but they don't have tweezers in the handle!

Why would a woman want a knife? Well, if she gets a package in the mail, she doesn't have to go to the kitchen and use the paring knife to open her package, then wash the paring knife before putting it back in the knife block. She can just use her pocket knife.

If she is taking her knitting or embroidery with her to the doctor's office and working on it in the waiting room, the scissors of a pocket knife are easier to fit in her purse than those big Ginghers.

If she is on a walk and sees a nice rose she'd like to get a cutting off of, she has a knife with her. She doesn't have to go all the way home and get her pruning shears.

If it's raining cats and dogs and her Final Exams start in twenty minutes and she doesn't have an umbrella, and she has to run into the student book store and buy an umbrella, and she'd like to remove the tag . . .

If she scrapes the bejeezus out of her shin and needs to bandage it, but there's no bandaid big enough, so she has to improvise with guaze and a cotton pad but there's no way to cut the guaze to length because someone took the scissors out of the first aid kit and forgot to put them back . . .

I'm sure you can think of more instances. :-)