Just curious, where did the manly aspect of hunting come into discussion? Never saw where anyone posting here said hunting is manly. Imo hunting is good for women too.
The manly aspect where hunting is concerned comes from a father spending time with their children enjoying the wonders of nature. The hunt is enjoyable without killing anything. After all, it's called hunting, not killing. And this is one of the lessons learned concerning respect of nature, that you don't shoot up the woods killing everything in sight.
The true spirit of hunting is probably best referenced to hunting practices by native American Indians, who had great respect for the game they hunted. They wasted no part of an animal they killed, and held an animal's spirit in high regard. This is the right way to go about hunting, an ideal to be upheld. Respect comes from killing what you need, eating what you kill and not littering up the woods.
It is true that nature can be enjoyed by hiking and camping out, but there is a spiritual connect with the taking of a life that causes introspection into the ethics surrounding such an event, and from which compassion is learned. This is the value of hunting, and yes, one of the things which are good in a man (or a woman.)
I tried Googling what hunting teaches children, and found interesting results, though nothing I didn't already know or predict. The majority of articles praised hunting as very good for kids. Hunting is endorsed by most educators and psychologists as valuable for teaching ethics and responsibility to children, and has had good results when dealing with kids in dysfunctional settings. The one negative article I found was a letter to the editor of the NY Times. This speaks for itself.
The concept of manliness and doing what is manly changes over time. When you're young, manliness is measured by physical abilities it seems. This is why as an adult entering old fartdom, I have a hard time grasping the idea of hunting as manly. Or more to the point, why detractors of hunting think hunters think of themselves as manly. I've hunted many years and never did I consider it manly, just fun mostly and perhaps hard work at times. I've not met anyone who took up hunting because it was manly. Could this concept be a media perpetuated stereotype? Along with beer guzzling rednecks blowing away songbirds left and right? This is what they want you to believe.
I could be wrong. Do any hunters here hunt because it's manly? Please speak up.
Marlon Brando probably said it best in The Godfather. "A man who does not spend time with his family cannot call himself a man." - Don Corleone
Les
