https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/...MONnr6mxXpmIWe-Pgbtja5cjPJb-QULfCeiBRSk1B2M_o
This woman is a *****. I dunno what kind of men she met on her journey into prepping but she obviously needs to get out more. I can only think of a couple of guys out of all the men, women and families I've met since I decided to research "those prepper folks" all those years ago who were card-carrying kooks who needed to be in padded cells for their own protection. Plus, I guess my life in my echo chamber has made me uber sensitive. Oh well ... I'm just glad she's up north far, far away ...
Article in it's entirety for those of you who do not want to clickity-click the link ...
Opinion
I Am Not a Housewife. I’m a Prepper.
Survivalism can be less about guns and ammo, and more about homemaking and community resilience.
By Mira Ptacin
Sept. 24, 2020
Before the pandemic, I was working on a book about doomsday preppers — people who are actively preparing for the end of the world, or at least major disruptions to our comfortable daily lives. Starting out, my idea of prepping matched the stereotype I’d so often seen: the prepper as a rural, military-minded dude who gathers canned food, guns and ammo, and heads to the hills to wait out the zombie apocalypse.
For the most part, I found the stereotype to be accurate, in spirit if not in detail. A majority of the preppers I encountered were male. They were white, and fearful, though it was masked by a strange facade of pride and bravado. Their prepping was a pre-emptive reaction to what they swore was coming and needed to hide from (in their bunkers) and be ready to fight (with their weapons): civil unrest. There wasn’t a sense of prepping to have enough to share, or to take care of one another. It was more stockpiling ammo along with trail mix. N95 masks next to the powdered milk and pepper spray.
I also spoke to preppers who were professional bunker builders with enormous YouTube followings, who wore MAGA hats through airports, filmed other people’s reactions, then proudly posted them alongside their videos of igniting dynamite next to their bunkers to display their durability. I met preppers who had wine cellars that doubled as safe rooms, pantries with secret doors that stored their automatic rifles. They were positive the end was coming — not from climate change, but from civil unrest, which I sensed to be code for “brown and Black people.” These guys were preparing, all right, but they were also hoarding, and not to save up to share and take care of their communities; they were hoarding so that they wouldn’t have to adapt. I assume they were kind enough to speak to me because, well, I’m a white woman, and they were happy to mansplain. I found little hope of having my assumptions overturned or finding a way to relate to it.
Then I met Lisa Bedford, a woman known in the prepper community (and on her website) as Survival Mom. She told me that the head-for-the-hills scenario bears little relation to what people actually experience in disasters or other disruptions — and because of that she focuses on another type of prepping: ultimate homemaking and community resilience. “We moms have always and quietly thought in terms of what if, Ms. Bedford said. “Instead of thinking, ‘What if my kids get too cold outside?,’ we’re thinking, ‘What if this snowstorm keeps us in the house for a couple of weeks and the roads are closed?’” The most basic rule of prepping, she told me, isn’t having a lot of guns and ammunition to fight marauders. It’s the Rule of Redundancy: Have a backup, and then have a backup for your backup.
She talked about the importance of storing water and how to purify whatever is available. How to start a fire. She explained the ins and outs of sanitation when one doesn’t have a working toilet and how to make an “emergency john.” How to make your own sanitizer. How to dehydrate food. How to administer first aid. How to stay cool when it’s hot out. How to outlast a power blackout. How to reuse, reuse and use again. Or, in a word, how to be resilient.
Ms. Bedford grew up in Phoenix and knew nothing at all about homesteading or prepping, couldn’t even can a vegetable. But the fears around Y2K got her thinking about protecting her family. Eight years later, the economy tanked and her husband lost his job. The value of their house dropped by $250,000. When she started to research how to protect her family, she discovered the doomsday prepping world and got absorbed in their prepping tips. Now Survival Mom is not just a woman but a brand and a business for her, complete with a how-to book for sale and a loyal following.
Curiously, I found that Ms. Bedford’s take on prepping stirred something in me. As we spoke, I heard echoes of my Polish grandmother’s and my own mother’s upbringing in the little town of Zakopane. They were resourceful because they had to be. Each family member knew how to cook, forage and make a meal out of whatever was available, whether it be from the woods or the small general store, if there was anything on the shelves. They knew how to store food so that it lasted the winter — root vegetables and apples in the dark basement, homemade sauerkraut — high in vitamin C! — in cans piled around the perimeter. The children learned to mend their own clothing and knew how to behead and pluck a chicken. That chicken would feed their family for the entire week. My mother taught me the duty of sharing whatever you had. In my mother’s youth as well as mine, there was always a hot pot of bigos (hunter’s stew) on the stove, ready to share with a neighbor or lost traveler.
For the women in my family, home wasn’t a place to display wealth or superficial decorating skills. Home was shelter, and home was the natural result of what you gave your attention, what you put your energy into, a reflection of one’s value systems. And there is nothing wrong with a woman in an apron.
This woman is a *****. I dunno what kind of men she met on her journey into prepping but she obviously needs to get out more. I can only think of a couple of guys out of all the men, women and families I've met since I decided to research "those prepper folks" all those years ago who were card-carrying kooks who needed to be in padded cells for their own protection. Plus, I guess my life in my echo chamber has made me uber sensitive. Oh well ... I'm just glad she's up north far, far away ...
Article in it's entirety for those of you who do not want to clickity-click the link ...
Opinion
I Am Not a Housewife. I’m a Prepper.
Survivalism can be less about guns and ammo, and more about homemaking and community resilience.
By Mira Ptacin
Sept. 24, 2020
Before the pandemic, I was working on a book about doomsday preppers — people who are actively preparing for the end of the world, or at least major disruptions to our comfortable daily lives. Starting out, my idea of prepping matched the stereotype I’d so often seen: the prepper as a rural, military-minded dude who gathers canned food, guns and ammo, and heads to the hills to wait out the zombie apocalypse.
For the most part, I found the stereotype to be accurate, in spirit if not in detail. A majority of the preppers I encountered were male. They were white, and fearful, though it was masked by a strange facade of pride and bravado. Their prepping was a pre-emptive reaction to what they swore was coming and needed to hide from (in their bunkers) and be ready to fight (with their weapons): civil unrest. There wasn’t a sense of prepping to have enough to share, or to take care of one another. It was more stockpiling ammo along with trail mix. N95 masks next to the powdered milk and pepper spray.
I also spoke to preppers who were professional bunker builders with enormous YouTube followings, who wore MAGA hats through airports, filmed other people’s reactions, then proudly posted them alongside their videos of igniting dynamite next to their bunkers to display their durability. I met preppers who had wine cellars that doubled as safe rooms, pantries with secret doors that stored their automatic rifles. They were positive the end was coming — not from climate change, but from civil unrest, which I sensed to be code for “brown and Black people.” These guys were preparing, all right, but they were also hoarding, and not to save up to share and take care of their communities; they were hoarding so that they wouldn’t have to adapt. I assume they were kind enough to speak to me because, well, I’m a white woman, and they were happy to mansplain. I found little hope of having my assumptions overturned or finding a way to relate to it.
Then I met Lisa Bedford, a woman known in the prepper community (and on her website) as Survival Mom. She told me that the head-for-the-hills scenario bears little relation to what people actually experience in disasters or other disruptions — and because of that she focuses on another type of prepping: ultimate homemaking and community resilience. “We moms have always and quietly thought in terms of what if, Ms. Bedford said. “Instead of thinking, ‘What if my kids get too cold outside?,’ we’re thinking, ‘What if this snowstorm keeps us in the house for a couple of weeks and the roads are closed?’” The most basic rule of prepping, she told me, isn’t having a lot of guns and ammunition to fight marauders. It’s the Rule of Redundancy: Have a backup, and then have a backup for your backup.
She talked about the importance of storing water and how to purify whatever is available. How to start a fire. She explained the ins and outs of sanitation when one doesn’t have a working toilet and how to make an “emergency john.” How to make your own sanitizer. How to dehydrate food. How to administer first aid. How to stay cool when it’s hot out. How to outlast a power blackout. How to reuse, reuse and use again. Or, in a word, how to be resilient.
Ms. Bedford grew up in Phoenix and knew nothing at all about homesteading or prepping, couldn’t even can a vegetable. But the fears around Y2K got her thinking about protecting her family. Eight years later, the economy tanked and her husband lost his job. The value of their house dropped by $250,000. When she started to research how to protect her family, she discovered the doomsday prepping world and got absorbed in their prepping tips. Now Survival Mom is not just a woman but a brand and a business for her, complete with a how-to book for sale and a loyal following.
Curiously, I found that Ms. Bedford’s take on prepping stirred something in me. As we spoke, I heard echoes of my Polish grandmother’s and my own mother’s upbringing in the little town of Zakopane. They were resourceful because they had to be. Each family member knew how to cook, forage and make a meal out of whatever was available, whether it be from the woods or the small general store, if there was anything on the shelves. They knew how to store food so that it lasted the winter — root vegetables and apples in the dark basement, homemade sauerkraut — high in vitamin C! — in cans piled around the perimeter. The children learned to mend their own clothing and knew how to behead and pluck a chicken. That chicken would feed their family for the entire week. My mother taught me the duty of sharing whatever you had. In my mother’s youth as well as mine, there was always a hot pot of bigos (hunter’s stew) on the stove, ready to share with a neighbor or lost traveler.
For the women in my family, home wasn’t a place to display wealth or superficial decorating skills. Home was shelter, and home was the natural result of what you gave your attention, what you put your energy into, a reflection of one’s value systems. And there is nothing wrong with a woman in an apron.
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