Homeland Security is for girls: when it comes to worrying about terrorism, men are from Mars and women are from Venus

Washington Monthly, April, 2003 by Garance Franke-Ruta

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS FAMOUSLY criticized after September 11 for asking nothing of Americans but that they go shopping. In February, Bush's Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge went a step further: He gave Americans a shopping list.

On the day he delivered the ominous news of an Orange alert, Ridge suggested that citizens secure duct tape, plastic sheeting, and other necessities to construct a "safe room" in the event that a toxic cloud of something awful happened to settle over their homes. As a resident of Washington D.C., a city that's been through two attacks, Ridge didn't have to tell me twice. I grabbed J., my "emergency preparedness buddy," and set out for Target. We both know she's not good in a crisis; but that's OK, because I'm the type who's had a flashlight, Cipro, and a National Guard-issued P100 toxic dust mask on hand for more than a year. (Besides, she's got both the things I require in an evacuation partner: a sense of humor and a car.)

Veteran mallgoers can attest that supply shopping in these anxious times is uncannily like the annual day-after-Thanksgiving blitz. Our neighborhood hardware store was advising customers to line up at 6:30 a.m. For duct tape! So we ventured instead to the bountiful malls of Northern Virginia with no fewer than four--yes, four--crosschecked supply lists in hand. You see, my apartment sits within the area around the White House that Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher has helpfully dubbed "the Death Zone" (thanks, Marc). So to prepare for a massive, radiation-spewing explosion, I figured I needed Ace bandages, large amounts of gauze, medical tape, antibiotic ointment, industrial-strength soap, and eyewash. Check. Check. Check. And for good measure, J. and I splurged not on a pair of Prada mules but on a pair of high-powered communication radios.

As J. and I waited in a checkout line long enough to rival the next Star Wars premiere, something strange gradually dawned on me. Looking around at my fellow preparedness shoppers, I realized that most of those fumbling with D batteries, prepared foodstuffs, and enough bottled water to free Willy were women. Aside from the unshaven few who always huddle around the high-tech gadgets, the male of the species was virtually absent.

As my week dragged on, I began to notice this pattern everywhere. Newspapers regularly publish reports that women are, for example, twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with panic disorder and social phobia, nearly twice as likely to become depressed, and of the 11 million Americans who suffer from phobias, most are--surprise!--women. Men, I decided, are strangely immune from terrorism worries, as well.

It wasn't just my male friends and colleagues who seemed unable to tear themselves away from "Sports-Center." It was also the ones in positions to really worry. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--a man who works in a building that has already been hit by terrorists!--admitted to WMAL radio that he and his family actually hadn't rushed to stock their home with duct tape, plastic sheeting, and bottled water: "I would like to say I did," Rumsfeld mused, as though he hadn't a care in the world, but "I don't believe we do." This was even true of Mr. Orange Alert himself who, it turns out, like so many manly American men, delegated homeland preparedness to the little woman. "Mr. Ridge has a home emergency kit of food, water, and batteries that his wife assembled several months ago," The New York Times reported.

As I contemplated my own response to the Orange Alert and the fact that men were noticeably AWOL from the hardware stores, grocery stores, and pharmacies while the womenfolk prepared for World War III, as I watched the men I know display the same Zen-like indifference that characterizes their approach not just to terror alerts but to ... well ... everything, and as I perused the wave of data that showed how the genders responded differently to the terrorism alert, I decided my initial suspicion was indeed a scientific fact: Homeland security is for girls.

Duct-Tape Divas

Ever since September 11, there's been a steady stream of evidence that when it comes to the question of terrorism, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Certainly, two of the loudest voices of homeland-security anxiety belong to women. Sally Quinn, renowned Georgetown socialite and Washington Post reporter, could very well be the leading candidate for the title of "most anxious woman in America." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is running a close second.

"Nobody in America makes me feel more insecure than Tom Ridge," Dowd confessed in a Feb. 23 column. "The man who is supposed to restore my confidence in the prospect of my safety gives me the uneasy sense that the door's unlocked, the alarm's off, and there's a ladder leaning up against the house." Not to be outdone, Quinn penned her own column. "A large portion of the population is in denial," she pointed out, in what perhaps was an oblique reference to the masculine gender. "Those people need to understand that they can do things to save their lives and the lives of their families." Quinn wasn't content with a mere oped; she's spearheading an entire special supplement in The Washington Post on how to prepare for an attack.