Believe it our not, but I am a girly girl. I freak out at the sight of bugs, I hate dirt under my nails, and I never leave the house without slathering on my makeup and teasing my hair like it was still 1965. Admittedly, I’m not your typical metal detecting hobbyist but I’m slowly learning to navigate this hobby–with a little feminine flare I might add.

As you could probably imagine, being a woman in this hobby does have its advantages… but is certainly not without its disadvantages. This morning I posed a question in Women Diggers–a female diggers group on Facebook. I asked the ladies to share their struggles in participating in a male-dominated hobby.

One advantage that we could all agree on was obtaining permissions. I think that women must be less threatening than our male counterparts. In my experience, whenever I knock on a door or approach a property owner, they are always friendly and engaging. I have yet to be turned down in a face-to-face interaction. Now… emails and letters… that’s a story for another day.

But other than seeking property permissions, I was hard-pressed to pinpoint any other advantages to being  a woman digger. Someone suggested being small and able to squeeze into tight spaces… but let’s face it… I’m 5’9″ and I’m not squeezing in anywhere.

There are certainly more disadvantages than advantages. As a female digger–I must ALWAYS be contentious of my surroundings and interactions with strangers. I have to be exceedingly paranoid… something I’m really not used to. Every time I’m hunting in the country by myself, knocking on a stranger’s door, exploring an old homestead–I have to switch my creeper-radar into overdrive. (And FYI, creeper-radar is something almost every woman is born with…)

In some ways, I feel as though having to be extra attentive to my surroundings often robs me of the real digger experience–of being able to truly tune into the history of a site and transport myself back in time. That is why I prefer to hunt with a partner whom I can trust and whom I know will have my back… but even choosing a partner can be dangerous to a woman digger. Let’s face it, there really aren’t a whole lot of fellow female diggers to choose from.

Since I started writing this blog, I’ve gained a lot of notoriety. People in the digging community have started to recognize my name and my writing. I receive about twenty friend requests when I make a post and quite a few personal messages. I mean, I don’t mind all the attention… to a point. I enjoy hearing from other diggers about their experiences and their finds–As a matter of fact, I’ve forged some really great friendships through private messaging. But I hate being blatantly hit on over PMs. I am a married woman, if you remember.

All that being said, I have a lot of guys eager to be my digging partner and join me on hunts. I realize that a lot of them are well-intentioned and knowledgeable, but its my prerogative to be cautious. As a matter of fact, this was the second issue discussed in Women Diggers when I posed my question this morning. There are some weird dudes that metal-detect. I’m sure most of my readers can picture that certain person in their mind… and if not–then I got some bad news–its probably you.

When I first started metal detecting, someone had requested help in detecting a civil-war campsite near me. Heck, yeah! I was all over that. As the date grew closer, I began to question my decision to meet up with two random dudes in the middle of a soy-bean field. I even posted the coordinates on my Facebook with a message, “If I go missing, you can find my body here.” Fortunately, they were both great guys and I would still hunt with them to this day knowing that they’d have my back should anything ever go wrong.

Just recently, I found another hunting partner by posting in Dirt Digging PA. He also happens to live in the same town. Upon talking, we discovered that we’ve been pursing a lot of the same permissions. Tomorrow, we plan on hitting a bottle dump near our old high-school–make sure you like my page to see my videos.

Now, I’ve gotten lucky in choosing my digging partners. I’ve heard stories of hunting partners turning into creeps and stalkers. I don’t think male diggers realize the struggles of being a female digger. Sure, maybe we can obtain permissions easier, but we are constantly on our guard. If we get the heebie-jeebies, we have to abandon our site and high-tail it to safety.

I bring you this post with the purpose of shedding some light on the digging divide of the sexes. I hope that I might inspire some male diggers to show appreciation to a female digger. We love the hobby just as much as you–even if it means getting a little dirt under our nails.