THERE’S A WELL-KNOWN maxim among preppers—particularly the small but growing subset of female preppers—that you prep for Tuesday, not doomsday. On the day I interview Krystal C., a 37-year-old military vet turned prepping influencer in Utah, it is a Monday, and I am not prepared for that day or the one after it. That morning, I left my phone at home as I dropped my daughter off at daycare, and I haven’t seen my keys—both car and home—in weeks. (I’ve been stealing my husband’s set or simply going without.) Unlike me, Krystal has been prepping since childhood.
She learned prepping from her grandparents, although they didn’t use that term. It’s a sentiment she shares with Lisa Bedford, author of the Survival Mom book and blog and de facto founding mother of the female prepper movement. In 2011, Doomsday Preppers debuted on the National Geographic channel, and that image of preppers—predominantly white men in paramilitary garb, determined to protect their heavily armed bunkers at all costs—has endured.
I spoke with 10 women for this story who all told me that while that type of prepper does exist, a more practical, family-focused approach to prepping has emerged in the 15 years since, and it’s a movement led by everyday women—often the mom next door. Even though prepping is in Krystal’s DNA, she, like many others, got more serious about it after some kind of disaster. For her and Lisa, it was the Great Recession in 2008.
For Zani Sunshine, a 45-year-old homesteading prepper—and one of the few highly visible Black female influencers in the prepping community—it was Hurricane Katrina and then the 2016 presidential election. Marcy R.,* another Black female prepper, started cramming her New York apartment with extra food and water after witnessing 9/11. Sue M., a 66-year-old entertainment paralegal in Los Angeles, started prepping due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For other women, like Ambrosia Luzius, a 41-year-old emergency management professional, it was not a once-in-a-lifetime disaster but the ordinary miracle of motherhood that pushed her into prepping. Amy Edelman, 67, does not consider herself a prepper, but she did coauthor The Emergency Playbook, a how-to guide to everyday preparedness, and has a “zombie closet in the basement” filled with canned goods and vegetarian MREs (short for “meals, ready-to-eat,” originally developed by the U.S. military). When Superstorm Sandy knocked out the power in Amy’s house for a week, she decided to get a few more flashlights and stock some water in her basement.
When inflation spiked the price of tomatoes, she went to her local garden center and bought what she needed to grow her own. She has a bugout bag (the colloquial term for the pack of essentials you prepare in order to flee your home) and knows how much it should weigh based on her body weight (15 to 20 percent). But she hasn’t road-tested it by walking three times around the park yet, which is something she recommends in her book.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
