What is it with Women and Bows?

Well since I'm working on a special project, I decided I still ought to post something, so here it is!

I love Katniss Everdeen. She's probably the first actual action gal in YA who can't be duplicated properly and starred in a battle royale just for the sake of her family. Heck, it's thanks to her that I can go wander over to the store and buy female Nerf products. For those for you who live under a rock, or just another country, Nerf is the name of a kids toy gun brand. Colorful purple, blue, and orange guns that shoot foamy stuff is a staple part of my childhood. However they were always geared for guys so I had to usually skip out on the idea of pink. Yet in the last few years Nerf came out with a pink bow set...And quickly moved onto small guns.

Now I don't have any issues with this, I actually do archery with a recurve bow. I'm no expert and I suck at it, but I do support the modern archery industry. But why is it that young girls are expected to use bows instead of guns/swords in fantasy? I know that the bow is pretty easy to use and it's a common thing for the poor people in fantasy to use, but that's still no excuse! I personally feel as if using a bow just keeps you out of the general danger while still keeping the character useful.

 Oh, what's that? The Dark Lord decided he wants to murder a poor bunny village? Well come magical heroes! Let's go fight his evil chili pepper orcs! And you, Ms. Bow, can go sit on the mountaintop far away from the action and just shoot them down.

Maybe I'm just thinking too deeply into this...I mean elves commonly use bows, and I rarely read about female elves prancing around with the group of heroes. However it's just shown time and again how girls/women are the bowmen. Look at Chronicles of Narnia, Susan got a bow as her gift! A bow that didn't even force her to sit down and aim! And I don't even want to get into other characters from fantasy who are just given bows. I guess it was just a way to throw the females out of the way so the men can do the proper fighting, yet still claim that the women wouldn't be following in Princess Peach's footsteps...

But have you played her in Super Smash Bros? She's killer.