Now, the girls...girls didn't have many role models in those old movies and TV shows who were normally seen carrying a gun, so naturally girls were not generally interested in playing with guns either. The only female role model in that sense that I can think of back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s was Annie Oakley, who gained fame in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

When you think about it, there's been quite a blurring of the once strongly separated gender roles in society. Young women are now much more inclined to adopt aggressive or assertive behaviours that were formerly seen almost exclusively as "male"...and in today's movies you see any number of female "action" heroes who play the kind of heroic roles once played almost exclusively by men. The girls aren't there just to scream, faint, and get rescued any longer. ;-D