Exhibit #1: Women\u2019s backpacks<\/strong><\/p>\n Osprey is generally acknowledged as the maker of the best backpacks for hiking and backpacking. Their top-of-the-line backpack for long multi-day backpack trips for men, the Xenith, can hold 105 L and between 60-80 lbs. The women\u2019s pack, the Xena, on the other hand, can hold 85 L and between 50-70 lbs. This is because the women\u2019s pack is shorter. Osprey is betting that most women have a shorter torso and thus need a shorter pack. While this might be true for some women, they could attempt to engineer another type of pack that would allow women to carry the same poundage as men. Moreover, it is unclear why these packs are labeled \u201cmen\u2019s and women\u2019s.\u201d Plenty of women have longer torsos and men shorter ones. And, indeed, on backpacking forums on the internet, you constantly see stories of people buying gear of the \u201cwrong sex\u201d<\/a> so that it actually fits.<\/p>\n Exhibit #2: Choose your sex!<\/strong><\/p>\n Many hikers and backpackers buy gear online and oftentimes the structure of the websites of the major companies who sell gear reveals the companies\u2019 assumptions about the interests of their consumers. Some, such as Arc\u2019teryx<\/a>, open their websites with gender distinctions. One must choose men\u2019s or women\u2019s products immediately upon going to their site. Other companies, such as REI<\/a>, open their site with the opportunity to choose an activity, such as hiking, climbing, cycling, running, etc. or sex category, which is better. By so dividing their products, Arc\u2019teryx is making it harder for those who need to buy gear from the \u201cwrong\u201d sex or to market unisex gear while REI is making consumers feel part of a larger community of climbers or backpackers or hikers.<\/p>\n Exhibit #3: Playful gear<\/strong><\/p>\n The marketing of backpacking gear is itself highly gendered, with women\u2019s gear being presented as comfortable and stylish. Oddly, it is not marketed with an eye towards serious wilderness excursions. Take, for example, the Yumalina pant manufactured by Mountain Hardwear. The men\u2019s version<\/a> is described as \u201cDurable softshell seriously protects on the outside, while lightweight fleece on the inside keeps you warm on those chilly hikes\u201d while the women\u2019s version<\/a> is described as \u201cSerious on the outside and soft on fuzzy on the inside. Perfect for work or play during the winter.\u201d The women\u2019s pant is thus not seen as for someone who is serious about backpacking.<\/p>\n Exhibit #4:\u00a0Decorative, sexy climbing<\/strong><\/p>\n The naming and color palette of much women\u2019s gear also reflects the idea in the backpacking industry that women needed to be treated delicately. Black Diamond<\/a>, which manufactures popular rock climbing harnesses, has named their women\u2019s harnesses \u201cPrimrose,\u201d \u201cSiren,\u201d \u201cAura,\u201d and \u201cLotus,\u201d emphasizing the stereotypical connection between women and flowers and sexuality. Women are connected to passive agents. The harnesses themselves are typically in pastel colors as well. This is in contrast to the men\u2019s harnesses, which are named \u201cChaos,\u201d \u201cFocus,\u201d \u201cFlight,\u201d and \u201cMomentum,\u201d which are strikingly active words in comparison and are designed in bright, bold colors.<\/p>\n As Brendan Leonard points out in his post,\u00a0Girly Girls and Manly Men<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cNo company feels like they have to do anything special to men\u2019s gear, or \u2018masculinize it\u2019 it. Yoga is arguably maybe the most feminine (or just female-dominated) of any active pursuit, but you don\u2019t see any companies making yoga mats with patterns on them that look like cascades of hammers or football helmets or beer mugs, to encourage men by saying, \u2018It\u2019s OK, dude. You can own one of these and still love Home Depot.\u2019\u201d Why do companies thus feel that women cannot be serious backpackers, hikers or climbers without feminized gear?<\/p>\n Cross-posted at The Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Adrianne Wadewitz, PhD<\/a>\u00a0is a Mellon Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow at Occidental College specializing in emerging media from the 18th-century to the present.\u00a0Peter James<\/a>\u00a0is an avid outdoor photographer and wilderness traveler. \u00a0You can follow them at\u00a0@wadewitz<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0@PBJmaesPhoto<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This summer I went hiking several times in California\u2019s Eastern Sierra. Each time I went I counted the number of male to female hikers and ended up with a 5:1 ratio. This reflects many women\u2019s experience of the wilderness and outdoor sports such as rock climbing or mountaineering. These are male-dominated arenas. One of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":57910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,373,2123,55,2103,10514,23703,293,307],"class_list":["post-57896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-color","tag-environmentnature","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-leisure","tag-marketing","tag-social-construction","tag-traveltourism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/10\/Screenshot_1111.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57896"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59432,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57896\/revisions\/59432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"ArcteryxSite-Ex2\"](\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/10\/ArcteryxSite-Ex2-500x266.png\")
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