Even though wilderness recreation offers numerous benefits for mental, physical and emotional health, women are underrepresented. One of the most significant facts of this is how women are portrayed in the media's wilderness activities.
McNeial, Harris, and Fondren (2012) studied the popular magazines' Backpacker and Outside. They concluded that women were depicted as participating in less physically and time demanding engagements in outdoor pursuits, were shown as followers rather than leaders and were seen as either escaping from motherhood or being the instigator of outdoor time with their families (McNiel, Harris & Fondren, 2012). Furthermore, women with exceptional outdoor skills and abilities were viewed as unique by possessing attributes beyond the outdoor abilities of the average woman (McNiel et al., 2012).
Not being represented in outdoor media is just the tip of the ice burg. Women also face several constraints that limit their abilities. These include gender role socialization, motherhood and family obligations, financial priorities, lack of time, sexual harassment, lack of an outdoor companion, and fear (Warren 2015, Manning 2011). Because of all of these things, women will go to extreme lengths to be able to enjoy the time they do get for recreation. Wesely and Gaarder (2004) studied how women pursue their enjoyment of urban outdoor recreation at South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona, despite their perceptions and experiences related to fear of violence. One of their participants reported that she ultimately stopped going because of unwanted male attention, "there's this one guy who likes me there, and he would follow me and talk to me every time. I went purposely at a different time, but he still showed up. I haven't gone back to South Mountain since that time" (Wesely and Gaarder 2004). This took place in a public park with other people around, but it is because of these reasons' women get afraid to get away from public areas where other people and officials can be found.
Women believe landscapes relatively distant from urban areas are less safe, and they consequently reported a weaker preference for these areas than men. Women often prefer developed outdoor areas over more remote natural areas, in part because they value visible management and law enforcement (Rosa et al. 2020). Developed areas bring more security because they are typically manicured, and with the trees being cut away from the paths, it offers a clear line of sight to see and be seen. Appleton made a theory that points out that if humans could see (i.e., had good or open visual prospect) and not be seen (had a refuge or hiding place), then they might be more likely to survive threats in the environment (Appleton 1975). When overgrown shrubs or low hanging canopies block the view, this gives a hiding place to anyone who had the intent to harm those coming along the path. This is often found in the wilderness because it doesn't have park rangers to keep it manicured like city parks do. When Jorgensen, Ellis, and Ruddell (2013) ran a study about Concealment × People Recreating × Gender with the sample coming from University of Utah college students and general park visitors they found that from both sample groups females reported greater fear than males, high concealment yielded greater fear than low concealment. The absence of people recreating produced greater fear than when people recreating were present (Jorgensen et al. 2013).
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