Why I wish there wasn’t an Ever Wild Women section

Welcome to the Ever Wild Women section of Ever Wild Outdoors! A place to challenge outdoors stereotypes, to encourage more women onto the outdoors scene, and to support more thoughtful design and production of outdoors gear for women (and no, it doesn’t HAVE to be hot pink).  

So why do I wish there wasn’t an Ever Wild Women section? Why am I lamenting the very existence of something I am so excited to write about?

It is because we shouldn’t need an Ever Wild Women section of Ever Wild Outdoors. The whole of Ever Wild Outdoors is for everybody. Women forage too. Women have amazing survival skills. Women get on bikes, surfboards, canoes. Women camp. Women climb. Women walk.

There isn’t a section on Ever Wild Outdoors that isn’t here for women to read, learn and enjoy. Ever Wild Family features child-friendly outdoor adventures and activities, while Ever Wild Kitchen contains camping recipes and foraging tips. Ever Wild Holidays includes fantastic wild holidays and travel ideas. Ever Wild Pro is all about inspiring confidence in outdoors skills, including bushcraft and survival, and Ever Wild Wellness promotes better health and living via outdoor pursuits. The content in these sections is for everyone. In fact, the Ever Wild Outdoors mission statement is this: to inspire outdoor adventures for all.

For all.

So why do we feel the need for an Ever Wild Women section on Ever Wild Outdoors? It’s because we want to see more women in a world that, let’s be honest, is dominated by men. Men we like. Men we admire. No disrespect intended to outdoorsy blokes.

It’s just that women’s voices can be a little, well, lost in the great outdoors. We’ve seen plenty of guys extolling the virtues of drinking their own wee in a survival situation, but how many women do we see on screen advising other women how to simply wee in the outdoors? It’s a challenge guys, honestly it is.

How many companies producing outdoor gear put women at the forefront of their campaigns? They know their male audience and many of them stick with it. Fine, that’s marketing 101. But the lack of representation for women can lead us to believe this sphere isn’t one in which we belong.

Why aren’t there more women outdoors?

Representation, of course, isn’t the only reason there isn’t a proportionate gender split of those who love the outdoors. Fears for safety, parental responsibilities, not wanting to go alone… but enough about the issues stopping men getting outdoors. Ha! How I wish I wasn’t joking.

The outdoors is a place that delivers joy, achievement, and wellbeing, among many other things. So this is our mission for Ever Wild Women: to get more fearless females onto the outdoors scene with decent, well-fitting, not-always-pink gear; to see more expert women alongside our famous expert men; and to reach a point where women get to feel that joy, achievement and wellbeing on a regular basis, supported by the outdoors industry and fellow outdoors types.

Jeanette