Feminist perspectives provide a basis for examining the nature of participation in outdoor experiences, the goals of outdoor leadership, and the meanings associated with the outdoors. Feminism is concerned with the correction of both the invisibility and distortion of female experience in ways relevant to social change and removal of social…

In this essay, women outdoor leaders discuss how gender influences their work, and explore and challenge some assumptions underlying outdoor leadership that continue to privilege the impartial, disembodied practices typified by the masculine outdoor leader. Four feminist, and three other feminist outdoor leaders participated in personal interviews…