Outdoor adventure sports can be personally and socially transformative for femalesThis study examined the interplay between gender, identity, and outdoor adventure sports in Norway. Outdoor adventure sports, such as freeride skiing, are generative contexts to study because they both reflect and disrupt the norms, values, and power relationships of the broader society. Studying females’ participation in these outdoor contexts is especially important since men historically have dominated outdoor adventure sports in Norway. This study analyzed interviews with six female skiers to understand how they understood and negotiated the culture surrounding freeride skiing, backcountry skiing, and mountain biking—intense, nature-based sports that take place on un-groomed or remote terrain. The aim was to understand how the language, social processes, and power relationships in the traditionally male-dominated culture of these backcountry sports structured possible ways of being a woman and skier.
The researchers recruited six young women in their 20s who indicated that freeride skiing and mountain adventure sports were important to them. They then conducted hour-long interviews with each participant, which were transcribed and supplemented with field notes and observational data. Their textual analysis then drew upon theories of discourse to make visible some of the social processes, norms, and power relationships that influenced how the participants talked about and saw themselves as women and as skiers.
The article organized its findings into three statements from the interviews that were rich in shared meaning for the female freeride skiers. The section “They’re badass, they’re hardcore, and they’re girls” showed how the discourse of freeride skiing both maintained masculine definitions of performance while also disrupting dominant gender constructs by recognizing that both men and women can ski hard, be hardcore, and become bad asses. The section “Super-Stoked” unpacked how the term stoked prioritizes time in nature over time indoors, associates outdoor adventure pursuits with self-realization and social status, and normalizes getting outdoors, pushing yourself physically, and making the most of every chance you get. The final section explored how the participants internalized the language and culture of mountain adventure sports in ways that resulted in both negative effects (more pressure, ambivalence, and anxiety) and positive effects (well-being, social connections, and social capital). Participants also identified strongly with skiing and with nature—which were largely intertwined in transcendent moments where the combination of physical challenges and natural beauty led to feelings of intense pleasure, flow, and being in the moment.
Overall, this qualitative study illustrates how outdoor activities can be existentially important and potentially socially transformative for females. The culture of skiing in ungroomed nature normalizes being an extremely active woman who is self-confident, badass, fit, cool, nature loving, daring, fearless, hardcore, and maybe a thrill seeker who’s a little bit crazy. At the same time, this culture is also individualistic, competitive, and consumeristic like the broader society. Thus, to some extent, being a ski-girl expands one’s possibilities for being female and realizing a self that identifies more with skiing and nature than with school or work.
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