Outdoor women: thinking about gender, self, and environment through outdoor enskillment programs

Abstract

Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW) is a North American program that focuses on developing hunting, fishing and wilderness skills among women. BOW participant engagement offers a window onto gendered responses to environmental uncertainty, an awareness of the constraints of illegitimate peripheral participation, and multifaceted self-expression. Through their own bodily engagement and dialogues, participants disassembled the dualisms inherent in single-gender-dominated activities such as hunting. The contrasting desires, incentives and apprehensions of BOW participants were shared through an active process of self-reflection and reveal the ways in which this group of women navigated the tensions that are part of their daily lives.