Delegitimizing wilderness as the man cave: The role of social media in female wilderness empowerment

Abstract

Historically, American wilderness has been conceived as a profoundly masculine landscape and a threat to femininity. Early wilderness discourse stressed landscapes of risk and danger, certainly no place for a woman. Prior to the Romantic era and Transcendentalism, but even in recent history, it was not uncommon for women to avoid venturing into wilderness alone for reasons including personal safety and possible corruption of body and spirit. The introduction of tourism in wilderness allowed people to experience the thrill of the wild while enjoying an element of safety through mitigated risk, an experience that appealed to the masculine and created socially significant places. While wilderness has historically been tied to these masculine narratives, these and the wilderness identity are increasingly challenged by contemporary feminine discourse working within various social media platforms. As tourism continues to domesticate wilderness, women are simultaneously pushing against social boundaries that dictate their place within, thus, changing both the identity of place and of women’s roles therein. This process, shifting both definitions of wilderness and woman, occurs through deconstruction of powerful feminine stereotypes through active engagement with these increasingly accessible landscapes. Social media acts as platform through which this changing discourse is garnering support and social power. Thus, this article argues that women’s assertions and performances of power in wilderness directly combat stereotypes of their place in these landscapes. Furthermore, without tourism’s promotion of these spaces as extraordinary and powerful in themselves, women’s performances therein would lack the social significance and challenge to wilderness as gendered.

Keywords

gender social media tourism wilderness

Introduction

Wilderness has played, and continues to play, an increasingly important role in the collective American identity (Vidon, 2016, 2017; Callicott and Nelson, 1998; Cosgrove, 1984; Lewis, 2007; Nash, 2014; Nelson and Callicott, 2008; Sears, 1989). For the purposes of this article, we approach wilderness not as some well-defined physicality that is somehow ontologically authentic in its wildness, but rather as an ideology, one with deep roots in the American psyche that allow it to enjoy an unquestioned and privileged position as an ultimate good (Vidon, 2016). This American wilderness, what Lewis (2007: 5) calls both a “real thing and a human construction,” finds its genesis in the works of cultural forces such as the Transcendentalists and the Hudson River School of landscape painting. Through the poetry, prose, and painting of these masters, wilderness was romanticized, popularized, and reified in the American cultural and material landscape (Vidon, 2016; Callicott and Nelson, 1998; Cronon, 1995; Lewis, 2007; Nash, 2014; Nelson and Callicott, 2008). This wilderness, made and lovingly maintained through the works of the American psyche, culture, and society, is symbolized in the parks and protected areas of today’s America (Vidon, 2016). What was once a dark and formidable home of the devil is now an important source of national pride for the United States and helped the country re-identify with masculine qualities of strength and domination in the global arena (Jarvis, 2007). This American wilderness, as constructed through Transcendentalism and the American frontier, provides a unique landscape and ideology unlike that of international notions of wilderness (Vidon, 2016; Lewis, 2007; Nash, 2014).

Nature tourism has been a powerful force behind this change, instrumental in creating accessible and domesticated spaces while, at the same time, upholding the masculine qualities and identity of wilderness (Cloke and Perkins, 2002; McNiel et al., 2012; Rickard, 2014; Shields, 1991). While scholarship has explored the role of tourism (broadly defined) in creating and maintaining wilderness spaces (Vidon, 2016; Cronon, 1995; Nash, 2014; Sears, 1989; Shields, 1991) as well as leisure and tourism’s gendered nature (Enloe, 1989; Hall et al., 2003; Henderson and Gibson, 2013; Kinnaird and Hall, 1994, 1996; McNiel et al., 2012; Pritchard and Morgan, 2000a, 2000b; Pruitt and LaFont, 2010; Rao, 1995; Swain, 1995; Wilson and Little, 2008; Yang et al., 2017), the specifics of nature tourism and its relationship with the gendered essence of wilderness landscapes have been relatively neglected by comparison (Bialeschki and Henderson, 1993; Jarvis, 2007; Lewis, 2007; Nash, 2014; Swain, 1995).

In this article, we contend that of late, feminine discourse has increasingly acted upon the American wilderness idea, challenging the established masculine wilderness identity by redefining women’s power and their unique roles within this profoundly ideological and gendered space. It is not to say that women were never present within this landscape, but rather, women are re-creating the traditional and strongly upheld idea of the American wilderness landscape by increasingly creating spaces where the feminine stands on equal ground through active discussion, participation, and presence within this highly masculine arena. This new challenge to the masculinity of wilderness has been facilitated in large part by contemporary nature tourism, an increasingly significant sector in American tourism, and the growing popularity of social media. Our aim in this article is twofold: to interrogate the American wilderness’ identity as profoundly masculine and to illustrate the ways contemporary women in the United States are staking their claim to this masculine wilderness through active engagements with it, both as material place and as ideology. Central to our efforts is the role of social media in women’s changing engagements with wilderness, as we argue that these outlets have become a crucial part of women’s shared power and experiences in the wilderness landscape. This article thus addresses the increasingly important role of social media in creating and changing the identity of place and person, while illustrating the power of discourse in the maintenance of place identity.

The American wilderness

Before we proceed, we must attend to the culturally, spatially, historically specific ways American wilderness has been defined and to differentiate it from the more feminine “nature.” In this article, we do not conflate “wilderness” and “nature,” but rather approach them as different ideological and material landscapes. While a thorough comparison of the two is beyond the scope of this study, “nature,” contrary to “wilderness,” has been discursively constructed as feminine in ways similar to wilderness’ more masculine creation (see Callicott and Nelson, 1998; Pritchard and Morgan, 2000a; Williams, 1976). The phrase “nature tourism,” however, is used as a broad term to indicate tourism in any natural or non-human made setting, including but not limited to wilderness. The wilderness we approach here is a particular one, as discussed below, and is not to be confused with the more feminine “nature.”

The following American wilderness definitions, while not following a chronological timeline, do attend to earlier conceptions of wilderness then turn to more critical treatments, which include elements such as gender identity and risk perception. We contend that it is these definitions that nature tourism seeks to uphold by influencing discourse and public perception of these wilderness spaces through the creation of perceived risk. Women partaking in such activities are entering into a perceived masculine space (Bialeschki and Henderson, 1993; McNiel et al., 2012; Pritchard and Morgan, 2000a; Yang et al., 2017). However, alongside this, we argue that women have been actively using nature tourism to break down long-standing ideas of wilderness and women’s place therein (Yang et al., 2017). Social media outlets, such as websites, blogs, and photo-sharing platforms are being used by women to further their discourse against the exclusionary social perception of wilderness as masculine. Preliminary analysis shows the important role that social media is playing in this change, and offers a point of departure for further research.

We begin by briefly charting the development of the masculine wilderness in America and illustrating its position as a highly gendered ideology. Next, we attend to the powerful role of nature tourism in the construction of these wilderness landscapes and in the challenge to such gendered character of the landscape. Women’s engagements with nature tourism activities and the ways in which they are redefining wilderness along with refining their own senses of self and femininity will be followed by a discussion of select social media platforms through which these changes are occurring. While we recognize the danger in “the construction of an essentialist universal female experience … without taking into account race, ethnicity, age, education and other characteristics,” the focus of this article is on the broader challenge to social perceptions of this highly and historically gendered space (Swain, 1995: 253; see also Henderson and Gibson, 2013: 128–29).

History of the masculine wilderness

Lewis (2007) captures the fluidity of wilderness definitions by stating, “Wilderness is a concept devised by humans to define a particular type of wild environment … Wild nature can be found everywhere; wilderness cannot” (p. 6). The wilderness we imagine and think, that discursively created wilderness painted so inspirationally by members of the Hudson River School and written so dramatically by the Transcendentalists, that panacea and source of salvation, is what has no basis in our material reality (Vidon, 2016). Because wilderness is an intangible idea, its definition continues to rely on individuals’ general understandings of the American wilderness ideology, one that has served to privilege the powerful and the elite at the expense of the rest (see Vidon, 2016; Cosgrove, 1984; Cronon, 1995). From the early days of colonization, American wilderness ideas have constantly been in flux through various time periods, defined by the social, cultural, and political conditions in place during each period.

Landscape of fear

The earliest of these phases can be described as a period of fear accompanied by a desire to conquer or domesticate (Dean, 2007). This fear stemmed from the unknown landscape which was uncontrolled by man and something altogether different. As Nash (2014) maintained,

It was instinctively understood as something alien to man—an insecure and uncomfortable environment against which civilization had waged an unceasing struggle … Its dark, mysterious qualities made it a setting in which the pre-scientific imagination could place a swarm of demons and spirits. (p. 8)

Early settlers often compared the American wilderness to the landscape into which Adam and Eve were cast after their fall from Eden.

Wilderness, in short, was a place to which one came only against one’s will, and always in fear and trembling. Whatever value it might have arose solely from the possibility that it might be “reclaimed” and turned toward human ends-planted as a garden, say, or a city upon a hill. (Cronon, 1995: 71)

Periodically, this ideology of old reappears in modern media culture in instances to incite fear or warning. Horror, presented in various media, has often used dark and formidable forests to hide lurking demons and evils, as is exemplified by the Forbidden (or Dark) Forest of the Harry Potter books.

The sublime

As control over landscape developed, so did mastery over other subjects like biology and astronomy. Development of science exposed the complexity of the natural world, and instead of fear, appreciation grew due to its seemingly divine origin (Nash, 2014: 45). Equally influential, Transcendentalist thought transformed the previous landscape of fear into one where divine inspiration and spiritual awaking could take place. For the Romantics and Transcendentalists,

sublime landscapes were those rare places on earth where one had more chance than elsewhere to glimpse the face of God … in those vast, powerful landscapes where one could not help feeling insignificant and being reminded of one’s own mortality. (Cronon, 1995: 73)

Cosgrove (1984) notes,

… by the 1820s and 1830s the idea of romantic landscape had invested scenes of wild grandeur with a special significance. They were held by many to be places which declared the great forces of nature, the hand of the creator … the idea of sublime wilderness offered a powerful opportunity for transcendence, a way of appropriating America as a distinctive experience unavailable in Europe. (p. 185)

These “natural cathedrals” were compared to European religious monuments and enjoyed similar reverence (Sears, 1989: 140). However, it was only these sublime landscapes as perceived and defined by Transcendentalists that received recognition, prestige, and protection. Importantly, Nash (2014) points out that, “It was not that wilderness was any less solitary, mysterious, and chaotic, but rather in the new intellectual context these qualities were coveted” (p. 44). Therefore, it was not that the landscape changed in any particular, physical, or visual way; rather, changes in ideology and discourse ushered in a new appreciation and way of perceiving these landscapes (see Cosgrove and Daniels (Eds), 1988).

These notions persist into today’s perceptions of American landscapes designated as momentous by romantics of the past. Hiking and other non-consumptive recreation tourism often promote jaunts into the wilderness to relax, find one’s self, and re-connect with Mother Nature. In contemporary America, social media now joins the canvas and text of old as a powerful mechanism for the diffusion and support for the sentiments of sublime wilderness.

The frontier

While the American frontier and the sublime wilderness arose in tandem chronologically and culturally, we approach them here as different “moments” from a functional perspective. While they may have temporal overlap, they serve different purposes as relate to the masculine wilderness; the sublime creates awe-inspiring places that demand protection, while the frontier’s work focuses on the creation of these landscapes as hyper-masculine. Thus, for the purposes of this article, we address them as separate ideological and functional moments in the making of the masculine, American wilderness.

American settlements continued to push against wilderness’ boundaries, creating the unique space of the American Frontier. The frontier era ideology saw land as the space for man to experience freedom unlike that found in socially constricting cities. While risk remained, Americans approached the frontier as something to be overcome in the name of progress and American identity. Frederick Jackson Turner (1921) wrote of the frontier,

That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom-these are traits of the frontier … (n.p.)

It is here that these desirable, masculine traits would be cultivated, soon representing frontiersmen as well as the nation as a whole. Similar illusions of the threat to American identity occurred in other literature and paintings of the time, most notably the writings of the Transcendentalists and the paintings of the Hudson River School of landscape painters.

Although this era ended with the frontier, the frontier identity coupled with the potent imagery and influence of the sublime created a persisting ideology around American wilderness, “freighting it with moral values and cultural symbols that it carries to this day” (Cronon, 1995: 72). As will be discussed shortly, imagery from social media sites that focus on nature tourism and its associated landscapes often elicits similar emotions of awe and wonder in those who come across it. Furthermore, these images frequently share compositional similarities to many American landscape paintings, such as those of the famous Hudson River School. These images often showcase a unique geological topography, rugged and raw, while minimizing evidence of human influences within these spaces.

One lasting influence of this time may be found in the very identity of wilderness, which was rapidly transformed from a genderless place of fear to a hyper-masculine space. As Cronon (1995) states, “The mythic frontier individualist was almost always masculine in gender: here, in wilderness, a man could be a real man, the rugged individual he was meant to be before civilization sapped his energy and threatened his masculinity” (p. 78). Not only does this pull from Turner’s frontier description, but it is often reflected in modern social constructions around American wilderness. While the Romantics initially set their sights on the landscapes of the east, Cosgrove (1984: 186) reminds us that the sublime matured in the west through American frontier ideology. He notes, “… Washington Irving and James Fennimore Cooper were able to project the image… of the pioneer, an unsophisticated, homespun American whose finest characteristics came precisely from his contact with the wilderness”. Thus, Americans needed ways to maintain this wilderness connection.

Protecting the American man cave

“Contact with wilderness in the form of the American frontier has ensured strength and development of the masculine American character. Saving wilderness, then, was also saving American manhood and, by extension, the nation” (Jarvis, 2007: 150). As the frontier came to a close in the late nineteenth century, more and more people realized its importance for American national identity and fought to keep its associations. To protect this valuable asset, national parks and wilderness preserves were established federally to protect areas increasingly appreciated in the American collective consciousness as “wilderness” from the threats of private property. “One by one, various corners of the American map came to be designated as sites whose wild beauty was so spectacular that a growing number of citizens had to visit and see it for themselves,” soon developing into protected wilderness spaces and national parks so central to modern American identity (Cronon, 1995: 72).

However, although these protected spaces were meant to represent the wild character of the frontier, they needed to be managed, not only to allow for public access but also to retain the illusion that they were indeed “wild.” Miller (2007) reminds us in writing of such protected land, “… it [wilderness] continued to rest on the fiction that the American land in these hallowed sanctuaries was static, unchanging, outside and above the complex interplay of human and non-human nature—in short, the wilderness ideal” (p. 108). These spaces were meant to be used to reconnect modern civilized Americans, trapped in cities, with their more primal, biological side to further develop traditional masculine American ideals.

More specifically, the modern civilized Americans who most needed these spaces were often assumed to be affluent males; “the very men who most benefited from urban-industrial capitalism were among those who believed they must escape its debilitating effects” (Cronon, 1995: 78; see also Cosgrove, 1984; Nash, 2014; Sears, 1989). At this point, civilization, and the convenience and comfort within, “were especially insidious for men, who all too easily became emasculated by the feminizing tendencies of civilization” (Cronon, 1995: 78). In this way, wilderness continued its masculine associations by being advertised as a space where men could reconnect with the masculine qualities prone to atrophy in areas of civilization.

Since these spaces were actively created and managed, what resulted was a domesticated wilderness rather than the sublime, dangerous wilderness made through the words and works of the Romantics and Transcendentalists. While risk was one of the defining characteristics of the sublime wilderness, this domesticated version, created for tired civilized men, by necessity included only a managed risk. Thus, risk in these heavily constructed spaces became an illusion through which visitors could experience the feelings of danger and the rush of adrenaline while simultaneously remaining confident of their relative safety. In this way, the experience of the hyper-masculine frontier could still be had through protected, managed American wilderness spaces (Cronon, 1995: 78). Here, proto-nature tourism was born.

Tourism’s influence over the masculine wilderness

Nature tourism, a powerful agent in the formation and maintenance of these landscapes, thus grew, insuring the continuation of the American identity and the relationship between man and wilderness.

Nature tourism and risk

Nature and adventure tourism provide designated natural landscapes in which people can organize and participate in group activities while also feeling that they are “in” nature and acting as a part of it rather than apart from it. This is the masculine wilderness of old, and nature tourists, whether male or female, engage with these spaces as such. Indeed, research conducted by Vidon (2016, 2017) found that nature tourists often view protected wilderness spaces as just that, authentic and wild (and by extension, masculine), while ignoring back stage management practices so crucial in molding these landscapes to nature tourists’ expectations (see MacCannell, 1976). Backstage practices within the frontstage–backstage dichotomy as described first by Goffman (1959) then applied to tourism by MacCannell (1976) recognize that tourist spaces are actively designed to meet the outsider’s idea of what the space should authentically be, thus creating a staged authenticity of space. Within the context of American wilderness ideology, wilderness is actively created by managers of these landscapes to incorporate elements people believe should be present (Cloke and Perkins, 2002; Colten and Dilsaver, 2005). In addition, the role of the tourist herself or himself in shaping the American wilderness is not to be forgotten. Tourists’ engagement with social media and the profound use of imagery sharing promotes and perpetuates these wilderness expectations. Tourists want that iconic photograph at the mountain’s summit with nothing but clear skies and a breathtaking vista in the background, not the mass of other hikers that flocked to that site for the same reason.

Furthermore, back stage practices are important not only in maintaining the masculine identity of place, but ironically, in domesticating these landscapes and minimizing risk to visitors. In regard to these backstage management practices, a study by Rickard (2014) showed that

because visitors make a deliberate choice to find wilderness, employees seemed to reason, risk and risk-taking should be expected and even sought-after. Thus, from a management perspective, risk is desired only to the extent that it can be chosen by certain visitors, rather than thrust upon all of them. (p. 9)

Risk in these spaces needs to be present, but also optional and calculated.

While assuming an identity of being “wilderness,” these spaces are heavily managed for both the tourist’s protection and for the protection of nature from human harm (Perkins and Thorns, 2001: 192). One of tourism’s most important jobs in these landscapes is to manage actual risk while allowing visitors to be exposed to perceived risk, creating the illusion that they are experiencing what they consider “real” or “authentic” wilderness and all its attendant dangers. Rickard (2014: 9) also found that “exposure to risk is valued in its ability to confer the authenticity (‘naturalness’) that generates a superior experience” for visitors to parks. Therefore, what tourism produces through management of wild landscape is a domesticated wilderness; one with acceptable risks but with a patina of authenticity and danger; “the transition from fear to adrenaline-filled exhilaration—from ‘AARH’ to ‘YEEHAA’—is the essence of commodified adventure’ (Cloke and Perkins, 2002: 538). This relationship acts to create a socially exclusionary space where women, through feminine associations, were often an invisible element within landscapes chosen for nature tourism where risk is often perceived as being much higher for women than men (Yang et al., 2017: 3; see also Laurendeau, 2008; Olstead, 2011).

Nature tourism and the social

Nature tourism not only acts on the physical landscape, but asserts perhaps an even more profound ideological and social influence, informing the ways people value and perceive protected landscapes. MacCannell (1976) states, “the designation of an object as a sight … is most often accomplished without any esthetic assistance from the object. Its elevation to sight status is the work of society” (p. 119). Therefore, it is not the actual, physical site that is important, but rather the value society has placed on it via interaction through socially and culturally specific lenses. It is the actions of humans that create a hierarchy of importance between locations.

Urry (2005) and MacCannell (1976) both acknowledge tourists as “collectors of gazes” who accumulate social capital by visiting different sites (Urry, 2005: 44). Although the role of the tourist gaze has been widely accepted, Perkins and Thorns (2001) point out that

the gaze metaphor is too passive to encapsulate the full range of the tourist experience … a better metaphorical approach to tourism is to talk about the tourist performance, which incorporates ideas of active bodily involvement; physical, intellectual and cognitive activity and gazing. (p. 186)

By expanding the term gaze to include all actions by tourists, social capital can be accumulated through nature and adventure tourism not only by looking at a site, but also, more importantly, through performance of conquering it. The portrait taken at the top of a summit, smiling and sweaty, often has more social and personal value than one of just the site or of the tourist at the bottom.

The higher the prestige of the place in the collective tourist gaze, the greater the social capital, and since society determines the importance of the site, value and importance are fluid, evolving alongside tourists’ perceptual changes. Landscapes replete with risk are often those perceived as more authentically wild, consequently offering greater social capital to those who dare attempt to conquer them. In this way “the branding of such sites offers the guarantee of known satisfaction” which increases its recognition, attraction, and social visibility (Cloke and Perkins, 2002: 535). Visiting the Grand Canyon, for example, does not have the same value as hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, or hiking the Adirondack Peaks. Even within the same landscape, such as the Adirondacks, each peak has a unique social capital value based on its difficulty (see Vidon, 2017).

Tourism is an important engine that works to impart status and importance to these “wild” and seemingly “dangerous” landscapes, elevating them to a privileged place in American society. While these spaces are still symbols of wilderness, nature tourism informs and influences the way society interacts with and categorizes these spaces.

Women, wilderness, and social capital

The data presented in this article result from preliminary media and discourse analysis of websites and blogs, including public Facebook groups, formal organizations including Women Who Hike and Outdoor Women’s Alliance, personal public blogs, and associated Instagram pages. While these are preliminary data and do not encapsulate all possible sources, they provide compelling evidence of women’s increasing agency and place in a wilderness that has historically been discursively constructed as masculine and offer a point of departure for further study. Social media plays an integral role in women’s assertions and performances of power in wilderness which directly combat stereotypes of their place in these landscapes. Furthermore, without tourism’s promotion of these spaces as extraordinary and powerful in themselves, women’s performances therein would lack the social significance and challenge to wilderness as masculine.

Tourism as a foothold

Simultaneous forces of tourism and female engagement are changing familiar, colloquial ideas of what wilderness is and who should be a part of it. It is in prestigious and iconic places, as created by the tourist gaze (see Cosgrove, 1984; Cosgrove and Daniels, 1988; Urry, 2005), that women are now creating their own place and status in wilderness. Tourism tends to promote wilderness spaces and activities as masculine (McNiel et al., 2012; Pritchard and Morgan, 2000a, 2000b; Wilson and Little, 2008; Yang et al., 2017). In this way, advertised adventure and leisure travel perpetuating wilderness as hyper-masculine act as a structural constraint since they perpetuate stereotypes, and gender can affect women’s participation in this class of activities (McNiel et al., 2012; Pritchard and Morgan, 2000a; Wearing, 1991; Wilson and Little, 2008; Yang et al., 2017). Perpetuation of wilderness as masculine is often linked to the “Geography of Women’s Fear” by Valentine (1989), which addresses spaces as being socially constructed and, in this case, gendered to the point where exclusion and vulnerability are present (see also Berdychevsky et al., 2013; Berryman, 2015; Wearing, 1991; Yang et al., 2017). Importantly, scholars have suggested that gender greatly influences barriers to and experiences of leisure and nature tourism (Berryman 2015; Cosgriff et al., 2009; Swain, 1995; Wearing, 1991; Wilson and Little, 2005).

However, the very essence of nature tourism and the domesticated wilderness it maintains increase the popularity of and access to these spaces, allowing for power performances by women entering them. Yang et al. (2017: 3) attest that “risk taking thus provides an avenue for women to (re)construct and negotiate gender identities and to resist and challenge social expectations” (see also Bialeschki and Henderson, 1993; Laurendeau, 2008; Munar and Jacobsen, 2013; Olstead, 2011). Here, women were not only visually consuming spaces, but also actively performing conquering acts alongside their male counterparts despite the perception that these risks were historically faced only by virtue of masculine ruggedness and ingenuity. Women’s increased activity began to allow for a cycle of access, support, and female visibility and acceptance in these spaces. Jarvis (2007) attends to this shift when she asserts,

although the ideal of feminine fragility had no place at the top of the mountain, many women were members of outdoor clubs, went mountain climbing and camping, and participated in other wilderness activities … by recognizing that wilderness belonged to them too. (pp. 150–51)

Female bodies are becoming increasingly accepted, even in a strongly masculine environment through their own active engagement, not through changes in the social perceptions of wilderness as masculine.

Increased visibility of women in wilderness

Women have been increasingly positioning themselves in wilderness spaces, taking advantage of opportunities to engage in wilderness and participate in traditionally male activities in a traditionally masculine landscape. Recent studies have shown that the number of women participating in travel and nature tourism opportunities is on the rise (Berryman, 2015; Bialeschki and Henderson, 1993; Cave and Ryan, 2005; Pemberton, 2014; Yang et al., 2017). Specifically, Bialeschki and Henderson (1993) noted that “in the 1990s in all aspects of outdoor recreation, the participation of women [was] increasing faster than that of men” (p. 36). In a more recent study, results from Pemberton (2014) showed that on various travel sites, women were the predominant clients and often traveled solo, a trend not seen in previous generations. For young women travelers, typically of Generation Y or the Millennial Generation (Rabin, 2014; Taylor et al., 2012), feminism and gender studies have exploded and the clear cut lines between masculine and femine of previous generations is now blurred. Traditional roles of women as wife and mother have become less stringent, allowing for deviations and creating a space where solo travel and wilderness adventure is more accepted and gender-based ideology is less of a constriant (Berryman, 2015). Through these activities and their increasing presence in wilderness, women are beginning to challenge the normative perception of wilderness’ masculine identity, inserting the feminine and becoming a more visible element of the wilderness landscape.

Women, wilderness, and social media

Recent literature suggests, “… research on social media in tourism is still in its infancy” (Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014: 27). However, the role of social media in tourists’ experiences continues to gain traction among scholars, with a 2013 review of 44 studies by Leung et al. charting the important role social media plays in the pre-, during, and post-trip phases for a traveler, as well as social media applications from the supply perspective. Furthermore, Zeng and Gerritsen’s 2014 review of 279 publications stressed the importance of social media in informing and influencing tourists’ decision making and planning. They note,

The engagement of social media has fundamentally changed the way individuals plan and consume travel (Gretzel and Yoo, 2008; Hudson and Thal, 2013). Potential tourists can rely on others’ experiences for their decision-making, due to the experiential nature of tourism products (Litvin et al., 2008). (Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014: 39–40; see also Mariani et al., 2016; Munar and Jacobsen 2013, 2014)

While many studies have looked at the role of social media in tourism advertising (Gretzel et al., 2006; McNiel et al., 2012; Mariani et al., 2016; Stepchenkova and Zhan, 2012; Wang et al., 2002), our efforts here are not directed at the supply side or even at decision-making on the part of the tourists. Rather, we aim to illustrate the ways women are using social media as discursive devices to change the identity of the American wilderness and as communities for empowerment of themselves and each other.

Women increasingly exhibit their visibility in wilderness, not only through their “in the moment” presence, but also via social media, where they display their place in wilderness through Facebook, Instagram posts, and other media outlets. They regularly make use of photographs and portray themselves in wilderness in power poses to embrace women’s place in the outdoors. The wilderness in the background of these photos often reflects the same powerful, iconic scenes as depicted by earlier Transcendentalist writings and Hudson River School visual renditions, yet with the notable addition of the female form. Photographs act as important tools in increasing social capital and in power recognition, especially over landscapes used for nature tourism (Munar and Jacobsen, 2013, 2014). As Urry (2005) asserts, “Landscapes and townscapes typically involve the notion of ‘mastery.’ The photographer, and then the viewer, is seen above, and dominating, a static and subordinate landscape” (p. 129). Photographs can act to perpetuate preexisting notions of the visual landscape as created by tourism, or work to redefine social understanding of these spaces which we examine here (Stepchenkova and Zhan, 2012). By showing domination or mastery of socially recognized, and typically masculine, sights with high social capital, women are not only providing evidence of female accomplishments but are also pushing for societal recognition to re-identify the masculine wilderness landscape. In addition, photographs allow the photographer the agency to frame herself in a certain way and the process acts as a performance of identity creation (Haldrup and Larsen, 2003; Larsen, 2006; Losh, 2015; Munar and Jacobsen, 2013). Many photos involve power poses, which depict women flexing their muscles and promoting dominant body language over the landscapes they are in. This also includes photos depicting active engagement, rather than women posing passively in wilderness. These poses of women “conquering” and “mastering” the landscape depict masculine ways of interacting with the landscape, associated with those same characteristics of ruggedness, individualism, and strength that helped create the wilderness idea (Cosgrove, 1984; Cronon, 1995). As Wearing (1992) notes, “women who engage in physical sporting activities do find the space between the contradictory discourses on athleticism and femininity to integrate the positive aspects of male and female identity” creating a balance where one is not overcome by the other within identity association (p. 327). By actively putting themselves in these powerful and dynamic poses, women are framing the way they see themselves in wilderness and are changing the way others see them as well.

The power and prevalence of social media

Social and digital media manifests in a multiplicity of ways. Preliminary data for this article focused on Instagram pages, public Facebook groups, personal blogs, and advertising campaigns. Instagram is exclusively a photo-sharing media site where photos are often overlaid with quotes or accompanied by captions. The main source for Instagram analysis was the Instagram page for Women’s Wilderness—a non-profit group focusing on providing outdoor education to women of all ages. Facebook groups are a more collaborative form of social media where any member can post text, video, or images for the whole group to see, comment, and share. Since Facebook groups can be created and joined by anyone with an account, a search was done using combinations of key words such as “women,” “wilderness,” “outdoors,” and so on. From the search results, descriptions of the groups as well as member counts were taken. A similar search was done for personal blogs, using key word combinations on various blogging sites such as Blogger, Wordpress, and Weebly. Through these various searches, advertisements for products related to the search terms became associated with the webpages. Most notable was Recreational Equipment, Inc.’s (REI) new campaign focused on women outdoor enthusiasts. Their new advertising campaign, and strong use of social media, was also included in this article. In the following sections, each of these platforms is discussed with common activity and their possible effects on women’s wilderness empowerment.

Instagram

As of 26 April 2017, Instagram reached 700 million users since its launch on 6 October 2010 (Instagram, 2017a). From those 700 million users, more than 600 million are active monthly and more than 400 million are active daily (Instagram, 2017b). In addition, Instagram has over 8 million business profiles which include organizations such as Outdoor Women’s Alliance, Women Who Hike, and Women’s Wilderness. As of May 2017, Outdoor Women’s Alliance (n.d.) has over 198,000 followers, Women Who Hike (n.d.) has over 160,000, and Women’s Wilderness (n.d.) has over 2400.

These three pages post photos of women active in outdoor recreation activities in wilderness spaces. Many are either of professional female athletes or are shared photos provided by members or followers on their pages. All photos include a caption attached with the photo, on the photo itself, or both. The photos and captions provide space for women to share their experiences and empower others like them. For example, one woman stated: “Don’t call us crazy for going into the wilderness alone. Don’t try to stop us doing something that empowers us” (Women’s Wilderness, 2017, Instagram Photo Caption). Another photograph caption challenged gendered qualities of wilderness by stating, “[the trip] taught me that being confident and brave were not bad qualities, that being myself was something worth celebrating” (Women’s Wilderness, 2016). Liz Tomas, in one of her photo captions stated, “no one questions female pilots, police officers or professional athletes these days, why should hikers be any different?” (Thomas, 2016). These captions show women actively engaging with and challenging wilderness’ masculine associations through Instagram posts, which allow their statements to reach an ever-increasing audience. Since this is a visually focused platform, women’s use of Instagram promotes women’s empowerment in wilderness spaces by increasing their visibility in these spaces and further shaping the “gaze” of modern society on wilderness areas.

Facebook

Social media sites also provide a space for online communities where women offer support to others grappling with constraints of normative gender roles within wilderness through shared experience (see Gretzel et al., 2006; Munar and Jacobsen, 2013; Wang et al., 2002). Descriptions of these groups emphasize these platforms as being “safe spaces for members to plan adventures, make new friends, share stories, seek advice, and thoughtfully discuss issues related to the outdoors and femininity” (PNW Outdoor Women Group, n.d.). Another group states that their “sole purpose is to encourage, educate and empower women to get outdoors” acting as a “community of sisterhood that fosters individual personal growth” (Women Hikers & Outdoor Adventurers, n.d.). Diversity of groups and membership counts shows that these communities are reaching a wide audience and are receiving wider attention by the public. Facebook, in contrast to Instagram, uses these virtual community spaces to facilitate discussion and digital dialogue between group members, allowing for more detailed and personal exchanges of information and experiences. These connections help break down social, emotional, and physical barriers that may have previously barred some women from participating in wilderness spaces.

In this way, women have a variety of media platforms on which they post about their wilderness experiences. By sharing photos or participating in groups, wilderness recreational accomplishments are validated by those at home and others who have also been to these places (O’Regan, 2010). For women,

an image of participating in adventurous activities … could enhance their status or identity as one of being “adventurous,” “brave” or “daring.” Perhaps developing a more powerful image or the stronger image of the individual in their own eyes and in the eyes of others

which counteracts feminine roles and contributes to self-image and empowerment (Myers, 2010: 198, see also Cockburn, 2016; Jordan and Gibson, 2005; Wilson and Harris, 2006).

Blogs

Other forms of opposition against a masculine wilderness include the widely received narratives of solo women travelers which, through various media forms, reach a global audience. Many women have turned their personal travel or wilderness recreation experiences into blogs, memoirs, travel narratives, and short stories. These auto ethnographic works can be accessed by millions of women around the world and are in direct conflict with most media advertisements which portray women as only playing passive roles in wilderness (Berryman, 2015; McNiel et al., 2012). Blogger, Wordpress, and Weebly are some examples of free blogging websites that women use as a platform to talk about their travel and recreation in wilderness areas. There are countless members on each site that focus on topics encompassing women in wilderness. Blogs are not only used as extensions for larger organizations such as Women Who Hike or Outdoor Women’s Alliance, but they also can be personal accounts such as Just A Colorado Gal (Rochfort, n.d.), Her Side of the Mountain (Palin, n.d.), and For the Love of Climbing (Kathy, n.d.), or collaborative such as She Explores (n.d.) Hiking Lady (n.d.), and Dirtbag Darling (Gall, n.d.).

These blog examples offer spaces for women to share their experiences and offer advice to other women in their situation, much like Facebook groups. For example, Lisa Palin, author of Her Side of the Mountain, writes,

I started solo hiking and camping, I have encountered a lot of reactions, from the awed (“I could never do that, it must be amazing”) to the critical (“that is unnecessarily dangerous and stupid, and so are you”) to the curious and interested (“aren’t you bored/lonely/scared?”). I have often wished there was some resource or guide I could have looked to for advice and encouragement, and so…Her Side of the Mountain was born. May you learn from my mistakes, failures, joys and successes.

In addition, Heather Rochfort, author of Just A Colorado Gal, posts about her experiences being a woman entering the outdoor recreation field, reminiscing,

“When I tried to purchase my mountaineering boots in 2002, no one sold women’s specific boots in the entire city of Boulder. I ended up buying a demo pair in a men’s size 4 because that was the best option available. (Rochfort, 2014, The Rise of Women in the Outdoors)

Sharing these women specific experiences increases the visibility of women as active engagers in wilderness recreation and can act as empowerment for other women entering these domains (Cockburn, 2016; Jordan and Gibson, 2005; Wilson and Harris, 2006). They also act to show the changing trends in women’s wilderness participation.

As exemplified in the discussion above, the difference in participation and activity on blogs and Facebook is that blogs create a separation between the presenter and the audience while Facebook offers a more balanced interaction between users. Blog authors have full autonomy over their sites, and the context of posts is often focused on the experiences of one person. Blogs act as points of inspiration for others and personal shows of social, physical, and emotional growth of women conquering wilderness spaces.

Advertising

In addition to social media posts and blogs, some outdoor and recreational clothing and equipment brands are catching wind of this trend as well. REI Co-Op recently launched its new advertising campaign as of 1 April 2017 called “Force of Nature,” which calls for the outdoors to be “the world’s largest level playing field” (Stritzke, 2017: n.p.). Stritzke, CEO and President of REI, argues that media representation of the outdoors, and recreation therein, is portrayed as being White and masculine. In their study, they found that although more than two-thirds of women viewed outdoor recreation positively “63% of women said they could not think of an outdoor female role model” and “6 in 10 women say that men’s interests in outdoor activities are taken more seriously than women’s” (Stritzke, 2017: n.p.). To combat these constraints to women’s participation in outdoor recreation, he states, “to create real change right now we are putting women—of all ages, races, sizes, gender expressions—front and center in all we do” through focusing on gender equality in marketing, donating US$1 million to nonprofits that promote women in the outdoors, developing technical gear for women, and offering new events to promote women in the outdoors (Stritzke, 2017: n.p.). A majority of their campaign is focused on visual representation and empowerment of women in the outdoors.

This empowerment is important because it allows these women to reassess themselves and their place in the perceived masculine wilderness. Empowerment helps women confront ideals of feminine beauty and subordination and realize that there is no one definition of femininity (Balka, 1995; Berdychevsky et al., 2013; Losh, 2015). This empowerment also promotes increased participation in activities, including those that involve risk-taking, which contribute to the deconstruction of conventional gender expectations, including how women comport themselves in the heretofore masculine wilderness (McNamara and Prideaux, 2010; McNiel et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2017).

Concluding remarks and directions for future study

The American wilderness ideal has been constantly changing. Two of the most notable changes to the American perception of wilderness have occurred via the creation of protected wilderness areas and through tourism, which helped to established wilderness as masculine and full of risk. However, this article argues that more recently, feminine discourse has acted upon this idea, specifically addressing the exclusionary nature of this gendered environment and illustrating the ways women are staking their claim to this masculine wilderness through active engagement and the use of social media platforms. Just as the Transcendentalists and painters of the Hudson River School discursively shaped perceptions of a sacred, sublime, and masculine wilderness, contemporary women, through blogs, social media posts, and photographs, are in their own ways beginning to reframe and reshape what constitutes today’s wilderness. Not only are these women shaping perceptions of today’s wilderness landscapes, but women’s increasing engagement with socially recognized wilderness spaces, as defined by nature and adventure tourism, also increases their social capital and thus changes the assumption that their place is outside of wilderness.

Tourism creates iconic places and women’s presence in them and attempted mastery over them in turn makes them feel powerful and socially significant. Social media, through various forms, works to perpetuate their stance against the masculine wilderness ideal. Sharing accomplishments not only empowers other women in their situation, but also increases their visibility beyond what had previously been achieved. Thus, social media provides a key role in changing perceptions of American wilderness to one where social empowerment can take place.

While this article examines the role of social media in positively influencing women’s participation in wilderness spaces and their increased empowerment in them, not all uses of social media promote these ideals. With the increased use of social media by younger generations, concerns over metal health, cyberbullying, and hyper-sexualization have also increased. While for some, social media offers a web of support structures and personal gratification, for others it is a place of judgment and harassment. It is not that women’s engagement with nature tourism and social media pertaining to wilderness participation eliminates this opposing discourse, but rather “It is in the intersection of such contradictory discourses that there is room for women to challenge, if not overturn, male hegemonic control and to create individual identities” (Wearing, 1991: 582).

This preliminary study on the increasing role of social media in women’s participation in wilderness opens the door for future research pertaining to participation outcomes between various platforms as well as overall perceived influence of such sites on women active in nature tourism and wilderness recreation. Understanding how these sites individually affect empowerment will better enable scholars and practitioners to appreciate the complexity of the female nature tourist, the discourse(s) within and through which she is operating, and the heterogeneity of the social media world and those who frequent it. Through an examination of different platforms and varied social media sites, scholars will be better equipped to attend to the nuances of sub-cultures associated with each site, the power each of those sites holds to create and inform contemporary discourse, and the ways they are impacting behaviors, norms, and expectations among nature tourists and managers alike. Applications of this information may lead to better understanding of how social media is changing issues of access for other demographics beyond the scope of gendered space and wilderness.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Theodora G Weatherby

Author biographies

Theodora G Weatherby is a MS student studying Coupled Natural and Human Systems. Her current research is looking at the intersections of wilderness perception, gender, and social media.

Elizabeth S Vidon is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, New York. Her work critically examines nature tourism and notions of authenticity in wilderness experiences.

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