Women Backpackers

[Wandering Daisy]

More women do not participate because there is not a critical mass yet. Sort of a chicken and egg problem. The posts are so overwhelmingly male oriented that women backpackers may be turned off. One thing that I wonder is why a lot of you guys talk about your wives backpacking, yet THEY do not post here. Why? You speaking for them seems a bit chauvinistic to me. Ask THEM why they do not post.

[rlown]

More women do not participate because there is not a critical mass yet. Sort of a chicken and egg problem. The posts are so overwhelmingly male oriented that women backpackers may be turned off. One thing that I wonder is why a lot of you guys talk about your wives backpacking, yet THEY do not post here. Why? You speaking for them seems a bit chauvinistic to me. Ask THEM why they do not post.

kinda what i was getting at. Thanks, WD. btw, my wife does not backpack. Hence, when i go it's only with guy friends.

[oldranger]

WD

My wife absolutely hates computers!

Mike

[rlown]

WD

My wife absolutely hates computers!

Mike

Umm.. no excuse. Women have been backpacking forever. Your wife uses a computer everyday. (maybe why she hates them).

[Wandering Daisy]

I am on another backpacking forum and more women post there. More women will post here WHEN more women post here. How's that for circular logic! The other forum also has a fishing section, and very few post on that. Hard to say. Why do more fishermen post here than on a lot of other forums? I think each forum develops a "personality" over time, and this one does tend to have a "male" personality. The Whitney Portal Forum has a section for women and woman do not post there much - I think any woman who is a serious backpacker is not going to like the idea of a "woman's section" (it is actually a bit offensive). And the Supertopo Forum is just plain adolecent, as far as I am concerned. So much vented garbage there. Women like to talk - like on the phone, in person with real names and people they know personally. Forum may seem a bit impersonal. Women I know seem more to be into Facebook - a bit more control over who you "friend". And women who backpack in groups, just talk among themselves. It would be interesting to know exactly what percentage of backpackers are women. I have never heard a statistic.

[giantbrookie]

Ask THEM why they do not post.

My wife doesn't post because she is not very interested in publicly posting her views on this subject. In fact she has never has been a really big participant of any online forum except for a freshwater aquarium hobbyist forum (Aquaden) that she posted on quite a bit from 1998 to about 2002 and still posts a few times a year (I posted a lot there from about 1998 to 2004 or so then haven't at all since). Since then she hasn't really felt that is where she wants to devote her time. Unlike me, she does check Facebook occasionally, whereas I don't even maintain a page there, but even her Facebook time is very limited. She spends the overwhelming amount of her computer time in work-related matters, including teaching online, with 2nd place being socially-related (ie non work) emails. I too spend the majority of my time on the computer working, with 2nd place on social emails, but overall I clearly spend more time on online forums (even if it is just this one) than Judy does.

[Snow Nymph]

I used to backpack solo because my friends would bail on me. Then I met people on the internet, and started bagging peaks instead. It was more fun to bag a few peaks on the weekend, than to carry my gear in, bag one peak, drive home. My back was hurting from the weight of the pack (~30 lbs) and it just didn't seem worth it. Right now I'm not peakbagging like I want to but trying to get back to where I was.

I had a life changing issue with a trusted male friend in 2009. No warning, no sign of danger. It just happened and I'm lucky to be alive. I still hike with men, but not alone.

I do spend a lot of time on facebook now. I can get on anytime with my iPhone without logging in. I quit going to a lot of boards because of the drama. I still come here but can't always post if I'm traveling or on the road. FB is easy.

[balzaccom]

My wife doens't participate in ANY message board communities. period. She's on facebook, which she uses to network with our kids, who are in far flung corners of the globe. But she'd much rather read a good book than read a bunch of posts by people who are not professional writers.

And that includes me!

[quentinc]

Snow Nymph, that's awful! I'm sorry you had to experience something like that, and have to worry (understandably) about trips now. I've always liked to think that the kind of guys who are drawn to backpacking are not the ones likely to harass women (let alone trusted friends!), but maybe that's naive.

[Wandering Daisy]

balzaccom- if your wife were in charge of doing all the route planning, she may be more inclined to check this forum for a lot of good and timely information! You cannot get that from reading a good book. You and your wife are also very lucky to have each other to chat about backpacking. She probably gets totally satisfied by chatting with you. Some of us have partners who we would bore with our backpack chat, or live alone and like to chat with people who share our interests. My husband and I sit side-by-side, he at his computer "chatting" on his bow-hunting and motorcycle forums and me "chatting" on my backpack forums, both of us drinking our glasses of wine and we find this quite enjoyable. We also do Facebook, but honestly, I get a bit bored the hundredth time niece-in-law posts that she just brushed her teeth (she is in college). The format of the communication does not seem to protect one from irrelevant chit-chat!

I am not sure what your last comment means. My goodness, does your wife put YOUR writings in the "unprofessional" catagory? Or are YOU bored by unprofessional writers of posts on this forum? If it is the former, I think your writings are quite good (may just mean we backpackers have very low literary standards ); and if the latter, you have read my trip reprots and made kind comments - so they must have at least been written well enough to hold a bit of your interest.