Gender issues

[azbackpackr]

The gender issue doesn't come up very often but when it does, you will find me hot under the collar. Here are several examples which either bugged me or actually really, totally made me very, very angry:

1. A newbie posts on here, is looking to find a hiking companion for an upcoming trip, whom he refers to as a "him." (Annoying but may have been just a mistake.)

2. A boating friend sends me an email saying there is a private Grand Canyon trip set up which he is not invited on, because they want more female passengers. What for, I ask, to cook, clean and have sex with? I hope all the boatwomen slam that group, and tell them where to go. (Trips should not be gender-selective. That is just plain stupid.)

3. I post a hike for Grand Canyon, and a guy emails me to ask how many "single women" are going on it. This has to be the biggest faux pas of the century. No single woman in her right mind is going to go on a trip if she hears there is some lecherous knuckle-dragger going along, who will continually make passes at her. (I gleefully mention this guy's name to anyone I think knows him, and I tell them I think he is a total jerk, even though I have never met him. What an idiot. He deserves to never, ever have another girlfriend as long as he lives.)

I like my groups to be of casual mixed company. Sometimes I end up with all women, sometimes I am the only gal, but most times in the past, when I have organized a trip, we end up with a mixture of men and women, married and single. It has never been much of an issue. People who try to make it be one way or the other are mostly just REALLY UPTIGHT!!!

[PrestonSands]

You are fired up today, Elizabeth. I hear you roar!

[azbackpackr]

Grrrr!

[big_load]

A mixed group for me is one that has other people.

[PaleoRob]

Don't know the deal with 1., but maybe he was just looking for a guy to hike with?

[azbackpackr]

Yeah, he probably wasn't thinking about how he worded it. I'll give him a pass, for now!

[Pathfinder Aaron]

Or maybe he knew exactly how he worded it. Just because you have a problem with people being gender specific with their hikes, doesn't mean you should cast judgement. There are many things people may be looking for in these experiences. Maybe the guy is gay and wants a male hiking companion and isn't really interested in meeting a woman to hike with. And maybe #3 was looking for someone he might be compatible with. If hiking and outdoors activities are his thing, and he would like to find a female friend that likes similar things, then good for him I say. I mean as long as he goes about it the right way. You have no idea what that guy is planning on doing, or how he's going to approach the situation. Just because a guy asks about single females participating on a hike doesn't mean he's going to act like some rude moronic perv. If anything, I would say hiking in a casual mixed group and you're both single and through casual conversation and friendly interactions along the way, may just be a great way of meeting someone you click with and choose to continue with further meet-ups and possibly a relationship friendly or intimate. I just don't like it when assumptions and judgements are made which may not be correct. What one person expects out of an outdoors experience might not be what another does so it's difficult to say what people should and should not do when it comes to these situations. I hope this doesn't sound offensive in any way, I just think there are many outcomes that we may or may not think about for scenarios to pan out, and we can't always know why a person says something.

[Pathfinder Aaron]

Without asking them specifically about it...

[azbackpackr]

Well, I guess, if I am leading a hike, I am putting out information inviting people on the hike in this or another public forum on the internet. My main concern is whether the people who show interest can do the hike, if they have the proper gear, and if they know what they are getting into, right? So I am not worrying about male/female/transgender/married/single, etc. etc. I am just looking for a small group of competent hikers. The rest of it will sort itself out according to who actually shows up. On most of the ones I have facilitated, it seemed like there were in fact a lot of heterosexual married people who showed up, both with and without their spouses.

The interesting thing is that group dynamics can be really great, or they can really suck, but it never seems to be very predictable, unless you already know the people. I have led a number of hikes where I didn't know most of the people who were going with me. Whether they turned out to be a copacetic group or not was never really predictable in advance, no matter how much they had told me about themselves.

There are singles hiking groups, and women's hiking groups, and Christian hiking groups, and dog hiking groups--all for people who want to have some control over what kinds of people are on their hikes. But on a public forum, I just think the real criteria should be a having a competency level that matches the hike. I have led beginner hikes, and I have led "A" hikes, and the criteria I use to weed people out is whether I think they can do the hike. (Incidentally, when I tried to type the common word for people of the same sex who like each other, it wouldn't let me do it. But those people are also welcome on my hikes.)

And as for the guy who asked me if any single women were going on the hike, I have to say that he asked it in such a way that seemed pretty creepy to me. It really isn't the type of question you can politely ask a woman you have never met, for one thing. And it wasn't polite, the way he came across. If he had been a friend of mine, and called me up on the phone to ask about the hike, and we were discussing who was going, and he asked that question, I might have taken it a little differently.

I just think if you want to go on an all-gay hike or an all-women's hike, then you find a forum or club that specializes in that. I don't see anything wrong with that. I just don't want to set up my hikes that way. I intensely dislike the idea of either excluding people or favoring people on the basis of race, gender, etc.

[big_load]

I'm just out to enjoy the wilderness and decompress. I don't want any drama. I don't want even the possibility of drama.

[azbackpackr]

I like backpacking trips of several days in length where maybe you have a couple old friends, plus a couple people you don't know come along. The group gels well and visits in the evenings, but on the other hand, there are times, such as on a layover day, when people split off, do their own thing. I like some socializing, but some privacy and solitude as well. I haven't much cared for completely solo overnight trips, because I get pretty bored in the evenings.

[JoelHazelton]

Why is the word G A Y censored? Is it a swear word?

As for the list...

1. The new member probably wanted a male hiking partner. I really see no problem with that... I would venture to guess that guys generally have more in common with other guys and girls usually have more in common with other girls. Not ALWAYS, but at least greater than 50% of the time...

And, you said "he" in the original post, suggesting the new member was male.

2. Lame... It's a boating trip, not an ASU house party. Unless the boating trip was specified as "singles", that's inexcusable, in my opinion.

3. This guy was completely tactless with that email, but he said what I'm sure most single (and many not single) people are thinking when they go on a group hike. But I will agree, if he was tactless enough to send you that email, then he's probably tactless enough to awkwardly hit on anyone he could get away with hitting on.

[Pathfinder Aaron]

I agree with these statements, and yeah, there are probably better suited forums for people looking for these sorts of things.

[azbackpackr]

I really do like mixed groups. One time, when I looked at the hike list for an upcoming hike, I realized it was going to be all women! I really hadn't wanted to do a women-only hike--not my cup of tea. But it turned out really fun. That's just how I am, but other women may seek out all-women's hikes. As for the word G A Y I am not sure why it won't print it, but I suspect it is because Joe doesn't want people doing net searches and coming up with this website for that keyword.

I am going to start leading group hikes again this summer. The rafting trip you may have seen me post up here is the first time I have really tried to put together a group in over a year and a half. So far it's going well, with a very mixed bunch of folks, so far I have 11.

[Jeffshadows]

Liz is right on, as usual! One of the most annoying things to witness out hiking is any kind of preternatural courtship ritual. Take that foolishness back down to 4th avenue!! If you are going hiking as a "date" hey, more power to ya'. Otherwise: Leave the female of the species alone!!

A couple years back big-daddy Nick and I were on Blackett's when we encountered a group of young-ish female hikers near the summit sign. We exchanged pleasantries as we passed and went on about taking pictures and so on further along the summit ridge. I remembered the group of sleeveless-t-shirt neanderthals that we had passed a while back as they huffed and puffed and refused to yield the trail as we came (Because they were such tough guys :roll: ) and mentioned to Nick that it would be seconds after those guys finally whimpered their way to the summit that they would be on those ladies like white on rice. Sure enough; as we headed back out and down they were there buzzing around that group of female hikers like flies. It was disgusting to witness. None of those women were dressed like they were out looking for attention and they were clearly minding their own business in their little group.

I've seen this play-out on Finger time and time again, as well. Even more frightening: About five years back I actually had a solo female backpacker ask me if she could "Sit in my camp for a while" once near Sycamore Reservoir because a group of guys with "Heavy European accents" and an ice cooler full of cheap wine were following her around everywhere she tried to put up her tent and harassing her. I could smell them from where I was sitting and overheard what I thought was probably Italian being spoken. I told her to feel free to set her tent up in my "camp" and went about my business ignoring her. Turned out that she was a fellow military vet and enjoyed hiking alone until that day. What a shame!!

[azbackpackr]

Very good examples. The flip side is my friend, the boatman, who apparently is not invited on a raft trip because he is a guy--the guys on that trip want some non-rowing little chickie-poos to decorate their rafts. Woman as knickknack. When she gets off the raft she had better be good at fetching beer and cooking, too. (I may not have all the details, but just want to illustrate it can go both ways.)

And it may be more prevalent in the boating world, where the terms "river wife," "river b*tch," etc. are used amongst (a hopefully small number of) male boatmen.

I experienced a very small level of gender prejudice recently when inquiring about a training class and job as rafting guide and shuttle bus driver in Colorado. I mentioned I am married. The owner of the company then wanted to know if my husband would also be taking the class, because, as he said, "A lot of couples do this job together." Ok, fine, they do. But if I had been a guy, would he have asked me if I was married, and if my wife was taking the class with me, and that couples often do the job together? Somehow, I doubt it.

[fricknaley]

A couple years back big-daddy Nick and I were on Blackett's when we encountered a group of young-ish female hikers near the summit sign

what i remember most was the poor dude who had just sat on the centipede

[Jeffshadows]

A couple years back big-daddy Nick and I were on Blackett's when we encountered a group of young-ish female hikers near the summit sign

what i remember most was the poor dude who had just sat on the centipede

Oh man, I had completely forgotten!!

[snakemarks]

I'm just out to enjoy the wilderness and decompress. I don't want any drama. I don't want even the possibility of drama.

I couldn't have said that any better!
This is why I generally hike alone.

[writelots]

But if I had been a guy, would he have asked me if I was married, and if my wife was taking the class with me, and that couples often do the job together? Somehow, I doubt it.

This happens more than I'd ever like to say. As a female in the backcountry, I am FREQUENTLY asked where my husband is and why he doesn't like to hike. But how many married men on the trail get asked where their wives are and why THEY don't like to hike. No, I'm not a lipstick-wearin' Volvo-drivin' cookie-bakin' softie with a fresh manicure and a fear of pooing in the woods. Luckily, I found a man who not only doesn't want one of those, but is happy to spend his weekend tinkering in his personal junkyard while I explore the wilds.

The one thing that I have found to be a drawback of the ABC's format on meetup.com is that Meetup itself is largely a singles/hook-up vehicle. Although the nature of backpacking scares the worst of the stalkers away, some of the people we see coming on trips are only mildly interested in backpacking, but are very interested in meeting members of the opposite sex. They usually don't last long in the club (there are much easier groups to hang with if you're just looking for a hook-up - like the ones who do the same 3 mile hike twice a week), and every once in a while it works out that some of these folks are actually fun and end up being good backpackers.

As far as I know, there haven't been any substantial relationships resulting from an ABC trip. Actually, we probably have better odds with ending relationships than with starting them... ;)