Gendered childhoods and the inequity of accessing the outdoors

Abstract

AbstractUnderstanding our beliefs and experiences means we must often explore our childhood experiences, and reflect on how, at certain points in our life, a range of barriers, obstacles, and societal or social constructs have resulted in shaping the opportunities we had and our behaviours in accessing them. Herein we consider and reflect on the paper ‘“Muddy Glee”: rounding out the picture of women and physical geography fieldwork’ and take inspiration to reframe and discuss a broader context of childhood experiences in setting the background for the observations made within the paper. We highlight and discuss three key provocations, which provide a framework to explore how social constructions of gender, from within the womb onwards, impact women's experiences, challenges, and pleasures of fieldwork in geography, and moreover link these experiences to the restrictions on access to the outdoors women experience in everyday life.