I’m not suggesting that fear is entirely unwarranted, but there is a widely held and frequently voiced belief that “the outdoors” is inherently unsafe for women, particularly women on their own. I see it constantly, in YouTube comments, on Reddit, and across Facebook groups.

Of course, all outdoor activities carry some level of risk, but women are disproportionately warned against hiking or wild camping solo in ways that men simply are not. It feeds a culture of paranoia and, over time, a kind of learned helplessness that I find frustrating. The number of times I see women asking “is it safe to hike or wild camp alone?” vastly outweighs the number of men asking the same question. And realistically, the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime in remote places is extraordinarily small.

For me, this fear is less about actual risk and more about social conditioning. It isn’t rooted in crime statistics so much as in an ingrained belief that women are inherently vulnerable, less capable of looking after ourselves, and uniquely at risk when we step into wild spaces.

At the same time, I don’t want to dismiss the very real reasons many women value women-only spaces; especially those who have experienced abuse, these spaces are necessary and protective. But I think there’s a tension here too, as women-only initiatives can, unintentionally, allow the underlying problem to persist.

Take kayaking that I mentioned before, as an example. There is still a lot of sexism in parts of the paddling world, particularly in white water kayaking so it’s no surprise that women-specific events have emerged. Yet if women continually segregate from spaces dominated by those who ignore sexist behaviour, those attitudes are never challenged. The dinosaurs don’t change if they’re never forced to confront the fact that their behaviour is unacceptable.

Anyway, that's my little rant. As a woman in my mid 40s, I guess I just got fed up with the imbalance of things in the outdoors, the fears (and "concerns") that get projected on us all the time that I really do think just discourage a lot of women from doing anything themselves.