"It's just like the silence is violence": Gender inequity in the outdoor workplace

WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Abby Bradley (Creator)
Institution
Western Carolina University (WCU )
Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
Advisor
Callie Schultz

Abstract: Outdoor education and leisure spaces claim to promote social development, relationship-building, and social justice as their foundational aims, but these opportunities seem to be available only for a select, dominant few (Allen-Craig et al., 2020). Gender inequity is one of the key issues the outdoor field is facing, which prevents these spaces from being inclusive (Newbury, 2004). This is especially true with regard to those that work in the outdoor field, who are faced with discrimination (Kennedy & Russel, 2020; Suen et al., 2020), lack of job opportunities (Gray et al., 2017; Peterson et al., 2019), and exclusion (Allen-Craig et al., 2020; Newbury, 2004) solely based on their gender. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the way gender inequity is experienced by non-dominant workers in the outdoor field. I intended to answer the following question: How do cisgender women and non-binary individuals within the outdoor field remember their experiences of workplace gender discrimination? I explored this research question using collective memory work (informed by feminist theory) as a methodology and written narratives and a focus group as methods. Findings were all centered around Judith Butler’s (1990) theory of gender performance and the power that comes from conforming (or failure to conform) to these performances

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 2022
Keywords
gender inequity, outdoor field, workplace
Subjects
Outdoor recreation
Sex discrimination against women
Discrimination in employment
Equality
Gender expression

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