In an ideal world, the great outdoors would be a gender-neutral space. Just you, an open trail, towering treetops, and the echoes of birdsong carried on a soft breeze. But the reality is often less idyllic. Women and AFAB (assigned female at birth) people are significantly underrepresented in outdoor sports and recreation activities. Some social norms vanish in the great outdoors. You’ll likely not see your peers naked on campus, but it’s tits out on a Tramping Club skinny-dip; and you’ll never be more aware of your mate’s daily bowel movements than on a three-day hike. Uglier social norms like period stigma and sexism, however, can follow trampers on the trail.
While yells for toilet paper from behind a bush are common, requests for tampons are less so – and a leaf won’t do the job. Even in the wild, gender stereotypes continue to leave so many women feeling out of place; so let’s talk about it. Critic Te Ārohi interviews three wild wāhine —Jenna, Zia, and Hannah — to chat about bleeding and breaking stereotypes in the backcountry.
Taboo on the Track
Getting closer to Papatūānuku (the land) often means becoming extremely close with your fellow adventurers. From passing around a pot of burnt porridge to loudly announcing you need to wee behind a bush, any intrepid trip is filled with all manner of shared experiences. There’s nothing quite like being exhausted and dirty together after a day of bush-bashing to strengthen a friendship. When all your biological functions are — quite literally — out in the open, you’re bound to bond a little.
So why do we draw the line at periods? Periods are often treated as the one natural process that’s off limits, even to nature. Period stigma, the Western societal perception that a menstruating body is abnormal or “gross”, is to blame. Women are taught from a young age that periods are embarrassing and something to be handled in secret – discreetly sneaking pads in pockets to high school bathrooms, opening them as quietly as possible, and nervously checking for bleed-throughs in the mirror. Needless to say, this perception doesn’t lend itself to a healthy relationship between women and their bodies. Many of those with uteruses can go their entire lives without accessing life-changing knowledge and support for managing menstrual cycles.
Otago Medicine student and alpine traverser Jenna Tidswell adores everything outdoors. She began orienteering in school, representing New Zealand and winning gold in the Individual Long event at the World Schools Orienteering Championships at fourteen. This ignited a life-long passion for adventure. For Jenna, orienteering was the gateway to canyoning, caving, mountaineering, and trail running. Now, she’s exploring European mountain ranges, often spending nights sleeping above 4,000 metres. She tells Critic that she’s soaking up all the alpine knowledge she can to bring to the terrains back home.
Jenna tells Critic that periods can be a big barrier to climbing mountains, both mentally and physically: “There’s just so much shame around it, especially when you are young. You usually have to figure it out yourself, which can be discouraging and lower your confidence.” To make the outdoors a more inclusive space, Jenna openly shares how her cycle influences her climbing experiences, hoping to educate other wāhine in the process. When it comes to conquering sexism, normalising female bodies in the outdoors is taking that first step up the hill.
Brave Bodies
Zia Macdermid, Physics PhD student and lover of endurance sports, grew up with a complicated relationship to diet and exercise. A former teenage running prodigy, she spent much of her younger years directly equating her value to her racing success. As she’s explored icy slopes, however, Zia says her self-image has improved as she’s seen what her body can accomplish: “How can I hate my body when it got me up that mountain?”
In a world where women’s bodies are often defined by their appearance –with body types falling in and out of fashion with the seasons – learning to recognise exhaustion and then nourish herself through recovery has also been liberating for Zia. Relying on her own strength at immense heights, Zia tells Critic she is able to “listen to her body” like never before. As a woman, Jenna adds that her period is part of this, recognising each stage of her cycle and understanding how it influences her movement and mood. During the first part of her cycle, when oestrogen levels are high and she’s feeling extra energetic, she knows she can push her body harder, climb for longer. Towards the end, when that energy drops, she makes sure to take rests when she needs them and give herself the fuel – hydration and nutrition – she needs.
Little girls are brought up to prioritise neatness and cleanliness, lest they fall outside of “feminine” norms. God forbid they get dirty climbing trees or come home with grazes and grass stains. In the bush, however, where there are no mirrors and getting grubby is the name of the game, both Zia and Jenna attest to the sense of feminine euphoria that comes from being in a space where it’s normalised to be dirty: “When you’re sat around the cooker and you all smell bad but no one cares, it’s kind of bliss.”
Hannah, Energy Management student, skilled tramper, and scenic goon slapper (see the Nat Geo issue), tells Critic that “nudie swims” have also increased her confidence, with the Tramping Club tradition of skinny-dips normalising naked bodies in a non-sexual setting: “Freeing the nip is always a huge win.” The wild can be a space where women can see their bodies not through the male gaze, but for their remarkable endurance and as a means to achieve incredible feats. No one cares what your body looks like when you’ve scaled a mountain peak, only that it got you there.
Belonging in the bush
Men’s sense of belonging in the bush over women’s begins from a young age. It all starts in kindergarten when boys are given trucks to play with in the sandpit, and girls are given dolls and miniature hairbrushes. The societal idea that men are physically stronger and “better suited” to extreme environments undermines women’s confidence from an early age.
Hannah, Zia, and Jenna all recall moments they had to prove their ability to feel they belong in the outdoors as equals with their male counterparts. Despite her life-long athleticism and five years of experience split-skiing, Zia was recently commended by someone she had just met for “actually being all right.” It might sound insignificant to the untrained ear, but Zia says microaggressions like this have chipped away at her confidence, causing her to doubt her capabilities at times.
Even finding a climbing partner has been difficult for Jenna, with cis-men frequently assuming she won’t match their skill. There’ve also been ulterior motives, with male peers expecting a romantic relationship out of it. This has left Jenna feeling unsafe on more than one occasion. All three girls agree they were less likely to be chosen for leadership roles, with Hannah saying, “Even if you have more knowledge, people will unconsciously back [men] more.”
However, Jenna wants to reassure women they belong in the outdoors just as much as anyone else: “People will try to tell you men are tougher, more capable, but even when that’s the case there’s so much beyond the physical stuff. Mentally [we] are so strong.” As women are taught to be cautious and quiet, it can be hard for them to be confident and back themselves. Zia said surrounding herself with other supportive women in the outdoors had resulted in “life-changing” dynamics that enabled her to appreciate the wilderness even more.
Mother Nature’s Therapy
An inherent strength of women is tied to their periods. Menstruating is a full-body and mind experience that can take a toll, and managing it in the backcountry isn’t limited to bleeding. Zia told Critic that dealing with cramps and mood swings is a less-than-fun reality for her during long trips: “I’m more worried about having a low mood. What if I’ve only packed myself an apple for a snack and I decide I don’t want an apple? [What if] it feels like the end of the world and I cry on the trail?” Although Zia admits she is still learning how to manage this, self-empathy and transparency with fellow trampers makes all the difference – and Mother Nature’s nurture can help ease the discomfort.
Outdoors, the opportunity to disconnect from screens and lap up the sun can offer a mindfulness that’s difficult to attain in urban settings like Dunedin. Getting closer to nature has always “reset” Zia’s mental health, soothing her anxieties and forcing her to focus on the present. On a chemical level, outdoor exercise increases the production of endorphins which are natural mood-lifters. This makes crossing ridgelines and scaling icy rock scrambles Jenna's form of meditation. With each foot forward, Jenna says the stresses of her demanding degree float further away.
Nature’s therapy also lies in the connections built along the way. Laughter, especially when shared from a sleeping bag, is the best medicine. With a chuckle, Hannah recounted a story about a rat dashing out of a long drop and a long night spent holding the door open for each other while they peed — just in case the cheeky rodent returned. “The memories you make out there are incomparable,” she tells Critic.
Advice: Go with the flow
Periods are as diverse as Aotearoa’s terrains. So what should you do if, like Hannah, Zia, and Jenna, you’re menstruating in the wild? It’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for another.
Determined to trump the taboo, Hannah has spoken openly about menstruating in the wild on Tramping Club trips. She once offered a practical guide for new trampers to the club on how to prep for a period on the trail, during which she advocated for her menstrual cup as an environmentally friendly, cost-efficient and compact choice. You can keep menstrual cups in for up to twelve hours. To empty it, just dig a little hole away from any waterways, tip it out, and re-fill the hole. Rinse your cup with water and pop it back up.
If the insertion directions of a menstrual cup look like your 300-level calculus exam (or if it just isn’t your vibe), you might want to give period undies a go. These undies are cost-efficient, eco-friendly, and – according to Hannah – comfortable as fuck. Depending on your flow, you can wear them all day, rinse and dry them for re-wear on longer trips, or pack them out with you in a wash bag.
There are plenty of other options, as well. Zia personally prefers to use pads and tampons. To keep Papatūānuku thriving, you just need to pack them out with you. When Critic caught up with her, Zia was about to embark on a six-day hike with her period in full force and was taking an opaque bag to dispose of her used period products in. You can DIY this yourself with a snaplock bag and some tin foil. It may look like smuggled amphetamines, but it does the trick. Hand sanitiser and unscented wipes might also make you feel more comfortable, but they aren’t essentials.
One recurring bit of advice from the girls is to pack more than you need. Sometimes Mother Nature likes to hurl a scarlet curveball at us, hitting us with a heavy bleed when we least expect it, “like [at] the top of a ski tour slope,” Zia remarks to Critic with a laugh, speaking from experience. Periods happen, so it’s always better to be safe than sorry. If you don’t end up needing them, maybe someone else will. Like a knight in cotton absorbent armour, you can swoop in and save them from an involuntary free bleed. That, whānau, is how best friends are made in the wild.
Exercising period positivity can go a long way to normalising menstruating bodies in the outdoors. Being open about menstruation, and treating it like any other natural biological function can open the door to a wealth of knowledge and support. The kind that can reduce barriers to participation and open up a mountain, cave or canyon of opportunity. Those who don’t menstruate can be allies by listening to those who do, or by calling out micro-aggressions in traditionally male-dominated spaces. Wāhine wanting to give the wilderness a go shouldn’t hesitate to do so. A little enthusiasm and some encouraging friends can set you on the path to adventure. Like Zia, Jenna and Hannah taught Critic: “You’re capable of far more than you think.”
Disclaimer: The writer and subjects of this article are cis-gender women. Critic acknowledges that the experiences shared here may not fully capture the diverse experiences of everyone affected by period stigma and discrimination in these settings.