Gender Equity in Mountaineering with Julie Rak

In this episode, Stephen Wood sits down with Julie Rak to discuss gender equity in mountaineering. Junko Tabei isn’t as much a household name as Edmund Hillary or Jon Krakauer, but she is one of the world’s most accomplished climbers. She was the first woman to summit Mt. Everest and has also the first woman to climb the seven summits. She is listed as a “housewife” in several sources, which couldn’t be further from the truth as she was an avid climber, environmentalist, author and teacher. This is a good example though, of how woman have been diminished in the field. Woman involved in mountaineering have been disparaged and ridiculed. Equipment isn’t always designed with women in mind and even terms like “Brotherhood of the Rope” suggests that climbing is for men.

Julie is a professor by trade, climber for fun and discusses eloquently the merits of woman climbers. She reminds us of the importance of considering gender in a positive way, to celebrate accomplishments and to recognise achievement. Stephen and Julie discussed the role gender plays in mountaineering and exploration and talk about some of the important woman in the sport. Of course, no discussion with a Canadian can go without a mention of Stephen’s favourite sport, curling.

Julie Rak holds the Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her latest book is False Summit: Gender in Mountaineering Nonfiction (MQUP 2021). She has written extensively on nonfiction, including the books Boom! Manufacturing Memoir for the Popular Market (2013) and Negotiated Memory: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse (2004). Her latest edited collection is the Identities volume of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory (2020). With Sonia Boon, Candida Rifkind, Laurie McNeill and other clever colleagues, she is writing The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada. She loves to hike and camp in the Canadian Rockies