The Pill Outdoor Journal 54: Women’s issue

EDITOR’S LETTER

«But if they only knew what women have done!» this sentence has been collected by historians Anna Maria Bruzzone and Rachele Farina in their essay called La Resistenza taciuta, in which they collected the testimonies of 12 partisan women from Piedmont, protagonists of a fundamental piece of our history which has always played a role of subordination and never of protagonism. Relayers, fighters, mothers and wives of partisans: the women who actively fought in the Italian mountains during the period of the Resistance are estimated to have been more than 35,000, yet only thirty of them achieved a badge of honor. Year after year, on April 25th, there’s a growing number of commemorations in which direct reference is made to the role of women in the partisan resistance, but the narrative that concerns the female gender, when it comes to recognizing feats that the collective imagination wants as a prerogative of the male-explorer, or of the male-warrior, is still problematic. If the women who actively fought, the “mothers of the mountains” who prepared food and clothing and the relayers were excluded from the parades of the partisans in the aftermath of the Liberation, it is not surprising that even today the topic of women’s undertakings is, when not divisive, handled awkwardly.

When it comes to give credit to a woman about something that we are historically used to perceive as masculine, there is often an annoying note of amazement, a subtext that suggests that the fact that she has succeeded is already something astounding in itself because in short, she’s a woman. Many studies have now shown that in mountaineering and climbing the physical difference between men and women is minimal, but despite this, women in the outdoor world still struggle to be taken seriously. In this issue, which is written, photographed, translated and conceived largely by women, you will find many stories of girls who will tell you through their experiences how frustrating it can sometimes be, or have been, to be considered not up to par, or told only as a “mountaineer mother”. Again: women who committed themselves to fighting strictly patriarchal regimes through sports and outdoor activities. Gender equality is still far from being achieved: to do this, concrete actions are needed by the institutions above all, but it is important not to underestimate the theme of representation, which in the case of girls who go to the mountains, still struggles to be egalitarian.

Ilaria Chiavacci