Month: April 2018

fitness · traveling

Bettina goes Patagonia, hikes a lot, and thinks about things

bettinathenomad2 Comments

My husband and I just spent three weeks in Patagonia (both Chile and Argentina). It was fantastic. Here’s a quick round-up of the itinerary and activities we did, and some thoughts about travel and feminism and sustainability.

Santiago, part 1: in which we cycle through vineyards

We flew to Santiago de Chile, where we spent a day and a half. We spontaneously booked a cycling tour of a vineyard located right at the edge of the city (picture below). The contrast between city and vines is actually quite striking.

The Cousiño Macul vineyard with the skyline of Santiago de Chile in the background

The company we booked with offers different cycling tours of the city and nearby vineyards. I liked them because they openly state that they have a pro-LGBTQ hiring policy, and because they try to offer something different and active, but are quite inclusive about it. They make it clear right when you book that you’re not signing up for a workout, but for a leisurely ride. Ours lasted about one hour plus another hour and a half touring the vineyard’s facilities. We also sampled five different wines. It was relaxing and wonderful.

Bettina and her ride, a seasoned green bike ideal for cruising around, but not for competitive cycling.

Torres del Paine National Park: in which we hike a lot and are exposed to the elements

From Santiago, we flew to Punta Arenas in the very South of Chile and took a bus to Puerto Natales, a small town that mainly functions as the tourist

hordes’ gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. We spent a night there, left some luggage at the hotel (we were returning five days later), and took only the necessary hiking and camping equipment to the park.

Torres del Paine is the national park everyone ‘does’ when they travel Patagonia. It’s easily accessible and has some stunning scenery. As a result, the infrastructure is excellent. There are lots of campsites, refugios where you can get a bed, and even some pretty luxurious hotels and cabins. Chile’s only eco-hotel is also located in the park. Also as a result of this, Torres del Paine is totally overrun. I wasn’t joking when I wrote “hordes” above. We visited at the tail end of the season, so it wasn’t too bad, but in high season, around January and February, I can only imagine it must be packed. We did a four-day trek known as “the W” (because of the route, which looks like the letter W) and stayed in our own tent.

View from our trusty red tent. The poor thing got quite battered by the Patagonian winds and rain, but it kept us nice and dry.

The park has suffered quite a lot from this; there have been some major fires and it’s definitely not as untouched as you might associate with the cliché of Patagonia. Rules are fairly strict, you can only enter if you have all your reservations beforehand, fires are forbidden, and at some places they don’t let you cook with a camping stove (conveniently, this also means the campsite/refugio can charge you a ridiculous amount of money for mediocre food; on the upside you have to carry less of your own).

What can I say? It’s still beautiful despite the masses. There is a reason the park is so full – it’s stunning. One morning at 8 o’clock, I’d just woken up and stood, mouth agape, marvelling at the mountain behind the campsite, aglow with the rising sun. It was out of this world.

The mountains, aglow with the rising sun

We had initially considered going to a much more remote park with next to no facilities, where we would probably have been mostly alone. However, we would’ve lost considerable time getting there, plus two contingency days for resting and in case we took longer on the trek. It would also have meant two additional flights and thus even more emissions, and this trip already wasn’t exactly an exercise in CO2 reduction. And as I mentioned before, there are upsides to the infrastructure: hot showers, you don’t have to carry all of your food, and you can go somewhere nice and dry when it’s storming and raining outside, which did happenon a few occasions.

It also occurred to me that on the whole, it may be better if only a few places are “ruined” by tourists – it offers an opportunity to keep the rest of the region largely untouched. I’m really not sure where I stand on this, and whether it actually is better to “sacrifice” some parts for others to be preserved. The way tourists concentrate in a few key locations throughout Patagonia is astounding. As soon as we moved off the beaten track, which we did for a bit of our overall trip, we were often on our own. I will return to this below.

Road trip: in which we bomb around Patagonia, stay at mostly empty campsites, and hike the Perito Moreno glacier.

Having completed the W, we returned to Punta Arenas via Puerto Natales to pick up a little camper van. We then drove south towards the Magellan straits (where I saw a dolphin! I’m still excited!), and then up to Argentina, across to the Atlantic coast, where we had planned to see a penguin colony close to Río Gallegos. Unfortunately this plan failed because of the poor road conditions and our van’s distinct lack of suspension and 4×4 drive. So we spent a lazy day in Río Gallegos.

This brings me back to my point about people not really moving off the beaten track. Maybe this is different during the high season, but both south of Punta Arenas and in Río Gallegos, we stayed at completely deserted campsites that were like straight out of a bad horror movie. We did get some beautiful sunrises out of this though, below the one from Río Gallegos.

Sunrise over the river Gallegos. Our campsite was located directly on the shore.

Via another stop further north and a guided hike through a petrified forest, we moved on to El Calafate. This little town is another touristy place and the gateway to the Perito Moreno glacier. El Calafate is nice and seems to consist mostly of tourist accommodation. We ate very well there.

We had booked an all-day hiking tour of Perito Moreno in advance. In the early morning, we were picked up by a bus and shipped to the Parque Nacional de los Glaciares, the national park covering most of the Argentinian part of the Southern Patagonian ice sheet, including Perito Moreno and Mount Fitz Roy. Perito Moreno was everything we had imagined and more. We lucked out with the weather and got a sunny day that made the blues of the ice intense and the three-hour hike on the glacier very pleasurable.

The face of the Perito Moreno glacier with some icebergs floating in the water

The guides split our busload into two groups first – a Spanish and an English-speaking one – to approach the glacier. It was a just under one-hour hike up to the access point, where were fitted with crampons before they subdivided us into smaller groups of about eight people for the hike on the ice.

One thing that surprised us was that the tour company didn’t follow through on their advice to wear suitable footwear and clothes, and only allowing people with a good level of fitness on the tour. There were lots of people who wore running shoes or sneakers and jeans rather than the recommended hiking boots and hiking gear. And a fair number of participants struggled on the hike to the access point already.

Bettina, wrapped up warmly and arms spread wide, atop Perito Moreno.

In a way it’s nice that they’re lenient, because it makes the experience more inclusive, but I do have to say that it compromised the experience of the rest of the group somewhat since accommodations had to be made for people who hadn’t read or didn’t care about the instructions on the website. They’re very clear and could only be improved in one way, which would be to remove the advice that this tour is not for overweight people – you can be “overweight” as long as you’re physically fit.

But I digress. Once we were subdivided into smaller groups it was fine; I think the guides did realise this was an issue and formed the subgroups accordingly. We very much enjoyed our three hours and lunch on the ice! The absolute highlight was an ice cave we got to see on the way down. Incredible.

Ice cave below the glacier – incredible hues of blue!

Goodbye Patagonia and Santiago, part 2: in which we “rescue” a solo traveller

From El Calafate, we took a small detour to a lovely campsite on a lake called Lago Roca. This was the only campsite where at least a handful of people other than us were staying overnight, and it was very well run. We then took two days to head back down to Punta Arenas to return the van and fly back to Santiago.

While we were waiting at the airport having a coffee, an American woman suddenly turned up at our table asking if she could talk to us for a while. It turned out she had been pestered by a guy who had kept asking her awkward questions about how long and where she would be staying in Santiago and what she’d be doing there. She had pretended to know us to get away from him, so we invited her to sit with us and had a nice chat.

I had thought about this on several occasions throughout this trip already: my privilege of accompanied by a man, who was also clearly my partner. No man on any of the tours or anywhere we went took any sort of “particular” interest in me.

I have travelled in Latin America on my own quite a lot and this lack of unwanted attention was a welcome change. As a female solo traveller, I have had to spend time fending off such approaches and have generally been a lot more alert. It’s definitely doable and lots of women do travel the region on their own, but it’s a different experience. Aside from general security considerations, this isn’t something a solo male traveller would have to spend a lot of time thinking about.

This also made me more acutely aware of my privilege as a woman living in a society where it is, for the most part, safe to walk around on one’s own after dark and go wherever I want. It’s complex, because in this particular case, it’s also about being a tourist. I don’t know if our airport friend would have had the same experience had she been Chilean. It’s possible, but probably less likely.

And also, even though it’s mostly safe for a woman to do all those things on her own where I live (in Europe), it’s not completely safe either. At a much lower level, here I’m also on alert walking or running alone in the dark or in a place where there are few other people. Or a creepy guy can chat you up in public and be difficult to get rid of. It’s an interesting thing to think about, and I’d love to hear your experiences with solo travel at home and abroad.

fitness

Sam makes peace with kale and quinoa

Sam B6 Comments

Tracy broke up with chocolate. Not me. Me, I broke up with kale and quinoa.

We’re big on liking things around here. About exercise we say, find the thing you love. If you don’t love it, don’t do it.

Ditto with food. Eating shouldn’t be a duty.

Kale and quinoa were starting to feel that way.

Truth be told, it was probably in part due to all the special meals that I get served as a vegetarian. People get excited about the special efforts it took to get me a bowl of kale and quinoa. “It’s a complete protein, you know.” I think that’s a myth,

Also, I really hate salads where you expect edible vegetables and instead you get kale. Kale Caesars are an abomination.

But then my GoodFood box arrived this week and of the three meals, one had kale and the other quinoa. True, I made the deconstructed lasagna that had neither kale nor quinoa first. But the other two were delicious.

The seared tofu and broccoli salad was amazing even though it contained quinoa. Turns out that peanut sauce helps.

Ditto the Bibimbap that contained kale. Turns out when you steam it, it’s actually edible and has that nice green taste I associate with spinach, broccoli, collard greens etc. Yum! Thanks Sarah for knowing how to cook it.

I’m beginning to see advantages to knowing how to cook. The GoodFood boxes help. I won’t say I enjoy cooking just yet. But I like the food I’m eating as a result. Kale, quinoa, you’re forgiven for now.

See also:

Just cook! (And help me out…) –

Sam dislikes cooking (and she’s not alone)

My aspirational cookbook problem

accessibility · fitness

On fat athletic performance, fat fitness, fat health, and fat worth: Sam says these are very different ideas but they aren’t at odds with one another

Sam B1 Comment
A white 4 on a blue background. Photo by David Pisnoy on Unsplash

I’m a philosopher and one thing that philosophers do is conceptual housecleaning. We tidy up ideas and arguments.

Today I want to talk about are four different ideas that people often confuse with one another. It’s messy.

First, fat people can be successful at athletics. See The Shape of an Athlete.

Likeswise, Plus sized endurance athletes, we exist!  and Big Fit Girl.

Second, fat people can be fit. See Fat, Fit, and What’s Wrong with BMI.

Third, fat people can be healthy. See Healthism, Fitness and the Politics of Respectability.

Fourth, all bodies are worthy of respect. See I’m fat but I’m not super-fat: On labels, power, and identity

But just because fat people can be all these things doesn’t mean they are the same thing.

We need to separate athletic performance from fitness and health, because not all bodies that do well at a particular sport are fit or healthy. When you train for maximizing your performance in one area, you may do it in ways that harm other aspects of overall fitness. You might also do it in ways that compromise your health. What matters most is doing well in a given sport. Fitness and health may or may not follow from that training package.

Likewise, fitness is no guarantee of health. See FFS, I don’t deserve my health 

But all of this is separate from the idea that all bodies are worthy of respect, whether fit or not, thin or not, able or not, healthy or not. Far too often we run together the idea of moral virtue with the idea of physical health.

And when I say that fat people can be fit, I’m not saying that only fit bodies are worthy of respect. Repeat after me, all bodies are deserving of respect. Just because we’re writing about fitness and about athletic performance it doesn’t mean that we only care about and respect people who also care about fitness and sports.

All bodies deserve respect.

 

fitness

“Yoga and”

fieldpoppy4 Comments

“Yoga and” — i.e., yoga plus random other things — has been everywhere lately.  There’s the fairly predictable category of “yoga and” other fitness activities (Sam likes spinning followed by yoga).  And then there is a whole set of opportunities for “yoga and tiny creatures” —  including yoga with your own baby (“Mamaste“), and yoga with tiny cute animals, most commonly cats (“Meowmaste“) and goats.

Sam and I have both done goat yoga, and since goats and yoga are two of my favourite things, I loved it.  (It was halloween, the goats were in costume, what more do you need to know?)

 

 

Recently, though, we’ve been talking on the blog author community about a whole passel of “yoga and” that feels more problematic to me — beer yoga, wine yoga and weed yoga, and more recently, speed dating yoga. (Christine, about the speed dating yoga: “I’m pretty sure the Geneva Convention forbids things like this“).

It’s that last group of “yoga and” that finally made me pause and think about the implications of “yoga and.”  There have been occasional bursts of criticism in the past few years about the proliferation of yoga in western countries as cultural appropriation, and I will be honest that I have generally skimmed over these discussions.  I think I had a “too late, barn door already open” shrug about the whole conversation.  But there was a piece about weed yoga on the CBC a couple of weeks ago that actually had me yelling at the radio, when the teacher said “where in another class we might say take child’s pose or grab some water, we say take a toke.”

My absolute fury about this notion of toking when you should be breathing made me really step back and reflect about “yoga and” for the first time.  If I’m delighted by goat yoga, why am I so offended by ganja yoga?  I sat with that a bit, and noticed that I was particularly outraged by some of the discourse around yoga with substances — the wine yoga with the tagline “sip, stretch, socialize,” (honestly, “yogiwino”???) — and the beer yoga with the tagline “detox to retox.”

Unpacking this, I realize I’m offended by the notion that yoga could be just another form of alcohol-infused socializing (aren’t there enough of those opportunities?) — or that “toxifying” ourselves is fine if we just “detox” first.  And most of all, I’m offended at the notion of bringing substance use into a space that I engage with to slow down, breathe deeply, and start to notice the things about my body and my emotions and my hopes and sadnesses that I can’t engage with in my “normal” life.  (See my post from last November I called “listen to your body when it whispers“).

For me, yoga is a whole lot of things packed into a tightly woven package: it’s a workout, and it’s about agility and balance as I age, and it’s a counterpoint to harder and more strenuous running and spinning — and it’s also a connecting place of quiet where I pay deep attention to what’s happening “inside” in one of the only truly quiet practices in my life.  I set intentions and gratitudes before classes (is this “praying”?) and several of my teachers have us “share in the sound of om” before and after classes.

Clearly, my yoga practice has a kind of fuzzy spiritual edge to it.  And if that’s true, shouldn’t I also be open to acknowledging that yoga has deeper spiritual roots and tradition?  And if THAT is true, shouldn’t I also be open to acknowledging that I may be co-opting or appropriating this cultural tradition?

Damn you, speed-dating and weed yoga for making me reflect!

So I did some reading and exploring, and spent a fair bit of time with this recent article that made a bit of an online splash, as well as a podcast I’d listened to a little while ago about the origins and meaning of the word “namaste” (transcript here).  I took away two overarching messages:

  1.  Yoga IS obviously a form of cultural appropriation;
  2. That doesn’t mean you can’t practice it and decolonize your own relationship to it.

The simplest definition of cultural appropriation is the taking over of another culture’s traditions without regard for the history or lived experience of the people who originally practiced it.  It stands to reason, then, that decolonizing my own relationship as a white westerner to my own fuzzy spiritual practice means engaging with some of the questions raised by Gandhi and Wolff in the Praxis article I linked above, including their framing request to the piece:  “To the so many white people who practice yoga, please don’t stop, but please do take a moment to look outside of yourself and understand how the history of yoga practice in the United States is intimately linked to some of the larger forces of white supremacy.” 

The most challenging point from Gandhi and Wolff I’m grappling with is whether I am experiencing a “spiritual void” in my own cultural context and tradition.  If I am, I am not alone, since the rise of yoga in North America coincided exactly with disillusionment in religious institutions. (And, I’m typical — I’m a cultural Catholic who left anything resembling a traditionally religious setting a long time ago — but I want to feel a sense of meaning in my life).  Over the past couple of decades, that quest for an alternative spiritual practice got bound together with what Hrishikesh Hirway describes in the podcast I linked above as an “emergent global consumer culture,” and “modern postural yoga” (all that secularized yoga that shows up in gyms and most western studios and yes, goat barns) really emerged.

This kind of yoga became very individualized, and much more accessible, and in fact, those are the arguments people make in favour of things like beer and cat yoga:  that it draws in people who would otherwise never end up on a yoga mat.   One yogi argues “In the end, whatever brings people to their yoga mats is a good thing. Perhaps someone’s very first yoga class starts in an animal shelter, but ends with many years of serious practice. Start superficially and eventually you’ll end up in the same place as the world’s most spiritual yogis.”

What then, does it take to engage thoughtfully with the cultural roots of yoga in our own practices?  I like a lot of the ideas in this piece and in this piece, including voicing gratitude for both the opportunity to practice and for the people who originated the culture of yoga.  Another possibility is to encourage studios to make sure classes are accessible to everyone, both physically and financially.  One of the teachers quoted also notes the importance of moving beyond asana (the physical postures) and to be intentional about the breath practice (prana) and the meditative aspects.

Most importantly, it’s key to recognize that when we are white westerners practicing yoga, we are actively embodying a spiritual practice that is deeply meaningful to another culture.  We shouldn’t use images from that practice (goddesses or Buddhas for example), as decor or clothing designs.  And after listening to the podcast on the meaning of the word “namaste” (basically it means “greetings,” I have stopped saying it at all. (We tend to utter “namaste” as though it is weighted with some magical spiritual meaning, but no one can ever define what it means — that feels kind of icky to me when I think about it).  And most importantly, we can use practicing yoga as an opportunity to reflect on the history of colonialism, what white Canadians call our “settler identity,” and what we are doing in our lives that perpetuates or challenges the privilege that we have.

I’m never going to try weed, beer or wine yoga — yoga for me needs a clear head and clear lungs.  But I’d do goat yoga again in a heartbeat — maybe with a momentary pause for gratitude about the complex, messy world we live in that made this possible.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives and works in Toronto, when she’s not chasing goats in countries around the world.

fitness · tbt

Are Women-Only Races Sexist? No. Are They Good for Women? Yes. #tbt

Tracy I

For today’s #tbt I searched back to April 2013, five years ago, to see what we were writing about. It’s extremely interesting to me to observe the evolution of the blog over the past five years and especially how my thoughts on some things have changed. But one thing that hasn’t changed is my support of women-only spaces, including events. There is still a place for them and I’m glad we have them. For more, read on….
Have a good one!
Tracy

accessibility

What’s this knee brace all about anyway?

Sam B3 Comments

So I have severe osteoarthritis. There’s not much cartilage left in my knees and you don’t grow anymore. So that’s it. There’s no fixing the underlying problem.

What’s the causal story? I didn’t wear it out. It’s not all about weight. Lots of thin people have osteoarthritis. Mostly it’s bad genetic luck. That said, it would be easier on my knees if I weighed less. #lifegoals? I’d like to be a small person rather than a big person but I know of no way to make it so. Even at my smallest, I’m not really small.

Oddly enough while my knees look the same on the MRI and x-ray, only the left knee has been causing me pain.

I could get a knee replacement. I meet the criteria. But I’m young (and replacement knees don’t last that long) and I’m super active on my bike. The surgeon says he can’t promise full range of motion. So no to that for now.

There’s another surgical alternative, High Tibial Osteotomy. My surgeon says it’s recommended for younger, active patients. (I like that description.)

“Osteotomy literally means “cutting of the bone.” In a knee osteotomy, either the tibia (shinbone) or femur (thighbone) is cut and then reshaped to relieve pressure on the knee joint. Knee osteotomy is used when a patient has early-stage osteoarthritis that has damaged just one side of the knee joint.”

That’s me. It’s my medial meniscus or the absence thereof that causes pain. That’s the inside of my knee.

See here.

“A high tibial osteotomy is generally considered a method of prolonging the time before a knee replacement is necessary because the benefits typically fade after eight to ten years. This procedure is typically reserved for younger patients with pain resulting from instability and malalignment. An osteotomy may also be performed in conjunction with other joint preservation procedures in order to allow for cartilage repair tissue to grow without being subjected to excessive pressure.”

But for now, I am trying the unloading knee brace. Like the surgery above it works by taking pressure off the part of the joint where there is direct rubbing of bone on bone.

The journal literature says that braces work but that few people, especially women, actually wear the brace. I find that shocking but also not given the number of women who run at night or work out in sheds because they are embarrassed about how they look.

Right now I’m highly motivated since things hurt a lot without the brace and not at all with the brace. I find the absence of pain and the ability to walk pretty motivating.

Here’s what the website says about the brace, “Unloader Custom is a robust solution to relieve the challenging pain typically associated with knee osteoarthritis. With a choice of twelve unique colors and a range of plus-sizes, this brace is suited for high impact and heavy-duty activities. Take control of the pain, and add a little color to your life.”

I went for shiny black. No pink knee brace for me.

How do they work? “Unloader knee braces unload the affected, painful side of the knee using a 3-Point Leverage System. The thigh and calf shells account for two points of leverage, while the Dynamic Force Strap (the diagonal strap above the knee) provides the third. This system “unloads” the pressure from the affected area, providing a reduction in pain.”

There are some practical challenges that come with wearing the brace. Skirts, it seems, do best when they’re really long or very short. It fits well over leggings. But it won’t fit under my pants. No more jeans for now.

It’s also time consuming to put on and take off.

The biggest challenge, though not for me, would have to be cost. This thing costs $1600. My benefits cover it. But without benefits that’s a big chunk of change. I guess if the literature is right that fewer than 20% of people who get braces end up wearing them, maybe it’s not cost efficient for the government to pay for them.

Also, people tend to act very alarmed when they see the brace and make their dislike clear. How long do you have to wear that for? I know they’re just upset about my knee condition and they’re not upset with me but it feels confusing. For me the brace is pretty liberating. No more pain. Yes, I’d rather I didn’t have osteoarthritis. Of course. But given that I do, I’m glad to have this choice.

Bonus: I don’t need to wear it riding the bike.

A few friends, including the kids, told me to play up the Borg angle. You will be assimilated.

fitness · health · racing · running

On group running (Guest post)

cdaigle1 Comment

In February 2017, I joined a running group. I had been thinking about something like that for a while but did not want to sign up for something official and pay fees. I did not want to join a group to find motivation or train for specific races and distances. I was just curious as to the dynamic of group running and perhaps, unconsciously, try to break out of my isolation. I live by myself and am a very independent person who can do pretty much everything on her own, including training. But I had started thinking this may not be good for me.

So when I saw a few posts on my Facebook feed about the Merchant Ale House Run Club I inquired. This was the perfect group for me to try: I was told all levels of running and walking were involved and it was very informal: show up at the Merch at 10am on Sunday and go out for a run. And so I did.

It was intimidating to join a group of people I did not know (as it turned out, I knew the one person I inquired from and found out when I showed up). Peter, a group member, saw it was my first time there and ran with me even if it slowed him down. That was really nice and made me feel welcome. After the run, I returned home not entirely convinced though that this was for me. So a few Sundays in a row I forced myself to go. A bit more than a year in: I would not miss Sunday morning run club unless I am out of town and even then I miss it.

As we like to say, this is a drinking group with a running problem. After the run, we gather at the pub for some pints and food. When I first joined, I did not know this was the pattern and on my first visit even left right away! Now? I would not miss the run or the gathering of friends. As I see it, the Sunday morning sessions are a great boost to my physical and my mental health. Now it is not just the pints, food, and merriment that boosts the latter, but also the encouragements and mutual support the group offers while out running and after.

I have blogged before about my return to running after a stretch of injury and how I had been amazed at running 8.5 km with a goal of eventually running 10km (see here). This past Sunday I ran 11.5 km with the group, including climbing the Hydro Hill by Brock which is a very steep escarpment hill. The fasties (Lisa, Tony, and Jordy who regularly run 2 digits distances at a fast pace) waited for us at the bottom of the hill. At first, my friend Alex and I thought we were going to run to the bottom of the hill and back. But once there, and with encouragement and enthusiasm, there we went! And we conquered it!

IMG_4450
Hydro Hill conquered! From left to right: Tony, Alex, Jordy, me, Lisa, Peter, Christine

3 weeks before, gently pushed by Peter and Christine I ran 10km at a pretty good pace for me without having planned for it. This is what run club has also done for me: lead me to unexpected achievements. Also, we have signed up for races – something I would never have done on my own – and I ran the Run for the Grapes 5km on the hottest day of the year on 24 September 2017 and then 10km on October 15, 2017 as part of the Niagara Falls marathon! Crossing the finish line with my run club friends cheering me from the side was such a great experience! On April 21st, we are running Head for the Hills Trail Race. Who have I become?

Running by myself is still great. I enjoy the meditative aspect of it. It also happens that run club is a solitary run as we spread out running at our individual paces. But gathering together after the run, cheering and celebrating each other’s accomplishments, is the mental health boost that can’t be beat!

 

fitness · inclusiveness · stereotypes

Changing stereotypes of women, one photo at a time

Tracy I2 Comments

Image description: Upper body back shot of Tracy, short blond hair in a striped halter bikini top, flexing her right bicep, facing towards a turquoise sea, light surf and partly cloudy sky.
Image description: Upper body back shot of Tracy, short blond hair in a striped halter bikini top, flexing her right bicep, facing towards a turquoise sea, light surf and partly cloudy sky.

A few weeks ago I posted about selfies and self-portraits as tools of empowerment. I argued that they are empowering because they allow us some control over our self-representation.  Of course we can’t always control the uptake, but at least they enable us to put ourselves out there in the way we choose to.

I’ve lately discovered an intense passion for photography, and my reflections on selfies and self-portraits are just one direction in which that has taken me. Photographic images of women have a great deal of power, offering possibility, and both perpetuating and busting stereotypes.

Yesterday Sam posted this incredibly gripping (to me) analysis from Dawn Airey, CEO of Getty Images, of the way Getty Images search data has demonstrated the transformational impact #metoo has had on the world (see my thoughts on #metoo while we were still in the early days of it: here). Getty Images is a stock photo site where you can go to buy visual images.

Her article documents a slightly wider timeframe than #metoo, showing a dramatic shift in the searches over the past five years:

The good news is that more dynamic and inclusive images of women have been in demand for years now. Five years ago, we predicted the visual trend of Female Rising in our annual forecasting report, highlighting a need for trailblazing images of women and stereotype-defying girls. Since then, we have seen this come to fruition in exponential ways. In 2016, we saw searches on our stock-photo platforms that indicated a deep desire to see women in fields where they were traditionally underrepresented. We saw searches for terms like “women in STEM” and “women in technology” shoot up 526% and 111%, respectively. That same year, searches for “female empowerment” went up an impressive 722%.

After giving these heartening stats, she goes on to say how important it is for her organization and anyone who uses images to think about the images we choose:

At Getty Images, we feel a responsibility to ensure accurate and authentic visual representation of diversity in the world, gendered and otherwise. People need to see themselves reflected in the images around them. We are working to make that a reality.

Stereotypes and socialized misogyny have played foundational roles in maintaining the structures that have empowered the abusers of the world. The entertainment, marketing, and advertising industries have helped to perpetuate them. In a positive sign, last summer, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned ads that reinforced harmful gender stereotypes. This should behoove us all (and especially those of us in the media and advertising industries) to take stock of the ways in which we may perpetuate tired narratives through the images we commission and share.

The onus is on all of us to ensure we’re more mindful of the images we choose—wherever we use them. In order to provoke change, we must choose more diverse and inclusive imagery. It cannot be the only way that we’re working toward equality, but it is a powerful place to begin.

In keeping with this positive trend towards diverse imagery that challenges stereotypes and promotes inclusivity and equality, I’d like to give an additional shout out to photographer Alex Rotas.  Her website, Alex Rotas, is engaged in an active project of “redefining later life.” As she says, “60 is the new 60.” We don’t need to subtract from our age to talk about how amazing people at that age are. 60 is fine just the way it is.

She has committed herself to photographing older athletes, and has published a book of photos called Growing Old Competitively. As a retired academic and competitive tennis player, she started to notice the absence of vibrant depictions of older adults while she was doing her PhD research in 2006. Since then, she has made it her goal to create a new ageing narrative through her images and speaking tours.

Since the very outset of the blog, Sam and I have embraced and promoted the idea of inclusive fitness. As did Alex Rotas, we noticed the lack of images of older people as athletes. It was also challenging to find images of women in sport that celebrated their athleticism without also tapping into their sexuality or at least their femininity. The Getty Images search term analysis and Alex Rotas efforts to promote a new narrative both bring welcome news to the project of shifting to an inclusive fitness culture.

Have you seen noticeable changes in the types of messages and images you’re exposed to over the past five years?

climbing · Guest Post

Climbing above Geneva (Guest Post)

Lynette1 Comment

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A year and a half ago (or more), Wendy Rogers, Stacy Carter, Bjørn Hofmann, and I applied to the Brocher Foundation in Geneva for a one month residency to work on conceptual and normative issues in overdiagnosis. Between application and acceptance and arriving in Geneva, I had become addicted to climbing.

Lots of time on google got me the info that the closest climbing gyms are an hour or more on public transit away from the Brocher Foundation site. I moaned a great deal about this, but my friends had no sympathy. A month in a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva, and I’m worried about finding a climbing gym?

I got excellent news just before setting out for the residency—Bjørn is an avid climber (an alpinist, even). Once at the Brocher, we found Jennifer Carr, a PhD student from Glasgow who already has a month at the Brocher under her belt. She has been climbing indoors for 6 months and was intrigued by the opportunity to climb outdoors for the first time.

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Bright and early on our first Saturday morning, we set out for the cliffs overlooking Geneva — La Salève. After a long approach through the woods starting from the base of the cable car, we found ourselves almost the first climbers out. We had some pleasant conversation and advice from the climbers ahead of us, some scratching of their crag dogs behind the ears, and a scary moment watching one of them take an odd kind of fall when he wasn’t expecting it. He went on his way and we settled in for our turn at La Corne du Coin.

This massive rock formation peels off the side of the main cliff of le Coin. It has a good assortment of short climbs (by Salève standards—20m), easy enough to let us get accustomed to the limestone, which is new for Bjørn and for me. Jen did fabulous on her first outdoor climb, I enjoyed my first limestone finger pockets and fossil-crimping, and Bjørn was a most excellent and patient coach for beginning climbers.

And the limestone really is this amazing mixture of blue and gold.

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injury · running

Sam struggles not to run, ever!

Sam B3 Comments

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Image description: A thin, white woman (NOT SAM!!) with blonde hair wearing platform heels and a grey suit with a pink blouse runs across the street. The image is from How to Run In High Heels.

My knee is slowly getting better. It won’t ever be healed. But it hurts less. My physiotherapist says I might never be pain free but I’m okay with that. Generally speaking, I’m getting stronger, I can do more, and it hurts less.

Did I mention that sometimes it hurts less? Sometimes, some days I even forget that it usually hurts. And on those days, I have to remind myself not to run.

Now I don’t mean fitness running. That requires shoes and a plan. It’s deliberate and intentional. That kind of running I don’t have to think about not doing.

But other kinds of running are harder.

Part of the problem is that I’ve always run as part of my day. If I was late for a meeting, I’d run. If I was cold outside, I’d run. Regularly at Western I ran in from remote parking. Walking has always felt slow and boring. And I’m speedy over short distances.

So no more running if I’m late.

No running for the person holding the door open.

No running to make the light.

A few months ago I re-injured myself because I was crossing the street and it looked like a car might hit me and I ran. The penalty was limping the rest of the weekend. Someone suggested I might have done less damage throwing myself across the hood of the oncoming car.

No more.

No more running.

Ever.

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