Ep 45: Disrupting White Feminism and the Outdoor Industry (A New, Ongoing Series)
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This is the start of a deep dive series into white feminism in the outdoor industry listen to the introduction episode here. Insidious and pervasive, white feminism is keeping us from getting closer to achieving a safer and equitable outdoors for all.
I’ve written extensively about my relationship with white feminism, especially my own white feminist behavior when I was first building Terra: being the finger-wagging white woman who shifted blame and pointed fingers at everyone else.
My thinking was: if I’m the arbiter of what’s wrong, then I can’t be called out. That’s white feminism, and that’s white supremacy.
Thankfully, through mentors like Kenya Budd (an equity and inclusion consultant in Portland), Kalissa Scopes, and other anti-racist educators and brilliant creatives like Franchesca Ramsey, Kat Blaque, and Ericka Hart, along with Black feminist authors and scholars like bell hooks, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison I was able to do a lot of necessary unlearning, which of course, is an ongoing journey.
In this series we’ll discuss everything from girl bosses in the climbing world, to spiritual bypassing and white-washing the realities of systemic barriers to enjoying the outdoors, to questioning if it’s really that radical to take your top off at the summit, and so much more.
Join me and special guests from the outdoor industry as we unpack how white feminism manifests in the outdoor industry and what we can do to interrupt it.
RESOURCES:
Episode 32 of the Terra Podcast “How I became a feminist killjoy”
Episode 44 of the Terra Podcast “The Athlete Hero Worship of the Outdoor Industry — And How to Stop it” with Laura Borichevsky
Episode 23 of the Terra Podcast “Black Feminist Blueprints, Climbing’s Labor Reckoning, and a Dead CEO”
Take the Outdoor Safety and Culture Survey of 2026
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Washington Trails Association statement on ICE arrest of family members camping on public lands
Ahmaud Arbery and Whiteness in the Running World by Alison Mariella Désir
Climbing Can’t be Racist…Can it? by Devin Dabny
How Early Suffragists Left Black Women Out of Their Fight by Becky Little
White Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels by Rachel Cargle
The Women Who Enabled Jeffrey Epstein by Tara Palmeri
Terra Links:
Terra Incognita Media instagram
Grab your FREE Guide to Toxic Masculinity in the Outdoor Industry
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