The underrepresentation of women in outdoor recreation and adventure sports may soon be seeing improvement. Last Wednesday, ‘No Man’s Land,’ a film gaining worldwide attention by highlighting women athletes from rock climbing to skateboarding, was projected in the Winston Room. Additionally, outdoor trips and clinics put on by the St. Lawrence University Outdoor Program as well as the Outing Club have contributed to the effort to get more women outside.
“To me the outdoors is an incredibly empowering place and it’s the perfect venue to kind of even the playing field among gender dynamics,” said Isabella Caliandro ‘18, the Vice President of the OC and a guide for the OP. Caliandro complimented the films representation of women from all different sports and walks of life, stating that “the film festival did a really good job of showing a variety of people from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.” In addition to her work as an outdoor guide, Caliandro studies studio art and printed over 40 shirts to sell at the film showing. “All of the proceeds went to the Renewal House, which is a resource in Canton for survivors of domestic assault,” said Caliandro.
“I think it’s important to change the narrative and kind of the voice of whose defining outdoor recreation,” said Anna Carpenter, the program coordinator for the Outdoor Program. “I’ve made one of my focuses here in the program to empower other woman to get outside,” stated Carpenter, who played a major role in organizing the No Man’s Land Film Festival at SLU. Carpenter also discussed the value of having women role models, highlighting the OP’s women’s yoga and surfing retreat to Nicaragua.
Kari LaPierre ‘19, an employee and guide for the OP, really liked that the film “covered a lot of different sports in a lot of different settings.” LaPierre pointed out a segment of a group of skateboarders in the Bronx that emphasized urban forms of ‘outdoor recreation’ for those without access to parks and mountains. Additionally, as an employee of the Munroe Family Climbing Wall, LaPierre discussed the monthly women’s only climbing night. “We put it out there that there will be all female staff, just in case there are people that are intimated by the male presence associated with the climbing wall,” added LaPierre.
Based out of Colorado, the founder and executive director of No Man’s Land Film Festival, Aisha Weinhold, described the lengthy process of putting together the film. Weinhold mentioned an initial struggle to gather content, but now after three years, they find themselves having to turn away material and are displaying shows all across the world. Overall, it seems as though each year the ‘No Man’s Land’ organization gets one step closer to achieving their mission statement, which is to “connect women in pursuit of the radical.”