We Belong Outside critiques the outdoor industry’s role in designing and weaponizing dysfunctional women’s gear. It explores the ways that the outdoor industry creates a binary, false representation of women, perpetuates sexist narratives, and hinders participation in the outdoors, erasing the truth of and history about women in the outdoors. It incorporates product design and critiques via compiled research, artifacts, data, and visual analysis to investigate how product design and problematic narratives have been perpetuated by the outdoor industry across time.
Product design and the depiction of women have a powerful impact on the experiences that women have in the outdoors. Women are traditionally depicted in the outdoors as (1) a maternal figure, (2) a child, (3) a sex object, or (4) a supportive partner. Moreover, women’s participation in the outdoors depends on actively including them through high-quality, functional gear.
We Belong Outside reclaims the outdoors for women, and by extension, for all.
