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Current Issues in Tourism

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(In) equality in the outdoors: gender perspectiveon recreation and tourism media in the Swedishmountains

Kristin Godtman Kling, Lusine Margaryan & Matthias Fuchs

To cite this article: Kristin Godtman Kling, Lusine Margaryan & Matthias Fuchs (2018): (In)equality in the outdoors: gender perspective on recreation and tourism media in the Swedishmountains, Current Issues in Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2018.1495698

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1495698

© 2018 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroup

Published online: 05 Jul 2018.

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(In) equality in the outdoors: gender perspective on recreation andtourism media in the Swedish mountainsKristin Godtman Kling, Lusine Margaryan and Matthias Fuchs

Etour, Mid-Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

ABSTRACTThis paper examines gender differences in participation in various outdoorrecreation and tourism activities in the Swedish mountain region, and howthese activities are portrayed from a gender perspective on the websites offive major tourist destinations. Spending time in nature has been linked tobetter health and well-being, and this article contributes to research on theunequal opportunities women and men have in taking part of suchadvantages. Results show that there is a gender difference in bothparticipation and in representation of outdoor recreation. The observedgender difference is not only in line with the traditionalheteronormativity but also suggests that new trends in outdoorrecreation are further favoring traditionally masculine modes ofengagement with nature. This suggests the need for re-thinking notonly gender norms but also human relationships with nature in general.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 18 September 2017Accepted 20 June 2018

KEYWORDSOutdoor recreationparticipation; gender norms;tourism media; Sweden

Introduction

Participation and visibility of women in various spheres of society have been among the two mainanalytical foci of feminist studies, since these provide a clear insight in the levels of gender equality(Jónasdóttir & von der Fehr, 2005). Our paper investigates participation and visibility of women inoutdoor recreation, by looking at the case of mountain areas in Sweden. The issue of individuals’ par-ticipation in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism in general deserves attention for at leasttwo major reasons. First, spending time in nature is linked to better health and well-being (Bedimo-Rung, Mowen, & Cohen, 2005; Doherty, Lemieux, & Canally, 2014). Second, in the context of Anthro-pocene, growing urbanization and disconnectedness from nature in the everyday life, outdoorrecreation helps promoting environmental awareness and, consequently, environmentally-friendlybehaviour and policies (Cocks & Simpson, 2015; Kil, Holland, & Stein, 2014). However, if men havebetter opportunities to participate in nature-based activities, it can be argued that women risk exclu-sion from important elements that connects to quality of life.

Outdoor recreation in backcountry areas is perhaps one of the few strongholds of gender-specified roles in Western societies. Mountains or remote national parks have been traditionally ima-gined and marketed as environments to be ‘conquered’ and ‘tamed’ by men (Cronon, 1996; Kinnaird& Hall, 1994). More concretely, Northern landscapes are particularly marketed as wild, rugged anduntamed and, thus, oriented towards the male tourist gaze (Gunnarsdóttir, 2011; Pritchard &Morgan, 2000b). Along with this, such tourist activities as shopping, spa, sunbathing, picnicking,spending time with family and friends, are most often marketed towards women, perpetuating

© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

CONTACT Kristin Godtman Kling kristin.godtman-kling@miun.se

CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISMhttps://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1495698

the normative discourses of beauty, motherhood and care in leisure (Kinnaird & Hall, 1994; Wearing,1998). McNiel, Harris, and Fondren (2012, p. 41) state that ‘[g]ender socialization regarding wildernessrecreation is shaped by structural constraints, such as cultural beliefs about women’s “places” that canlead to overt or subtle gender bias that constrains some women’s participation in these activities’.

One way to expose and better understand persistent gender norms in participation and represen-tation of outdoor recreation is to look at commercial media. The attention towards representation ofgender roles in marketing has been visible in academic research for a long time (e.g. Collins, 2011;Goffman, 1979; Klassen, Jasper, & Schwartz, 1993; Larsen, 1997; Rose, 2001). The centrality of thevisual in Western cultures, and the importance of analysing visual representations, in order to geta unique insight into values, norms and practices, have been widely emphasized before, includingthe tourism context (e.g. Rakić & Chambers, 2011; Rose, 2001; Urry, 1990). It can be argued that exam-ining media visualizations of women and men in the outdoors is crucial when attempting to under-stand and, possibly, counteract stereotyped perceptions of gender performances in outdoorrecreation and tourism.

In our article we bring together a supply and demand side perspective in the domains of outdoorrecreation and tourism (in its nature-based form) – heavily overlapping, but not synonymous concepts.Outdoor recreation can generally be understood as leisure recreational activities occurring outdoorsin urban and rural environments (Jenkins & Pigram, 2004). Nature-based tourism, in its turn, has beendefined as tourist activities in nature outside one’s ordinary neighbourhood (Fredman, Wall Reinius, &Lundberg, 2009). The factors of travel distance, place of origin, time frame, commercialization andlocal tradition are often pointed out to distinguish between the two (Fredman, Stenseke, & Sandell,2014). From the supply perspective, however, this difference becomes irrelevant, since commercialtourist entities provide their services and market them indiscriminatorily to all visitors (Margaryan &Fredman, 2017). Furthermore, it has been noticed that outdoor recreation in Sweden is increasingly com-mercialized, further blurring the difference between outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism(Fredman, Wall-Reinius et al., 2014). In our paper, therefore, we emphasize the concept of outdoor recrea-tion when talking about the demand side, i.e. data related to the behaviour of Swedish recreationists,since it includes both tourism activities and activities clearly outside of the tourism spectrum (e.g.walking with a dog or jogging in the neighbourhood). Discussions about the supply side, i.e. mountaindestinations and their promotional media, however, are fully positioned within the tourism domain.

In our paper, we aim to contribute to the existing research on gender representations in tourismmedia by focusing on promotional images of mountain destinations, grounded in statistical data onoutdoor recreation participation in Sweden. We also position it into a larger discussion of people’schanging relationships with nature. The analysis combines descriptive and inferential statisticalmethods with visual research methods. The contribution of our paper, therefore, lies in bringingtogether the scholarship domains of gender and outdoor recreation with gender and media, empiri-cally supported with the insights from the Nordic context. The central research questions are:

RQ1. Are there gender differences in outdoor recreation participation in the Swedish mountain region?

RQ2. Are there gender differences in the representations of outdoor recreation on the websites of Sweden’s fivelargest mountain destinations?

RQ3. Is there a connection between gender differences in outdoor recreation participation and the gender rep-resentations of outdoor recreation activities on destinations’ websites?

Sweden offers an interesting case for this type of enquiry. On the one hand, Sweden has long beenknown as a global leader in gender equality (always in the top five of Global Gender Gap Indexranking together with other Nordic countries (WEF, 2016). On the other hand, when it comes tospecific sectors of the economy, gender equality is often taken for granted without strong empiricalevidence, which could be the case with participation in outdoor recreation, and the reflection ofgender equality in tourism marketing media. We focus on the case of the Swedish mountainregion due to the traditional importance and a growing popularity of this destination type, both

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domestically and internationally (Fredman et al., 2014; Sandell & Sörlin, 2008). Although this study issituated within a Swedish context, the findings hold relevance from an international perspective as itcontributes to general knowledge on gender representation in tourism and outdoor recreation inWestern societies.

Literature review

In our analysis we utilize the poststructuralist feminist approach to media and leisure, with a specificfocus on outdoor recreation/nature-based tourism. More precisely, we look at the articulations of nor-mativity within the tourist media regarding women’s places and roles in the outdoors. Norms and nor-malization processes have been central to feminist theory and activism, striving for inclusion andequality in various societal spheres. Works of Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butlerwere particularly insightful in understanding and challenging dominant gender norms. According toButler (1990, p. 20) one of the major tasks of feminist theory in general is to ‘… deconstruct the substan-tive appearance of gender into its constitutive acts and locate and account for those acts within the com-pulsory frames set by the various forces that police the social appearance of gender’. Foucault’s (e.g. 1990)work helped shifting the perception of power as a top-down repressive dynamic to productive power,based on endless generation and circulation of knowledge about the world. Feminist theorists haveextensively used these insights to analyse the disciplinary power, which establishes norms of ‘good’and ‘appropriate’ behaviour and categories of subjects. They have looked, for example, at the role ofinstitutions (families, schools), art and media in producing and reinforcing certain gender norms,which are internalized by members of given societies (Spade & Willse, 2016). Among these are thegender norms regarding leisure and recreation, which are the focus of our paper.

Gender norms and outdoor recreation

Access to recreation is not equally distributed across society, and socio-demographic characteristicsplay their role in the prevalence and extent of this access (Shores, Scott, & Floyd, 2007). Constraints torecreation are more pronounced for people who are in non-dominant groups, and gender has longbeen established as an important variable (Shores et al., 2007). Application of feminist perspectives toleisure has helped understanding barriers to leisure as experienced by women (e.g. Hargreaves, 1989;Henderson, 1991; Wearing, 1998). It has been argued, for example, that in patriarchal societies,women’s leisure is valued less than men’s and, consequently, women tend to prioritize others’leisure over their own or believe that there are not entitled to it (Hargreaves, 1989). Due to their car-etaking role within a family, involving a bulk of unpaid domestic labour, often in addition to formalemployment, women tend to face stronger leisure constraints related to time, finances and socialacceptance (Wearing, 1998).

In addition to the general issues of access to recreation, women face a plethora of other barrierswhen it comes to types of ‘approved’ leisure, and specifically outdoor recreation. Here, the position-ing of women in relation to nature/outdoors has been particularly problematic and paradoxical, notonly with patriarchal, but also feminist ontologies. Within the standard (and in itself problematic)nature/culture ontological divide, women have been associated with the natural (i.e. primitive,uncontrolled, undisciplined), as opposed to cultural/male realm (Moore, 2011; Ortner, 1972).Within this logic, however, women are to be confined to the indoor domain, while men performthe role of ‘tamers’ of nature, both indoors and outdoors. This has resulted in a reactionary feministtrajectory of distancing women from this narrative, known as ‘the feminist flight from nature’ (Alaimo,2016). Thus, the ecofeminism approach, on the other hand, aimed to capitalize on aligning womenand nature, pointing out at the linkage between women’s oppression and environmental problems,and looking for new ways to re-inhabit natural spaces (Alaimo, 2016). Overall, up until the last fewdecades, women’s involvement with the outdoors remained complex in theory and largely invisiblein practice (Henderson, 1996).

CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 3

Studies on women’s participation in the outdoors, for example in the American context, show thatwomen express higher concern about their skill levels, body image, fear of harassment, fear of embar-rassment and not fitting in (Henderson, 1996; Henderson & King, 1998; Shores et al., 2007). The latteris particularly important when the social context deems certain activities as more appropriate for menthan for women (Warren & Loeffler, 2006)). Those women who do succeed as outdoor professionalsare often perceived as ‘superwomen’, thus, suggesting that being a woman in the outdoors,especially in a leadership position, is something outside the norm (Haluza-DeLay & Dyment, 2003;Henderson, 1996). Despite women’s participation in the outdoor leisure and adventure environmentis increasing in the Western societies, they are still a minority in what is seen as a male domain (Boni-face, 2006; McNiel et al., 2012).

Gender norms and tourism media

Tourism marketing media has had a long-standing reputation of lagging behind when it comes tovisualizing gender equality (Alessio & Johannsdóttir, 2011; Gunnarsdóttir, 2011; Jenkins, 2003;Khan, 2009; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a; Rakić & Chambers, 2011; Sirakaya & Sonmez, 2000). Althoughsubstantial progress has been made in the Western tourism media domain, there are indications thatcertain gender stereotypes still persist and, thus, need further exposure (McNiel et al., 2012; Zink &Kane, 2015). Contributions from tourism scholarship exposed gendered representations in variousrecreational settings (e.g. Jenkins, 2003; Khan, 2009; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a; Rakić & Chambers,2011; Sirakaya & Sonmez, 2000). According to Khan (2009), tourist destinations have typically beenmarketed as appealing to either females or males, and tourism advertisements often reinforce het-eronormative patriarchal discourses, where ‘men act and women appear’ (Berger, 1972, p. 47). Inthis regard, various aspects of recreation become masculinized or feminized due to the ways inwhich tourism is marketed.

Many factors can contribute to gender socialization, but different types of media are ever so influ-ential due to their power to generate and solidify gender role norms (Larsen, 1997). In today’s image-conscious world, images are of great importance when it comes to the way reality is perceived andunderstood (Zink & Kane, 2015). Despite a significant progress, there is evidence that in advertisingmedia, women are still underrepresented and/or tend to be portrayed in conventional roles (Collins,2011).

Images have always been a highly important part of tourism, be those brochures, postcards orphotographs shared through social media (Gunnarsdóttir, 2011). The way in which gender is articu-lated as a part of the social ‘reality’ has significant implications for the general development, stagingand marketing of tourism. Therefore, tourism processes are gendered in their construction, presen-tation and consumption (Kinnaird & Hall, 1996). More concretely, tourism processes are constructedout of a gendered society, and, consequently, major aspects of tourism-related development andactivities embody gender relations.

According to Khan (2009), tourism marketing in the Western world has traditionally been male-oriented and, indeed, the dominance of masculine ethics is still visible. For example, women are typi-cally shown not as travellers, but rather as attractive and welcoming hostesses (Khan, 2009). More-over, research on gender depiction in tourism emphasizes that women tend to be portrayed indecorative roles (Jenkins, 2003; Khan, 2009; Kinnaird & Hall, 1994). Pictures of attractive womenare especially vivid in promotional media of exotic destinations, where sexualized bodies are routi-nely used to illustrate the desirability of a place (Jenkins, 2003; Kinnaird & Hall, 1994).

As women’s role and status in both family and society have evolved dramatically in the Westerncountries in the last century, women have become a substantial part of the labour force and, conse-quently, leisure consumption as well. Although it could be expected that tourism advertisements, tar-geting a generation of well-educated and independent working women, would actively depart fromold gender tropes, this has hardly been the case (Jenkins, 2003; Margaryan & Zherdev, 2011; Sirakaya& Sonmez, 2000).

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Media research on nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation advertising has found that theseoften focus on individualism and are primarily grounded in the ideology of white male dominance(Cronon, 1996; Hirschman, 2003; Kinnaird & Hall, 1996; McNiel et al., 2012). Being out in the ‘wild’still means overcoming challenges, such as fear, exposure and pain, becoming self-sufficient,testing oneself against nature’s elements, and the solo performance is seen as an ideal (Cronon,1996; Hirschman, 2003; Saayman & Viljoen, 2016). Advertisements of women’s place in the outdoors,on the other hand, are less straightforward and more complex. For instance, in a visual analysis ofoutdoor recreation magazines in New Zealand, Zink and Kane (2015) found that women are signifi-cantly underrepresented in these images. Similarly, McNiel et al. (2012) found that women’s partici-pation in outdoor activities is shown as short in duration and lacking physical performance, whereasmen’s participation is portrayed as a source of challenge, demanding strength and endurance.Women in the outdoors tend to be visualized in limited roles, often together with men, who are rep-resented as necessary companions to help, educate, or protect women (McNiel et al., 2012). This isarguably somewhat of a paradox, given that women throughout history have been associatedwith the natural. Nevertheless, the representation of women as in need of assistance in the outdoorscorresponds to ideas of women being distanced from nature by the restriction of their roles to dom-estic domains, as argued by Alaimo (2016). It can be assumed that in this type of recreation andadventure environment, the overall theme in outdoor media representations is that women are out-siders, whereas men are in their rightful element.

Study area

Sweden and other Nordic countries are known for high levels of gender equality, expressed, primarily,in unusually large number of women in all levels of electoral politics, employment, and education(Jónasdóttir & von der Fehr, 2005). Regularly topping the world Gender Gap Index (WEF, 2016),however, does not mean that gender equality is uniformly and proportionally distributed amongall sectors and hierarchical levels. For example, as in the rest of the world, the economic, bureaucraticand scientific-technological power elites remain dominated by men (Jónasdóttir & von der Fehr,2005). Thrane (2000) found that women in Sweden, Norway and Denmark also have less leisuretime than men, which is especially exacerbated by marriage and the presence of small children, inline with the women’s ‘double burden’ theory (Väänänen et al., 2005). This makes the Swedishcase study unique but also typical enough to provide useful insights for other contexts.

Sweden has a long tradition of outdoor recreation (locally known as friluftsliv or ‘open-air life’), whichprioritizes simple, healthy and sustainable activities in nature, accessible to everyone (Sandell & Sörlin,2008). Activities, such as hiking, Nordic walking, fishing, mushroom and berry-picking in the forest, andcross-country skiing, remain highly popular among the general population (Emmelin, Fredman, Sandell,& Lisberg Jensen, 2010; Fredman, Stenseke, et al., 2014). About half of the Swedish population hasvisited the mountain region at least once in a five-year period (Fredman et al., 2014), and 85% ofthese visits are related to leisure and recreation (Heberlein, Fredman, & Vuorio, 2002).

The Swedish mountain region, stretching for over one thousand kilometres along the Norwegianborder, constitutes one third of the country, but accommodates only two percent of the total popu-lation. The mountain region also shows the highest proportion of specially protected nature areas inthe country (SCB, 2017). Locally known as fjällen (fells), this area, with a rather flat topography abovethe line of the tree growth, is especially suitable for hiking and skiing. At least half of those who plan avisit to the Swedish mountain region seek information on websites (Fredman et al., 2014). Websitesand electronic portals, therefore, provide an important gateway to the region and introduce potentialtourists to the outdoor recreation activities available in the mountains. The images displayed on web-sites are, therefore, both an important indicator of and a contributor to how different outdoor activi-ties are perceived.

The Nordic outdoors has historically been positioned in the tourism media as a masculine space,inviting exploration, independence, physical challenge and adventure (Gunnarsdóttir, 2011; Heldt

CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 5

Cassel & Pashkevich, 2018). Celebration of Nordic landscapes and the themes of masculine achieve-ment are deeply rooted in the Romantic ideals and the glory of Arctic explorations of the nineteenthcentury, where female narratives were invisible (Ísleifsson, 2011; Wall-Reinius, 2009). Nordic land-scapes have been imagined and represented as places to test one’s limits, to be confronted withnature’s forces. In her detailed analysis of the earliest forms of tourism in the Scandinavian wilderness,known as Scandinavian Sporting Tour, Sillanpää (2002) demonstrates how the local tourist place-myths and images were created in response to the desires of male tourists. Previous research ontourist images in the Nordic countries allows suggesting that gender equality is not necessarilyevident in the tourism marketing even in the Nordic context (Alessio & Johannsdóttir, 2011; Cheka-lina, Fuchs, & Lexhagen, 2018; Gunnarsdóttir, 2011; Margaryan & Zherdev, 2011).

Methods

We adopt a mixed-methods research design, combining quantitative (descriptive and inferential stat-istics) and qualitative (visual data analysis) methods. The aim of the quantitative data analysis is tofind out if there are gender differences in the modes of participation in outdoor recreation amongthe Swedish population. The qualitative analysis of images in tourism websites aims at understandinghow outdoor recreation is represented in major promotional media from a gender perspective.Finally, results of both data sources are brought together and discussed in a wider theoretical context.

Data collection

The quantitative data stem from a comprehensive national web-based survey conducted in 2013among the Swedish population between 15–70 years of age. The study includes questions aboutvisits to the mountain region, and different types of recreation activity participation in the region.The survey was conducted during the months of January, May and September. At every occasion,1,000 randomly selected individuals participated in the surveys, i.e. a total of 3,000 survey partici-pants. Of those 3,000 participants, a total of 305 respondents had visited the mountains and partici-pated in various outdoor recreation activities during the previous year. General results of this survey(without the focus of gender stereotypes) have been published in Fredman et al. (2014).

For the collection of qualitative data, the websites of five large mountain destinations in Swedenwere analysed: Funäsfjällen, Idre Fjäll, Sälen, Vemdalen and Åre. These destinations were selectedbecause they are the most popular mountain destinations in Sweden showing a high number of visi-tors in both the summer and winter season (Visit Fjällen, 2016). The websites were searched forimages of the marketed outdoor recreation activities, which resulted in a sample of 316 pictures.The search was conducted from March to April 2015. From this sample, the following images wereexcluded: images with no people in sight, images of children and images where it was difficult tojudge whether a person is female or male (e.g. when a helmet covered the faces or when thepicture was taken from great distance). Similarly, images of very large groups were eliminatedfrom the analysis. Although images portraying outdoor activities included in the quantitativesurvey data were the primary focus, a few pictures portraying other activities were sampled aswell in order to further explore special topics of stereotyped gender depiction. The final distributionof the image sample from the selected Swedish mountain destinations is shown in Table 1.

Data analysis

The question from the national survey chosen for the explorative analysis was: ‘How many days haveyou participated in the following outdoor recreation activities in the Swedish mountain region?’ Therespondents in the survey were given a list of 40 common outdoor activities in Sweden and wereasked if they had participated in these activities with the following frequencies: not at all; up to 1day; 1–2 days; 3–7 days; more than 7 days. As the survey also included activities that are not very

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common, such as geocaching, caving or snow kiting, the sub-samples of some categories were verysmall. Due to the violation of the assumptions of minimum expected frequencies they had to bedichotomized into ‘yes/no’ variables. A Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted on 40 variables inorder to detect the relationship between activity participation duration and the participants’ gender.

The website photographs were analysed based on the principles of content analysis (Rakić &Chambers, 2011; Rose, 2001), inspired by Goffman’s (1979) classic study of gender role portrayalsin advertisements. Based on Goffman’s approach, each picture was coded accordingly as: (1) theactivity being engaged in, and the gender of the person engaging in it; (2) if a woman waspresent in the picture, her relative size and placement; (3) the setting of the picture; (4) if awoman was present in the picture, whether her portrayal is active or passive; and (5) gender depictionin the family context. These five categories were used as a starting point to identify themes and recur-rent patterns on tourism websites.

Results

The quantitative analysis clearly shows that there are significant gender differences in certain outdoorrecreation activities in the Swedish mountain region. More precisely, a statistically significant associ-ation between gender and type of outdoor activity were found in 12 out of the 40 activities (Table 2).In all but one (picnic/barbecuing), more men participated in the respective activity than women1.Interestingly enough, almost all of the outdoor activities found to have significant gender differencescan be considered as traditionally male, i.e. fishing, hunting, rock climbing or mountain biking.

It is important to note that in the majority of the outdoor activities (i.e. 28 of 40) no significant differ-ence in participants’ gender was found. For some classical Swedish outdoor recreation activities, such asdownhill skiing, hiking or camping, this result was somewhat expected. However, a surprising findingwas that the activities that are described in the literature as typically masculine or feminine, such asskateboarding, horseback riding or meditating/yoga (Bäckström, 2013; Birdee et al., 2008), genderdifferences were not found. The reason why the majority of the analysed outdoor activities do notshow gender differences could also be determined by the fact that these activities are often

Table 1. Picture sample.

Destination Website Number of pictures

Åre http://www.visitare.com/ 31Funäsfjällen http://www.funasfjallen.se/ 20Idre Fjäll http://www.idrefjall.se/ 32Sälen http://salenfjallen.se/ 12Vemdalen ttps://www.vemdalen.se 33Total 128

Table 2. Gender differences in outdoor recreation participation.

Activity

Male (%) Female (%)

N χ2 df Sig.No Yes No Yes

Diving/Snorkelling 96.1 3.9 100.0 0.0 305 5.04 1 .025Fishing 72.1 27.9 86.5 13.5 305 8.0 1 .003Hunting 92.2 7.8 100.0 0.0 305 10.33 1 .001Mountain bike 89.9 10.1 96.8 3.2 305 5.23 1 .022Orienteering 94.4 5.6 99.2 0.8 305 4.89 1 .027Paintball/live 93.3 6.7 99.2 0.8 305 6.33 1 .012Picnic/barbecue 64.2 35.8 49.2 50.8 305 6.87 1 .009Rock climbing 83.8 16.2 92.9 7.1 305 5.56 1 .018Sailing, wind/wave surfing 95.5 4.5 100.0 0.0 305 5.78 1 .016Snowboarding 85.5 14.5 93.7 6.5 305 4.99 1 .025Snowshoeing 90.5 9.5 98.4 1.6 305 7.92 1 .005Trail running 83.2 16.8 91.3 8.7 305 4.10 1 .043

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engaged by all family members together. Similarly, a rather unexpected finding is that motor sportsactivities did not show significant gender differences. For example, snowmobiling, motor boating,flying motor- or sailplane, are often perceived as a typical masculine activity (Mehus, Germeten, & Hen-riksen, 2011). Interestingly, no gender differences were found for this activity in the context of Swedishmountain tourism participation. However, this might be partially explained by the way the question wasformulated, not allowing to differentiate between drivers and passengers (see Henderson, 1996).

Gender and outdoor recreation activities

Moving on to the content analysis, it suggests the following findings. The 128 selected pictures con-tained representations of 108 women (45%) and 136 (56%) men. Hence, more men than women wereshown participating in outdoor recreation activities. Moreover, in many of the activities portrayed,gender differences in terms of frequency could be noticed. For instance, within the activity of moun-tain biking/cycling, more than twice as many men as women were pictured. In contrast, men were notpresent at all engaging in spa and shopping. Interestingly enough, cross-country skiing was por-trayed as a typical female activity, showing seven women and only one man. In the more action-filled and adventurous outdoor activity of rafting, there were almost twice as many male participantsas there were females. Similarly, fishing was shown as an activity dominated by men; only fourwomen were pictured when engaging in this activity compared to eleven men. A similar findingwas obtained for trail running: eight individuals were displayed trail running, of which six weremen an only two were women. The activities with rather equal gender distribution are the classicmountain activities: hiking and downhill skiing (Table 3).

Women’s relative size and placement

In general, there were not that many pictures portraying a woman as smaller than a man, or placedbehind him, as found in previous studies (Chhabra, Andereck, Yamanoi, & Plunkett, 2011; Lindner,2004). However, it was immediately clear that more images pictured women as smaller and placed

Table 3. Gender and activity.

Activity Female Male

Canoeing/kayaking 7 6Cross-country skiing 7 1Dog sledging 2 1Downhill skiing 13 14Fishing 4 11Golfing 2 3Hiking 9 8Horseback riding 11 7Hunting – 1Ice-skating – 1Montain biking/cycling 11 24Photography 5 5Rafting 11 20Rock-climbing/ice-climbing 2 –Roller skiing – 5Sledding 1 2Snowmobiling 2 7Snowshoeing 4 4Spa/shopping 9 –Swimming outside 1 –Trail running 2 6Waterpark entertainment 1 –Yoga/fitness classes 3 1Ziplining 1 –Total 108 136

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behind aman than the opposite (15 pictures displayedwomen as smaller andmore often placed behinda man, and five pictures displayedmen as smaller and placed behind a woman). Figure 1 shows a groupof women rafting, but it appears to be the male guide who does all the work in steering the boat.

The setting of the picture

It was more common for women to be shown in calm environments than it was for men. More pre-cisely, 61% of the women in the pictures were shown in calm environments, comparing to men. Outof the pictures presenting men in a calm environment, 45% of the portrayed men were engaging infishing, or spending time with the family. The calm environments with women were presenting suchcommon activities as hiking with a male partner or a family, spa or shopping, cross-country skiing,canoeing, and horseback riding.

In pictures portraying people in action-filled or challenging environments, men (65%) were againmore frequently present. Most action-related pictures portrayed men while mountain biking orrafting. The case of mountain biking is an interesting example, clearly showing a gender-bias: out of17 photos of people engaging in mountain biking, only three depicted women without a male partner.

Out of the pictures taken in an action/challenging outdoor environment, women were most com-monly pictured downhill skiing. Out of 19 pictures portraying downhill skiing, eight of those pictureda woman skiing (on her own or in a group). The rest pictured women andmen skiing together, or menalone. Out of five pictures portraying canoeing/kayaking, women were only depicted canoeing, com-paring to the more action-filled kayaking. Figure 2 displays two women and a child calmly paddlingalong the quiet river.

Are women portrayed as active or passive?

Altogether, people shown in website images were clearly more often portrayed as active participantsthan as passive enjoyers. However, there was a distinct difference between how women and men

Figure 2. Canoeing in Funäsfjällen (Source: www.funasfjallen.se).

Figure 1. Rafting in Idre Fjäll (Source: www.idrefjall.se).

CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 9

were portrayed. Of the women portrayed by website images, 20% were depicted as passive, whereasonly 4% of the men were portrayed as passive. More concretely, women were more often picturedwhen receiving a spa treatment or admiring the scenic view, as shown, for instance, in Figure 3. Inthe few pictures where a man was portrayed as passive, he was typically pictured together with awoman.

Gender depiction in the family

Of the 128 pictures, only 16 images portrayed families or adults with children. Therefore, it isdifficult to reliably draw conclusions regarding representation of gender roles within a family.Parents and children in all images were actively engaged in an activity, so women and menwere equally participating. Also, the types of activities engaged in were fairly equally distributedbetween women and men. For example, Figure 4 shows a mother mountain biking with her son.However, fathers were not pictured engaging in typical masculine activities with their sons, andmothers were not portrayed participating in typical feminine activities with their daughters.About half of the pictures portrayed a nuclear family, whereas the other half of the pictures por-trayed a single parent (which could be explained by comparatively high divorce rates in thecountry).

Figure 3. Admiring the view in Funäsfjällen (Source: www.funasfjallen.se).

Figure 4. Mountain biking in Idre Fjäll (Source: www.idrefjall.se).

10 K. G. KLING ET AL.

Discussion

Our findings put forward that despite overall high levels of gender equality in Sweden, there is acertain difference in the modes of participation and visualization of outdoor recreation. Thus,based on the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data we suggest the following discussionpoints.

Persistence of gender norms in outdoor recreation participation and visualization

According to the quantitative analysis, there are significant gender differences in outdoor recreationwhen it comes to specific activities. Men either equally participate in all activities women do, or dom-inate the rest, while the same could not be said about women. This indicates that women engage in anarrower range of outdoor activities. In turn, findings of the subsequent qualitative analysis ofwebsite pictures from the five largest Swedish mountain tourism destinations show that traditionalgender norms were also present in website images.

What is interesting is that new trends in outdoor recreation do not seem to be going in the direc-tion of higher equality, but rather the opposite. Already a few years ago, it was noticed that there is anevident shift in outdoor recreation trends, characterized by increasing commercialization, importanceof experiences, achievement, equipment and skills, adventure rather than social interaction, andoverall more male-orientedness (e.g. Fredman & Heberlein, 2003; Fredman, Gössling, & Hultman,2006; Odden, 2008; van Bottenburg & Salome, 2010). This, we observe on the example of mountainbiking, one of the ‘hottest’ new activities in the off-season ski resorts, attracting significant investmentand being actively marketed (Hagen & Boyes, 2016; Pickering & Leung, 2016). This activity was fea-tured on all websites as challenging and action-filled. The fact that the majority of mountainbikers are men, both in terms of participation rates and visibility, point to that it is normalized as amale activity (Huybers-Withers & Livingston, 2010; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000b; Wagner, 2008). Onthe other hand, in line with the increasing commercialization trends, ski resorts aim to position them-selves not only as places of physical activity, but also as places of comfort, relaxation and hedonicconsumption. Spa and shopping were presented extensively on the websites, featuring exclusivelywomen, and, thus, normalizing these activities as female-oriented (see Khan, 2009; Kinnaird & Hall,1994; Wearing, 1998). In other words, we have not observed any new trends in the visual represen-tation that would explicitly challenge the traditional heteronormativity.

Another interesting finding was that some popular outdoor activities were presented as most suit-able for a specific gender, whereas no statistically significant differences were found in participationrates (e.g. cross-country skiing). In addition, many of the popular activities in the survey were not pic-tured at all in the websites (e.g. snowboarding). The discrepancy between the images and the ‘reallife’ has been noticed by tourism researchers before, who argued that tourism media tends to bemore lagging behind the actual societal trends (Alessio & Johannsdóttir, 2011; Gunnarsdóttir,2011; Jenkins, 2003; Khan, 2009; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a; Rakić & Chambers, 2011; Sirakaya &Sonmez, 2000).

To sum up, the findings gained in this study clearly support the idea that tourism marketing mediatends to reinforce gender expectations in the context of outdoor recreation (Collins, 2011; Johansson,Röjlar, Eriksson, & Frisk, 2008; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a). Gender role socialization gives men bettertools to participate and feel more comfortable in outdoor recreation. In contrast, women fit into fewerrole models in outdoor recreation, and, therefore, are more likely to feel limited and avoidparticipation.

Problematization of gender norms in the outdoors

We problematize persistence of gender norms in the outdoors on the following levels. First, theobserved tropes that perpetuate women’s role as passive participants, undermining women’s

CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 11

aspirations for leadership positions in the outdoor context and beyond. Placement of women behindmen in the photographic composition, observed in our sample, has been described as one of themost frequent categorization of gender display (Goffman, 1979). Although the majority of individualsdisplayed in the websites are portrayed as actively engaging in an outdoor activity, more womenthan men were depicted as passive. Men, on the other hand, were in almost all pictures actively com-mitted to an outdoor activity. Displaying the need for women to be protected by men in the out-doors, as found in the analysed website pictures, can, thus, be interpreted as a stereotypicaldemonstration of men’s superiority over women (Goffman, 1979; Haluza-DeLay & Dyment, 2003;McNiel et al., 2012; Sirakaya & Sonmez, 2000; Warren & Loeffler, 2006). In the context of Sweden, itcan be argued that the outdoors remains one of the few spaces where this norm is still visiblerather explicitly.

Furthermore, the depicted heteronormative gender roles place exaggerated expectations on menas adrenaline-seeking adventurers and conquerors of the outdoors. The spirit of rugged individualismcan be found in all pictures of male visitors taken in challenging environments. This, again, is in linewith the ideal of acting ‘out in the backcountry’, where individualism and tackling nature’s challengesis the main goal for men, but not for women (Cronon, 1996; Hirschman, 2003; Kinnaird & Hall, 1994;Pritchard & Morgan, 2000a). As could be expected, the analysis of website pictures revealed a majorityof female visitors enjoying the calm and still environment. This suggests that women are supposed toprefer a relaxed, calm atmosphere, and if engaging in a challenging activity, they tend to be with amale partner. This implies that if women themselves are allowed to choose outdoor activities to par-ticipate in, they would choose calmer activities. However, when together with a man, they mightchoose more challenging activities, as they would feel more safe and would also have a chance toassert themselves in order to be perceived as equally competent as men (Henderson, 2000).

Perpetuation of traditional gender norms of behaviour in the outdoors has far reaching conse-quences not only in the context of gender socialization but also people’s relationships withnature. On the one hand, limiting women’s participation outdoors or positioning it as something‘not for women’ might have its effects on the involvement of women in natural sciences, environ-mental policies and nature-related decision making. On the other hand, proliferation of adrena-line-, skills- and adventure-rich male-oriented activities not only de-normalizes other ways ofengagement with nature for men, but also reduces nature to a background setting, thus, discoura-ging deeper, more mindful and meditative human-nature relationships.

Conclusion

Our study put forward that traditional heteronormative stereotypes pertaining to the images of mas-culinity and femininity can be found in the context of participation and visualization of outdoorrecreation in Sweden. This suggests that even if Sweden is one of the most gender-equal societies,it is not exempt from traditional gender norms of behaviour and representation, albeit to a lesserextent than in more patriarchal societies. In fact, we claim that the context of Nordic backcountrycontext makes these norms more pronounced, appealing to the male-dominated Romantic idealsof nature conquest and adventure (Alessio & Johannsdóttir, 2011; Gunnarsdóttir, 2011; HeldtCassel & Pashkevich, 2018; Ísleifsson, 2011; Sillanpää, 2002). We also argue that the new trends inoutdoor recreation may, in fact, further perpetuate this vision, due to growing popularity ofoutdoor activities, stressing physical challenge, adventure, skill and achievement, oriented primarilytowards male recreationists, observed in our data and previous literature (Fredman & Heberlein, 2003;Fredman et al., 2006; Odden, 2008; van Bottenburg & Salome, 2010). Female-oriented activities, inturn, predominantly either represent traditional gender roles or encourage new forms of hedonisticconsumption in controlled, quasi-outdoor settings.

A highly promising area for future research is to focus on the demand side, thereby exploring user-generated images on photo-sharing and social media platforms, such as Flickr or Instagram (Hudson& Thal, 2013; Munar & Steen Jacobsen, 2014). Also, in the context of Anthropocene and uncurbed

12 K. G. KLING ET AL.

negative impacts of humans on the ecological environment, it is necessary to critically re-think therole of tourism and recreation in the natural context. Participation in outdoor- and nature-basedactivities can contribute to a higher degree of environmental awareness and increased connected-ness with nature among practitioners. Thus, (re)discovering new and old modes of meaningfulengagement with nature, expanding the range of gender-conscious outdoor activities, movinginto directions other than challenge- and action-seeking, is suggested as a fruitful further researchtrajectory.

Note

1. Other activities tested, which did not have any significant association with gender, included various forms ofskiing and other winter activities (e.g. dog sledding, snowmobiling), water sports (e.g. canoeing, kayaking,boating, swimming), typical summer activities (e.g. picking berries or mushrooms, hiking, Nordic walking,camping), meditating/yoga, horseback riding, and a few niche activities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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