Old Girl Adventures

First there was the demonic “Thinspo” which glorified anorexia and encouraged (mostly young) women to starve themselves to unrealistic weights using pictures of anorexic women with no heads. Then came “Fitspo,” where every one who had ever laced on a pair of sneakers and staggered around the local park felt compelled to post pictures of only slightly less emaciated women – still with no heads – overlaid with obnoxious messages like “someone who is busier than you is running right now.” Personally, the only thing a message like that encourages me to do is say “Well, f**k them.” 

 WTF is a "thigh gap" and why would anyone care?

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse along came “Adventurespo” where the same beautiful people who, by some freak of genetics, happen to have the constellation of outer characteristics that our society now considers “hot” - characteristics which, by definition, must be rare - post images of themselves out doing something “bad-ass” (read sarcasm here) and somehow, instead of looking all bedraggled like the rest of us, look as if they just stepped out of a photo-shoot, hair, smile, clothes, all unnaturally perfect. The image, of course, emblazoned with some asinine ditty like “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” At least the beautiful people have heads but the images still make me want to vomit. 

 No real improvement over Thinspo

We all know, life is not really like any of these images. Thinspo glorifies a potentially lethal mental illness, Fitspo is all about shaming people who might have other more important things to do (like raise a family, have a career, get an education) with their life than obsess over every calorie and exercise until they throw up, and Adventurespo peddles the idea that if you aren't young and beautiful you have no place in the outdoors. 

 And a desire to live the rest of your life in a wheelchair

Well, it's all bullshit and today, when the hashtag “earthgirladventures” flashed across one of my social media feeds accompanied by a series of pictures of the beautiful people doing SBA in the outdoors I knew I had finally found my mission in life. 

How Adventurespo portrays women climbers

Anyone who has climbed a chimney knows how unrealistic this photo is 

So, I bring you #oldgirladventures# devoted to real women doing real things in the real outdoors looking like real wrecks because, if you really are out doing some thing badass, you look, well bad. I will soon be launching several social media sites (I've just got to work out WTF a hashtag actually is) and looking for images of real women (and men) doing real things and looking real bad(ass). So send me your stories and your pictures but, please, no kitschy sayings about life beginning at the end of your comfort zone.

How climbing women really look