
In Her Nature
How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors: A Past, Present and Personal Story
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Narrated by:
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Rachel Hewitt
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By:
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Rachel Hewitt
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
When Rachel loses five family members in five months, grief magnifies other absences. Running across moors and mountains used to help her feel at home in her body and the world, but now she becomes painfully aware of her inability to run without being cat-called or followed by strange men, or to walk alone at night without fear. Her eyes are opened to injustices facing women in sport, from men who push her off paths during races, to male bias in competition regulations, kit and media coverage. The outdoors becomes a place of danger, sharpening her sense of the grief women experience - every day, everywhere - for lack of freedom.
Rachel goes in search of a new family: the foremothers who blazed a trail at the dawn of outdoor sport. She discovers Lizzie Le Blond, a courageous Anglo-Irishwoman who scaled the Alps in woollen skirts, photographed fearless women climbing, skating and tobogganing at breakneck speeds, and founded the Ladies' Alpine Club, defying men who wanted the mountains to themselves. Yet after such groundbreaking progress in the late 1800s, a backlash drove women out of sports and public space.
Are we now living through a similar reversal in women's rights or an era of unprecedented liberty? Telling Lizzie's story alongside her own, Rachel runs her way from bereavement to belonging, in a world that feels hostile to women. On the way she's inspired by the tenacious women, past and present, who insist that breaking boundaries outdoors is, and always has been, in her nature.
Critic reviews
'Heartfelt, passionate, infuriating and often devastating, this book will inspire you to fight for your right to tread your own path' CAROLINE CRIADO PEREZ, author of Invisible Women
truly one of the best books I've ever "read"
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I’ve always felt a defiance but lately as I’ve mellowed I’ve noticed a slow back lash even through all we’ve gained. This helps to articulate why those feelings matter and are our truth at this present moment.
Thank you Rachel and I wish you and your family all the best from now on and most of all peace and healing.
Thank you Rachel
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For me, the hallmark of a good feminist listen is that I find I have to buy the hard copy book as well, realising that I will need it to reference in future, because of the importance of the contents. This is definitely such a book.
I’ve not seen the argument that women experience reprisals over long periods of time in response to every step of feminist progress, illustrated and evidenced so clearly before. Sometimes these limiting forces can be difficult to grasp because their trajectory is slow, but this book reveals them. It’s a sobering reminder of how history is misrepresented by those in power and how we should never be blasé about feminist achievements or what it takes to reveal them.
The book explores the history of the battles women have fought to access public open space outdoors, as well as present day data about such access with a personal memoir of finding a sense of well-being and selfhood from being outdoors. Whilst some of the insights in it are quite uncomfortable to bear, it is a privilege to have your eyes opened. This book shines a light on what men are really doing when they’re harassing women in public spaces. Next time I’m in a public open space and encounter a man who asks me to smile, I will be telling him that a smile is not the price I should have to pay to be present in this space because he doesn’t own it.
A manifesto for women about the right to be outdoors
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Beautifully read and moving
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Interesting but long
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In My Nature
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Tales of pioneering women
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Compelling
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Essential and insightful
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