ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on feminist theory and its application to outdoor leadership. In it, we challenge popular conceptions and misconceptions about feminism (or, more correctly, feminisms) and aim to develop a basic understanding of feminist theory. We begin by providing some historical background to feminism before outlining some broad feminist perspectives, namely: liberal, radical, socialist and post-structural feminism. As we work through these different feminist perspectives, we show how each can be used to inform an analysis of gender in relation to outdoor instructor qualification schemes and outdoor leadership.
