I am thinking about Adventure. The idea of adventure has long been a preoccupation of mine. I have always thought about adventure from a gender neutral perspective. In this particular context I am thinking about the adventure that comes from engaging with the “elements”, that most obvious experience. Trekking across mountains, surfing some great wave in the Pacific, sky diving, skiing back mountain trails, moon walking, sailing around the world. You get the idea….

And it seems that we are inventing new forms of adventure more rapidly today, than in the past. Not that these experiences didn’t exist before, but that they were integrated into other activities. Now they are being experienced as isolated activities: rock climbing and ice climbing, for instance. And maybe these new adventures are no different than the singularity of skydiving, which grew out of the need to save a life if a plane or “flying machine” was set on a course of destruction. We are exchanging passive sports for active ones these days. There is a reason that golf courses are being shut down across the a United States. We are off finding our own adventures.

This is where my query lies. As I think about adventure, the adventure that is followed in journalism, on TV and Internet, I think about these being particularly “male” adventures. Now before you get upset, I am not speaking of adventures that women cannot equally participate in, I am thinking about what defines the epitome of the “womens” adventure? And which of today’s “adventure” experiences may have been first engaged by a women?

So, help me out. Let me know what you know. What you think about women and adventure. Keep in mind, this is not a challenge of who is better or equal at some activity. I am truly interested in what “is”, what defines the ultimate women’s sense of adventure.