Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession

The mountains are a place for economic activity and work for the guides and a place for fun and recreation for their clients. For each of them, however, the mountains remain a space for social relations, which are woven onto a canvas of representations and pre-existent social relationships, includin...

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Main Author: Rozenn Martinoia
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut de Géographie Alpine 2013-10-01
Series:Revue de Géographie Alpine
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/rga/2001
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author Rozenn Martinoia
author_facet Rozenn Martinoia
author_sort Rozenn Martinoia
collection DOAJ
description The mountains are a place for economic activity and work for the guides and a place for fun and recreation for their clients. For each of them, however, the mountains remain a space for social relations, which are woven onto a canvas of representations and pre-existent social relationships, including gender. This article focuses on the ambivalent role of the female clientele in the construction of the gendered professional identity of male mountain guides and its validation by peers. Within a profession normed by a myth of masculinity, female clients may indeed send out dissonant signals: on the one hand, they allow the production of expected signs of masculinity, on the other, they may symbolise a feminisation of professional skills, which, in the hierarchy of gender, is stigmatising. In this respect, the guides negotiate a compromise by manoeuvring between the multiple axiological frameworks, which construct and validate both their gender and professional identities. Supported by an ethnographic survey, this article particularly highlights the prominence of the masculine guide myth which norms interactions within the professional group. It shows why and how guides, essentially by means of discursive artifice, save face in front of their peers.
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publishDate 2013-10-01
publisher Institut de Géographie Alpine
record_format Article
series Revue de Géographie Alpine
spelling doaj-art-160e3fd5948844a4864f09cc6668b8022025-01-10T15:56:03ZengInstitut de Géographie AlpineRevue de Géographie Alpine0035-11211760-74262013-10-01101110.4000/rga.2001Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide professionRozenn MartinoiaThe mountains are a place for economic activity and work for the guides and a place for fun and recreation for their clients. For each of them, however, the mountains remain a space for social relations, which are woven onto a canvas of representations and pre-existent social relationships, including gender. This article focuses on the ambivalent role of the female clientele in the construction of the gendered professional identity of male mountain guides and its validation by peers. Within a profession normed by a myth of masculinity, female clients may indeed send out dissonant signals: on the one hand, they allow the production of expected signs of masculinity, on the other, they may symbolise a feminisation of professional skills, which, in the hierarchy of gender, is stigmatising. In this respect, the guides negotiate a compromise by manoeuvring between the multiple axiological frameworks, which construct and validate both their gender and professional identities. Supported by an ethnographic survey, this article particularly highlights the prominence of the masculine guide myth which norms interactions within the professional group. It shows why and how guides, essentially by means of discursive artifice, save face in front of their peers.https://journals.openedition.org/rga/2001gendermountain guidesprofessional identitygender identitymasculinity
spellingShingle Rozenn Martinoia
Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
Revue de Géographie Alpine
gender
mountain guides
professional identity
gender identity
masculinity
title Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
title_full Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
title_fullStr Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
title_full_unstemmed Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
title_short Women’s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
title_sort women s mountaineering and dissonances within the mountain guide profession
topic gender
mountain guides
professional identity
gender identity
masculinity
url https://journals.openedition.org/rga/2001
work_keys_str_mv AT rozennmartinoia womensmountaineeringanddissonanceswithinthemountainguideprofession