The Women of the Outdoors club have created a space at Southern Utah University “to facilitate, improve skills and empower women to gain independence in an outdoor setting,” as their motto says. Founded in September 2020, founder and current club president H Hannemen has helped grow the club into an accessible space for hopeful adventurers to meet new friends.
“My goal mostly was to find other like-minded women who wanted to be adventurous and outdoorsy who may not feel comfortable going by themselves,” said Hannemen. As the years have gone by, the club has grown beyond a community of women and gender-nonconforming students who already love the outdoors, becoming a space for many underrepresented groups to explore the outdoors in a supportive environment.
“The history of the outdoors has been mostly white [cisgender] male dominated,” Hanneman mentioned.
One thing that Hanneman believes sets her group apart from the greater outdoors community at SUU is that activities are planned by club members for club members. “Eventually, it turned into facilitating all of these outdoor experiences for other people,” Hanneman said.
One club member grew up in Las Vegas and never had the chance to go camping. The club planned a camping trip to give her that experience. Before the trip, they held activities where the group learned the essentials like pitching a tent so all members felt comfortable and prepared.
The girl who had never gone camping before happened to be African American, and when the trip came, Hanneman remembers the girl facetiming her mom from inside of the tent. “‘You’re camping? Our family doesn’t camp. That’s a white person activity!’” Hannemen remembers the mom saying.
While the focus of the club is on women, they want people from all identities and backgrounds to feel comfortable and represented in outdoor spaces.
“It is sometimes seen as unsafe to go out in the outdoors as women,” Hanneman said. “Camping by myself in a campground where I may be the only woman — that’s scary.”
Last semester the club held a women’s outdoor retreat where female students were able to experience the outdoors within a safe community. “We rented out the SUU Mountain Center, we watched movies dealing with strong and powerful women in outdoor spaces, we did a little hike during the day and we did a night hike,” Hanneman recounted.
From camping to hiking — and even frequent excursions to the meadow hot pots — the Women of the Outdoors club holds various trips throughout the school year. For students wanting to get involved, upcoming trips are advertised on their Instagram, and club meetings are held every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Wing of the Sharwan Smith Student Center.
Author: Heather Turner
Photos courtesy of H Hanneman
Editor: Lily Brunson
outdoors@suunews.net
