Women and leadership: Commitments to nurturing, more-than-human worlds, and fun

Abstract

Many of the leadership practices frequently employed by women have greatly influenced mainstream outdoor learning environments (OLEs) and have been adopted as common practice. In general, women's influence in the field of adventure programming and OLEs has brought greater congruency between ethical conduct towards participants and leaders of all genders and towards the environment, as well as recognition of the importance of healthy connections and spiritual relationships. This chapter explores how practitioners can ultimately increase participants' learning opportunities by updating practices based on locus of control, challenge by choice, stress, co-regulation, tend and befriend, comfort zone, and familiar zone, resulting in and more fun into OLEs' programming. The author relates experiences from the 1960s and 1970s of Outward Bound and Girl Scouts.