Female explorers - 'Wildly different'

A Conversation article on Mina Hubbard and other female explorers who seldom get the same coverage as their male counterparts. Indeed, the treatment of Hubbard in the press was very misogynstic and played down her accomplishments.

It refers to a book by the author: Sarah Lonsdale: Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City St George's, University of London.

Wildly Different: How Five Women Reclaimed Nature in a Man’s World is the book.

This is published in March by Manchester University Press.

Description of the book from the publishers:

The globe-trotting tales of five women who fought for the right to enjoy the wild places of the earth.

For millennia the 'wild' was a place heroic men went on epic quests. Women were prevented from joining them, either through physical control or powerful myths about what would happen if they ventured beyond the city wall or village boundary. So how did women claim their place in the remote and lovely parts of our planet?

In Wildly different, historian Sarah Lonsdale traces the lives of five women who fought for the right to work in, enjoy and help to save the earth's wild places. We'll meet Mina Hubbard, who outraged the exploration community when she stepped into a canoe in northern Labrador. Evelyn Cheesman, who became the first female keeper of insects at London Zoo. Dorothy Pilley, who shocked polite society by donning men's climbing breeches. Ethel Haythornthwaite, who helped make the Peak District Britain's first National Park. 

And Wangari Maathai, who started a movement to plant millions of trees across sub-Saharan Africa.

Drawing on interviews with Sir David Attenborough, Wangari Maathai's daughter and others, Lonsdale recounts the women's adventures across five continents. Evocative and inspiring, this book shows how women can be 'wildly different'.

Five geographers and explorers who students should perhaps be introduced to.