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Abstract

Snow and avalanche safety is a male dominated field. The aim of this paper is to increase the knowledge on the gendered conditions and prerequisites this poses for snow and avalanche safety professionals, and to shed light on why relatively few women enter and stay in the industry. Our analysis is based on qualitative survey data from a survey sent out to male and female-identifying avalanche professionals in North America, Continental Europe, and Scandinavia (N = 299). We inductively coded and categorized the responses into themes based on patterns and commonalities, using a conventional content analysis. Our preliminary results show that the majority of our participants think that increasing the share of women and non-binary individuals would be beneficial to the industry. However, our data also show that women experience important challenges related to their gender, both during their training and in their work. Based on our findings, we propose actions that we hope can help the avalanche safety industry becoming a world for anyone with a passion for snow.