In February 2014, I attended my third ever geocaching event. It was a lively affair in a Dublin pub and was probably the first time I could truly appreciate the fantastic caching community we have in Ireland. At this event, someone made a throwaway remark, which always stuck with me for some reason. He commented that there were a number of women in attendance and not only that, but several of those were geocachers with their own accounts (in other words, they weren’t just accompanying the geocacher in their life to the event). I have since realised the significance of his comment. When I started geocaching, there weren’t many female geocachers in the community.
The Only Way is Up
I’ve only been geocaching since August 2013 – not a long time in the grand scheme of things – but I’ve seen a significant increase in the number of women playing the game. It makes me happy. Geocaching is one of those hobbies that doesn’t discriminate based on a player’s gender. There are only geocachers; not male and female geocachers. There are geocachers who are not too keen on climbing trees, and there are those who will climb 15 feet without blinking an eye. There are geocachers who will hike for hours for a single cache, and those who prefer to cache and dash. These are the ways that we separate geocachers: not by gender but on how they like to cache.
I am very fortunate to be surrounded by inspirational women in my life: in my family, in my circle of friends, at work and, of course, in geocaching.
Last year for International Women’s Day, I wrote a post entitled How to Geocache Like a Girl. It was the wonderful response I had to my request for photos of women doing amazing things in the name of geocaching that really made the article. This year, my request to showcase women in geocaching resulted in the fabulous photos you can see below.
This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is #PressforProgress. I feel that geocaching is a great example of gender inclusiveness already, but let’s all of us – men and women – use our much-loved hobby to empower women and girls; to encourage them to believe they are capable of great things.
Happy caching!
Sarah
© 2018 | Sarah McLarkey | All Rights Reserved
As a female geocacher who is proud to have had a couple of my photos in last year’s How to Cache Like a Girl blog, I salute all the females in my life today, geocachers and muggles alike. Thanks for another great article!
We’re stunned by the picture of Laura Stracener way, way up an unfeasibly tall tree. Well done to her!
What comes to my mind reading this interesting article is, if there is any valid data / statistics about the gender spread in geocaching: Is it really that it is a male dominated sport? Which cache types do female / male prefer (more mystery solvers among girls because they are ahead of us in maths? 🙂 ). And what about the terrain preferences? – Questions over questions…
It would certainly be interesting to see those stats