Eyes wide shut : a history of blindness towards the feminine in outdoor education in Australia

I wanted a place where students could stop and pause to listen to the sounds of rocks being tumbled together, where they could witness the extraordinary happenings of the natural world like dolphins giving birth. I did not want the place to reflect the hapless, oblivious Oscar “who saw nothing” still floating down the river, in “country [that was] filled with stories more ancient than the ones he held in his sweat-slipping leather Bible. He did not even imagine their presence.” Now fast-forward to a coming together of a group of outdoor education women in 2015, planning a book all about women in the outdoors, and all hell breaks loose! It was as if the dams were destroyed, voices held behind barriers for so long, finally released. Our eyes had been blinded, too, and as we removed our own shaky blindfolds by sharing the stories of our lives, in our own personal histories related to outdoor education, our struggles as females to have a voice, to be a voice for all women, young and old, something new was born. It was hope