Women’s mountains, the mountains of women—this can be interpreted in three ways: as the mountains of holy women, i.e., Celtic cult sites associated with the three saints (“Bethen”) Ambeth, Wilbeth, and Borbeth, who were Christianized after the Wars of the Reformation and became Margareta, Catherine, and Barbara; as mountains which represent a real feat in mountaineering for women but a mere walk in the park for men (as per a typically patriarchal statement by Albert Frederick Mummery); and as mountains named after female alpinists who achieved great things in the early days of the discipline.

The latter are few and far between compared to mountains named after men—after all, in the 100 years of its existence, women were excluded from the very masculine “sport” of “exploratory mountaineering” until the 1930s on grounds of the sport not being “ladylike” and irreconcilable with a woman’s role as a housewife and mother. Women were denied membership in alpine clubs and climbing clubs; while some female alpinists published their highly challenging tours in alpinist magazines, they rarely did so under their own name and used a male relative’s name or nom de plume instead. And still it was women who made first ascents—lots of them in winter—who led tours and gave their names to via ferratas, routes, and peaks. Some of them fought for women’s rights: Annie Smith Peck, Elizabeth Main, Fanny Bullock Workman, and also Arlene Blum, who led the first all-woman expedition to the Himalayas (under the aptly chosen slogan “A woman’s place is on top”) in 1978. This exhibition is dedicated to these excellent alpinists, who helped shape the image of women as equal partners for men in the mountains and who have been honored for that by having mountains all over the world named after them.

A cooperation with TAP Tirol Archiv Photographie

Curators: Richard Piock and Martin Kofler