Lever le voile : les montagnes au masculin-féminin

Nowadays no one would dare disregard women's contribution to mountain life. As long ago as the 1960s various articles in the Journal of Alpine Research discussed the part played by women in mountain activities, but this is the first time that an issue has been devoted specifically to the issue of gender and mountain life. An opportunity to note - if need be - that relations between the mountains and their human settlers take both genders, masculine and feminine, despite the fact that scientific literature has tended to depict this world from the perspective of male narratives, representations and practices. But make no mistake, our purpose is not to demand some sort of catching-up process, reinstating a female angle on the highlands or advocating a neo-deterministic approach. The aim of the articles in the present issue is to signify an understanding of the mountains by means of gender-based approaches; to grasp representations, practices and stakes, which bring into play masculine and feminine strands of mountain life; to decipher feminist struggles, women's emancipation, conquests and setting of new targets to gain recognition for their work, status and bodies in the mountains; but also to understand male and female interaction, in social, cultural and economic terms, and its effects, organizing, ranking, publicizing and transmitting all too frequently stereotyped gender representations and practices, which fashion mountain society; lastly to add to work on mobility, economic activity or indeed sport from the perspective of gender. All these views contribute to enriching analysis of the mountains in the social sciences and bringing new impetus to cultural and social investigation of the many identities present in the mountains Nul ne se saurait ignorer aujourd'hui la contribution des femmes à la vie dans les montagnes. Si certains articles de la Revue de Géographie Alpine ont, dès la fin des années 1960, évoqué la place des femmes dans les activités montagnardes, c'est au demeurant la première fois qu'un numéro de la revue est spécifiquement consacré à la question du genre et des montagnes. De quoi ainsi acter s'il en était encore besoin, que les rapports entre Hommes et Montagnes se conjuguent tant au masculin qu'au féminin, quand bien même les écrits scientifiques aient jusqu'alors plutôt consacré les montagnes au prisme de récits, de représentations ou de pratiques masculines. Mais ne nous trompons pas, il ne s'agit pas là de plaider un quelconque " r