Jayanthi Kuru Utumpala became the first Sri Lankan to climb Mount Everest. In an article, she recounts the difficulties that she had to overcome in order to make it. Only three other countries (Poland, South Africa, and Croatia) have had women as the first summiteers.
On 21 May 2016, I became the first Sri Lankan to summit Mount Everest. It was a deeply personal journey and an overwhelming one. In fact, I almost didn’t make it. About a week earlier, I was sitting inside my tent at Camp 2 – at an altitude of 21,000 feet – discouraged and disappointed in myself. It was cold and windy. The temperature was minus 30 Celsius.
I had already failed to reach Camp 3, higher up the mountain, because of poor timing. I felt I had just one more chance, to prove myself. Failing again meant risking my journey to the top of the world and my childhood dream. As a feminist activist, I also didn’t want to prove right those who thought that, as a woman, I should never have attempted this challenge.
…I climbed Everest wearing an XS (extra small) men’s down suit, which was still too big for me. As for mountaineering boots: my feet are a UK size 4, but size 5 is the smallest on the market.
But I had to manage, as many of us do in a male-dominated world, where the playing field is seldom equal. And so I stuffed foam into my boots and went on.
…I have embraced my public platform as the ‘first Sri Lankan’ and the ‘first Sri Lankan woman’ to summit Everest. This has been a conscious choice and I am trying to complicate narratives and challenge gender stereotypes and myths about women and what they can and cannot do. In the end, climbing Mount Everest has become a political act as well.
In many ways, Sri Lanka has been a pioneer in women breaking through glass ceilings when it comes to politics, work, and education. But there is still a considerable way to go in changing attitudes towards acts that involve physicality. As Utumpala says, “After talking at a rural school in Sri Lanka’s north-western Kurunegala district, young school girls told me they were thrilled that I was the first Sri Lankan to summit Everest. They had been taught by their (male) sports teacher that “boys are always first, and girls are second.” I had proven him wrong.”
I think it is long past time to declare a moratorium on climbing Everest.
Shut it down until all the corpses are collected and all the other garbage is removed.
Successfully climbing Everest means you have money, time and luck. Nothing more.
chigau @1: There are profits to be made from people with more money than sense. Who’s going to declare the moratorium?
A Canadian woman who didn’t prove anything except how easy it is to die on a mountain.
There’s a lot of wanting to discount a woman’s achievement in the comments.
No there’s not.
This particular story has two elements that are not mutually contradictory.
One is of course the fact that climbing Everest has got so popular that many people are dying because they are not adequately prepared for the trek. The main routes to the summit are apparently now a mess, littered with dead bodies and debris. While I personally cannot see the appeal of putting oneself through such an ordeal, I have friends who are mountain climbers and they clearly enjoy the challenge.
But I wanted to focus on the other aspect, and that is the biases that this woman had to overcome in order to achieve her goal, irrespective of whether the goal was worthwhile in itself.
Mano @6: Fair enough.