MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.
As they made their way up Angel’s Landing, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation.
When she caught up at the top of the mountain, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself. They broke up shortly after that trip. (MJ asked to be referred to by her initials for the sake of speaking openly about a past relationship.)
Last month, MJ opened TikTok and heard the phrase “alpine divorce”, a label she now attaches to her experience in Zion.
We’ve been going back and forth discussing this issue for a while now. I’m at the point in the conversation where I’m kinda fucking with you because I don’t respect your opinion and we’re on the internet.
None of this is helping anyone. It’s just a bunch of men crying about women telling these abuse stories and blaming women for picking shitty men. So yeah, I don’t really care.
Yeah, I know you’re just being shitty because you think I’m trying to blame the women here. I’m just ignoring it because it looked like you may make a good point at some point. Well, you never did.
I suspected you misunderstood my comments and are treating this as simple ‘man vs woman’ thing. This is an actual knee-jerk reaction. Woman and complaining, man disagrees with something and the instinctive response is to say he attacks woman.
I never said woman are at fault here. I’m saying those stories are being purposefully exaggerated to create a sense of danger and abuse by painting woman as weak and in need of protection and that it’s sexist. I see that you disagree and that’s fine. And you’re right, this conversation is not going anywhere so we can end it here.
You already admitted that I was correct about the situations where the men are the more experienced hiker of the two people and that they have a duty of care for their less experienced partner. So ok.
But you didn’t even read the article to know this for sure, you just assumed.
Yes, I always, from the very first comment, said that there are some safety rules in the mountains. Admitting it had nothing to do with any arguments you made. It also has nothing to do with gender. Experience is important. Gender is not. Equating experience with gender, the very thing everyone, including you, seem to be doing is sexist.
I assumed this based on the first story posted here. The other stories in the article did not disprove my point. I don’t know why you insisted so much that reading the article is important. I expected some actual good arguments there but found none. The paragraph about experience and supplies was just an offhand comment. All stories in the article were exaggerated and painted woman as weak and helpless.
Yeah, let’s go ahead and end this because you’re being willfully ignorant to a lot of the world’s truths here. I am fully not interested in hearing your opinions any more.