When I tell climbing friends that this is a feminist book, they tell me: ‘But you’re obsessed with feminism!’ on the glass ceiling (Penguin Books). Segarra, the first Spanish woman to climb Mount Everest, in 1996, and her climbing partner in this adventure reflect on how to break down the obstacles that stand in the way of moving towards equality.
“Marta and I are neighbors in La Cerdanya, we often share car journeys and talk about female leadership, about the impostor and queen bee syndromes… Talking about all this, the idea for the book came about”, he explains Mower As they write in the prologue, they are aware that the bibliography on this subject is abundant.
Expedition to the glass ceiling is organized like climbing a mountain. Each chapter is a camp where issues such as fear management, bullying, positive discrimination or motherhood are addressed. Segarra recalls how he has experienced different projects and expeditions in which he has been enrolled and Duran also refers to historical figures, to women who have marked changes, and to studies that support the flagrant inequality that persists in the 21st century. In the chapter Porta’m un cafè , maca, he unleashes a long battery of comments in work contexts that border on aggression, but that if the recipient criticizes them they will say “exaggerated”.
Segarra uses the humiliations he suffered on an expedition to Broad Peak, in Pakistan, when he was 21 years old and did not understand what was happening, to talk about the profile of “emotional bullies”, difficult to identify due to their manipulative skills. There was no summit, the conditions were harsh, food was scarce and Araceli was the object of unpleasant recriminations in the face of the passivity of her male colleagues.
The alpinist and lecturer resorts to another foray into the Himalayas to introduce gender equality. On the trips to bring the material up to the high-altitude camps, she carried the same load as the men in her rucksack. He considers that considering that he weighed 17% less than them, it took much more effort to drag the ropes, the food… “That’s when I brought up the issue of equity, the weight has to distribute based on what each person weighs and their proportions; in this case it would have been more equitable if I had carried 17% less load”. His argument was “miraculously” understood at dinner time. They were all hungry and the groceries were not plentiful. Then Araceli demanded to eat the same amount as them.
In the final stretch of the book, he addresses what he calls the Everest Index to quantify the ability of women to climb and reach the top of a large mountain compared to men. It indicates that in 2022 a total of 63 female mountaineers crowned the roof of the world while the male summits rose to 559. “Not having the same salaries means less economic independence to be able to climb mountains, to have big projects; if we have a family, children, husband, it’s not a good idea to leave them to fulfill our dreams”, she regrets.
The day Segarra set foot on the highest point of Everest did not coincide with any other woman. The obstacle course he had to overcome to reach base camp was perhaps more difficult and complicated than climbing it.
