Women Outside, Fall 1998

A Note from the Editors ofWomen Outside

First, a promise. You’ll never see a story in this magazine about hair care. No “Tighter Tush in 10 Days” or “50 Ways to Transform Your Wardrobe with Scarves,” no “Life after Phen-Phen: What to Take Next” or “Demi’s Painful Road to Happiness.” We suspect that you already know more than you care to about these subjects, and if you don’t, there are others better equipped to enlighten you.

Our expertise lies in stories like the ones that appear in this first issue of Women Outside: tales about Hawaiian surfer girls and wild wolves in Yellowstone and a roadtrip across the Australian outback. In other words, stories that are about something other than self-improvement, or men, or the latest celebrity meltdown.

With Women Outside, we hope to continue the tradition started 21 years ago when Outside first hit the stands, bringing people in closer touch with the world that begins just beyond the pavement. We borrow from Outside the assumption that our readers are interested in a wide range of topics, and that you love books and films and the Internet as much as you love to travel, ski, hike, paddle, and climb. More important, we assume that sports and adventure are givens in your lives. For that reason, you’ll see funky outdoor clothing and a lot of very cool gear in these pages, but you won’t see the words empowerment or self-esteem, or any reference to Title IX. We’re a couple of decades beyond that, and we figure you are, too.

Is this intended as a replacement for those of you who already read and enjoy Outside? Absolutely not. Is it a magazine that your boyfriends, husbands, and brothers will want to read? We certainly hope so. We like to think of Women Outside as simply more of a good thing--Outside with an estrogen chaser. It’s intended as a way to expand Outside’s scope, to speak more directly to a growing number of the magazine’s readers. (Like the cover says, you make up 51 percent of the world’s most active people. As if we didn’t already know.)

All of us on the Women Outside staff have years of experience (never mind how many) working at our flagship, and we’re committed to delivering the same brand of top-notch writing, reporting, and storytelling. If we don’t--or if, goddess forbid, we ever start to lose our appreciation of the absurd--we encourage you to cancel your subscription.

We hope this magazine moves and challenges and inspires you. We hope it cracks you up. Above all, we hope you’ll read it and say, “It’s about time.”

Susan Casey and Laura Hohnhold

Women Outside went on sale September 1, 1998.