Two women who were out of control

Freda began climbing in New Zealand in 1909 and had scaled 15 unclimbed peaks by 1913. She was at the time said to be Australia’s most capable climber (male or female). There isn’t the “thin-air” problem climbers in the Himalayas or the Andes experience, but the weather is as dangerous in the mountains of New Zealand, as it is anywhere, and a toehold over a drop of 50 metres is as dangerous as a toehold over a drop of 1,000 metres.

There is a huge psychological difference between climbing a peak which many have climbed before, and being the first. Edmund Hillary was the toast of the world in 1953. More than 3,000 have since scaled the summit of Everest - because we all now know that it can be done. Is not knowing, but still doing, a measure of courage - or a measure of recklessness? By criticising those who dare, we, the insecure and the comfortable, are attempting to hide our own fearfulness.

Regardless of the fact that Freda may have been a manic depressive, driving every mountaineer is a highly unusual perspective on what it means to be alive. When her lesbian lover died, a lonely Freda must have said to herself: “As I no longer feel fully alive - then I will not remain alive.” She died by her own hand at the age of 53.

If Germaine Greer believed that, until recent times, it was difficult being a woman - then it was doubly difficult being a lesbian. That condemnation of lesbians was driven more by the women of the establishment than by the men. Greer claimed that men were inhibiting women from being true to themselves - but she seems to be confused as to who was inhibiting whom.

I would rank Freda up there with lone sailor Kay Cottee who has been showered with accolades. So, why did Freda lay in an unmarked grave for 70 years before a history researcher discovered it in 2005? Where were her family? Were lesbians who committed suicide that shameful in the 1930s that even near-superhuman achievements were ignored by people frightened by shadows and who would become exhausted climbing 20 stairs?

As Marie and Freda climbed with men, would this not mean that the men where just as outstanding? I feel not. The men did not have to draw on an extra strength to overcome the entrenched mental conditioning in women at the time - that alpine climbing was both emotionally and physically beyond women. The male climbers were well-read in the exploits of countless male adventurers throughout history. They did what they thought self-reliant and brave men do.

But, there were almost no known models of women voluntarily performing physical feats which demanded the maximum mental stamina humans are capable of. This makes what Marie and Freda did in their day truly astonishing. As they set off to become absorbed body and soul in the incomparable magic of jagged ice-encrusted mountains, they were labeled by most of their gender as freaks. But, the “freaks” were really being condemned by an insecure and spiritually hobbled establishment for being out of control.

Germaine - now you need to write a book about women who are not under the control of anybody.