Patriarchy doesn’t need fists. Sometimes a pace is enough.
I remember a hike that stuck in my mind because it made something visible that usually stays well hidden.
A friend of my parents was there. In my perception: distinctly “woman-friendly”. Tall, strong, but rather reserved. Careful in his tone. One of those where you think: He’s understood respect.
And then he suddenly sped up. Not a little. But in a way that created distance. That stretched the group. That turned “together” into “behind”.
He did wait at some point. But not like people wait who take responsibility for one another. More in a way that made the waiting itself into a message: I could. You can’t. And in the remarks there was this old, seemingly harmless narrative: Women just aren’t that fit.
That irritated me back then. Not because it was spectacular. But because it seemed so normal. And because it didn’t fit his image.
Now a friend and I talked about it. And she said: I know this pattern. From her family of origin. Her father often dominated and humiliated her mother on hikes by setting a pace she couldn’t keep. A pace that turned a shared activity into a power demonstration device.
And with that it was clear: This is not a “one-time slip”. This is a pattern.
Why social media suddenly has a name for it
The term “Alpine Divorce” is currently circulating online. In many stories it describes situations in which women are left behind outdoors: in the mountains, in the forest, sometimes without orientation, without reception, without water – sometimes in such a way that it could look like an “accident”. Some call it a euphemism: “Divorce in the Alps” sounds like a relationship crisis, but in the extreme it means dangerous abandonment, in individual cases possibly something that is relevant under criminal law.
The term is drastic, and meme dynamics online are not always clean. But it serves an important function: It forces us to see a continuum.
Because the tip of this continuum rarely arises out of nowhere.
The continuum: From micro-dominance to endangerment
If you talk about “Alpine Divorce” only as an extreme, you quickly end up in a convenient narrative: Those are just monsters, isolated cases, abysses. That’s reassuring. And it’s often wrong.
Much more relevant is what comes before. The banal. The everyday. That which disguises itself as “sport”, “nature”, “performance”, “that’s just how I am”.
You can understand it as a progression:
1. Pace as norm-setting
Someone sets pace and direction without negotiating them. He walks ahead. Distance arises. The other person is not treated as an equal fellow traveler, but as someone trailing behind.
2. Pace as judgment
The walking ahead is accompanied by comments, jokes, impatience, subtle devaluations (“Don’t make such a fuss”, “Come on now”, “You’re always so slow”). A fact (different fitness levels) becomes a hierarchy (you are the problem).
3. Pace as control
It becomes a test situation: “I wanted to see if you can do it.” “Just testing how you perform.” This is no longer shared leisure time, this is a power game with a performance benchmark.
4. Pace as endangerment
Safety logic is ignored or deliberately not established: no agreements, no check-ins, no shared risk management, no redundancy. In the extreme: leaving someone behind in a dangerous environment.
The point is not that every fast person is “patriarchal”. The point is: Pace can be a carrier of power. And outdoors this carrier suddenly becomes dangerously effective.
Why outdoors of all places? Because that’s where power gets infrastructure.
In a city, walking ahead is rude. In the mountains, walking ahead can become existential.
Outdoors, pace means:
Distance → loss of contact → disorientation → dependence → fear.
That’s the chain. And whoever controls it controls the situation.
There is also a cultural amplifier: Outdoors is a stage for performing competence. Navigating, planning, “knowing the way”, owning equipment, assessing risks. In many heterosexual relationship dynamics (and in socialization) this responsibility has historically often been coded as male. It can be lived as caring. Or as domination.
Those who want to lead bear responsibility. Those who want to dominate create dependence.
And that is the core: Patriarchy does not live only from violence. It lives from dependence. From “plausible deniability”. From situations in which control looks like competence.
The feminist paradox: Self-images don’t protect
My irritation on this hike also came from the fact that it didn’t fit the man I thought I knew. He was “mindful”. “Woman-friendly”. “Reflective”.
But that is precisely one of the most uncomfortable truths about patriarchal patterns: They are not a party affiliation. They are a logic that kicks in in contexts where it is rewarded.
Performance, body, nature, risk, leadership – these are contexts in which classic masculinity programs run particularly easily. Even in people who are very respectful in other areas. You could call it “moral credit”: Those who experience themselves as “good” in one field notice less in another field when they are currently exercising power at others’ expense.
Patriarchy is not a man walking ahead.
Patriarchy is his pace being declared the norm – and your body the problem.
The social cause beneath it: a specific understanding of masculinity
Why does this pattern show up so reliably? Because it serves a deeply ingrained narrative:
Masculinity = control + performance + invulnerability.
Practically, that means:
• Control: I determine plan, direction, speed.
• Performance: I prove worth through pace, toughness, “pushing through”.
• Invulnerability: Feelings (fear, insecurity, exhaustion) are seen as weakness – in me and in you.
When this logic is active, a partner is not perceived as an equal person with her own body, but as a variable in one’s own performance script. As “accessory” that is supposed to function. And if it gets in the way, it is punished: through impatience, through mockery, through leaving behind, through “You’re ruining my trip”.
That is objectifying, even if no one would call it that. It reduces people to usefulness in an ego project.
And that is precisely why this topic is social: It is not a hiking problem. It is a model of relationship.
How can you tell: carelessness or control?
Many people are faster. Many underestimate how big fitness differences are. Not everything is abuse. But there are clear markers that show the difference.
1. Is it negotiated or dictated?
Together: “What is doable for you? What breaks? Which route?”
Dominance: “We’re doing it this way”, without a real possibility to object.
2. Is safety actively established?
Together: Agreements, meeting points, check-ins, maps/water/battery, plan B.
Dominance: “It’ll be fine”, or safety measures only as a favor.
3. How are boundaries responded to?
Together: Boundaries are taken as information.
Dominance: Boundaries are treated as disruption (“too slow”, “too annoying”, “too exhausting”).
4. Who bears the costs?
Together: Risk, effort and adjustment are shared.
Dominance: The slower person bears shame, fear and endangerment – the other keeps his pace.
5. Are there role changes?
Together: sometimes one leads, sometimes the other; sometimes the other navigates; decisions rotate.
Dominance: Leadership is property.
If several of these markers come together, it’s not a “bad hiking day”. Then it’s a relationship signal.
Why this goes viral: because everyone knows the pattern – just under other names
What “pace dominance” makes visible outside often happens more quietly inside:
• In conversation: someone sets the pace, interrupts, decides when a topic is “done”.
• In planning: someone determines travel, finances, daily schedule – “because he can just do it better”.
• In conflicts: someone withdraws (“I’m leaving now”), and the leaving is the punishment.
• In relationships: someone makes affection dependent on whether you “function”.
It’s the same logic: norm-setting + judgment + control + plausible innocence (“That’s just how I am”).
Outside it’s just clearer. Because you see the distance. And because you feel the risk.
What follows from this (without pathos, but with consequences)
1. For couples and friendships: make pace negotiable
Not romantically, but concretely: pace, breaks, route, check-ins. Agree beforehand that “together” is more important than “pushing through”. That sounds banal, but it is a cultural decision.
2. For men (and everyone who feels comfortable in leadership competence): examine your motives
Do you lead in order to bear responsibility – or to feel superiority?
And even simpler: If someone behind you is afraid, you are not “strong”. You are dangerous.
3. For those affected: take the early discomfort seriously
Many only recognize the pattern in retrospect because it doesn’t seem “bad enough”. But that is exactly where patriarchy works: in talking you into believing you’re exaggerating. If someone belittles you outside, it’s not a fitness issue. It’s a respect issue. And respect is not negotiable.
And if you find yourself in situations where abandonment, threats or targeted isolation occur: That is not “drama”. That is potentially violence. In acute danger, the rule is always: local emergency numbers.
Conclusion: “Walking together” is not a metaphor. It is a test.
Maybe this is the sentence I would have liked to tell myself earlier:
The most dangerous form of power is the one that looks like sport.
Because sport can be anything: joy, freedom, shared flow. Or a stage on which an old program runs: “My pace is the norm. Your body is the problem.”
“Alpine Divorce” is the extreme tip of a logic. But the logic often begins with something everyone has already seen: walking ahead. Waiting. Smiling. And a sentence that sounds harmless and yet reveals everything:
“Come on now.”
If this sentence is not care but domination, then it is never just about hiking. Then it is about patriarchy in its most everyday form: as a small action that produces dependence – and still feels innocent.
