The Summit Wears a Pollera
Somewhere above the clouds in Bolivia, a bright pleated skirt is snapping in the wind — and the woman wearing it is halfway up a wall of ice.
#CholitasEscaladoras #WomenOfTheMountains #PolleraPower #AymaraPride #AndeanCulture #MountainAndTradition
Today, all over the world, there are women taking action against a patriarchal, machista system. Discrimination, most of the time, does not come from gender alone, but also from social class, skin colour and the many identities a woman carries. And I think that if we all do the exercise of imagining the fight to reclaim the role of women in predominantly male spaces, we picture protests, marches, uproar on social media, demands in the workplace. Which — and let's be clear — are also very valid and very forceful tools. But there are struggles that seem silent and yet carry the same power, the same drive to show the world that women can be there too. That they conquer those spaces too. And in the specific case of this article: women also conquer mountain summits, and they do it wearing a big, colourful skirt: a pollera.
I'm talking about the Cholitas Escaladoras of Bolivia. Cholitas are women who belong to the Indigenous Aymara community and who wear the traditional garments of their people. A group of eleven cholitas came together in 2015 with the goal of climbing mountains, though for some of them the idea had been there since they were girls. These women, who initially worked as cooks and support staff for mountaineers and guides around Huayna Potosí in Bolivia, slowly cooked up their own love for the mountain, feeding their curiosity about what it would be like to conquer those peaks themselves. They carried plenty of social prejudice with them, and it often turned explicit the moment they voiced their interest: that women did not belong up there, that this was for men, that they shouldn't even dream of it. But they not only made it — they went further, and today they are a model and an example for young women, and not-so-young women, who want to explore this path.
So far the story is inspiring enough, but there is something particular in the way the Cholitas have climbed the highest mountains in South America: they have done it wearing their traditional clothing, that is, their colorful pollera. The pollera is one of the most distinctive elements of the cholita wardrobe: striking colours, a voluminous structure, layers and special embroidery. Its origin goes back to the time of Spanish colonisation, since it was the dress the Spanish imposed on Indigenous women. And yet, precisely because of that, Bolivian women have done extraordinary work in preserving this piece of their culture, passing it down from generation to generation. Even today, Indigenous Bolivian women are recognised for wearing polleras as a symbol of the value of their culture, and no longer of repression and control.
I think the first "prejudice" — and it was one of the first thoughts that crossed my own mind when I found out about the Cholitas Escaladoras — is this: why take on an activity that demands so much of you physically while wearing big skirts? There are plenty of brands on the market now devoted to making specialised garments for every kind of sport, mountaineering included. That clothing is designed for temperature, for movement, for the friction of difficult surfaces. So why make it harder? And while the decision might look like it comes from a place that could be mistaken for "not knowing better", the reality is that it comes from exactly the opposite place. The Cholitas know all of these conditions; they grew up with them, and they still choose, consciously, to climb in their polleras. In the videos you can see how nimbly they handle the gear a climb requires, harnesses included, even with the challenge of doing it in such a voluminous garment. They climb ice walls in them. And they do it because they want to represent their culture and their traditions, to carry them high. And, ultimately, they also wear their polleras because they want to bring their mothers and their grandmothers with them — to show that even though those women most likely could not chase their own dreams, they themselves can reach the summit in the very same clothes their mothers and grandmothers wore.
If this story left you wanting more, you don't have to climb a mountain to get closer to this world. Every year, festivals like the Trento Film Festival in Italy and the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour bring stories like the Cholitas Escaladoras' into European cinemas: a real bridge between the Andes and the Alps, between Bolivia and Milan. Keep an eye out for their upcoming dates, and if you haven't yet, watch the documentary Cholitas (2019).
— By Lorena Gomez
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