In the ’90s and early 2000s, the outdoor industry largely ignored women. When it came to designing apparel and gear for women’s bodies, the standard refrain was “shrink it and pink it.” Brands just tweaked men’s products, instead of developing gear specifically with women in mind.
Thankfully, that’s changed. It’s now standard practice for climbing brands to make women’s harnesses specially designed to fit their hips, which tend to be wider than men’s. Some backpacking brands have designed packs to be comfortable to wear around boobs. And apparel designers are far more likely these days to make apparel in extended sizes.
Annually, women spend an average of $344 on outdoor gear and apparel, and the women’s outdoor apparel market reached a value of $21.1 billion in 2025. Outdoor companies have taken notice and realized there is money to be made.
As a result, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. Brands take any and every opportunity to market to women, but sometimes it crosses over into outright pandering. Couching a product in feminist language as a marketing strategy has become standard practice. And there’s no better example of how much companies have lost the plot than products that deal with a fundamental biological function: peeing.
The Products
Outdoorsy women face one fundamental truth: peeing outside. We all have to do it, and it can be messy. Making products to make it easier is totally logical. I’ve been using a Kula Cloth, a microbial pee cloth, for years, and it’s become an absolutely indispensable part of my outdoor kit.
GearJunkie Hunt & Fish Editor Rachelle Schrute swears by the LoonaGo from Boom Essentials. It is a portable, reusable urinal for women. It’s handy for bad weather or other conditions when you wouldn’t want to leave your tent to go to the bathroom. Then there’s the SheWee, a two-piece portable urine funnel that promises to allow people to pee standing up while remaining clothed.
The trend continues with Gnara pants. These pants have a zipper on the crotch that fully extends from front to back. When you have to go to the bathroom, you just unzip, squat, and go, letting you avoid taking your pants all the way off. While I tried these pants and didn’t love the chafing the extra fabric produced, a GearJunkie reviewer was a big fan in their review, and the product has tons of five-star reviews.
These products can be useful, whether it’s for convenience’s sake or for medical reasons. The issue is not the products themselves — it’s the messaging around them.
The Marketing
To sell these products, companies focus on empowerment as a major selling point. Gnara markets their pants in a very specific way. On its website, it says it wants to create inclusive apparel that “makes everyone feel safe, comfortable, and confident to answer nature’s call and explore as they are.” It wants to “empower” women and encourage them to embrace their true nature while making the outdoors accessible.
On its website, SheWee says it offers “freedom, convenience, and dignity to women, trans men, and non-binary folk…. empowering people to avoid unhygienic facilities and giving them the confidence to take control of their personal needs.”
While a LoonaGo could certainly be useful in some situations, the brand makes far larger claims. It says it is an essential for festivals, concerts, commuting, travel, and the outdoors. A reel asks, “Ever been at a gate with a full bladder and no time to run to the bathroom? Yeah, same.”
Who is peeing in a portable urinal at an airport, and how would you even go to the bathroom at an airport gate without exposing yourself?
Boom Essentials says its products have a “stylish form [that] is complementary to the rest of your gear… LoonaGo’s latch & lock seal and carrying handle make it especially easy to stash in your car and use with confidence — no spills, no stress.” I don’t think anyone associates a urinal with needing to be “stylish.”
The common thread among these brands is messaging centered on confidence and empowerment. They are using feminist language, or acting as feminist allies, in an attempt to sell us things that we may or may not actually need.
And of course, there’s the fact that peeing won’t ever be empowering or stylish, no matter what product you use. For myself and I imagine many other folks, peeing is just a thing our body does. I just want to pee and move on with my life: I don’t see ridding my body of urine as an opportunity to build up my self-confidence, or as a way to assert my dignity. It’s a biological act that I only think about as it applies to hygiene.
When it comes to accessibility and belonging, peeing is not the thing preventing women from getting outside. Feeling unwelcome, the threat of harassment, a lack of community and resources, and financial obstacles are what actually keep women and other marginalized genders from exploring the outdoors, not having to pee in the woods.
So What?
Brands have always used vague notions of “empowerment” and “confidence” to market to women; it’s been going on in the beauty industry for decades. The fact that it’s reached peeing outside is a sign of just how widespread this capitalist co-optation of feminism has become. Everything — even the basic, universal act of peeing — can be warped and twisted to sell women products.
While some women do really love these products (and that’s great), they are niche fixes to larger issues with outdoor gear. Instead of acting as feminist crusaders for making feminine hygiene products, brands should focus on cracking the code on essentials like women’s pants.
I am a mid-sized woman, and I still struggle to find good-quality hiking pants that deliver on comfort, fit, and durability. Many brands still don’t offer sizes beyond the standard XS to XL range. Not having good outdoor apparel that lasts and fits well poses a far higher barrier to entry into the outdoors than peeing.
Sometimes a product is really useful, and sometimes it isn’t. But products like these are never “feminist breakthroughs.” Actually empowering women in the outdoors looks like community engagement, volunteering, mentoring, education, and providing support. When brands do that kind of activist work, then they can claim they are feminist allies.
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