Women on road trips aren't tragedies waiting to happen. Like men, we're free

[niyad]

Women on road trips aren't tragedies waiting to happen. Like men, we're free

We don’t hear enough about women doing epic, exhilarating things without the comfortably defining presence of a man


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“Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me. Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me... what a long, strange trip it’s been.” Photograph: Alamy

I helped a newly engaged friend move her belongings last month from New York to San Francisco, where she was relocating to live with her fiance. We departed the city on a Friday morning in her yellow Fiat, made quick stop in Philadelphia, and then set out on a route that took us through South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and finally California. A plot synopsis of our trip would read: two successful women, one large dog, one tiny car. No schedule. And a lot of Tay Tay. Over the next 10 days our Instagram feeds, full of fantastic pictures of us adventuring through the county, sent most of my friends into paroxysms of joy and envy in equal parts. It was the from which stuff iconic movies are made. Except they aren’t. Not about women, anyway. And I’m never more aware of this than when I’m on the road. And I have been on the road a lot, almost always by myself or with another woman.

. . . . .



I’m likely not telling you anything you don’t already know to some degree. Go West is both this country’s rallying cry and its promise. The promise of new life, of freedom, of the ability to start over, whomever you are, wherever you came from. The story of America is the story of being on the road. At least, if you’re a man.

The story of women on the road, when we do get it, is almost always one of fear or invisibility. Women traveling alone are habitually escaping from something or are stripped of any agency at all. When they do travel safely and/or happily, it’s because they are accessories to heroic men whose journeys they are aiding - as if they are shiny hubcaps, or rattling engine parts, along either to make our hero look better, or to be shed in a bid for even more freedom.

. . . . .








This may be changing. Slowly. As more women venture out alone, the lament over lack of female road narratives grows louder. In recent years there have been a few female adventure stories that have really hit pay dirt, suggesting, as with so many women-centric plots, that the problem is not that the audience does not exist, nor that the story does not resonate. It’s just that we’re not telling them enough. Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love are the best, most recent examples, and I devoured them both. Reaching farther back, I find Beryl Markham, the British-African racehorse trainer, safari pilot and the first woman to fly her plane east to west over the Atlantic, who wrote the incredible memoir West With the Night and is currently being revisited in the form of a best-selling novel.

. . .

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/06/women-road-trips-freedom-narratives

[zazen]

1. I appreciate this, but had an acquaintance on such road trip who was abducted and never found

and another good friend who tried a trip to Italy alone and had to leave after three days because of the endless sexual harassment.

One point I never see brought up in Peak Oil/lose-the-automobile circles is how much having individual transportation has helped women/girls escape batterers and avoid street sexual harassment and violence, and how the demise of the car may hurt that.

"Cycle!" "Walk!" Seems to be written by guys who haven't had the experience my daughters have or I had.

Sorry to be so cynical--I just think it's important to acknowledge that those of us who fear this have a rational basis for it too.

[niyad]

2. I am so sorry for what happened to your friends. the point of the article, though, was that

this is not the sole reality.

I spent many years on the road, and never had the slightest difficulty. was I fortunate? hell, yes.

speaking of the bicycle, will repost an article that talks about how the bicycle was actually a liberator of women in the early days.

[zazen]

3. okay--I've always got plenty to learn, so thanks! n/t

[TexasProgresive]

4. That's a good read

When you post the article on how the bicycle was is a liberator of women could you cross post it in the bicycle group, please?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1207
I put the link because I didn't know it existed until a few months ago.

[niyad]

6. thank you for the link, I will certainly do that.

[shrike]

5. There was a woman murdered in Boston about thirty years ago. She was on a solo road trip

And had stopped at a nice hotel in the city. She was quite thrifty and had brought along her own soda. She called down to the front desk for a refrigerator. (This was during an era when refrigerators were uncommon in individual rooms.) When the fridge was indeed brought up the employee found her body. They think someone overheard the hotel desk talking about it and the room number was mentioned. The perp seized the opportunity and was able to gain access to her room by pretending to be an employee. She was also raped and robbed as well as murdered. Don't know if the perp was ever caught.

I'm all for women going on road trips as long as they're smart about it. A little commonsense goes a long way. Though that poor woman in Boston; what happened to her was so not her doing; no amount of smarts would have prevented it.

[nashville_brook]

7. i drove across the country with my dog when i turned 40 and divorced my husband

no regrets. wasn't abducted. slept in my car the whole way.

take that patriarchy.

[nashville_brook]

8. and oh yeah...had a DU sticker on my car :)

forgot about that.

[niyad]

9. horrrrayyyyy for you!!!!

[alarimer]

10. This is important.

Too often, women are shamed from doing things they want to do because of fear.

And right on cue, we have two people in this thread, saying that very thing. Two examples, out of how many? Thousands? Just guessing that the vast majority do not get raped and murdered on road trips. It is unfortunate that some do, but you actually have more to fear from people you know rather than strangers. Most women are actually murdered by their husbands/boyfriends/exes than they are by strangers.

Road trips are good. Sometimes they scary. Often they are boring as hell. (Well, the driving part is).

And she had a point about the road trip in pop culture. Often, women on the road are running away from something (usually something awful, but not always).

[niyad]

11. thank you.

[Solly Mack]

12. I love road trips.

The freedom, and it is freedom, is exhilarating. One trip, going from Georgia to Colorado, was downright epic. I remember it fondly all these years later.

[niyad]

13. I have always loved road trips, have had some truly amazing ones.

[Solly Mack]

14. I can remember when reaching that magical age to drive defined freedom.

It still does. It was a rite of passage. It still is.

[niyad]

15. yes, it certainly is.