A few nights ago I was walking home alone after getting dinner with some friends I had met a few weeks ago when I got lost. I wasn't worried, I was in a populated area and I had my trusty tazer in my pocket, just in case. A man yelled out to me from a car window and I kept walking. Shortly afterward the same car seemed to have turned around and pulled up on the curb in front of me. The man leaned out the window, and started to say something and I decided to book it. I ran away, never in my life have I run away from someone, until that night. Even in a nice neighborhood, even with people around, I felt the need to run away.
I have been traveling now for two months, I have been all over two countries and have met upwards of 200 people. I have conversed with individuals from all over the world in two languages and I like to believe I have gained a bit of a global perspective. For a girl from Long Island New York, one could say I have come a long way. I have seven months of traveling left on my itinerary and many countries. So far, I have experienced many thought provoking and enlightening moments, as well as many terrifying ones.
I am not traveling alone, but I have learned very quickly and harshly that if I am alone not to tell anyone that I am. "My friend is in the bathroom" "oh my boyfriend is waiting for me" "no she just wasn't feeing well but she's waitinng for me at the hostel". Things that you learn at a young age as a girl growing up anywhere become hyper alert and most female travelers follow the same set of rules.
Never go out drinking alone
Never stay out past 10 if you need to walk home alone.
Act like you know where your going
Check behind you
Don't walk with headphones in
Cary something to protect yourself with
Wear shoes you can run away in
Never get cornered
Don't accept a drink from a stranger
If you order a drink watch the bartender make it above the bar.
Simple rules right? Rules that every woman knows, rules that I believe may make female solo travelers all the better at traveling. These things do not hold us back, they make us better. Better at getting out of bad situations. Better at knowing who to trust. Sure it isn't fair that even as a 13 year old my parents would drill these things into my head. It isn't fair that men aren't simply told how they should not behave and we are told how to not to get murdered or raped. Yet, that is where the world is right now. These things do not hold us back, they make us well equipped.
Many male travelers have told me stories of getting robbed or beaten up and they always start with "I was walking home alone at midnight, sort of drunk" and my reaction is always "well, why were you doing that?"
As a woman I am always a bit more aware of how things could go bad, I always have an escape plan, especially when I'm in a foreign place for the first time.
When you travel as a woman you become a target in many ways, but you also become a warrior. You become strong and fearless. You learn how to be ready for anything and how to protect yourself. You learn how to depend on yourself and how to respect and love yourself. There is no one else to distract you from you, and you are forced to see who you really are; and accept it. You learn quickly how to make decisions that may very well alter something major on your path. You get to be the protagonist, no one can make you into some side character in a mans story. You are the narrator. When you travel as a woman you will be afraid, and you will probably at moments be in danger, but you will be powerful. You will be in charge, you will the captain of the ship. You will look fear in the face and laugh at it, for it will never control you. You can be the rolling stone! You will be the song writer and no man will leave you behind.
Traveling as a woman will probably change who you are, you will get to see how your very existence as a traveler is a product of feminism but you will also be forced to see how much further we have to go as a world. You are well equipped, your are strong, you have learned how to be fierce. You are a woman! And if you let the fear of "what if" stop you, you don't deserve to know the magic of the unknown.
No comments:
Post a Comment