Alternative female travelers or, It’s not all about clothes, guys!
The author in Guatemala (photo Colleen Wilde)
As the possessor of two X chromosomes, this means that I am considered by pretty much everybody, myself included, to be a woman. I menstruate, I have a high-pitched voice (as much as I try to convince myself it sounds all nice and low like Marlena Dietrich), and I tend to wear bikinis to the beach. There are lots of different kinds of women: ones who like hiking and ones who don’t, ones who camp with only a groundsheet and ones who have the latest in high-tech bicycling gear, ones who cook dinner every night and ones who have kids and ones who study math at Stanford. Some women are all of these things; some women are none of them. Some women weren’t even born with two X chromosomes! We’re diverse, exciting creatures, us girls.
So why does it sometimes seem hard to find information about and for female travelers that doesn’t seem to focus on clothes, bonding, or motherhood (or being sexually attacked or assaulted)? And why do our reading lists always seem to include Twilight and The Notebook?
I may be a girl, but I like lots of different things, and I couldn’t care less about the newest list of wash ‘n’ wear wrinkle-free travel togs. I’m not interested in going on a trip with a bunch of other women so we can presumably do what women do best: support each other, cry, and talk about our feelings (and our periods). One women-oriented tour company offers, as a reason for why women-only groups might be preferred, “We can look at the wildflowers as long as we want”. And don’t even get me started on the heterosexism running rampant through most of the advertising (“Even if you love him, it’s nice to get away sometimes…”).
Do packing lists designed specifically for MALE travelers include entries for curling irons, 8 shoe options, and toilet seat covers? I didn’t think so. Why create arbitrary boundaries between men and women? Men aren’t from Mars or women from Venus; we’re from the same planet, and not as different as pop culture tries to make us out to be: that way lies deliberate separation. And what is separate is different, and what is different is scary. Anything that promotes half of the planet thinking the other half isn’t even the same species, has me worried.
I like finding sites like the Women’s Travel Portal, which doesn’t assume that a) any women traveling are traveling in groups of other women, and b) women travelers NOT traveling in groups will be staying in hotels, looking for the best Tahitian manicure location, or terrified to walk the streets at night.
And I also watch videos like this, a fascinating look at what women in India’s workplace have to go through on public trains, and feel I can successfully point out to “girl marketers”: if you think all we’re interested in is makeup, clothes, or children, you don’t know who we are.
April 20th, 2010 at 7:28 am
I totally agree with !!!!! So very a life lesson, I consider myself a fan of all your work 🙂
St Leonards
April 20th, 2010 at 7:54 am
Right on, Claire – just say no to labels and boxes and ridiculous assumptions. I hope to see more of your blogging here!
April 20th, 2010 at 8:23 am
So of the girly stuff doesn’t apply to you, most all the travel stuff should be sufficient. Why are you complaining?
April 20th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Great post! We still live in a society that loves to stereotype people. Be who are you and don’t look back. Travel the way you want to travel, whether it be solo or within groups. If you want the latest in travel fashions, go to those websites. If not, ignore them and plan your next trip.
April 20th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
If travel websites and blogs cover these topics, it is probably because these are the topics most women want covered. As such, any standard travel website will assist you in your planning. As the proud owner of the Y chomosome, I am subjected to the standard male oriented coverage of strip clubs, brothels, and percentage of single women is a given locale. I’m not offened by these posts (though I am not a sex tourist either socially or commercially), and I do not bemoan the fact that men are somehow stereotyped by these websites. Furthermore, since these posts and articles keep coming, someone is reading them and happy with the subject matter. The ‘Net is a wide open place. If you don’t like the tenor of these sites, start your own and let the readers decide who wins this battle of ideas.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Thanks for this post. As both a woman and a lesbian, I am often confronting both gender and identity oriented issues. I am a fisherman (even just the word…ugh) and find myself regularly “in a man’s world” when I am out on the lake or in the boat….and there is certainly no place for GLBT folks in the fishing community. I joke with my dad (my fishing partner) about this, but most parks (whether state, local, or national) have absolutely disgusting bathroom facilities for women because they don’t eve get cleaned and such because the staff assumes that they aren’t getting used! I have watched probably a dozen grounds/facilities workers clean a men’s room (or the port-a-potty company) and completely move on past the womens…and when I’ve asked about it, one of the workers said “our orders are to clean the men’s room every other day, clean the women’s every other week”. Yeah, that is exactly where I want to hang out when it is 90 degrees!
But, yes, I agree….travel is difficult because you aren’t finding what you are looking for. The above comments about “find it somewhere else”…well, it doesn’t exist in a lot of senses. Whether it be based on your gender, your sexual orientation, your size (I happen to be a very tall woman as well), or the fact that you aren’t concerned about being attacked and needing wrinkle free mauve blouses for the wild….yeah, it doesn’t exist.
Keep the posts coming!
mickey
@mickeyfitch
April 21st, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Great post and refreshing to hear someone say this. I automatically switch off when I see a site aimed at women travellers – they are just never relevant or interesting to me.
April 25th, 2010 at 9:08 am
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