Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And over the past few weeks on
Speaker 1: the podcast, we have been delving into the world of
Speaker 1: women in exploration and women adventurers who are going all
Speaker 1: around the world doing all sorts of incredible things. And
Speaker 1: to close out this series, partially because it's summer travel
Speaker 1: season and partially because it just seems like the right
Speaker 1: and natural thing to talk about, is the issue of
Speaker 1: women traveling alone, women's wanderlust, what it is like, whether
Speaker 1: you are a stem explorer or someone who wants to
Speaker 1: climb the highest mountain in the world or not. Just
Speaker 1: women leaving their homes to see something they have never
Speaker 1: seen and doing that alone. It's it's a super big
Speaker 1: deal to a lot of people for women to be
Speaker 1: traveling by themselves, whether we're talking about women today, uh,
Speaker 1: women in a golden age of expiration so like the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, or whether we're talking about women in fourth
Speaker 1: in the fourth century. Yeah. Susan Jacob at The New
Speaker 1: York Times writes about how women traveling alone has always
Speaker 1: been looked at a little suspiciously because there immediately all
Speaker 1: of these questions raised that essentially repeat over and over again, Well,
Speaker 1: why would a woman want to travel alone? What is
Speaker 1: wrong with her? And she mentions how in the fourth century,
Speaker 1: Christian pilgrims were the first quote unquote respectable women who
Speaker 1: traveled alone, and really, for a long time, religious pilgrimages
Speaker 1: and family emergencies were the only situations when it was
Speaker 1: socially appropriate for a woman to set off on her
Speaker 1: own and without any kind of chaperone or male companion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: God forbid a woman travels without some sort of male protection,
Speaker 1: because everybody's going to assume, whether we're talking about the
Speaker 1: fourth century or whether we're talking about today, people are
Speaker 1: going to make some crazy assumptions as far as like
Speaker 1: her sexuality goes. For instance, people are gonna think like
Speaker 1: she's a loose woman, that Uterus is floating about making
Speaker 1: her crazy, or she's just terribly lonely. She's either she's
Speaker 1: either hyper sexual and looking for anonymous sex, or she
Speaker 1: is just desperate and lost in the world, or maybe both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and Jacoby writes about these this, this trope of
Speaker 1: the solo woman traveler and talks about how even today
Speaker 1: we have these lingering, internalized stereotypes about what it means
Speaker 1: for a woman to travel unencumbered and unaided by a
Speaker 1: man or family entourage. And this is something that Sarah
Speaker 1: Heppola over at Salon echoed. She talks about how a
Speaker 1: woman traveling alone threatens tradition and propriety, and because women
Speaker 1: often doubt themselves, we tend to stay towards safe harbors
Speaker 1: and soft landings, hiding behind the needs and wants of others.
Speaker 1: And it was really in the mid nineteenth century, which
Speaker 1: is considered by some the golden Age of female travel,
Speaker 1: that more and more women, particularly well healed women, started
Speaker 1: to brave away from those safe harbors and soft landings.
Speaker 1: And it was partially due to advancements in transportation technology.
Speaker 1: You have steamships and railroads that made travel more feasible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this allows women to go forth to explore, to
Speaker 1: learn to see the unseen, and therefore gained some autonomy
Speaker 1: break some of those gender norms that status quo. And
Speaker 1: this is particularly true though, and we would be remiss
Speaker 1: to skip over this. It's particularly true for white middle
Speaker 1: class women. There's a lot of privilege at play when
Speaker 1: you talk about exploration particularly during this area of this era,
Speaker 1: because when you look at men, for instance, white upper
Speaker 1: class men traveling abroad, seeing the Empire, their heroes, their heroes,
Speaker 1: and the way they talk about the quote unquote natives
Speaker 1: is very patronizing. It's very like racist, very racist as well.
Speaker 1: But you know what a lot of women during that time,
Speaker 1: especially the upper class white women who were traveling the
Speaker 1: Empire as well. I mean, they weren't that far off either,
Speaker 1: and they by leaving the gender norms of the modern West,
Speaker 1: they were able to go into these you know, so
Speaker 1: called uncivilized societies and feel as though they were at
Speaker 1: the top of some power hierarchy. Yeah, it was interesting
Speaker 1: that if you read a lot of the travel women's
Speaker 1: travel writings at the time, a it is usually coming
Speaker 1: from women who could afford to travel, and so you
Speaker 1: have that element of privilege going on there, and then
Speaker 1: you have the element of white privilege going on. But
Speaker 1: you also have the subtext of them starting to question
Speaker 1: their female status, their gender role in the West because
Speaker 1: in these other places, due to these elements of privilege,
Speaker 1: they are higher on the hierarchy than they are at home.
Speaker 1: And this is something that Aziza Ahmed writing for the
Speaker 1: post Colonial Studies Department at Emory talks about saying that
Speaker 1: the East was seen and that's capital e east. The
Speaker 1: East was seen as a place for women to regain
Speaker 1: power through race, which was lost at home because of gender.
Speaker 1: And while that is that's not that's not necessarily something
Speaker 1: to celebrate because it's obviously like the indigenous people who
Speaker 1: are being thrown under the bus, uh for the sake
Speaker 1: of a woman finding herself a little bit more. But
Speaker 1: but it's it's an interesting snapshot of the time of
Speaker 1: how it's sort of the socio cultural element of travel
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteenth century when these women were going
Speaker 1: out in corsets and skirts and heavy clothes and hats
Speaker 1: and going into these what they would call uncivilized foreign lens. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Kristen, you mentioned so as they go to
Speaker 1: other lands and travel and see other things, and they
Speaker 1: they find themselves on top of this perceived hierarchy, and
Speaker 1: how that translated into the perception of how they were
Speaker 1: treated at home. I mean, if we talk about explorers
Speaker 1: the way we have defined it so far in this
Speaker 1: series explores being those people who have to go out
Speaker 1: and they have to find answers. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: as if women who did and wanted to research, It's
Speaker 1: not like they were welcomed into explorers groups. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, if you were a woman who
Speaker 1: had scientific or mathematical or anything leaning you you kind
Speaker 1: of did have to pick up and leave and go
Speaker 1: elsewhere to perform research. Yeah, this was a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of anthropological research happening under the guise of just
Speaker 1: being a wealthy woman traveling. And there were a lot
Speaker 1: of popular women travel writers at this time, which is
Speaker 1: which is a little surprising that they were so well received,
Speaker 1: but I guess it was because they were bringing back
Speaker 1: news of an unknown land. And so you have people
Speaker 1: like Isabella bird Lady, Mary Wortley Montague, and Mary Kingsley
Speaker 1: who wrote a lot and made their names in their
Speaker 1: travel writing, which again tended toward objectifying indigenous people and
Speaker 1: their quote unquote savage ways. And talking about these women's
Speaker 1: writing um a lot of the time, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that this applies specifically to the women Christen decided,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the times these women travel writers
Speaker 1: would sort of maybe embellish a little, maybe make the
Speaker 1: native people's seem more savage or uh, sort of outside
Speaker 1: the norm than they really were, and so these travel
Speaker 1: logs attracted a lot of attention, and uh Rachel Friedman
Speaker 1: over at Bitch cites Lady Helen Defriends eighteen sixty three
Speaker 1: satiric Listings from Low Latitudes, which basically makes fun of
Speaker 1: this trend of women travel writers and their travel logs.
Speaker 1: She writes about a trip made by the fictional Impulsia Gushington,
Speaker 1: who when I first was skimming over this article, I
Speaker 1: was like, there was a woman named Impulse. Okay, I
Speaker 1: get it. I did the same thing. It's like that's
Speaker 1: the worst name, but I get it. Um, But Impulse
Speaker 1: thea sort of stood in as a figure mocking the
Speaker 1: era's upper class female travelers in their wide eyed, sort
Speaker 1: of naive and shocked observations about the people that they
Speaker 1: encountered in foreign land. But it also served to sort of,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think it kind of served as
Speaker 1: a backlash to women having this freedom, Like how weird
Speaker 1: are you? You're writing all of this like trite stuff
Speaker 1: about traveling and how you're so special and how they're
Speaker 1: so shocking, and but the thing is, dufferin A is
Speaker 1: a woman writing this satire and b was inspired to
Speaker 1: write about Impulsia Gushington, which I don't know. I find
Speaker 1: out they're very funny, Dufferin, You're quite a whit, But
Speaker 1: it was she was inspired to write this after taking
Speaker 1: a trip down the Nile, which was a very postionateing
Speaker 1: to do at the time with her son, so she
Speaker 1: herself a travel writer. To me, it read as what
Speaker 1: today would be a satire on Eat, Pray, Love, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially saying, oh, here we have another white woman going
Speaker 1: into a foreign land to find herself. If only we
Speaker 1: could talk to Dufferin. Yeah, if we could get different
Speaker 1: on the podcast, that could clear some things up for us. Right.
Speaker 1: But there's another book that we found from eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: five called Women Adventurers, written by Meni Muriel Downey, in
Speaker 1: which she profiles I think it's five women travelers of
Speaker 1: the day, and she writes those in our book followed
Speaker 1: husbands and lovers for love, so they say how much
Speaker 1: more might be made of their stories if only they
Speaker 1: themselves were not the narrators. Basically, she was saying, it's
Speaker 1: just too bad that these women were not alone traveling,
Speaker 1: because if women are out alone traveling, then you know,
Speaker 1: they realized so much more instead of just following men.
Speaker 1: And that's still the refrain now. Yeah, I mean absolutely
Speaker 1: every You know, when you read uh, travel essays by
Speaker 1: young women on various websites, various travel magazines, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them do talk about these
Speaker 1: personal journeys of discovery, discovery of the themselves, discovery of
Speaker 1: new places, discovery perhaps of a future husband or temporary lover. Right,
Speaker 1: But I bet how rich the experience was for them
Speaker 1: to go on their own. Yeah, And for that reason,
Speaker 1: I would say that in the early twenty first century
Speaker 1: where we are today, that we might be in this
Speaker 1: golden er age of female travel and travel writing, because
Speaker 1: you have more women than ever before traveling alone. Uh
Speaker 1: And Friedman, for instance, reported in New York Magazine a
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen poll of travel agents which found that
Speaker 1: it's much more common for women to travel alone than men,
Speaker 1: and seventy of the agents they pulled noted that more
Speaker 1: female travelers embark on solo trips in their male counterparts,
Speaker 1: and the average age of a solo traveler is not
Speaker 1: the young woman fresh out of college, but a forty
Speaker 1: seven in year old female. Yeah. And usually, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: something has happened in her life that's pushed her out
Speaker 1: on this journey, whether it's just divorced or maybe the
Speaker 1: death of a loved one or parent. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I think those reasons, even if those are things specific
Speaker 1: to a certain age group, I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: those major life changes are what push a lot of
Speaker 1: people out into the world on a journey of discovery.
Speaker 1: And that reminds me of reading that Bitch article by
Speaker 1: Rachel Friedman in which she talks to a travel expert
Speaker 1: who started leading workshops for women travelers, and her main
Speaker 1: demographic was women in their forties and fifties who, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had like hit some kind of dramatic point in
Speaker 1: their life and just felt the need to flee. And
Speaker 1: I felt that before, just like I need to get
Speaker 1: on a plane and be in a place that looks
Speaker 1: nothing like my home as soon as humanly possible. And
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone I know to come with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I um I after going through a breakup,
Speaker 1: well it was actually like a super like tripoli doubly
Speaker 1: traumatic thing of heartbreak for so many. Anyway, I ended
Speaker 1: up hopping in the car and just driving to Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, by myself and just wandering around and eating
Speaker 1: all the food and seeing all the sites because I
Speaker 1: was like, I just don't want to I just don't
Speaker 1: want to talk to anybody. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: at home, you know, I want to go out and
Speaker 1: think about things for a little while. Well, and people
Speaker 1: might say, but Caroline, weren't you so lonely eating all
Speaker 1: of the food by yourself? No, no, Yeah. I did
Speaker 1: a similar thing after a friend of mine died in
Speaker 1: a very tragic car accident, and my knee jerk reaction
Speaker 1: was to go to l A. I'd never been there before,
Speaker 1: and I went for my birthday. I also prefer to
Speaker 1: spend my birthdays in places I have never been before
Speaker 1: because it just makes planning so much easier. And and
Speaker 1: like you, I just wanted to be alone. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be around anyone. I wanted to observe and
Speaker 1: sort of just be alone with my thoughts. And it
Speaker 1: felt and it was lonely at times when you're surrounded
Speaker 1: by a lot of people, especially I think if you're
Speaker 1: in morabituristy area. But it was a good kind of loneliness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's the thing. I you know, I um,
Speaker 1: I took a trip. I did study abroad the semester
Speaker 1: after I graduated college, which is weird, but that summer
Speaker 1: I went to England, and then after everybody else went
Speaker 1: back to school, I stayed over there by myself for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, just traveling and seeing the sites.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you get these like pangs, especially around meal time,
Speaker 1: like I wish somebody was sitting across the table for me.
Speaker 1: But it's it's so nice. Also, it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: good feeling. It's like pressing on a sore muscle almost
Speaker 1: that You're like, I'm doing something for myself. I'm focusing inward.
Speaker 1: I don't know not to sound too eat Pray Love
Speaker 1: about it, but speaking though of Eat Pray Love, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we're seeing more women travel memoirs
Speaker 1: than ever before it's become this hugely popular genre is
Speaker 1: largely due to two thousand sevens Eat Pray Love by
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Gilbert. And I read Eat Pray Love. It might
Speaker 1: have been because I was also going through a breakup,
Speaker 1: so reading the book was perfectly timed. But I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know, it gets a lot of flak,
Speaker 1: but I loved it and I cried. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think it gets a lot of flak from people
Speaker 1: who don't want who want to distance themselves from anything
Speaker 1: that even looks or smells like chick lit. But Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Gilbert is a very respectable writer, and while there are
Speaker 1: more high minded books out there, I mean, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I've never seen the movie. I heard it was, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I've seen parts of an on TV and it's
Speaker 1: it's not great. But yeah, I think, Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think people need to not to get off on
Speaker 1: a tangent. I think people need to lighten up about
Speaker 1: the book. It's her journey, it's her story. You can
Speaker 1: tell yours too if you want. Yeah, I will say
Speaker 1: that I enjoyed Sheryl Strade's Wild more than Eat, Pray Love.
Speaker 1: They're often held up as like the two women travel memoirs,
Speaker 1: but they're such they're also so different yea, and written
Speaker 1: from like very different times and places. And Sheryl Strad
Speaker 1: goes out and hikes the Pacific Crest Trail, which is
Speaker 1: far different than eating lots of pasta in Italy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean people forget that women don't all have
Speaker 1: one voice, although a lot of times, if you are
Speaker 1: a woman travel writer, you're expected to have the voice
Speaker 1: of other women travel writers. And so often women who
Speaker 1: write these books or these essays are expected to write
Speaker 1: about their transformation, the personal journey, that the emotion, and
Speaker 1: not that that's bad, not that they shouldn't, but it
Speaker 1: is interesting to see the contrast between what women do
Speaker 1: right and are expected to write versus what men are
Speaker 1: expected to write and what they end up publishing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like women's travel memoirs are also expected to
Speaker 1: spring from a place of extreme heartache and despair, whereas
Speaker 1: we can jump right in with a man on a
Speaker 1: road in the middle of his travels. At least that's
Speaker 1: what Lavinius Spaulding, who was the editor of the two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven Best Women's Travel Writing Anthology, reported. She said,
Speaker 1: a lot of travel writing by men is focused on
Speaker 1: what I saw, did eight where I went, what goal
Speaker 1: I accomplished, whereas with women, it's who I met, what
Speaker 1: I learned, how I felt, how I changed. And that
Speaker 1: might be due to men and women maybe traveling different,
Speaker 1: maybe traveling for different reasons. Um but it also might
Speaker 1: be due to editors and publishers sort of pushing women
Speaker 1: travel writers in that type of way. Well, this this
Speaker 1: got me thinking about the travel shows, what types of
Speaker 1: travel shows I enjoy watching, and like, I will watch
Speaker 1: for thirty hours at a time Anthony Bourdaine, but um,
Speaker 1: I cannot stomach Samantha Brown. And I started thinking about
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, my a woman hater and myself hater.
Speaker 1: What's going on? Oh no? And then I thought no, no, no,
Speaker 1: because I would watch a women, a women's travel show
Speaker 1: too if it were led by a woman who was
Speaker 1: also like Anthony Bourdine, like maybe led by too feminist
Speaker 1: minded young podcasters, but like if you put Janine Garoffalo
Speaker 1: on an airplane and center overseas, I would totally watch that.
Speaker 1: I'm not as interested in what Samantha Brown is selling,
Speaker 1: you know, but then she is it because she has
Speaker 1: more of a like a gender stereotypical approach. Is that
Speaker 1: what it is? I don't know what it is. Maybe
Speaker 1: she's more touristy and more like, hey, guys, like pack
Speaker 1: your Fannie pack or whatever, whereas Anthony Bourdaine is very
Speaker 1: much like gonna go into this back alley squid shop,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to eat a bunch of squid and
Speaker 1: then I'm going to go to a bar with the
Speaker 1: squid shop owner. You know. It's it's very much more
Speaker 1: of like a more of it off the beaten path
Speaker 1: type thing. Well, and that's such a good distinction to
Speaker 1: bring up between the traveler and the tourist, because the
Speaker 1: tourist is what you never want to be. But the
Speaker 1: traveler is the person that we you know, that that
Speaker 1: you want to sit next to them at a dinner
Speaker 1: party and hear all of their tales. Whereas a tourist
Speaker 1: you're going to be like, oh no, well, so, I
Speaker 1: I think because we still even today, there is the
Speaker 1: danger of falling into that trap of still looking at
Speaker 1: people in the country you visit as like an exotic other,
Speaker 1: you know, And so there is that danger of falling
Speaker 1: into that trap. And I I feel like it maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but a tourist is more likely to fall
Speaker 1: into that trap versus someone who is a traveler who
Speaker 1: is more willing to more willing and desirous of jumping
Speaker 1: into that culture learning all that they can, not looking
Speaker 1: at it from like a patriarchal You're this exotic other
Speaker 1: I have to to encapsulate somehow and put into a box.
Speaker 1: But I want to join you, yeah, or I need
Speaker 1: to come and change your problematic gender norms that that
Speaker 1: that I feel are like hyper repressive. Instead, a traveler
Speaker 1: would go in and say, oh, no, actually, I am
Speaker 1: going to go hang out with the women and see
Speaker 1: how they live their lives and not try to insert
Speaker 1: myself into, uh, into their way of life, but rather
Speaker 1: absorb it and learn about it. But getting back though
Speaker 1: to these differences in at least how travel writing by
Speaker 1: men and women is marketed. Straight herself has talked about
Speaker 1: how male travel stories are often seen as universal, perhaps
Speaker 1: because of the thing of how they tend to focus
Speaker 1: on you know what I did saw eight, whereas women's
Speaker 1: and this goes for writing by women in general often
Speaker 1: is pigeonholed as being very particular and only for women. Um,
Speaker 1: and that's one reason why when she was writing Wild,
Speaker 1: she pushed for a gender neutral cover. So if you, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have a copy of Wild, you'll
Speaker 1: see that there's a boot on the front. She was like,
Speaker 1: I wanted I didn't want men on the subway to
Speaker 1: be embarrassed having my book out reading it. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of women authors out there. Travel writers talk about
Speaker 1: how everybody wants everybody goes to pink first. They're like,
Speaker 1: let's make a pink cover. One author talks about how
Speaker 1: well I finally succeeded by getting a yellow cover. Another writer,
Speaker 1: a woman of color, talks about how her travel book
Speaker 1: was was not even given the broad audience of women.
Speaker 1: Hers was pigeonholed as African American studies. And she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not some anthropological like study you'r you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a woman travel writer, Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure. The title of her book is
Speaker 1: The Black girl S Guide to Traveling, which clearly is
Speaker 1: a travel book, not an African American studies book. But
Speaker 1: that also touches on our conversations about, you know, women
Speaker 1: in literature and marketing and all of that. But um,
Speaker 1: it also leads us to these two major themes that
Speaker 1: come up with women's solo traveling, where it has to
Speaker 1: be both transformational and also terrifying. And so that first
Speaker 1: theme of transformation is one that we've heard a lot about.
Speaker 1: We've already talked a lot about it that often a
Speaker 1: woman's journey that ends up being whether it's published or
Speaker 1: whether it's just you know, a woman who's not a
Speaker 1: writer going off and traveling. It's often sparked by some
Speaker 1: emotional moment in her life or something something like heartache
Speaker 1: or trauma that sets her off on this journey of
Speaker 1: self discovery. And a lot of times I feel like
Speaker 1: any women's travel essay that you read, the resounding message
Speaker 1: is to do it because it will transform you, and
Speaker 1: especially if you do it alone. You have Sarah Heppola
Speaker 1: at Salon, who we sited earlier, who talks about how
Speaker 1: she essentially just got in her car and drove around
Speaker 1: the United States for months alone. And you have Jill
Speaker 1: philip Povic at The Guardian writing about how I think
Speaker 1: it was post breakup she went to Europe and Freedman,
Speaker 1: who we site all the time on the podcast. She's
Speaker 1: essentially the patron saint of Cementthi at this point. But
Speaker 1: she similarly talks about how when she was in her
Speaker 1: early twenties she went traveling alone and she was nervous
Speaker 1: at first but so quickly relieved to be by herself.
Speaker 1: And so there's that recurring theme over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. Of travel fourth young woman, for it will
Speaker 1: be transformative and also feminist. Absolutely. Even Toby Israel at
Speaker 1: Salon talks about female hitchhiking about how you, as a woman,
Speaker 1: you know, are much more likely to be hit by
Speaker 1: a car than you are to be killed and raped
Speaker 1: a hitchhiking, And so she talks about how that was
Speaker 1: a major she she overcame a major hurdle of fear
Speaker 1: and trepidation when she decided to accept that for that
Speaker 1: first hitchhiking offer, and how even though there were some
Speaker 1: bumps along the way, that she was so glad she
Speaker 1: did it. Yeah, and she ended up traveling more than
Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand miles hitchhiking through Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany,
Speaker 1: which I cannot fathom. I don't know if my bravery
Speaker 1: extends to the point of hitchhiking, because whether you're a
Speaker 1: male or female, you know, how many times have we
Speaker 1: been told since we were we children to never accept
Speaker 1: her hide from strangers. Yeah, yeah, I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. She she does point out, like we've
Speaker 1: already said, she does point out that she had this
Speaker 1: double pronged privilege of being female, so she was not
Speaker 1: threatening to people who might stop and pick her up. Also,
Speaker 1: people like couples and grandparents would stop because they felt
Speaker 1: protective of this young white woman out on the side
Speaker 1: of the road. But also that whole white thing where
Speaker 1: she enjoys the privilege of being a white female. And
Speaker 1: so you know, other drivers don't, you know, feel threatened
Speaker 1: or whatever. So she she points that out that there,
Speaker 1: it's not the same for everyone, right, um, But what
Speaker 1: does seem to be the same for a lot of
Speaker 1: solo female travelers, at least according to a two thousand
Speaker 1: to study out of the University of Florida, is that, Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: setting out on your own is empowering. These researchers talked
Speaker 1: to a number of women who had traveled on their own,
Speaker 1: and they found that the women described the experiences is liberating,
Speaker 1: not terrifying. Even though we are often warned over and
Speaker 1: over again that oh, if you are a woman traveling alone,
Speaker 1: you had better watch out. You better put on a ring,
Speaker 1: better get a ripe whistle, get too, and keep it
Speaker 1: in your mouth at all. Yeah, get some bare repellent
Speaker 1: because it is a grizzly world out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's funny that they even
Speaker 1: studied this. Well yeah, I mean, and they found too
Speaker 1: that after traveling alone, these women still prefer traveling alone
Speaker 1: because it gave them more opportunities to make new friends.
Speaker 1: Because when I went, for instance, I went on study
Speaker 1: abroad in college with one of my best friends still
Speaker 1: one of my best friends, and we had so much
Speaker 1: fun together and we made lots of memories. But there
Speaker 1: were also times that I know and like recognized as
Speaker 1: it was happening that we were kind of so caught
Speaker 1: up in like our own friendship with like doing things together,
Speaker 1: that we weren't making really friends outside of ourselves, which
Speaker 1: could have been cool there. I mean, we ended up
Speaker 1: doing that more once we had been there for a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um, but I think there there can be
Speaker 1: some missed opportunities. Yeah, Like I, um, when I was
Speaker 1: by myself over and England and Ireland, I lost my leg.
Speaker 1: I didn't lose the luggage, the airline lost the luggage.
Speaker 1: And so I get to Ireland after being awake for
Speaker 1: thirty six hours, and I'm feeling a little down in
Speaker 1: the dumps because I don't have any underwear, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I have nothing and I'm by myself and it's
Speaker 1: raining because it's Ireland, and I'm just like, oh God.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm walking up to Trinity College in Dublin,
Speaker 1: and who should I see but this girl that I
Speaker 1: did study abroad with. And I was like, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: you stayed too, Hello. Can we be best friends for
Speaker 1: the next couple of hours? And so she and I
Speaker 1: um went all over the city. We saw a bunch
Speaker 1: of things together, we ate together, We talked to a
Speaker 1: bunch of like the local restaurant owners, and gotten to
Speaker 1: a bunch of great conversations. We eventually went our separate ways,
Speaker 1: but it was great to have that experience of kind
Speaker 1: of enjoying a foreign country and a new city with
Speaker 1: someone so you could rely on that that extra presence,
Speaker 1: but then taking your own way and then diving deeper
Speaker 1: into all of these things you want to learn more about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never traveled abroad by myself. I've gone places in
Speaker 1: the US, but usually I have some point of contact,
Speaker 1: whether I'm staying with a friend or you know, somebody
Speaker 1: to call someone to meet up with, because there comes
Speaker 1: that point of the free time, the after the sun
Speaker 1: sets and is it safe to go out, where do
Speaker 1: you go and eat alone? It can be I mean,
Speaker 1: it can be kind of nerve racking. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean that leads us into the next major theme of
Speaker 1: anyone discussing women traveling alone, which is danger. Danger. You've
Speaker 1: got to wear all those rate whistles, don't go out
Speaker 1: after dark, certainly, don't go to clubs like watch your back,
Speaker 1: don't stay on the first floor of a hotel. And
Speaker 1: while there is merit to a lot of the travel advice,
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, don't be stupid, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to do stupid things at home either. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you look at the statistics of how dangerous travel
Speaker 1: for women actually is compared to how much we hear
Speaker 1: about how what a terrible idea, essentially it is because
Speaker 1: we're just like putting ourselves at risk for the worst
Speaker 1: possible things to happen to us. Apparently there's such a
Speaker 1: vast gulf between the reality of traveling alone and what
Speaker 1: we are warned about traveling alone. And that's one reason
Speaker 1: that women are likelier to plan, like to overplan excuse me,
Speaker 1: their itinerary, because we're so nervous about that free time,
Speaker 1: because everyone's been telling us that we're going to be
Speaker 1: murdered and or raped. Well, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think, I mean not to totally go off on
Speaker 1: a tangent, but I think that having that free time
Speaker 1: is so awesome, that unplanned free time is so awesome,
Speaker 1: just as long as you are smart about it and
Speaker 1: you're paying attention to your surroundings. Well, and I have
Speaker 1: a feeling too that you know, yes, be smart about it, um,
Speaker 1: But I also feel like they're there's this undercurrent of
Speaker 1: victim blaming in regard to the worst case scenario of
Speaker 1: being murdered and or raped, which has happened. And I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to make light of that, um, But whenever
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario happens, the blame is immediately focused
Speaker 1: on the solo female traveler of well, why was she
Speaker 1: out there alone to begin with? Right an Alice Driver
Speaker 1: at the Feminist Wire says that basically, by repeating these
Speaker 1: stories over and over again and telling women not to
Speaker 1: go out by themselves, we are limiting their movement. And
Speaker 1: I would say that by then limiting women's movement, making
Speaker 1: them too afraid to go out in the dark by themselves. Ever,
Speaker 1: we're also not allowing that to become normalized. We're not
Speaker 1: allowing the inch of a woman at a cafe at night,
Speaker 1: or at a club or wherever she is at night
Speaker 1: by herself. We're not allowing that to become normalized. Well.
Speaker 1: And then there's also this deeper level too, as The
Speaker 1: New York Times talked about of how, if, and when
Speaker 1: a white female traveler, in particular, if something happens to her,
Speaker 1: it's often amplified by the media, which makes individual incidents
Speaker 1: seem like part of a larger pattern. Um and Christina Finch,
Speaker 1: who's the director of Amnesty Internationals Women's Human Rights Program,
Speaker 1: told The New York Times on average, attacks against white
Speaker 1: women worldwide receive more coverage than attacks against women of color.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, you also have um
Speaker 1: the response to violence against Western tourists being met with
Speaker 1: a much faster response than violence against local women. Right.
Speaker 1: And then that leads us, of course to the story
Speaker 1: of Sarrise Era, who in was murdered while traveling alone
Speaker 1: in Turkey. And so there's a lot of handwringing around this,
Speaker 1: I mean admittedly horrific story about like why was she
Speaker 1: even alone in the first place, what was she possibly thinking?
Speaker 1: When in reality, like and and it got a very
Speaker 1: fast and strong police response in Turkey. But this was
Speaker 1: a guy. This was like a crazy homeless man who
Speaker 1: tried to kiss her and she fought back, and then
Speaker 1: she threw a rock at him, and he bashed her
Speaker 1: head in with a rock basically, and so, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is something that could have happened to any woman,
Speaker 1: but it happened to take place as violence against an
Speaker 1: American woman traveling by herself. And people seemed so outraged,
Speaker 1: particularly at her for traveling because she not only was
Speaker 1: a woman traveling alone, but she was also married, and
Speaker 1: people some people were like, well, why wasn't your husband
Speaker 1: with you? Why weren't you Are you one of those
Speaker 1: going back to that early trope at mistrust of the
Speaker 1: woman traveling alone. She must have just been out trying
Speaker 1: to cheat on her husband. Why was she even talking
Speaker 1: to a man in the first place. It's so victim blaming,
Speaker 1: but more level headed responses to that admittedly horrific incident.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that when you look at things like
Speaker 1: domestic violence rates, murder rates, and sexual assault rates in
Speaker 1: the US, a lot of times there is a statistically
Speaker 1: greater chance of the worst case scenario happening at home
Speaker 1: rather than abroad. So in Sierra's case, for instance, according
Speaker 1: to data collected by the U. S. State Department, which
Speaker 1: keeps tabs on violence against American tourists, it found that
Speaker 1: there had been three murders of US tourists in Turkey,
Speaker 1: and I think it was either five or ten year
Speaker 1: long period, And Sierra was a New Yorker, which meant
Speaker 1: that in two thousand eleven alone there were five hundred
Speaker 1: and two murders. So statistically speaking, in a way, she
Speaker 1: was actually safer in Turkey than she was in New
Speaker 1: York City, right, And when we look over to Dysan McClain,
Speaker 1: who's the former New York Times Frugal Traveler columnist, she
Speaker 1: talks about how she has actually felt safest in countries
Speaker 1: that tend to have a more patriarchal or repressive society,
Speaker 1: because those cultures tend to have lower crime rates, and
Speaker 1: the local women tend to be more protective of traveling women,
Speaker 1: particularly those women that they see traveling by themselves. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously in those kinds of societies, women travelers need to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the clothes that they're wearing. They need
Speaker 1: to be respectful of the local customs and not just
Speaker 1: try to bulldoze in and say free the nipples. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna come in here and change everything. Um. And
Speaker 1: when you are being a respectful traveler, tourists, whatever you
Speaker 1: wanna call it, Yeah, a lot of women travelers talk
Speaker 1: about how local women reach out to them and you know,
Speaker 1: try to kind of give them help along the way.
Speaker 1: And this is not to say thumbs up to super
Speaker 1: repressive patriarchal societies, but rather to re examine, Okay, how
Speaker 1: realistic is this overwhelming fear of women traveling alone? Is
Speaker 1: this rooted in reality or rooted in our fears about
Speaker 1: women traveling alone, Because I think one of the biggest
Speaker 1: fears um, and I've felt this spear before as well
Speaker 1: of traveling alone is the risk of sexual assault. We
Speaker 1: made a joke about rape whistles, but I think that
Speaker 1: you know, putting yourself out in the world, in a
Speaker 1: in an unknown place does can make you feel very vulnerable.
Speaker 1: But again, when you look at the statistics, leaving your
Speaker 1: home doesn't necessarily make you less safe or more at
Speaker 1: risk for sexual assault. So, for instance, um, there isn't
Speaker 1: hard data on all sexual assaults reported by female travelers,
Speaker 1: but The New York Times reports that from two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve to two thousand thirteen, three British travelers requested consular
Speaker 1: assistance after alleged sexual attacks. For comparison, the Rape Crisis
Speaker 1: England and Whales Center estimates that thousand women are raped
Speaker 1: in those countries every year. So yet, again, what are
Speaker 1: we so afraid of? Is it reality or is it
Speaker 1: just our concerns about the general vulnerability of women being
Speaker 1: out on their own? Yeah, I mean, I do think
Speaker 1: it says a lot about how society or societies view
Speaker 1: women and how they move through those societies. Well, and
Speaker 1: it could because it's that fear and the warning that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't do that, and then if something happens, we
Speaker 1: are the ones to blame. It's a bit rape culturally
Speaker 1: when you think about it, and you know, we've we've
Speaker 1: already said that. There are situations where, whether you're at
Speaker 1: home or abroad, honestly, you know, you just want to
Speaker 1: be smart and be aware, and so there are some
Speaker 1: tips to keep in mind when you are traveling by yourself. Um.
Speaker 1: One that Jody Edinburgh at Legal Nomad brings up is
Speaker 1: that it's a balance that you have to strike between
Speaker 1: thinking smart and trying to stay safe and also not
Speaker 1: succumbing to the fear. She recommends carrying a rubber doorstop
Speaker 1: to use in your hotel room, a safety whistle, staying
Speaker 1: in well lit areas, watching your drink, which is just
Speaker 1: good advice for life. Dress conservatively. This is a common
Speaker 1: refrain that we hear in a lot of travel tip blogs.
Speaker 1: Don't give away details about what you're staying to strangers,
Speaker 1: Be careful with your eye contact, and maybe option wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 1: There's the example that one blog gave of being in
Speaker 1: like northern Europe versus Southern Europe, and if you're in Italy,
Speaker 1: there's the whole thing about eye contact and a smile
Speaker 1: being considered an invitation to engage, and that maybe if
Speaker 1: you're not looking to engage in conversation, put on some
Speaker 1: some big old sunglasses. Should you wear your sunglasses at night?
Speaker 1: Like the song goes totally? And going back to that
Speaker 1: University of Florida study that we talked about earlier, some
Speaker 1: of the tips from the veteran women travelers who were
Speaker 1: involved with that talked about how important it was to
Speaker 1: really know where you're going in the sense of knowing
Speaker 1: the country, knowing the culture, and on top of that,
Speaker 1: and this is stressed over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: particularly for women traveling alone. To select accommodations in safer
Speaker 1: parts of town, you might want to spend more money
Speaker 1: on going to, say, a name brand hotel, rather than
Speaker 1: staying at a hostile off the beaten path that might
Speaker 1: not have twenty four hour security. Um and I think
Speaker 1: those are one of the things where it's not so
Speaker 1: much fearmongering, but that's a basic safety measure. But I
Speaker 1: hate it. I hate it. I hate it because, like
Speaker 1: what I mean, I was a college student who didn't
Speaker 1: have the money to stay in a hotel. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, so I I picked hostiles instead, stayed with strangers,
Speaker 1: slept in a room in on the west coast of
Speaker 1: Ireland with like twenty other people, one of whom was
Speaker 1: a ginormous man on the bunk below me who snored
Speaker 1: all night. But when you're like like a terrible level
Speaker 1: of tired, you can sleep through at I shure you.
Speaker 1: But um no, But I hate that advice that you
Speaker 1: need to stay in a nicer hotel because that is
Speaker 1: incredibly limiting. Well, that's one thing that this came up
Speaker 1: actually in the New York Times Frugal Traveler column, which
Speaker 1: is written right now by a guy, and he gets
Speaker 1: a lot of responses from people saying, we really need
Speaker 1: to hear from women. There have been I think two
Speaker 1: or three women before him who were at the helm
Speaker 1: of the column, and you know, he hears from people
Speaker 1: saying like, well, sure you can go and live on
Speaker 1: a don because you're a guy and you can travel anywhere.
Speaker 1: And that might be more of a challenge for a
Speaker 1: woman who really wants to be as take as many precautions.
Speaker 1: I should say as possible. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: as safe as possible, because I feel like that also
Speaker 1: still feeds into this whole like, you know, threatening message
Speaker 1: that women get who want to travel on their own.
Speaker 1: But if you want to take as many precautions as possible,
Speaker 1: staying at the nicer spot in a well lit area
Speaker 1: is a big one. Yeah, just prepare yourself some hustles
Speaker 1: like have dance parties all night. I'm just gonna warn
Speaker 1: you about that. And on top of that, there is
Speaker 1: an even more depressingly common piece of advice, which is
Speaker 1: to where a wedding ring real or fake and even
Speaker 1: as a travel expert, Rick Steve's suggested carry a picture
Speaker 1: of a real or fake husband, And I feel so
Speaker 1: conflicted about this one, particularly going to the the extent
Speaker 1: of carrying a photo of a husband, because it's yet
Speaker 1: another example of whether you are abroad or if you
Speaker 1: are at a bar down the street, where if someone
Speaker 1: is giving you unwanted sexual attention, the quickest way to
Speaker 1: stop it is to not say no, thanks, not interested,
Speaker 1: but to rather say I have a boyfriend. I have
Speaker 1: a husband. Even if you were to say, and it
Speaker 1: is the truth, oh I have a girlfriend, won't stop it.
Speaker 1: You gotta say I have a boyfriend. You need to
Speaker 1: show the presence of another male in your life. And
Speaker 1: I want to hear from listeners on that one, because,
Speaker 1: like I like, the feminist inside of me wants to
Speaker 1: fight that one so much. But I mean, like we
Speaker 1: said earlier, we can't go into other societies, other cultures,
Speaker 1: you know, determined to change the way things are, because
Speaker 1: we're just not. Yeah, it's not our job to go
Speaker 1: and fight the patriarchy, right, and so it stinks. But
Speaker 1: if you want to avoid hassle, you got to wear
Speaker 1: your sunglasses and maybe you got to wear a wedding
Speaker 1: ring well, and I could see, Okay, I could see
Speaker 1: if I was traveling alone, and particularly if I wanted
Speaker 1: to go out at night, then putting on the wedding ring,
Speaker 1: because I feel like that's when it, you know, the
Speaker 1: fear probably creeps in the most. Um. So if you
Speaker 1: wanted to go have a nice dinner, have a drink
Speaker 1: at a bar, maybe it would just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it serves like it put a radar shield around you. Um.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think too, that just depends on
Speaker 1: what country you're traveling in, what type of culture you're
Speaker 1: traveling in. When I was traveling, I had zip zero
Speaker 1: problems with people harassing me. The only time I was
Speaker 1: harassed is when I had been up for thirty six
Speaker 1: hours or so in Dublin and some guys were hassling
Speaker 1: me about taking up an entire booth in a pub
Speaker 1: by myself. Like, listen, I'm sorry that I'm not really
Speaker 1: caring about etiquette right now. As far as where I said,
Speaker 1: I'm just so tired. But no, they weren't. There was
Speaker 1: no sexual advances there, so that's good. Yeah, because look,
Speaker 1: you are yet another one of the women who have
Speaker 1: traveled alone and come back to tell the tale that
Speaker 1: it is okay out there in the world. It's awesome,
Speaker 1: it's Hi. I enjoyed. I super enjoyed traveling by myself well.
Speaker 1: And they're also advantages of being a solo female traveler.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of times the conversation stops
Speaker 1: at the fear factor, but there are plenty of advantages,
Speaker 1: such as, first and foremost, being able to see the
Speaker 1: world on your own terms and your own schedule. You
Speaker 1: could sit in that booth at the pub in Ireland
Speaker 1: as long as you wanted, Caroline, well until those guys
Speaker 1: so they until they were complaining too gladly. Um. And
Speaker 1: then there's the whole thing about women tending to get
Speaker 1: invited to people's homes more often and maybe being more
Speaker 1: protected by locals. Hi, this is absolutely something that I
Speaker 1: experienced when I was on the West coast of Ireland.
Speaker 1: I wandered into this pub and I didn't have any cash,
Speaker 1: but they had a twenty five euro credit card minimum, Like,
Speaker 1: just kill me right, So I was like, okay, give
Speaker 1: me all the fish and chips and as much guinness
Speaker 1: as I can swallow. So I'm sitting there and I'm
Speaker 1: like stuffed to the gills and I'm drunk because I've
Speaker 1: been drinking all this guinness. And I walk up to
Speaker 1: the bar and I'm like, have I reached the minimum yet?
Speaker 1: And this couple next to me, here's my accent, and
Speaker 1: they start talking to me and they it turns out
Speaker 1: they are a couple from New Jersey who quit the
Speaker 1: rat race. Their kids were done with school, they quit
Speaker 1: the rat race, moved to the west coast of Ireland
Speaker 1: in this tiny town of Duelin, opened to stained glass
Speaker 1: shop and lived above it. And they were so sad
Speaker 1: to hear my story about losing my luggage and that
Speaker 1: all I wanted to do was take a hot shower
Speaker 1: after a day of traveling, and they were like, well
Speaker 1: wait here, and the wife ran back to the house
Speaker 1: and got me a towel so that I could shower
Speaker 1: that night, and we just sat there at the bar
Speaker 1: and talked. Turns out their son, I don't know if
Speaker 1: he still is, but was a police officer from around
Speaker 1: where I am from, in Georgia. So small world, very
Speaker 1: small world. But I think there is something to be
Speaker 1: said for being a woman traveling by yourself, being open
Speaker 1: to those experiences I think it's important to not shut
Speaker 1: yourself off, but to look and feel open to talking
Speaker 1: to strangers absolutely, because you never know that you're going
Speaker 1: to meet in a good way. In a good way. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: One tip that was brought up by traveler Emily Baron
Speaker 1: talking to the New York Times Frugal Traveler was that
Speaker 1: one other advantage you might not think about of being
Speaker 1: a woman traveling alone is that you are likelier to
Speaker 1: have a tampon on you. And she talks about how
Speaker 1: tampons can serve as the you know, build the bridge
Speaker 1: between you and local women, because I mean, we've all
Speaker 1: been there. If you are in a situation where your
Speaker 1: period came, you don't have a tampon, and the woman
Speaker 1: who had as one and hands it to you, it's
Speaker 1: almost as if you can hear the angels saying like that, Oh,
Speaker 1: and you're bonded immediately. And also if you break your nose,
Speaker 1: you can shove one up your nose too. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: all sorts of survival uses for tampons. If you don't
Speaker 1: believe me, google it. It's true. So I mean, guys,
Speaker 1: obviously you can carry tampons too. It's just you know
Speaker 1: it might be if a guy hands out a woman
Speaker 1: a tampon, a local woman a tampon. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it would necessarily be a bridge builder in the
Speaker 1: same way as if you or I were to hand
Speaker 1: her one that might halt the conversation. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: could a little bit um. And then on top of
Speaker 1: all of it, the advantages, obviously are just the confidence building,
Speaker 1: the personal transformation that we hear about so often. You
Speaker 1: can go, you can eat, you can pray, you can love,
Speaker 1: if that's what you so desire. That was my mom
Speaker 1: telling me about that. Yeah, I absolutely, I absolutely encourage
Speaker 1: people to do it, and there's plenty of resources out
Speaker 1: there for you to learn about traveling, whether you're traveling
Speaker 1: solo or a friend. Whoever, if you want to go
Speaker 1: do this as a lady explorer. Yeah, there are so
Speaker 1: many women focus travel sites and travel magazines. Caroline, didn't
Speaker 1: we read that women traveling is so hot right now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Consumer Affairs quoted. Uh, someone is saying that it's the
Speaker 1: new trend in travel, to which I said, wrong. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good to see that that more people are actually
Speaker 1: paying attention to this this section of the population. Apparently
Speaker 1: that woman had never heard of Impulsia Gushington. That's right,
Speaker 1: you don't know, but yeah, they're all sorts of websites
Speaker 1: out there for women's specific travel tips, such as Women's
Speaker 1: Adventure Magazine. There's Wanderlust and Lipstick, which I know the
Speaker 1: name might sound a little hokey, but it's actually really
Speaker 1: good resource. There's Black Girl Travel. There's also You Go Girl,
Speaker 1: which is from the author of the Black Woman's Book
Speaker 1: of Travel and Adventure, and Women on the Road, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, it's all just a Google search away.
Speaker 1: And what's so encouraging I think about it is that
Speaker 1: when you google like these types of resources for women,
Speaker 1: there's so many different kinds. There is stuff that's on
Speaker 1: the girl group side, so you're going with a lot
Speaker 1: of women. It's a journey of self discovery all the
Speaker 1: way to like the rustic strikeout on your own to
Speaker 1: climb that mountain. So there's there's just everything in between.
Speaker 1: And I like how people, whether you're a woman entrepreneur
Speaker 1: starting a group like this or whatever, I like that
Speaker 1: the fact that women are different is being recognized. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we want different things and we enjoy different things, and
Speaker 1: that's fantastic, and I just love though. I've honestly really
Speaker 1: enjoyed just sitting here listening to your travel stories that
Speaker 1: I've never heard before. And I love hearing and reading
Speaker 1: other women's travel stories as well, because not just sound cheesy,
Speaker 1: but they're very inspiring, you know, because it can be
Speaker 1: I've been fearful before about hopping on a plane and
Speaker 1: going to the other side of the world, probably why
Speaker 1: I've never done it alone before. But I tell you what, Caroline,
Speaker 1: after this podcast, I am ready to go somewhere do it.
Speaker 1: My boyfriend might be like, hey, where are you going?
Speaker 1: You and I should just go and then we'll just
Speaker 1: split off and come back together at the end of it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then swap our swap our stories. But now we
Speaker 1: want to hear your stories and not just women, any
Speaker 1: solo traveling adventures and photos we would love to read
Speaker 1: and to see, so please send us all of them.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address. You can also tweet us places you've been
Speaker 1: pictures at mom Stuff Podcasts. You can also message es
Speaker 1: on Facebook and we have a couple of messages to
Speaker 1: share about our episode on World War two and Rosie
Speaker 1: the riveters right now, So Caroline, I have one here
Speaker 1: from Megan, who writes My maternal and pa dropped out
Speaker 1: of high school in nineteen forty two and fibbed about
Speaker 1: his age to enlist in the Marines. While on leave
Speaker 1: in late forty four or early forty five, he married
Speaker 1: my grandmother, who was sixteen at the time and not
Speaker 1: working due to her age. She did take part in
Speaker 1: scrap metal drives and gardened extensively. She became pregnant pretty
Speaker 1: much right away and didn't work until the early nineteen fifties. However,
Speaker 1: her older sister, my great aunt, did work. My family
Speaker 1: is from East Tennessee, and my aunt Vernell, worked on
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project. WHOA, that's so cool. Workers in Oakridge
Speaker 1: were not permitted to tell friends and family that they
Speaker 1: worked for what they were doing. Maryville, where my family lives.
Speaker 1: In oak Ridge are some thirty miles apart, and it's
Speaker 1: possible my family wasn't aware that the secret city existed.
Speaker 1: My aunt has told me that none of the workers,
Speaker 1: including her, had any idea they were building bombs. Each
Speaker 1: line of production was subdivided and kept hidden from the
Speaker 1: other lines, and when the war ended, she married her
Speaker 1: soldier boyfriend, had a couple of kids, worked as a
Speaker 1: hospital nurse and collects at pension from the government for
Speaker 1: her help in aiding the war effort. Their oldest sister
Speaker 1: was a war nurse and has unfortunately passed away. I
Speaker 1: know I've heard some of her stories, but at the
Speaker 1: time I was too young to realize the significance of
Speaker 1: what I was hearing. Yeah, so thanks so much Megan
Speaker 1: for sharing those stories. And Vernell, Well, I have one
Speaker 1: here from Laura. She says, my great aunt who I
Speaker 1: used to love to visit work during World War Two
Speaker 1: in a more unusual setting. She was in the Air
Speaker 1: Force and stationed for at least part of the time
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, where she drew maps of enemy territory from
Speaker 1: descriptions given to her by pilots. She was quote unquote older,
Speaker 1: being in her mid twenties at the time, so I
Speaker 1: got the impression that she had a higher rank than
Speaker 1: the young men she was stationed with. I believe it
Speaker 1: was during this time she interacted with some of the
Speaker 1: higher up people, including Winston Churchill, as they needed to
Speaker 1: view her work. Also, from what I understand, you can
Speaker 1: see some of her work today at Smithsonian. Her name
Speaker 1: is Mary Taylor. Heis that's h. I s E. So
Speaker 1: thank you, Laura. I am so blown away by our
Speaker 1: cool listeners and they're really cool grandmothers and great aunt,
Speaker 1: great aunts and well, if you have cool stories about
Speaker 1: your Rose of the Riveter grandmother, great aunt, or travel stories,
Speaker 1: you want to hear all of them. Mom stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is where you can email
Speaker 1: us and for links to all of our social media's
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, podcasts, and videos
Speaker 1: to perhaps keep you entertained on your travels and beyond.
Speaker 1: There's one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never
Speaker 1: Told You dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, does it how stuff works dot com