Women. Walking. Wokeness.

 Women. Walking. Wokeness. 

Assumption - noun (BELIEF).

•  a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

How often do we make assumptions? And what is it that has influenced us to make the assumption in the first place? Could my assumption be incorrect? 

Spending time alone. 

Modern western society has developed some negative associations with the idea of being alone. Parents send kids to their rooms to sit in silence as punishment when they’ve misbehaved. Wanting to stay in alone at the weekend is frowned upon. You’d be considered ‘boring’ for doing and your friends would most likely ask if you’re ok. We’ve been wired to believe that solitude is our enemy and often confuse ‘being alone’ with ‘being lonely’ when in fact, we should be encouraging more people to spend time alone as it can allow you to learn more about yourself, empower you to become comfortable with who you are and can lower levels of stress (Itani 2020). 

We all feel loneliness differently and the social isolation/ fear triggered by the pandemic definitely factors in heavily. Loneliness and connection expert Kyla Sokoll-Ward has said ‘something special has happened with COVID-19, there is less shame in loneliness because we are forced to be alone’. The pandemic has meant a lot of us are spending more time alone than we’d like. The fear of being alone as a woman certainly isn’t helped by decades of media portrayals of single women. ‘TV shows that we see, books that we read—there are relatively few narratives that celebrate a character who is alone by choice,’ says Alyssa Petersel, founder of MyWellbeing (Groner 2020). 

Single Stigma. 

Society often makes women feel inadequate if they’re not partnered up in a conventional way. From a young age, women are encouraged to place their self-worth on their relationship status. Women are defined by whether they’re perceived to be available sexual partners or not and then judged if we don’t play by the rules. (Young - Powell 2019). A woman, in my opinion, is so much more than her relationship status. How often do we find ourselves asking our female friends ‘who are you seeing at the moment?’ By asking this we’re emphasizing the importance of being with someone and that our relationship status defines us and our happiness. What if they’re not seeing someone, would you be just as excited for them if they’re single?

Bella DePaulo, a social scientist and author of ‘Singled Out,’ has been studying singles since the late 1990s and has coined the phrase ‘singlism’ to describe the ways in which people discriminate against singles. The stereotyping includes the assumptions that singles are miserable, lonely or selfish; that they are desperate to get married; that there must be something wrong with someone who is single. And if you’re choosing to spend time alone then you must be single (Berstein 2019). 

Isn’t it far more important to focus on creating a full life now, for yourself, rather than looking for a partner? Spending time alone has helped shape the person who I am. Without this time I would not be the person I am today. At some point in the last 5 years, I decided I preferred spending time alone rather than with other people. Thus I discovered ‘walking alone’. 

Also, have you ever just sat alone in a coffee shop, staring out of the window, in entirely your own thoughts with a warm cup of tea in your hands? Do it, it’s fucking liberating. (post-pandemic obviously).

Alone stigma. 

A friend once told me she ‘couldn’t just go out walking alone, I’d at least have to go with the dog’. When I asked her why she said ‘it was strange to just go walking by yourself’. 

Despite my friend's view on the topic a shift is happening, women are gaining more confidence. More women are now choosing to live alone (Goff 2019) and travel alone. Since 2010, women travelling solo has grown by 60 per cent, and the figures continue to grow steadily each year. Women are choosing mountaineering over pampering, and they don't mind going solo (Lippe - McGraw 2019). 

You only have to do a google search for the words hiker, adventurer or explorer and you’ll get a sense of just how much men dominate these activities. Now, thanks to social media women have a platform to communicate and share with each other, which wasn’t possible before. There are more books and films about women activists and outdoor explorers. But women are still facing more challenges than men. Society tell’s women outdoor exploration is unsafe and perhaps they’re not strong enough or lack the appropriate skills. Until it’s normalised for women to go out hiking alone, as it is for men, then we need to continually highlight gender in adventure. Only we can dismantle the challenges and barriers of how non-male people are under-represented in the outdoors.

 The dangers, threats and vulnerability of going solo. 

When I talk to friends or family about my solo hiking trips the questions and comments always remain the same. 

Is it safe? Aren’t you afraid? You’re so brave, Rach. I could never do that. 

The thing is, is anywhere safe? Yes, I'm afraid of a lot of things most of the time. I’m not sure about bravery though. I think when someone calls you brave it’s just a reflection of how unbrave they may feel. And well, they’ve got every reason to be. The media is full of tragic stories of women who have been harmed travelling alone. There’s no news in ‘normal’ news so instead, we only hear about the shocking, bad and ugly. 

‘Adventurous. Alone. Attacked’ is an article about the deadly violence inflicted on women travelling alone and the questions about how the world is greeting the documented rise in female solo travellers (Specia, Mzezewa 2019). In December, the bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, of and Maren Ueland, 28, of Norway, were found with knife wounds in their necks in Morocco. That same month, the Briton Grace Millane disappeared in Auckland, New Zealand, she was found slain days later. In 2015, a 19-year-old British backpacker was sexually assaulted by bikers in Thailand and In March, an Australian man was convicted of kidnapping and raping a Belgian traveller seeking work after keeping her locked up in his pig shed for two days. 

Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women says violence against female tourists was a thread in the broader fabric of violence against women around the world. And violent episodes are just as likely to occur, experts note, in rich Western nations as in the developing world. The root cause of this kind of violence against women has a lot to do with the underlying gender stereotypes, social norms, entitlement and patriarchy. (Specia, Mzezewa 2019)

 

 

Jessica Nabongo, 34, is on a mission to become the first black woman to visit every country in the world. Ms Nabongo has expressed how most headlines tend to highlight the experiences of young, white or Western victims and notes that as a black woman travelling solo, she has to deal with a whole other level of safety concerns, anxiety and fear. She added that ‘in many European cities like Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Milan women of colour are in more danger because a lot of people think we are prostitutes’. (Specia, Mzezewa 2019)

 

 

Luckily, I’ve never had a bad experience travelling alone or ever felt endangered by another human. For me, solo hiking and travelling alone are both feminist acts and there’s very little we can do on the trail or road that will protect us from a person with bad intentions - yet we still blame a lot of women who hike or travel alone for things that happen to them. 

"Fearless: The Complete Personal Safety Guide for Women" (Danylewich, 2001) is a manual guide offering practical advice on personal safety and self-defence strategies for women walking alone. The book cover’s physical and non-physical resistance techniques and to help women learn these ‘easy’ and effective techniques, the guide is packed with over 140 action photo illustrations (how convenient). It advises women to ‘Ignore harassing comments’ and to ‘be aware of how you can or cannot move in the clothes you are wearing...wear loose-fitting clothes and flat shoes’ when possible. 

At night women are advised to ‘Avoid secluded areas or shortcuts, stay on busy, well-lit streets and when possible, walk around groups of men, rather than through them’.  Please, If you’re a man reading this ask yourself if you’ve ever had to do any of those things? Or if you’ve ever even thought about doing them? 

What surprised me the most is Danylewich implies how we react initially can somehow determine how the situation might then unfold, making us somewhat responsible. ‘Reacting at the initial stages could dissuade the offender into choosing a less suspecting individual. Try to answer strangers with negative responses (e.g.,' No...and limit the amount of dialogue in situations where you feel vulnerable or uncomfortable.’

I don’t doubt this book could be useful, but when are we going to start looking at the behaviour of men? Why is the responsibility of ‘getting home safe’ put on women? Have you ever told a guy friend to ‘text me when you get in’? Why are we telling women what not to do to avoid being attacked instead of telling men not to attack women?

I walk alone, I run at night, I cycle at night, I go on multi-day hikes alone, and I wild camp alone. And I will not stop. WHY? Because that’s what I want to do and if I want to do those things why shouldn’t I be able to do them? I believe the more we tell women not to travel alone, and the more we send the message that the world is very dangerous, in a way, we are also supporting that belief when she should be challenging them. There are no dangerous places, just dangerous people. You have to go out, live your life and not let these terrible stories stop you. Because otherwise, you let them win.

Privilege 

There are a lot of stigmas that we need to address and challenge when it comes to a woman’s place in the outdoors and travelling solo. With those challenges though, comes a lot of privilege. It’s also important to remember that these barriers do not speak for all women. 

We see photos plastered all over social media of white women travelling to exotic places and white women on trekking adventures, but we rarely see any of black women. Where are these women? 

Just 1% of National Park visitors hail from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, despite these communities making up 10% of the British population (Lindon, 2019). Some might say these discrepancies could be explained by a lack of interest in the outdoor world. But BAME-led initiatives are increasingly challenging that idea. 

Earlier this year the BBC aired a Countryfile episode focusing on issues a BAME person might face in the British countryside. The episode touched on how some ethnic groups felt UK national parks were a ‘white environment’. BBC revealed it received 572 complaints about the segment.’(Robinson 2020). 

A lot of the complaints were made via Twitter; 

‘In a way, I can understand this view, but all you have to do is buy an ordnance survey map and walk on the public footpaths. Take your own food and drink. Take your family’. (@AnslopDave July 2020). 

Dave implies the easiness of having a public footpath close by and the ability to be able to read a map. Perhaps not considering that everyone doesn’t have access to these spaces and skills? 

While some reactions were able to consider it can go beyond physical access and that the barriers could lie in our mindset, education and social system; 

 ‘This is partly because of the deeply racist attitudes of most people who live in the countryside, and partly due to lack of facilities for BAME. We need to correct both, via education and government spending on proper facilities for BAME in country areas’. (@ClimateWarrior7 June 2020). 

Some of the other complaints focused on the BBC highlighting these issues at all;

 ‘You’ve ruined what used to be such a lovely programme’ (@Jess_Simpson645 June 2020).

And others were plain racist;

Luckily for white people. That explains why that the Lake District still has the charm of other times. If they don’t like it here, why the f... they all come? Why don’t they choose Yemen or Ghana? (@pabloencanaria1 June 2020) 

Rhiane Fatinikun founded ‘Black Girls Hike’ in 2019 and has since had over 100 women attend the regular walks she runs across the north-west of England. Her reasoning for setting up ‘Black Girls Hike’ was to fill that gap after noticing the lack of representation, as a way to include black women in the narrative and challenge stereotypes. (Lindon, 2019)

Fatomikun believes it’s important for black women to have this grounding with other women who share the same experience. She also included safe outdoor spaces for women can be limited, especially for women of colour. The group hopes to empower women to have the confidence to try things outside their comfort zone.

Working in a National Park I have experienced how people from BAME communities can be met with hostile and racists attitudes. One of my colleagues was talking me through a theft incident and a potential suspect she thought might be responsible. She told me how a man had entered the store and ‘just looked suspicious’ and finished with a very condescending ‘Yeah, and he was black too’ with an eyebrow lift.

What people from BAME communities want more than anything else is a warm welcome, says Rhiane. And as long as people see the outdoors as a white domain they’ll always be a threat of racism and prejudice. (Lindon, 2019)

As a woman, I have faced barriers, but never because of my skin colour.  Women all suffer discrimination differently, but how can women speak for all women and not just the women they identify with? How can we challenge single stigma, wanting to spend time alone, travelling solo and all the dangers that come with it while maintaining an intersectional narrative for all women? 

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined ‘Intersectional Feminism’ in 1989. She urges feminist to look at the context in which discrimination is happening. What are the policies? What are the institutional structures that play a role in contributing to the exclusion of some women and not others? And how when women’s identities overlap including religion, class, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation oppression and discrimination can impact women differently. (Dastagir 2017).

The term ‘Intersectional feminism’ makes a lot of white women uncomfortable in part because it suggests that white women need to recognise their privilege and examine the ways in which that privilege can make other women invisible within the feminist movement. 

I want to note that privilege, unconscious bias, intersectional feminism, patriarchy and systems of oppression didn’t just fall into my head. I had to listen, and I had to learn, and my understanding of these topics would not have been possible without the teachings I’ve been privileged enough to have. We are currently living in a patriarchal society and it takes a lot of work to unlearn what we have subconsciously digested over the years, but the real activism can start with you and your relationship with yourself and those closest to you if you want it. What sacrifices are you willing to make to see the change you that you deep down want to see?

Go out, learn, educate yourself where possible and stop assuming because there’s so much to be done.