Did Traveling Make Me A Feminist?

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The Solo Female Traveler: Empowered and Influential

All my life I have been surrounded by strong women: women who are their own bosses, women who can do the same job as men, women who care for their families. In my family, no job has ever been questioned because of gender. And I have come to realize what a privilege that is! However, I never realized it until I started traveling and faced some difficult tasks that men are not always faced with.

The United Nations

Sure I was always conscious of the stereotypes of women, how the media shapes our views of the image of what a woman should look like, and the difficulty that women have getting recognized in the workplace or in academic fields. As one of the few girls in a history class, I got my fair share of weird looks.

Berlin Wall

But since I began traveling, I have gotten a few remarks saying that I shouldn't do that, or that I shouldn't go there because I'm a woman. One thing about me is that I don't like being told no because of my age, size, or gender. So of course I ignored their "advice" and went and traveled to those countries anyway and was delighted by how nice the people were.

Etretat

The way in which travel made me more of a feminist is that it taught me that my experiences as a white woman are very different than the experiences of women who identify with a different race and culture. In fact, I have no clue what it is like to be a woman in their community as they have different glass ceilings to shatter. And that is when I can say I truly because a feminist, because I realized that my voice, along with the voice of all the other white women, can sometimes drown out the voices of minority women. And I would never want to do that.


So yes, traveling did make me a feminist. It taught me that my voice is worthy of being heard. That I am deserving of good experiences. And that I should be allowed to face the same challenges as men. But it also taught me that each woman has a different experience, and that my voice alone cannot speak for an entire community. So let's work on making every woman's voice heard!