When you’re a woman traveling alone, the most routine activities become a game that you are set up to lose.
In the Cote d’Ivoire, I needed cash, so I hailed a taxi the color of an orange traffic cone to a BNP Paribas affiliate bank on the corner of a busy road. I told the driver to wait. Deux minutes, deux minutes, I said as I bounced two fingers in a peace sign at his face. He grumbled. I shut the door. I ran up to the ATM machine but two security guards stopped me to make me wait in line. The taxi driver had about the patience of a two-year-old child. He stepped on the gas, the car jerked, and then it accelerated away in the dust.
Now I was trapped, not because I didn’t have a mode of transportation, but because the full attention of two men turned on me. One was big and stout, the other lean. The man using the ATM machine inside the corridor was taking a while. I braced for what was coming next. In these kinds of games, power plays are masked by social graces. When someone is being genuinely generous and caring about my well-being, both people walk away from the interaction a little fuller. But when someone is faking being nice with a goal in mind, I walk away feeling robbed.
The game usually began with a veneer of propriety. They asked me where I was from, said my French was good, asked what I was doing in Abidjan, and then — there it was – wanted to know if I was married, and why I wasn’t, and by the way, the skinny shy one is single, and no, you mustn’t be alone, you should find a man, why don’t you date a local man from here, and yes, take out your phone and get his number, he’ll show you around town, don’t you worry, he’d be real good for you.
In the span of a few minutes while I’m waiting to get cash, I went from random tourist woman to a marriageable piece at the market waiting to be taken home by a man. I was outnumbered. They stood very close to me. I handed one of the men my phone, and he wrote his number in my WhatsApp. I smiled as he tapped away on my phone, but my gut felt like I had tripped and fallen down a mine shaft. Finally the ATM machine was free. I opened the door and walked through, beating myself up wondering why I wasn’t stronger to say no, thinking how I could have played the game better to not feel like I lost dignity in that moment.
But if being on her own to explore the world is what she wants, why can’t a woman travel alone? Why do we feel it’s wrong?
During my six months of world travel, I often faced street harassment, including vulgar cat-calling, conversations laced with innuendo and questions about my marital status, usually asked upon immediately meeting me. I expected these encounters, so I tried to avoid traps as much as possible by keeping conversations short or walking by as if I hadn’t heard anything. But the sheer number of them began to wear me down. By the end of it, I was very tired of it all and, feeling defeated, wanted to give in to social expectations and have a man next to me like a bodyguard. But if being on her own to explore the world is what she wants, why can’t a woman travel alone? Why do we feel it’s wrong?
The answer I hear a lot is that traveling alone isn’t safe. It’s not a good enough answer because it’s a blanket statement, and it avoids articulating why we think it isn’t safe. Doing the things that tourists normally do – walking down public streets, browsing shops, buying souvenirs – is pretty much safe in any area that isn’t a war zone. But we start to think these types of activities aren’t safe because we worry what happens to women in public spaces. We worry because there is a prevailing idea that those spaces belong to men.
This essay isn’t about the men who showed me kindness and respect, and who are allies in our aspirations for equality. Neither is this a discussion about assigning blame to cultural differences. This is about how misogyny is still so deeply entrenched that the most normal of daily life activities — withdrawing cash from an ATM machine, walking down a street, sitting and enjoying a sunset – can easily and quickly get hijacked and become hostile situations. I say easily, because resistance isn’t expected, and quickly, because as I mentioned before, the most casual of conversations between strangers becomes another kind of exchange within minutes. Men felt entitled to assert control over me in public spaces, during everyday activities and about my body, and because nothing appeared to be off-limits, there was always a looming threat, however small. I hope this can be a guide for someone else on her world tour, as well as a persuasion that something needs to change.
We are part of a new generation of the modern woman who is free to move around as she pleases.
By global standards, when I began my trip, I had attained a level close to, albeit not entirely equal to, the status of men. I’m part of an elite group of privileged young women who have means. I’m well-educated, healthy, accomplished in my career, emotionally supported by my family and financially independent. I’m adding value to our collective knowledge when I write and create stories, and I’m spending my disposable income across the world, which supports the global economy. There are more and more women like me. More of them are signing up for solo tours. There are Facebook groups dedicated to solo female travelers. I met a few of them randomly in different countries. Travel guides told me more of their business is coming from us. We are part of a new generation of the modern woman who is free to move around as she pleases.
Yet society hasn’t caught up. Having “male” attributes didn’t guarantee that I would be treated with respect. In the eyes of many men, I was a woman without a man by her side, and so I was up for grabs. Here are a few cases of encounters that turned into situations where I felt threatened. There were many more that I won’t recount. I hope to highlight what’s wrong with this kind of behavior, not any ethnicity, race or culture. (Incidents occurred in countries across three continents, showing how widespread this was regardless of culture.)
Public spaces
- While I was walking down a public street, a man behind me followed me close on my heels, saying in a mocking tone, “Oh, is she going to turn left? Oh, oh, oh, nope, she’s accelerating, she’s accelerating!” Another time when I was walking to a pharmacy to get medicine, a man appeared out of nowhere and kept asking if we could take a walk together, even after I said no.
- More cat-calling: One man called out and shamed a specific part of my body. Other comments were about my face and attitude.
Everyday activities
- While I was waiting for my taxi outside of a friend’s apartment, the security guard repeatedly asked, even after I said no, why I wasn’t not married and pressured me to date him.
- While I was sitting in an Uber, the driver repeatedly asked why he couldn’t come with me to wherever I was traveling next, and when I said that I have a “boyfriend,” he continued pressuring me and said he could still be with me.
- Withdrawing money at an ATM machine, as described above
My body
- Men I didn’t know would kiss me on the cheek flirtatiously (not in the European greeting kind of way) or grab my hand and hold it without my permission. Happened when I was kicking a ball around on the beach, and another time while sitting and eating at a barbecue.
- When I got lost down the wrong hiking path, a group of young men groped my butt and legs, even after I told them to stop. They threw things at me and laughed at me until I walked back up the trail. (I told my driver, who was kind to me and was so upset at those guys he encouraged me to report it to the police. But I decided not to.)
- After I asked a group of men if they knew where I could find the housekeeper at my hostel, they laughed and asked, “Why, are you going to have a fling with him?”
In response, I had a few options to consider. I could ignore the guy and walk away. I could lie that I have a husband and wear a ring. I could smile and play along. I could say no, but if done too forcefully, I might risk him pressuring me further or getting angry. Usually I would calmly decline the solicitation and walk away. Yet each time, I would still feel like I had lost something. The damages added up: feelings of shame, humiliation, helplessness.
I found myself constantly searching for words to spar lightly, to deflect, to defuse the situation, to back out. The onus was on me.
Men never proactively offered me an opportunity to say no. (“But if you don’t want to, that’s okay and I understand. You only have to say no once, and I’ll respect your choice.”) I guess I could have held onto some dignity with such diplomacy. But the real root of the problem is the expectation at all of getting something from a woman, no matter how she feels or thinks about it, no matter if she doesn’t want to give anything at all. Under pressure, it was difficult for me to interrupt and say no, even though I often piped up and did. I felt obligated to be nice. I was afraid to say no too harshly, in case I provoked an angry or violent reaction. I found myself constantly searching for words to spar lightly, to deflect, to defuse the situation, to back out. The onus was on me.
At the start of my world trip, I bought travel insurance to cover me in case of all kinds of bad situations through no fault of my own. Lost luggage, medical emergencies, canceled flights. I wish there was a similar sort of assurance I could have taken out to compensate me for damages suffered from harassment, which are no fault of my own. I wish there could have been a guarantee for mutual respect in public spaces, during everyday activities and about my body. The reality is that the probability of harassment for women over the course of solo traveling is a near certainty. The cost of monetarily covering damages would be astronomically high for any insurer. Instead, as compensation, as a society we should change behaviors, remove unbalanced expectations and consider women as equals by accepting their right to say no. We should continue to encourage each other to offer women wherever they want to freely travel the respect they’re owed.
Tips for solo travelers: Commonsense stuff that worked for me
