0:03

Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told

0:05

You. From how Supports dot com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

0:14

and I'm Caroline. And over the past few weeks

0:17

on the podcast, we have been delving

0:19

into the world of women in exploration

0:22

and women adventurers who are

0:24

going all around the world doing all sorts of incredible

0:26

things. And to close out this series,

0:30

partially because it's summer travel

0:32

season and partially because it just seems

0:35

like the right and natural thing

0:37

to talk about, is the

0:39

issue of women traveling alone,

0:42

women's wanderlust, what it is like,

0:45

whether you are a stem explorer

0:48

or someone who wants to climb the highest

0:50

mountain in the world or not. Just

0:52

women leaving their homes

0:55

to see something they have never seen

0:57

and doing that alone.

1:00

It's it's a super big deal to

1:02

a lot of people for women to be traveling

1:05

by themselves, whether we're talking about women

1:07

today, uh, women in a golden

1:10

age of expiration so like the nineteenth

1:12

century, or whether we're talking about women

1:14

in fourth in the fourth century.

1:16

Yeah. Susan Jacob at The New York

1:18

Times writes about how women

1:21

traveling alone has always been looked at

1:23

a little suspiciously because

1:25

there immediately all of these

1:27

questions raised that essentially

1:30

repeat over and over again, Well, why

1:33

would a woman want to travel

1:35

alone? What is wrong with her?

1:38

And she mentions how in the fourth century,

1:41

Christian pilgrims were the first

1:43

quote unquote respectable women who

1:45

traveled alone, and really, for a

1:47

long time, religious pilgrimages

1:50

and family emergencies were the only

1:52

situations when it was

1:55

socially appropriate for a

1:57

woman to set off on

1:59

her own and without any kind of chaperone

2:02

or male companion. Yeah, God forbid

2:04

a woman travels without some sort of male

2:06

protection, because everybody's going to assume,

2:09

whether we're talking about the fourth century or

2:12

whether we're talking about today, people are going to make some

2:14

crazy assumptions as far as like her

2:16

sexuality goes. For instance,

2:18

people are gonna think like she's a loose

2:20

woman, that Uterus is floating

2:22

about making her crazy, or she's just

2:24

terribly lonely. She's either she's

2:26

either hyper sexual and looking for

2:29

anonymous sex, or

2:31

she is just desperate

2:34

and lost in the world, or maybe

2:36

both. Yeah, and and Jacoby writes

2:39

about these this, this trope of

2:41

the solo woman traveler

2:43

and talks about how even today

2:45

we have these lingering, internalized

2:48

stereotypes about what it means

2:50

for a woman to travel unencumbered and unaided

2:53

by a man or family entourage. And

2:56

this is something that Sarah Heppola over at Salon

2:58

echoed. She talks about how a woman

3:00

traveling alone threatens tradition

3:03

and propriety, and

3:05

because women often doubt themselves, we tend

3:07

to stay towards safe harbors and soft

3:10

landings, hiding behind the

3:12

needs and wants of others. And it was

3:14

really in the mid nineteenth

3:16

century, which is considered by

3:18

some the golden Age of female

3:21

travel, that more and more women,

3:23

particularly well healed women,

3:25

started to brave away from

3:27

those safe harbors and soft

3:30

landings. And it was partially due to advancements

3:32

in transportation technology. You

3:35

have steamships and railroads

3:37

that made travel more feasible.

3:40

Yeah, and this allows women to go

3:42

forth to explore, to learn to

3:44

see the unseen, and

3:47

therefore gained some autonomy break

3:49

some of those gender norms that status

3:52

quo. And this is particularly true though, and

3:54

we would be remiss to skip over this. It's

3:57

particularly true for white middle class women.

3:59

There's a lot of privilege

4:02

at play when you talk about exploration particularly

4:04

during this area of this era, because

4:07

when you look at men, for instance, white

4:09

upper class men traveling abroad,

4:12

seeing the Empire, their heroes,

4:14

their heroes, and the way they talk about

4:17

the quote unquote natives is very

4:19

patronizing. It's very like racist,

4:22

very racist as well. But you know what

4:25

a lot of women during that time, especially

4:27

the upper class white women who were traveling the

4:29

Empire as well. I mean, they weren't

4:31

that far off either, and

4:34

they by leaving the gender

4:36

norms of the modern

4:39

West, they were

4:41

able to go into these you

4:43

know, so called uncivilized

4:45

societies and feel as

4:47

though they were at the top of some power

4:50

hierarchy. Yeah, it was interesting that if

4:53

you read a lot of the travel women's

4:55

travel writings at the time, a

4:57

it is usually coming from women who could

4:59

afford to travel, and

5:01

so you have that element of privilege going

5:03

on there, and then you have the element of white privilege

5:05

going on. But you also have the subtext

5:08

of them starting to question

5:11

their female status,

5:14

their gender role in the West

5:16

because in these other places,

5:18

due to these

5:21

elements of privilege, they

5:23

are higher on the hierarchy

5:26

than they are at home. And this is something that

5:28

Aziza Ahmed writing for

5:30

the post Colonial Studies Department at Emory

5:33

talks about saying that the East

5:35

was seen and that's capital e east. The

5:38

East was seen as a place for women to

5:40

regain power through race, which

5:42

was lost at home because of gender.

5:45

And while that

5:48

is that's not that's not necessarily

5:50

something to celebrate because

5:53

it's obviously like the indigenous

5:55

people who are being thrown under the bus, uh

5:58

for the sake of a woman finding herself

6:00

a little bit more. But but

6:03

it's it's an interesting snapshot of the time

6:05

of how it's sort of the socio

6:08

cultural element of travel

6:11

in the mid nineteenth century when

6:13

these women were going out in corsets

6:16

and skirts and heavy

6:18

clothes and hats and going into

6:21

these what they would call uncivilized

6:23

foreign lens. Well, you know, Kristen, you

6:26

mentioned so as they

6:28

go to other lands and travel and see

6:30

other things, and they they find themselves

6:32

on top of this perceived hierarchy,

6:35

and how that translated into the perception

6:37

of how they were treated at home. I

6:39

mean, if we talk about explorers the way

6:41

we have defined it so far in this series explores

6:44

being those people who have to go out and they have to find

6:46

answers. I mean, it's not

6:48

as if women who

6:51

did and wanted to research,

6:54

It's not like they were welcomed into explorers

6:56

groups. So a lot of the time, if you were

6:58

a woman who had scientific or

7:00

mathematical or anything leaning you

7:03

you kind of did have to pick up and leave and

7:05

go elsewhere to perform research.

7:07

Yeah, this was a lot of kind of anthropological

7:10

research happening under the guise

7:12

of just being a wealthy woman

7:15

traveling. And there were a

7:17

lot of popular women travel writers

7:19

at this time, which is which is a little surprising

7:22

that they were so well

7:24

received, but I guess it was because they were bringing

7:27

back news of an unknown

7:29

land. And so you have people like Isabella

7:32

bird Lady, Mary Wortley

7:34

Montague, and Mary Kingsley

7:37

who wrote a lot and made

7:39

their names in their travel writing,

7:41

which again tended toward

7:44

objectifying indigenous people and

7:47

their quote unquote savage ways.

7:50

And talking about these women's writing

7:52

um a lot of the time, and I'm not saying that this applies

7:55

specifically to the women Christen decided, but

7:57

a lot of the times these women travel writers would

8:00

sort of maybe embellish

8:02

a little, maybe make the native

8:04

people's seem more savage

8:07

or uh, sort of outside

8:09

the norm than they really were, and so

8:12

these travel logs

8:14

attracted a lot of attention, and

8:16

uh Rachel Friedman over at Bitch cites

8:19

Lady Helen Defriends eighteen sixty

8:21

three satiric Listings

8:23

from Low Latitudes, which basically

8:26

makes fun of this trend of

8:28

women travel writers and their travel

8:30

logs. She writes about a trip made

8:33

by the fictional Impulsia Gushington,

8:35

who when I first was skimming over this article, I was like,

8:37

there was a woman named Impulse. Okay,

8:39

I get it. I did the same thing. It's like that's

8:42

the worst name, but

8:44

I get it. Um, But Impulse

8:47

thea sort of stood in

8:49

as a figure mocking the era's upper

8:51

class female travelers in their wide

8:53

eyed, sort of naive and shocked

8:56

observations about the people that they

8:58

encountered in foreign land. But

9:00

it also served to sort of, I

9:03

don't know, I think it kind of served as a backlash

9:06

to women having this freedom,

9:09

Like how weird are you? You're writing all of this

9:11

like trite stuff about traveling

9:13

and how you're so special and how they're so shocking,

9:16

and but the thing is, dufferin A

9:19

is a woman writing this satire and

9:21

b was inspired to

9:23

write about Impulsia Gushington,

9:26

which I don't know. I find out they're very funny,

9:29

Dufferin, You're quite a whit, But

9:31

it was she was inspired to write this after

9:33

taking a trip down the Nile, which was a

9:36

very postionateing to do at the time with her

9:38

son, so she herself

9:41

a travel writer. To me, it

9:44

read as what today

9:46

would be a satire on Eat, Pray,

9:49

Love, you know, essentially

9:51

saying, oh, here we have another

9:53

white woman going into a foreign land

9:56

to find herself. If

9:58

only we could talk to Dufferin. Yeah,

10:00

if we could get different on the podcast, that could

10:02

clear some things up for us. Right. But

10:05

there's another book that we found from eighteen

10:07

sixty five called Women Adventurers,

10:10

written by Meni Muriel Downey,

10:12

in which she profiles I think

10:14

it's five women travelers

10:16

of the day, and she writes those

10:19

in our book followed husbands and lovers

10:21

for love, so they say how much

10:24

more might be made of their stories

10:27

if only they themselves were

10:29

not the narrators. Basically, she was

10:31

saying, it's just too bad

10:33

that these women were not alone traveling, because

10:36

if women are out alone traveling, then you

10:38

know, they realized so much more instead

10:40

of just following men. And that's

10:42

still the refrain now. Yeah, I mean absolutely

10:45

every You know, when you read uh,

10:47

travel essays by young women on

10:50

various websites, various travel magazines,

10:52

etcetera, etcetera, you know a lot of

10:54

them do talk about these

10:57

personal journeys of discovery,

10:59

discovery of the themselves, discovery of new

11:01

places, discovery perhaps of

11:03

a future husband or temporary lover.

11:06

Right, But I bet how rich

11:08

the experience was for them to go on

11:11

their own. Yeah, And for

11:13

that reason, I would say

11:15

that in the early twenty first century

11:17

where we are today, that we might

11:20

be in this golden

11:22

er age of female

11:25

travel and travel writing, because

11:28

you have more women than ever before

11:30

traveling alone. Uh And

11:32

Friedman, for instance, reported in New York Magazine

11:35

a two thousand thirteen poll of travel

11:38

agents which found that it's much

11:40

more common for women to travel

11:42

alone than men, and seventy

11:45

of the agents they pulled noted

11:47

that more female travelers embark

11:50

on solo trips in their male counterparts,

11:52

and the average age of a

11:54

solo traveler is not the

11:56

young woman fresh out of college, but

11:59

a forty seven in year old female. Yeah.

12:01

And usually, uh, you know, something

12:04

has happened in her life that's pushed

12:06

her out on this journey, whether it's just divorced

12:08

or maybe the death of a loved one or parent. And

12:11

I mean, I think those reasons, even if those

12:14

are things specific to a

12:16

certain age group, I mean, I think that those

12:18

major life changes

12:21

are what push a lot of people out into

12:24

the world on a journey of discovery.

12:26

And that reminds me of reading

12:28

that Bitch article by Rachel Friedman in which she

12:31

talks to a travel expert

12:33

who started leading workshops for

12:35

women travelers, and her

12:38

main demographic was women in their

12:40

forties and fifties who,

12:42

Yeah, I had like hit some kind of

12:45

dramatic point in their life and just felt

12:47

the need to flee. And I felt that before,

12:51

just like I need to get on a plane and

12:54

be in a place that looks nothing like my

12:56

home as soon as humanly possible.

12:58

And I don't want anyone I know to come

13:00

with me. Yeah no, I um I after

13:03

going through a breakup, well

13:05

it was actually like a super like tripoli

13:08

doubly traumatic thing of

13:10

heartbreak for so many. Anyway,

13:13

I ended up hopping in the car and just driving to

13:15

Charleston, South Carolina, by myself and just wandering

13:18

around and eating all the food

13:20

and seeing all the sites because I was like,

13:22

I just don't want to I just don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want

13:24

to be at home, you know, I want to go out and think about

13:26

things for a little while. Well, and people might say, but

13:28

Caroline, weren't you so lonely eating

13:30

all of the food by yourself?

13:33

No, no, Yeah.

13:36

I did a similar thing after a

13:38

friend of mine died in a very tragic

13:40

car accident, and my

13:43

knee jerk reaction was to

13:46

go to l A. I'd never been there before,

13:49

and I went for my birthday.

13:51

I also prefer to spend my birthdays

13:53

in places I have never been before because

13:56

it just makes planning so

13:58

much easier. And and like

14:01

you, I just wanted to be alone. I didn't want to

14:03

be around anyone. I wanted to observe

14:06

and sort of just be alone with my

14:08

thoughts. And it felt and it was lonely

14:10

at times when you're surrounded by a

14:12

lot of people, especially I think if you're in morabituristy

14:15

area. But it was a good kind of loneliness.

14:17

Yeah, I think that's that's the thing. I you

14:20

know, I um, I took a trip.

14:22

I did study abroad the semester

14:24

after I graduated college, which is

14:26

weird, but that summer I went

14:28

to England, and

14:31

then after everybody else went back

14:33

to school, I stayed over

14:35

there by myself for a couple of weeks, just traveling

14:38

and seeing the sites. And yeah, you get

14:40

these like pangs, especially around

14:42

meal time, like I wish somebody was

14:44

sitting across the table for me. But it's it's

14:47

so nice. Also, it's it's it's

14:49

a good feeling. It's like pressing

14:51

on a sore muscle almost that You're like, I'm

14:54

doing something for myself. I'm

14:56

focusing inward. I don't

14:59

know not to sound too eat Pray Love about it,

15:01

but speaking though of Eat

15:03

Pray Love, one of the reasons

15:05

why we're seeing more

15:07

women travel memoirs than

15:10

ever before it's become this hugely popular genre

15:13

is largely due to two

15:15

thousand sevens Eat Pray Love by

15:17

Elizabeth Gilbert. And I

15:20

read Eat Pray Love. It

15:22

might have been because I

15:24

was also going through a breakup, so reading

15:26

the book was perfectly timed. But I enjoyed

15:28

it. Oh yeah,

15:29

I know, it gets a lot

15:31

of flak, but I loved it and I cried. Yeah,

15:34

I think I think it gets a lot of flak

15:36

from people who don't

15:39

want who want to distance themselves from

15:41

anything that even looks or smells like

15:43

chick lit. But Elizabeth

15:45

Gilbert is a very respectable

15:48

writer, and while there

15:51

are more high minded books

15:53

out there, I mean, I enjoyed

15:55

it. I've never seen the movie. I heard it was, Yeah.

15:58

I I've seen parts of an on TV and

16:00

it's it's not great. But yeah, I think,

16:03

Um, I don't know. I

16:05

think people need to not to get off on a tangent.

16:07

I think people need to lighten up about the book. It's her

16:10

journey, it's her story. You can tell

16:12

yours too if you want. Yeah, I will say that I

16:14

enjoyed Sheryl Strade's Wild

16:17

more than Eat, Pray Love. They're often held

16:19

up as like the two women travel

16:21

memoirs, but they're such they're also so different

16:23

yea, and written from like very

16:25

different times and places. And

16:28

Sheryl Strad goes out and hikes the Pacific

16:30

Crest Trail, which is far different than eating

16:32

lots of pasta in Italy. Yeah,

16:35

And I mean people

16:37

forget that women don't

16:40

all have one voice, although a lot

16:42

of times, if you are a woman travel writer, you're expected

16:44

to have the voice of

16:47

other women travel writers. And so often

16:50

women who write these books or these

16:52

essays are expected to write about

16:54

their transformation, the personal

16:57

journey, that the emotion, and not

16:59

that that's bad, not that they shouldn't,

17:02

but it is interesting to see the contrast between

17:04

what women do right and are expected

17:06

to write versus what men are

17:08

expected to write and what they end up publishing. Yeah,

17:11

I feel like women's travel memoirs

17:13

are also expected to spring from a place

17:15

of extreme heartache and despair,

17:18

whereas we can jump right in with

17:20

a man on a road in the middle of his travels.

17:23

At least that's what Lavinius Spaulding,

17:25

who was the editor of the two thousand eleven Best

17:27

Women's Travel Writing Anthology,

17:29

reported. She said, a lot of

17:32

travel writing by men is focused on

17:34

what I saw, did eight where I went,

17:36

what goal I accomplished, whereas

17:39

with women, it's who I met, what

17:41

I learned, how I felt, how I changed.

17:43

And that might be due

17:46

to men and women maybe traveling different,

17:48

maybe traveling for different reasons. Um

17:51

but it also might be due to editors

17:54

and publishers sort of pushing

17:57

women travel writers in that type

17:59

of way. Well, this this got me thinking

18:01

about the travel shows, what types of travel shows

18:03

I enjoy watching, and like, I will watch

18:06

for thirty hours at a time Anthony Bourdaine,

18:09

but um, I cannot

18:11

stomach Samantha Brown. And

18:14

I started thinking about I'm like, oh no, my a woman

18:16

hater and myself hater. What's going on? Oh no? And

18:18

then I thought no, no, no, because I would

18:20

watch a women, a women's

18:22

travel show too if it were led by

18:24

a woman who was also like

18:27

Anthony Bourdine, like maybe led

18:29

by too feminist

18:31

minded young podcasters, but

18:35

like if you put Janine Garoffalo on an airplane

18:37

and center overseas, I would totally

18:39

watch that. I'm not as interested in what

18:41

Samantha Brown is selling, you know,

18:43

but then she is it because she has more of

18:46

a like a gender

18:48

stereotypical approach. Is that what it is?

18:50

I don't know what it is. Maybe she's more touristy

18:53

and more like, hey, guys, like

18:56

pack your Fannie pack or whatever, whereas

18:58

Anthony Bourdaine is very much like gonna go into this

19:00

back alley squid shop,

19:02

and I'm going to eat a bunch of squid and then I'm going

19:04

to go to a bar with the squid shop owner.

19:07

You know. It's it's very much more of like a more

19:10

of it off the beaten path type thing. Well, and

19:13

that's such a good distinction to bring up

19:15

between the traveler and

19:17

the tourist, because the tourist is what you

19:19

never want to be. But the traveler

19:22

is the person that we you know,

19:24

that that you want to sit next to them at a

19:26

dinner party and hear all of their tales.

19:28

Whereas a tourist you're going to be

19:30

like, oh no, well, so, I

19:32

I think because we still even

19:34

today, there

19:37

is the danger of falling into that trap of

19:39

still looking at people in the country

19:41

you visit as like an exotic

19:43

other, you know, And

19:45

so there is that danger of falling into that trap. And I

19:47

I feel like it maybe I'm wrong, but

19:50

a tourist is more likely

19:53

to fall into that trap versus someone who is

19:55

a traveler who is more willing to more

19:57

willing and desirous of jumping

20:00

into that culture learning all that they can, not

20:02

looking at it from like a patriarchal

20:05

You're this exotic other I have to

20:07

to encapsulate somehow and put into

20:09

a box. But I want to join you, yeah,

20:11

or I need to come and change your problematic

20:14

gender norms that that

20:16

that I feel are like hyper repressive. Instead,

20:19

a traveler would go in and say,

20:21

oh, no, actually, I am going to go hang

20:23

out with the women and see

20:25

how they live their lives and

20:27

not try to insert myself

20:30

into, uh, into their way of life,

20:32

but rather absorb it and learn about it. But

20:35

getting back though to these

20:37

differences in at least how travel

20:39

writing by men and women is

20:41

marketed. Straight herself has

20:44

talked about how male travel

20:46

stories are often seen as

20:48

universal, perhaps because of

20:51

the thing of how they tend to focus on you

20:53

know what I did saw eight, whereas

20:56

women's and this goes for

20:59

writing by women in general often

21:01

is pigeonholed as being very

21:04

particular and only for

21:06

women. Um, and that's one reason

21:08

why when she was writing

21:11

Wild, she pushed

21:13

for a gender neutral cover. So

21:15

if you, uh, you know, if you have a copy

21:18

of Wild, you'll see that there's a boot on the

21:20

front. She was like, I wanted I didn't want men on

21:22

the subway to be embarrassed

21:24

having my book out reading it. Yeah, a lot of

21:26

women authors out there. Travel writers talk about

21:28

how everybody wants everybody goes to pink first.

21:31

They're like, let's make a pink cover. One author talks

21:33

about how well I finally succeeded by getting a yellow

21:35

cover. Another writer, a woman of

21:38

color, talks about how her

21:40

travel book was was not

21:42

even given the broad audience

21:44

of women. Hers was pigeonholed

21:46

as African American studies. And

21:49

she's like, I'm not some anthropological

21:52

like study you'r you know, I'm a

21:54

woman travel writer, Like what are you talking

21:56

about? And I'm pretty sure. The title of her

21:58

book is The Black girl S Guide to Traveling,

22:01

which clearly is a travel book, not

22:04

an African American studies book.

22:06

But that also touches on our

22:08

conversations about, you know, women in

22:11

literature and marketing and all

22:13

of that. But um, it also leads

22:15

us to these two major

22:17

themes that come up with

22:20

women's solo traveling, where

22:22

it has to be both transformational

22:26

and also terrifying. And

22:28

so that first theme of transformation

22:31

is one that we've heard a lot about. We've already

22:33

talked a lot about it that often a woman's

22:36

journey that ends up being whether it's published

22:38

or whether it's just you know, a woman who's not

22:40

a writer going off and traveling. It's often

22:42

sparked by some emotional

22:45

moment in her life or something something

22:47

like heartache or trauma that sets

22:50

her off on this journey of self discovery.

22:52

And a lot of times I feel like any

22:55

women's travel essay that you read,

22:58

the resounding message is to do it because

23:00

it will transform you, and especially if

23:03

you do it alone. You have Sarah

23:05

Heppola at Salon, who we sited earlier,

23:07

who talks about how she essentially

23:09

just got in her car and drove

23:11

around the United States for months

23:14

alone. And you have Jill philip Povic

23:16

at The Guardian writing about how I

23:18

think it was post breakup she went

23:21

to Europe and Freedman, who we site

23:23

all the time on the podcast. She's essentially

23:25

the patron saint of Cementthi at this point. But

23:27

she similarly talks about how when she was in her

23:30

early twenties she went traveling alone

23:32

and she was nervous at first but

23:34

so quickly relieved

23:36

to be by herself. And so there's that

23:39

recurring theme over and over

23:41

and over again. Of travel fourth

23:43

young woman, for it will be transformative and

23:46

also feminist. Absolutely.

23:49

Even Toby Israel at Salon talks

23:51

about female hitchhiking about

23:53

how you, as a woman, you know, are much

23:55

more likely to be hit by a car than you

23:58

are to be killed and raped a

24:00

hitchhiking, And so she talks about how that

24:03

was a major she she overcame a major

24:05

hurdle of fear and trepidation

24:08

when she decided to accept that for that

24:10

first hitchhiking offer, and how even

24:12

though there were some bumps along the way,

24:15

that she was so glad she did it. Yeah,

24:17

and she ended up traveling more than thirty seven

24:20

thousand miles hitchhiking through

24:22

Croatia, Slovenia, Austria,

24:25

and Germany, which I cannot fathom. I

24:27

don't know if my bravery

24:29

extends to the point of hitchhiking,

24:32

because whether you're a male or female, you

24:34

know, how many times have we been told since

24:36

we were we children to never accept

24:38

her hide from strangers. Yeah,

24:42

yeah, I I don't know. I don't know. She

24:44

she does point out, like we've already said,

24:46

she does point out that she had

24:48

this double pronged privilege

24:51

of being female, so she was not threatening

24:53

to people who might stop and pick her

24:55

up. Also, people like couples

24:58

and grandparents would stop because they felt protective

25:00

of this young white woman out

25:02

on the side of the road. But also that whole white thing where

25:05

she enjoys the privilege

25:07

of being a white female.

25:09

And so you know, other drivers don't, you

25:12

know, feel threatened or whatever. So she she

25:14

points that out that there, it's

25:16

not the same for everyone, right,

25:19

um, But what does seem to

25:21

be the same for a lot of solo

25:23

female travelers, at least according to a

25:26

two thousand to study out of the University of Florida,

25:28

is that, Yes, indeed, setting

25:31

out on your own is empowering.

25:33

These researchers talked to a number of women who

25:35

had traveled on their own, and they found

25:38

that the women described

25:41

the experiences is liberating, not

25:43

terrifying. Even though we

25:46

are often warned over and over again

25:48

that oh, if you are a woman traveling alone,

25:51

you had better watch out. You better put on a ring,

25:54

better get a ripe whistle, get too, and

25:58

keep it in your mouth at all. Yeah, get

26:00

some bare repellent because it is a grizzly world

26:02

out there. I mean,

26:04

I think it's I think it's funny that they

26:06

even studied this. Well yeah, I mean,

26:08

and they found too that after

26:11

traveling alone, these women still

26:14

prefer traveling alone because it

26:16

gave them more opportunities to

26:18

make new friends. Because when

26:21

I went, for instance, I went on

26:23

study abroad in college

26:25

with one of my best friends still one of my best

26:27

friends, and we had so

26:29

much fun together and we made lots

26:32

of memories. But there were also times

26:34

that I know and like recognized

26:37

as it was happening that we

26:39

were kind of so caught up in like our own friendship with

26:41

like doing things together, that we weren't

26:44

making really friends outside

26:46

of ourselves, which could have been cool there. I mean,

26:48

we ended up doing that more once

26:50

we had been there for a little bit. Um,

26:52

but I think there there can be some missed

26:54

opportunities. Yeah, Like I, um,

26:57

when I was by myself over and England

27:00

and Ireland, I

27:03

lost my leg. I didn't lose the luggage, the airline

27:05

lost the luggage. And so I get to Ireland

27:07

after being awake for thirty six hours,

27:10

and I'm feeling a little down

27:13

in the dumps because I don't have any underwear,

27:16

you know, Like I have nothing and I'm by myself

27:18

and it's raining because it's Ireland, and

27:21

I'm just like, oh God. So anyway,

27:23

I'm walking up to Trinity

27:25

College in Dublin, and who should

27:28

I see but this girl that I did

27:30

study abroad with. And I was like, oh,

27:32

oh, you stayed too, Hello.

27:34

Can we be best friends for the next couple of hours?

27:36

And so she and I um

27:39

went all over the city. We saw a bunch of things

27:41

together, we ate together, We talked to

27:44

a bunch of like the local restaurant

27:46

owners, and gotten to a bunch of great conversations.

27:48

We eventually went our separate ways,

27:50

but it was great to have that experience of

27:53

kind of enjoying a

27:55

foreign country and a new city

27:58

with someone so you could rely on

28:00

that that extra

28:02

presence, but then taking your

28:04

own way and then diving deeper

28:07

into all of these things you want to learn more about. Yeah,

28:09

I've never traveled abroad by

28:11

myself. I've gone places

28:14

in the US, but usually I

28:16

have some point of contact, whether I'm staying

28:18

with a friend or you know,

28:20

somebody to call someone

28:22

to meet up with, because there

28:24

comes that point of the

28:26

free time, the after the

28:29

sun sets and is it safe

28:31

to go out, where do you go and eat

28:33

alone? It can be

28:35

I mean, it can be kind of nerve

28:38

racking. Yeah, And I mean that leads

28:40

us into the next major

28:43

theme of anyone discussing

28:45

women traveling alone, which is

28:47

danger. Danger. You've got to wear all those rate

28:50

whistles, don't go out after dark, certainly,

28:52

don't go to clubs like watch

28:54

your back, don't stay on the first floor of a hotel.

28:58

And while there is merit to

29:00

a lot of the travel advice, I mean, certainly,

29:02

don't be stupid, but you don't

29:04

want to do stupid things at home either. Yeah.

29:07

I mean, when you look at

29:09

the statistics of how dangerous

29:12

travel for women actually is

29:15

compared to how

29:17

much we hear about how

29:20

what a terrible idea, essentially it is

29:23

because we're just like putting ourselves at risk

29:25

for the worst possible things to happen to us.

29:27

Apparently there's such a

29:29

vast gulf between the reality

29:32

of traveling alone and what we

29:34

are warned about traveling alone.

29:36

And that's one reason that women are

29:38

likelier to plan, like to overplan

29:41

excuse me, their itinerary, because

29:44

we're so nervous about that free time, because

29:46

everyone's been telling us that we're

29:49

going to be murdered and or

29:51

raped. Well, I don't know. I mean, I

29:53

think, I mean not to totally

29:55

go off on a tangent, but I think that having

29:58

that free time is so awesome,

30:01

that unplanned free time is so awesome, just

30:03

as long as you are smart about

30:05

it and you're paying attention to your surroundings. Well,

30:07

and I have a feeling too that

30:09

you know, yes, be smart about it, um,

30:12

But I also feel like they're there's

30:14

this undercurrent of victim

30:16

blaming in regard to the worst case

30:19

scenario of being murdered and

30:21

or raped, which has happened.

30:23

And I'm not trying to make light of that, um,

30:26

But whenever the

30:29

worst case scenario happens, the

30:32

blame is immediately focused

30:34

on the solo female traveler of well,

30:37

why was she out there alone

30:39

to begin with? Right an Alice

30:41

Driver at the Feminist Wire says that basically,

30:43

by repeating these stories over and over again and telling

30:45

women not to go out by themselves, we are

30:48

limiting their movement. And I

30:50

would say that by then limiting

30:52

women's movement, making them too afraid to go out

30:54

in the dark by themselves. Ever, we're

30:56

also not allowing that to become normalized.

30:58

We're not allowing the inch of a

31:00

woman at a cafe at night, or

31:03

at a club or wherever she is at

31:05

night by herself. We're not allowing that to become

31:08

normalized. Well. And then there's also

31:10

this deeper level too, as The New

31:13

York Times talked about of

31:15

how, if, and when

31:18

a white female traveler,

31:20

in particular, if something

31:22

happens to her, it's

31:24

often amplified by the

31:26

media, which makes individual

31:29

incidents seem like part of

31:31

a larger pattern. Um

31:33

and Christina Finch, who's the director of Amnesty

31:36

Internationals Women's Human Rights

31:38

Program, told The New York Times on

31:40

average, attacks against white

31:42

women worldwide receive more coverage

31:45

than attacks against women of color.

31:47

And then on top of that, you also have um

31:50

the response to violence against Western tourists

31:52

being met with a much faster response

31:54

than violence against local women. Right.

31:57

And then that leads us, of course to the story of Sarrise

32:00

Era, who in was

32:02

murdered while traveling alone in Turkey.

32:04

And so there's a lot of handwringing

32:07

around this, I mean admittedly

32:09

horrific story about like why

32:11

was she even alone in the first place, what was she possibly

32:14

thinking? When in reality, like

32:16

and and it got a very fast and

32:18

strong police response in Turkey.

32:22

But this was a guy. This was like

32:24

a crazy homeless man who tried to

32:26

kiss her and she fought back, and then

32:28

she threw a rock at him, and he bashed her

32:30

head in with a rock basically, and

32:33

so, I mean, this is something that could have happened to any woman,

32:35

but it happened to take place as

32:38

violence against an American woman

32:40

traveling by herself. And people seemed

32:43

so outraged, particularly

32:45

at her for traveling

32:48

because she not only was a woman

32:50

traveling alone, but she was also married, and

32:53

people some people were like, well, why wasn't

32:55

your husband with you? Why weren't you Are

32:57

you one of those going back to that early trope

33:00

at mistrust of the woman traveling alone. She

33:02

must have just been out trying to cheat on her husband.

33:04

Why was she even talking to a man in the first

33:07

place. It's so victim

33:09

blaming, but more level

33:11

headed responses to that admittedly

33:14

horrific incident. It's the fact that when

33:17

you look at things like domestic violence

33:19

rates, murder rates, and sexual assault

33:21

rates in the US, a lot

33:23

of times there is a statistically

33:26

greater chance of the worst case

33:28

scenario happening at home

33:31

rather than abroad. So in Sierra's

33:33

case, for instance, according to data

33:35

collected by the U. S. State Department, which

33:37

keeps tabs on violence against American

33:39

tourists, it found that

33:42

there had been three murders

33:44

of US tourists in Turkey, and

33:46

I think it was either five or

33:48

ten year long period, And

33:51

Sierra was a New Yorker, which meant

33:53

that in two thousand eleven alone

33:56

there were five hundred and two murders.

33:59

So statistically speaking, in a way,

34:01

she was actually safer in Turkey

34:03

than she was in New York City,

34:07

right, And when we look over to Dysan

34:09

McClain, who's the former New York Times

34:12

Frugal Traveler columnist, she

34:14

talks about how she has actually felt

34:16

safest in countries

34:19

that tend to have a more patriarchal or

34:21

repressive society, because those

34:24

cultures tend to have lower crime

34:26

rates, and the local women

34:28

tend to be more protective of

34:30

traveling women, particularly those women

34:32

that they see traveling by themselves. Now, obviously

34:35

in those kinds of societies, women

34:38

travelers need to pay attention

34:40

to the clothes that they're wearing. They need to be respectful

34:42

of the local customs and not just try to

34:44

bulldoze in and say free the nipples.

34:47

I'm just gonna come in here and change everything.

34:50

Um. And when you are being a

34:52

respectful traveler, tourists, whatever

34:54

you wanna call it, Yeah,

34:56

a lot of women travelers talk

34:59

about how local women

35:01

reach out to them and you know, try to kind

35:03

of give them help along the way. And

35:05

this is not to say thumbs

35:07

up to super repressive patriarchal

35:10

societies, but rather to re

35:13

examine, Okay, how realistic

35:16

is this overwhelming fear of women traveling

35:18

alone? Is this rooted in reality

35:21

or rooted in our fears about

35:24

women traveling alone,

35:27

Because I think one of the biggest fears

35:29

um, and I've felt this spear before

35:31

as well of traveling alone is

35:33

the risk of sexual assault. We made a joke

35:36

about rape whistles, but I think that you

35:38

know, putting yourself out in the world,

35:40

in a in an unknown place

35:43

does can make you feel very vulnerable.

35:46

But again, when you look

35:48

at the statistics, leaving

35:51

your home doesn't necessarily

35:54

make you less safe or more at risk

35:56

for sexual assault. So, for instance,

35:59

um, there isn't hard data on

36:01

all sexual assaults reported

36:03

by female travelers, but The

36:06

New York Times reports that from

36:08

two thousand twelve to two thousand thirteen, three

36:12

British travelers requested consular

36:14

assistance after alleged

36:16

sexual attacks. For comparison,

36:19

the Rape Crisis England and Whales

36:22

Center estimates that thousand

36:25

women are raped in

36:28

those countries every year. So

36:31

yet, again, what are

36:33

we so afraid of? Is it reality

36:36

or is it just our concerns

36:38

about the general vulnerability

36:41

of women being out on their own?

36:43

Yeah, I mean, I do think it says a lot about

36:45

how society or societies

36:48

view women and how they move

36:50

through those societies. Well, and it could because

36:52

it's that fear and the warning that we shouldn't

36:55

do that, and then if something happens, we

36:58

are the ones to blame. It's

37:00

a bit rape culturally when you think about it, and

37:02

you know, we've we've already said that. There

37:05

are situations where, whether you're

37:07

at home or abroad, honestly, you know, you

37:09

just want to be smart and be aware, and so

37:11

there are some tips to keep in mind when

37:14

you are traveling by yourself. Um.

37:16

One that Jody Edinburgh at Legal

37:19

Nomad brings up is that it's

37:21

a balance that you have to strike between

37:23

thinking smart and trying to stay safe

37:26

and also not succumbing to the fear.

37:28

She recommends carrying a rubber

37:30

doorstop to use in your hotel

37:32

room, a safety whistle, staying in

37:34

well lit areas, watching your drink,

37:36

which is just good advice for life.

37:39

Dress conservatively. This is a

37:41

common refrain that we hear in a lot of travel

37:43

tip blogs. Don't give

37:45

away details about what you're staying to

37:48

strangers, Be careful

37:50

with your eye contact, and maybe option wearing

37:52

sunglasses. There's the example that one blog

37:54

gave of being

37:56

in like northern Europe versus Southern Europe,

37:59

and if you're in Italy, there's the whole thing about

38:01

eye contact and a smile being considered

38:03

an invitation to engage,

38:06

and that maybe if you're not looking to engage

38:08

in conversation, put on some

38:10

some big old sunglasses. Should

38:12

you wear your sunglasses at night? Like the song goes

38:15

totally? And going

38:17

back to that University of Florida study

38:19

that we talked about earlier, some

38:22

of the tips from the veteran women

38:24

travelers who were involved

38:26

with that talked about how important it was to

38:28

really know where you're going in the sense

38:31

of knowing the country, knowing the

38:33

culture, and on top of that, and this

38:35

is stressed over and over and over again,

38:37

particularly for women traveling alone. To

38:40

select accommodations in safer

38:42

parts of town, you might want

38:44

to spend more money on going

38:46

to, say, a name brand hotel, rather

38:49

than staying at a hostile off

38:51

the beaten path that might not have twenty

38:53

four hour security. Um and

38:55

I think those are one of the things where it's

38:58

not so much fearmongering, but that's

39:00

a basic safety measure.

39:02

But I hate it. I hate it. I hate it because,

39:05

like what I mean, I was a college

39:07

student who didn't have the money to stay in a hotel. I

39:09

mean, you know, so I

39:11

I picked hostiles instead, stayed

39:14

with strangers, slept in a room

39:16

in on the west coast of Ireland

39:19

with like twenty other people, one of whom was a

39:21

ginormous man on the bunk below me

39:23

who snored all night. But

39:25

when you're like like a terrible level of

39:27

tired, you can sleep through at I shure you. But um

39:30

no, But I hate that advice that you need to stay

39:32

in a nicer hotel because that is incredibly

39:34

limiting. Well, that's one thing that this

39:37

came up actually in the New York

39:39

Times Frugal Traveler column,

39:42

which is written right now by

39:44

a guy, and he gets a lot of responses

39:47

from people saying, we really need to hear

39:49

from women. There have been I think two or three women

39:51

before him who were at the

39:53

helm of the column, and you

39:56

know, he hears from people saying like, well, sure

39:58

you can go and live on a don because

40:00

you're a guy and you can travel anywhere. And

40:03

that might be more of a challenge for a woman who

40:05

really wants to be as take

40:08

as many precautions. I should say as possible.

40:10

I don't want to say as safe as possible, because I

40:12

feel like that also still feeds

40:14

into this whole like, you know,

40:16

threatening message that women get who want to travel

40:18

on their own. But if you want to take

40:21

as many precautions as possible,

40:24

staying at the nicer spot in a

40:26

well lit area is a

40:29

big one. Yeah, just prepare

40:32

yourself some hustles like have dance

40:34

parties all night. I'm just gonna warn

40:36

you about that. And on top of that, there

40:39

is an even more depressingly

40:41

common piece of advice, which is

40:43

to where a wedding ring

40:46

real or fake and even

40:48

as a travel expert, Rick

40:50

Steve's suggested carry a picture

40:52

of a real or fake husband, And

40:56

I feel so conflicted about

40:58

this one, particularly going to the the extent

41:01

of carrying a photo of a husband,

41:03

because it's yet another example

41:05

of whether you are abroad

41:08

or if you are at a bar down the

41:10

street, where if someone

41:13

is giving you unwanted sexual attention,

41:15

the quickest way to stop it is to not say

41:18

no, thanks, not interested, but to

41:20

rather say I have a boyfriend. I

41:22

have a husband. Even if you were to say,

41:25

and it is the truth, oh I have a girlfriend, won't

41:27

stop it. You gotta say I have a boyfriend.

41:29

You need to show the presence of another

41:32

male in your life.

41:35

And I want to hear from listeners on that one,

41:38

because, like I like, the feminist

41:40

inside of me wants to fight that

41:42

one so much. But

41:46

I mean, like we said earlier, we can't

41:48

go into other societies, other cultures,

41:51

you know, determined to change the

41:53

way things are, because we're just not. Yeah,

41:55

it's not our job to go and fight the patriarchy,

41:58

right, and so it stinks. But

42:02

if you want to avoid hassle,

42:05

you got to wear your sunglasses and

42:07

maybe you got to wear a wedding ring well, and I could

42:09

see, Okay, I could see if

42:11

I was traveling alone, and particularly

42:13

if I wanted to go out at night, then

42:16

putting on the wedding ring, because I feel like

42:18

that's when it, you

42:20

know, the fear probably creeps in the

42:22

most. Um.

42:25

So if you wanted to go have

42:27

a nice dinner, have a drink at a bar, maybe

42:30

it would just kind of you know, it serves

42:32

like it put a radar shield around

42:35

you. Um. But I mean,

42:37

I think too, that just depends on what country

42:39

you're traveling in, what type of culture you're traveling

42:41

in. When I was traveling, I had zip

42:44

zero problems with people harassing

42:47

me. The only time I was harassed is when I had

42:49

been up for thirty six hours or so in

42:51

Dublin and some guys were hassling me about

42:53

taking up an entire booth in a pub by myself.

42:55

Like, listen, I'm sorry that I'm not really

42:57

caring about etiquette right now. As far as where

42:59

I said, I'm just so tired. But

43:03

no, they weren't. There was no sexual advances there,

43:05

so that's good. Yeah,

43:07

because look, you are yet another one

43:10

of the women who have traveled

43:12

alone and come back to tell the tale

43:14

that it is okay out there in the world.

43:16

It's awesome, it's Hi. I

43:18

enjoyed. I super enjoyed traveling by myself

43:21

well. And they're also advantages of

43:23

being a solo female traveler. I feel

43:25

like a lot of times the conversation stops at

43:27

the fear factor, but there are plenty of advantages,

43:30

such as, first and foremost, being

43:32

able to see the world on your own terms

43:35

and your own schedule. You could sit in that booth

43:37

at the pub in Ireland as long as you wanted,

43:39

Caroline, well until those guys so they until

43:42

they were complaining too gladly. Um.

43:44

And then there's the whole thing about women tending

43:47

to get invited to people's homes more often

43:49

and maybe being more protected by locals. Hi,

43:52

this is absolutely something that I experienced

43:54

when I was on the West coast of Ireland.

43:57

I wandered into this pub and I didn't have any cash,

43:59

but they had a twenty five euro credit card minimum,

44:01

Like, just kill me right, So I was like, okay,

44:03

give me all the fish and chips and

44:05

as much guinness as I can swallow. So

44:08

I'm sitting there and I'm like stuffed to the gills

44:10

and I'm drunk because I've been

44:12

drinking all this guinness. And I

44:14

walk up to the bar and I'm like, have I

44:16

reached the minimum yet?

44:19

And this couple next to me, here's my accent,

44:22

and they start talking to me and they it turns out

44:24

they are a couple from

44:26

New Jersey who quit

44:28

the rat race. Their kids were done with school, they quit

44:30

the rat race, moved to the west coast

44:32

of Ireland in this tiny town of

44:35

Duelin, opened to stained

44:37

glass shop and

44:39

lived above it. And they

44:41

were so sad to hear my story about losing

44:43

my luggage and that all

44:46

I wanted to do was take a hot shower after a day

44:48

of traveling, and they were like, well wait here, and

44:50

the wife ran back to the house

44:52

and got me a towel so that I could shower that night,

44:55

and we just sat there at the bar and talked. Turns

44:57

out their son, I don't know if he still

44:59

is, but was a police officer from

45:01

around where I am from,

45:04

in Georgia. So small world,

45:06

very small world. But I think there is something to be

45:08

said for being

45:10

a woman traveling by yourself, being

45:13

open to those experiences I think

45:15

it's important to not shut yourself

45:18

off, but to look and feel open

45:20

to talking to strangers absolutely,

45:22

because you never know that you're going to meet in a

45:24

good way. In a good way. Yeah.

45:26

Um. One tip that was brought

45:28

up by traveler Emily Baron talking

45:31

to the New York Times Frugal Traveler

45:34

was that one other advantage

45:36

you might not think about of being a woman traveling

45:38

alone is that you are likelier to have a

45:40

tampon on you. And she

45:42

talks about how tampons

45:45

can serve as the

45:47

you know, build the bridge between you

45:50

and local women, because I mean, we've

45:52

all been there. If you are in a situation

45:54

where your period

45:57

came, you don't have a tampon, and the woman

45:59

who had as one and hands it to you, it's almost

46:01

as if you can hear the angels saying like that, Oh,

46:05

and you're bonded immediately. And

46:07

also if you break your nose, you can shove one up your

46:09

nose too. Yeah, they're all sorts of survival

46:12

uses for tampons. If you don't

46:14

believe me, google it. It's true.

46:16

So I mean, guys, obviously you can carry

46:18

tampons too. It's just you

46:21

know it might be if a guy hands out a woman

46:24

a tampon, a local woman a tampon.

46:26

I don't know if it would necessarily be a bridge

46:28

builder in the same way as

46:31

if you or I were to hand

46:33

her one that might halt the conversation. Yeah,

46:35

yeah, I could a little bit um. And then on

46:37

top of all of it, the advantages,

46:40

obviously are just the confidence building,

46:42

the personal transformation that we hear about

46:45

so often. You can go, you can

46:47

eat, you can pray, you can love,

46:50

if that's what you so desire. That

46:52

was my mom telling me about

46:55

that. Yeah, I

46:57

absolutely, I absolutely encourage

46:59

people to do it, and there's plenty of resources

47:02

out there for you to learn about traveling,

47:04

whether you're traveling solo or a friend. Whoever,

47:07

if you want to go do this as a lady

47:09

explorer. Yeah, there are so many

47:12

women focus travel sites and travel

47:14

magazines. Caroline, didn't we read that

47:17

women traveling is so hot right

47:19

now? Yeah? Consumer Affairs quoted.

47:21

Uh, someone is saying that it's the new trend

47:24

in travel, to which I said, wrong.

47:28

But yeah, it's good to see that that more people

47:30

are actually paying attention to this

47:33

this section of the population. Apparently

47:35

that woman had never heard of Impulsia Gushington.

47:38

That's right, you don't know, but yeah, they're

47:40

all sorts of websites out there for

47:43

women's specific travel tips, such as Women's

47:45

Adventure Magazine. There's Wanderlust

47:48

and Lipstick, which I know the name might

47:50

sound a little hokey, but it's actually really

47:52

good resource. There's Black Girl Travel.

47:54

There's also You Go Girl, which

47:56

is from the author of the Black Woman's Book

47:59

of Travel and Adventure, and

48:02

Women on the Road, etcetera, etcetera. I mean,

48:04

really, it's all just a Google search away. And what's

48:06

so encouraging I think about it is that when

48:08

you google like these types of resources

48:10

for women, there's so many different kinds. There

48:13

is stuff that's on the girl group

48:15

side, so you're going with a lot of women. It's

48:17

a journey of self discovery all the way to like

48:20

the rustic strikeout on your

48:22

own to climb that mountain. So there's there's

48:24

just everything in between. And I like

48:27

how people, whether you're a woman entrepreneur

48:30

starting a group like this or whatever, I

48:32

like that the fact that women are different

48:35

is being recognized. Yeah, yeah,

48:37

we want different things and we enjoy

48:39

different things, and that's fantastic,

48:42

and I just love though. I've

48:44

honestly really enjoyed just sitting here

48:46

listening to your travel stories that I've never

48:49

heard before. And I love hearing

48:51

and reading other women's travel

48:53

stories as well, because not just

48:55

sound cheesy, but they're very inspiring,

48:58

you know, because it can be I've been fearful

49:00

before about hopping on a plane

49:02

and going to the other side of the world, probably why

49:04

I've never done it alone before.

49:06

But I tell you what, Caroline, after this podcast,

49:10

I am ready to

49:12

go somewhere do it. My boyfriend

49:15

might be like, hey, where are you going? You and I should

49:17

just go and then we'll just split off and come back

49:19

together at the end of it. Yeah,

49:21

yeah, and then swap our swap

49:23

our stories. But now we want to hear your

49:26

stories and not just women, any

49:28

solo traveling adventures and photos

49:31

we would love to read and to see,

49:34

so please send us all of them. Mom

49:36

Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email

49:38

address. You can also tweet us places

49:40

you've been pictures at mom

49:43

Stuff Podcasts. You can also message es on Facebook

49:45

and we have a couple of messages to share about our

49:47

episode on World War two and

49:50

Rosie the riveters right now, So

49:55

Caroline, I have one here from Megan,

49:58

who writes My maternal and pa

50:00

dropped out of high school in nineteen forty two

50:02

and fibbed about his age to enlist

50:04

in the Marines. While on leave in late

50:07

forty four or early forty five, he

50:09

married my grandmother, who was sixteen

50:11

at the time and not working due to her age.

50:14

She did take part in scrap metal drives

50:16

and gardened extensively. She became

50:18

pregnant pretty much right away and didn't work

50:20

until the early nineteen fifties. However,

50:23

her older sister, my great aunt, did work.

50:26

My family is from East Tennessee, and my aunt

50:28

Vernell, worked on the Manhattan Project.

50:30

WHOA, that's so cool. Workers

50:33

in Oakridge were not permitted to tell friends and

50:35

family that they worked for what they were doing. Maryville,

50:38

where my family lives. In oak Ridge are

50:40

some thirty miles apart, and it's possible

50:42

my family wasn't aware that the secret city

50:44

existed. My aunt has told me that

50:47

none of the workers, including her, had any

50:49

idea they were building bombs. Each

50:51

line of production was subdivided and kept hidden

50:53

from the other lines, and when the war ended,

50:55

she married her soldier boyfriend, had a couple

50:57

of kids, worked as a hospital nurse and

51:00

collects at pension from the government for her

51:02

help in aiding the war effort. Their

51:04

oldest sister was a war nurse and has

51:07

unfortunately passed away. I know I've heard

51:09

some of her stories, but at the time I was too young to

51:11

realize the significance of what

51:13

I was hearing. Yeah,

51:16

so thanks so much Megan for sharing those stories.

51:19

And Vernell, Well,

51:21

I have one here from Laura. She

51:23

says, my great aunt who

51:26

I used to love to visit work during World War

51:28

Two in a more unusual setting. She

51:30

was in the Air Force and stationed for at least part

51:32

of the time in Hawaii, where she drew

51:34

maps of enemy territory from descriptions

51:36

given to her by pilots. She was quote

51:39

unquote older, being

51:41

in her mid twenties at the time, so

51:43

I got the impression that she had a higher rank

51:45

than the young men she was stationed

51:47

with. I believe it was during this time

51:50

she interacted with some of the higher up people,

51:52

including Winston Churchill, as

51:54

they needed to view her work. Also,

51:57

from what I understand, you can see some of

51:59

her work today at Smithsonian. Her

52:02

name is Mary Taylor. Heis

52:05

that's h. I s E. So

52:07

thank you, Laura. I am so blown away by our

52:09

cool listeners and they're really cool grandmothers

52:12

and great aunt, great aunts and well,

52:15

if you have cool stories about

52:17

your Rose of the Riveter grandmother, great

52:19

aunt, or travel stories, you want

52:21

to hear all of them. Mom stuff

52:23

at how stuff works dot com is where you can email

52:25

us and for links to all of our social

52:28

media's as well as all of our blogs, podcasts,

52:30

and videos to perhaps keep you entertained

52:33

on your travels and beyond. There's

52:36

one place to go, and it's stuff Mom Never

52:38

Told You dot com.

52:43

For more on this and thousands of other topics,

52:45

does it how stuff works dot com