{"id":12608,"date":"2019-02-23T09:25:26","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T17:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=12608"},"modified":"2019-02-28T10:06:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T18:06:33","slug":"its-past-time-to-redefine-womens-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/23\/its-past-time-to-redefine-womens-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s (Past) Time to Redefine Women’s Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
This vintage ad is about the terrible awkwardness of being a woman traveling alone. Not enough has changed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m freshly back from a media trip* that pitched itself as a “Girls Getaway” themed event. The trip included the option to go snowshoeing — a sport I enjoy but haven’t done enough of lately. A good friend was going and she had never been snowshoeing; it’s so fun to go with beginners.\u00a0 I was psyched about the destination (and the snow, did I mention the snow?) but wasn’t in love with the itinerary. There was a lot of wine too early in the day for me, and a private shopping session that included the possibility of getting a custom made bikini. There was a spa visit, there’s always a spa visit with women’s travel, it seems. I will never say no to a massage, but I do wonder how it is that fashion and wine and beauty treatments have become synonymous with women’s travel, as though that is universally what we want when we leave home.<\/p>\n

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*My trip was mostly paid for by the Hood River County Chamber of Commerce<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I will admit to a fair bit of cynicism on the outset of the trip. The last thing I wanted to do first thing in the morning was reveal my soft midsection to a tape measure. I had to shut up almost immediately upon meeting the founder of Melika Swimwear<\/a>, a woman who was not what I expected at all and was, in fact, kind of a badass with totally out feminist ideas and merchandise. Furthermore, yeah, I could get a bikini if that’s what I wanted, but I could also get a full rash guard, boy shorts, tights, swimdresses and skirts, a full range of options for coverage and modesty and body type. As I chatted with the owner about her politics — she was not a 103 pound waif, but rather, an adult woman with meat on her bones — I felt my edges soften.\u00a0 The whole situation was way more “You GO Girl<\/em>” than “You’ll look super cute instagrammed in this scenic background that is only here as window dressing for your thin\/pretty\/young\/probably white self.” Melika’s\u00a0 was first in a full day interacting with women in travel -centric or -adjacent businesses.<\/p>\n

Even with women carving out their place in travel, the predominant images we see are still very standardized. Rarely do we see women who are, for example, fat. A fat woman featured in marketing materials is described as subversive, as though fat women don’t exist in our world at all and have been somehow manifested solely for the purpose of this weird objectification rather than as just other people in the world who might, you know, like to travel and go swimming and have a fancy meal and stay in a cool hotel.<\/p>\n

I once attended a conference where the talk on what women want in travel was given by — you guessed it — a man. Any number of dudes in the travel industry have told me they’ve been hit up to express opinions on women’s travel. A local travel conference published their proposed agenda and it was shockingly free from women. Rather than send them a proposal, which probably would have been more effective, I sent them a link to\u00a0this website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

None of my companions for these three days of travel were your typical “influencer” (barf emoji goes here) types — they were opinionated and strong, physically, even.\u00a0 I thought, hell, why is women’s travel so frequently marketed to us as though our concerns are so shallow? Furthermore, why is women’s travel seemingly targeted at getting us to spend money in ways that feed on our insecurities? Safety, companionship, and fashion are huge marketing points for women’s travel. Why isn’t it targeted at connecting us with women-run and -owned businesses instead who support our independence, our variety?\u00a0 Also, why, Why, WHY does it always have to be pink?<\/p>\n

You know what I want from travel? Me, a real live woman? I want a bed that’s comfortable and a room that’s quiet at night. I want good coffee in the morning, preferably in my room, though if I have to go to the lobby to get it, I will. I want experiences that make me feel great, that make me feel smarter, stronger, more interesting, and if I look good doing those things, that’s cool too, but it’s not the goal. I want to be treated as though I am knowledgeable by default, not as though I require educating, though I am very open to learning, so I like experiences that encourage questioning, whatever that means. I want my appearance to matter not one goddamn bit unless I decide I feel like it matters. (This does not mean I’m exempt from dress codes, should they exist, but in those cases, I want them to be the same for men and women.) I want to be left to my own devices to see what happens. I want to interact with people who are beautiful because they are interesting<\/em>, not the inverse.<\/p>\n

The fashion industrial complex has preyed on our insecurities for decades, centuries, perhaps? And if there’s a woman alive who hasn’t been spoon fed the idea that it’s dangerous for her to be out there exploring the world on her own — no, I haven’t met all the world’s women.\u00a0She could be out there, but I doubt it. Plenty of marketers will sell you the world as a backdrop for your floppy hat and flowery sun dress, plenty of others will sell you their travel services as providing a security you do not need. Let these vapid tropes die a great fiery death, please.<\/p>\n

I greatly enjoyed Caitlin Moran’s book, How to Be a Woman<\/a>\u00a0(Amazon link, I got mine from the library on audio, it’s terrific). Early in the book she introduces her barometer for sexism and it’s so simple, I think about it all the time. In my vernacular, it’s “Are the dudes doing it? If the dudes aren’t doing it, maybe there’s a problem.” Are the dudes in travel preying on each other’s vanities and insecurities? I’m not sure they are. They’re as guilty of using the world their own personal set as anyone, sure, sure, but I’m not convinced they’re being hammered with messages that they mustn’t head out on an adventure without the correct hair products or before sacrificing limited carry on space to a pair of shoes that works well for chic dining as well as walking tours. Fuck that shit. I’m not convinced that fear is fed to dudes intravenously, either. Group travel for them is about the parties, not the dangers.<\/p>\n

I’m all for ditching the dudes and hanging out with the sisterhood for a few days, especially if they’re as badass and wonderful as the women I just traveled with. (“Boys ruin everything,” one of my companions wryly stated, and it can be true.) And I get that marketing is one of those necessary evils that makes the economy go round. (It makes my own personal economy go round, I write a fair bit of marketing copy even while reading Adbusters and getting a good 75 percent of my wardrobe from second hand stores.)<\/p>\n

But we need a shift.<\/p>\n

Here’s my question: What if, instead of focusing on the insecurities of women who travel, we focused on the women owned businesses who make travel great? What if we followed the example of the folks I just traveled with and did that<\/em>, instead?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re preying on fear and vanity. Could we stop doing that? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":12612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[427],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pacific-northwest-elsewhere","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12608"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12632,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12608\/revisions\/12632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}