Mochilera, Married Lady

In my search for an article unrelated to travel, I happened upon a fantastic Latina travel blog called Mochileras y Viajeras (Women Backpackers & Travelers). It would be on a Latina website that I would find my home planet for my feelings about travel. From the intro post by the creator of the blog, Julie Sie, I was sold. Julie's description about her initial fears of travel mirrored mine so closely when I started that she felt like a kindred spirit: 

[My translation] "Many years ago I got into the mind, heart and body fascination for travel: short, long, planned, aimlessly, in groups or alone ... and I needed some time to make the decision to start.Gradually I discovered that what kept me from traveling was FEAR . Yes, well capitalized and bold because they were countless fears!, tiny concerns that wreak havoc on your mind and paralyze you without you noticing.I worked through the concerns back and forth in my mind: What will I do with my life?, Is it worth spending my savings on a trip?, Where will I go, and how do I save money?, Is traveling alone a good idea?, What if I get sick, and I get injured or something happens to me?, How much money is enough?, What will happen when I return?, What if I don't ever return? .... there were several concerns and not a single answer in sight. I realized then that these fears were based primarily on the NEED for control, comfort and safety most women have been taught growing up . These three ideas that society, our parents, teachers and even strangers have made us see as an indispensable part of life and that we (without realizing it) have accepted as absolute truths. " J.S. 

I can't tell you how often I've read things about how women shouldn't travel alone or that it's too dangerous for women to travel without men. As Julie points out, the lessons many women learn from a young age prime them to fear travel or to believe travel is irresponsible. I've even recently experienced new gender related backlash to travel now that I'm married. I recently went to NOLA with my best friend for a couple of days, and the most common question in connection to the trip was "You went without Jesse (my husband)?" Even my mother's aunt, who has travelled the world alone for decades and never married, told my mom I couldn't travel anymore now that I needed to worry about my esposo. I will say that my husband does support my love for travel and is very supportive, but I definitely feel the pressure from others to essentially stay in the domestic space. It relates back to Julie's note on control and safety. Now that I have a husband, he is my protector, so why would I ever choose to travel without him? There is also this strange belief that I need to be with him 24-7 now to take care of him?1? I married my husband b/c he is a fantastic, intelligent, and independent man—he doesn't need me to take care of him. 

I actually love to travel with my husband. He taught me to travel and was the one who helped me overcome my fears, but I also want to the experiences that come from traveling with friends or traveling alone. I have trouble understanding why this is a problem to folks? It's interesting to see how uncomfortable it makes people and I often wonder if this is why some marriages fail. Couples choose, with people in their life supporting this model, to meld into each other. I have been with this man for almost 10 years and he is my best friend and the person I always prefer to spend my time with, but I feel that way b/c I have never lost my independence in this relationship. We each have our own interests, friends, and activities—making our time together all the more special. 

I think this is what I love the most about the Mochilera website. If you look through the posts, it's not just young, single women describing their travel experiences. It has several posts by mothers, older women, and basically the "non-traditional" female world traveler. It reminded me yet again that it's okay to travel alone, with my husband, with friends, or even with my children one day if we choose to have them. It's about getting over those fears (and always doing research of course) and taking the leap despite peoples discomfort, unsolicited advice, and judgment. 

Finding Your Travel Niche

Here's a short article from the Travel Writers Exchange by Janice Waugh on finding your niche topic for travel writing. I'm pretty sure mine would be Feminist Travel Writer or something to that effect, but that may be too niche. I would love to write feminist inspired travel guides of cities. Possible future project!

http://www.travel-writers-exchange.com/2013/05/travel-writing-are-you-niche-enough/

Traveling to Princessland: Is the Princess Craze Third Wave Approved?

As a Feminist, I have often been a defender of some Disney Princesses like Ariel and Belle, who I feel, introduced me to feminist ideas early in life. However, even I can’t get behind the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique highlighted by Judy Dutton in Airtran’s GO magazine this month. On my flight home from visiting my mom, I was intrigued by the article titled “The Princess Complex,” but ended up mortified and frustrated.

The article focuses on various pampering opportunities for children when they travel with a focus on the Disney boutique. This opportunity to “transform” young daughters into princesses includes using the “magic of hair extensions,” make up, accessories, and of course the princess outfit complete with heels (34). While a mother describing her daughter’s hair as “mousy” and encouraging strangers to heavily makeover her 3-year-old child is worrisome, this was not the part that stuck out to me the most. There are three points of this article that I found highly problematic—Dutton’s use of feminism to justify these toddler makeovers, the author’s own conversion to “Princessland,” and the stereotypically gendered princess lessons.

Dutton has moments where she is clearly conflicted with these princess centered activities, but validates the makeover early on by essentially laying some of the blame on third-wave feminism, “Reasons for this royal craze range from Disney’s marketing ingenuity to third-wave feminists insisting girls can be pretty and powerful to parents’ desire for ‘safe’ role models in a unsafe world” (37). While one of the facets of the third-wave is a more nuanced look at the performance of gender (including wearing make-up), I feel confident that the third wave contributions of intersectionality, multiplicity of identity, and a broader definition of gender were not intended to encourage young girls to engage in privilege laden act of socially constructed self-beautification. Not to mention that there are plenty of safe role models beyond Disney, like Hilary Clinton, Alice Paul, Rosa Parks, and the multitude of other women that have made amazing contributions to the world throughout history. So why are moms still supporting this princess craze?

                          Before Boutique                After Boutique

Just as young daughters get carried away in the fairytale mythology, so do some of the moms. Dutton explains this as her daughter excitedly waits to see Cinderella:

In spite of my qualms with fairytales’ wait-for-the-prince-and-everything-will-be-fine credo, I find myself entranced as I watch this seminal meeting unfold…The moment, I grudgingly admit, is magical for my daughter—and I’d be lying if I didn’t confess to a contact high myself. (37)

It was when I read this point that I remembered my own conversion to Brideland only months ago. In her 1994 article “Brideland,” Naomi Wolf describes the magnetic pull of the fairytale princess wedding and its ability to supersede feminist sensibilities or logical thought. Despite her repugnant feelings on weddings, she describes the eerie ease with which her conversion into the eager bride took place—a conversion I myself had to negotiate. When I read Dutton’s description of her “contact high,” I couldn’t help but see the similarities between what I now think of as Princessland to Brideland. Wolf describes how the fantastic elements and feelings of nostalgia enable a feminist to rationalize buying a dress reminiscent of Victorian times or even making extraordinary demands based on feelings of self-entitlement. Is this the same thing that happens in Princessland? Do you see your daughters’ clear elation and the general splendor of the fantasy environment and later rationalize it with your feminism? If Brideland is any indication of the power of gendered traditions, then the pull of Princessland land can’t be ignored and may even be a precursor to Brideland. More importantly, how does the conversion to Princessland prime youth, and potentially parents, to accept gendered lessons on behavior?

Reacting to her daughter’s excitement at meeting her “BFF” Cinderella, Dutton and her partner organize another princess meet up for her daughter. At this Epcot dinner, Dutton asks if the princesses can give her daughter some advice:

I ask if she has any life advice for my little princess. “Yes,” Cinderella says. “Always be home before midnight” (a lesson I [Dutton] enthusiastically endorse). Ariel from The Little Mermaid advises Indiana to “practice your singing and swimming.” Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Belle from Beauty and the Beast all urge her to hold out for true love. (37)

My own love for Ariel and Belle led to vocal response of Oh My Dear God (to the confusion of the man sitting next to me on the plane) upon reading this section. Really Disney?!? You couldn’t think of better advice then to pursue socially sanctioned feminine activities and abstinence until prince charming comes along? So lets break this down—girls need to be home before midnight for their own protection, girls improve themselves through artistic pursuits and exercise, and girls must maintain their purity. What’s so frustrating about this to me is that Ariel could have said, “Be Adventurous” and Belle could have said, “Make sure you read and focus on school first.” This becomes even more upsetting when you remember that prior to this conversation, Dutton’s young daughter was thoroughly primed to listen to anything and everything her “safe” role models had to say. At the age of 3, Dutton’s daughter is already being taught the social “value” of self-beautification and the notion of staying “pure.” Furthermore, Dutton has negotiated this by saying that third-wave basically made this okay.

So what do we do with this as feminists? In terms of child travel options, Disney is still a top choice, despite the company’s role in supporting unfriendly policies for working families. As Dutton herself points out, her daughter is “one of thousands” of kids participating in the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique (37). So, how do we still travel to Disney without girls seeing princess everywhere they go? I remember that when I as young and going to Disney (as a native Floridian we went to Disney often) the princess focus just didn’t seem to be there in the same way. I remember begging my mom for 101 Dalmatian toys and gigantic lollipops, not a princess tiara. Any suggestions feminist travel moms?

Volunteering in Granada

#FeministTravel Lakler finds an activist project when she's in Granada. How do you volunteer when you travel? wanderlustandlipstick.com/blogs/globalsn…

— Jeannina(@Nina_0421) March 8, 2013

100th Anniversary Suffrage Parade 2013

Sometimes being stuck in this city is amazing. Thank you Deltas for organizing this fantastic march!

Felt honored to retrace the footsteps of Lucy Burns and Inez Miholland today! @100thsuffragedc twitter.com/Nina_0421/stat…

— Nina (@Nina_0421) March 4, 2013

Travel and Location of Self

“The true artist will use her creativity to find a way, to carve the time, to claim the kitchen table, a library carrel, if a room of her own is not possible. She will use subterfuge if necessary, write poems in her recipe book, give up sleeping time or social time, and write.” –Judith Ortiz Cofer

Feminist scholars consistently discuss the politics of location. From Woolf’s observations on financial freedom (with the end goal being writing location), to Adrianne Rich’s musings on the construction of the body as location, to Cofer’s insistence that women create their own writing space—well more like demand it. It’s not that strange then to see connections between travel writing and feminism. I wonder how Virginia Woolf would have felt about women and travel writing? The women who tell these stories don’t exactly always have a room of their own—although they generally have a financial freedom that allows them to travel. But what does it mean for these women writers that travel is marked with constant disorientation, mishaps, and general instability? Can you still create excellent work under these circumstances?

Interesting enough several of the stories in the collection Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad focus on the lack of a familiarity and how to create a “room of one’s own” or “home” abroad in order to adapt and flourish. These stories discuss the quest for stability (or search for familiar location). The writing comes from that place of discomfort and not in the achievement of location stability.

Some of the most interesting stories to this effect are ones about the desire for everyday comforts. Kate Baldus’s story “First, the Blanket” explains her first week living in Bangladesh and her inability to navigate the city to buy a blanket so she could sleep through the unexpected 50 degree nights: “The stress of a new job, a new home, and life in a new country made me forget all my reasons for coming to Bangladesh in the first place. For a moment I wanted to run back to California, but I convinced myself that I would be okay if only I could get a blanket” (186). A co-worker finally takes her into the city to find a blanket to Baldus’s simultaneous joy and dismay. Stricken with fear at the unfamiliar rickshaw bicycles and assaulted by unfamiliar smells—Baldus remains tense the entire first ride, but always maintaining her focus on the blanket. In this case, it is seemingly her singular focus on this one element (the need of a blanket) that enables her to continue challenging herself to engage in situation that makes her uncomfortable—more importantly though it is her discomfort that inspires her to write.

In some instances the desire for comfort relates directly to a feeling of Americaness. In Adrienne Rich’s “Notes toward a Politics of Location” Rich discusses how her travels have forced an awareness of her American values and identity: “It was in reading poems by contemporary Cuban women that I began to experience the meaning of North America as a location…I traveled then to Nicaragua…under the hills of the Nicaragua-Honduras border, I could physically feel the weight of the United States of North America…” (233). While Rich is referring to the global politics of being American, the realization is similar to Emily Wise Miller’s desire for American popular culture in her story “Jean-Claude Van Damn That was a Good Movie.” Miller describes how in the US she was very picky about the films she watched, sometimes going “months without seeing anything” instead of dealing with “sugaric” films (81). However, when she moves to Italy she finds that the isolation of living in another country produces what she terms the “SLOB: a Sucka Living O’Broad” phenomenon (82). While her story if definitely humorous, it also touches on a need for familiar spaces in order to have the comfort needed for daily functions, such as writing. The travel also forces her to come to terms with her Americaness—a sense of longing that enables her to reexamine her identity and self-awareness: “Maybe it’s my instinct for survival, an innate willingness to adapt to new situations (I can dry my laundry on the line and dodge speeding scooters when I cross the street); for the time I live abroad, I am just happy to put my critical faculties on occasional pause for a dose of home on the big screen” (88). 

Maybe the real challenge for authors is being forced into situations of discomfort that act as catalysts for self-reflection. That profound writing comes from an amalgamation of rest and unrest. While I agree with Woolf that too many barriers stifle creative spirit, too few barriers prevent necessary moments of self-reflection that make possible the moments of “subterfuge” Cofer advocates.

This conflict of experiences reminds me a bit of my move from Florida to DC. When I traveled outside the US it made sense to me that I would feel like an outsider looking in, but the transient status of tourist meant that my “foreigner” standing failed to bother me. I did confront my Americaness, and while useful for my own self-reflection, it didn’t surprise me. What surprised me more was how much I felt like an outsider when moving to DC. I knew I would miss my loved ones and that I’d have difficulty adapting (I’ve never excelled at dealing with extreme change), but I was surprised at how “different” I suddenly felt. The differences between Florida and DC culture are both extreme and subtle. I felt the outsider status, but in my own country—who knew!

As much as I’m learning to enjoy parts of DC more and more, it has been difficult adjusting the change. While some fantastic new friends have made it easier, it is still odd to imagine that I am part of a Florida culture. Instead of coming face-to-face with my Americaness—I have had to negotiate my Floridianess. Everyday here I meet people who don’t know how to swim, who have never heard of Jimmy Buffet, who have never had to worry about water restrictions, who have never had a colada or tasted guava, who have never been to Disney World, who think it is inappropriate for women to wear shorts above knee length (COME ON PEOPLE! It is freaking hot outside!), who are not familiar with the delicate nature of Caribbean politics, who think that my wearing cowboy boots with my summer dress is “odd” spring behavior, and who have never eaten a fantastic Florida avocado instead of those ikkky small ones at the supermarket.

On the other end, everyday here leads me to new discoveries and experiences. From how to eat Maryland crabs (very VERY different from eating snow crabs considering it has parts that if you eat it could kill you) to how to drive a 15 passenger van on snowy streets in a city full of narrow streets and one way alley ways (identifying one way streets still seem to be a challenge for me). I may not be an expat in the traditional sense, but I do feel the disorientation of a complete shift in lifestyle—and I have the privileges of knowing the language and laws (which often the expats in these stories do not)! I can’t even imagine how these feeling of isolation are amplified by more extreme factors. All in all, I do experience the discomforts and newness that enable my continual self-reflection and push me into a novel understanding of where I am in this world. Maybe this is why travel narratives have been so perfect for me as of late. I don’t know what this means for my writing yet, but for now this is the kitchen table I’ve claimed to explore the possibilities.  

Texts Used for this Post:

De, Tessan Christina Henry. Expat: Women's True Tales of Life Abroad. New York, NY: Seal, 2002. Print.

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. Print.

Kallet, Marilyn, and Judith Ortiz Cofer. Sleeping with One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival. Athens: University of Georgia, 1999. Print.

I have been binging on women’s travel narratives and with each story am just blown away by the women who write them. I was lucky enough to happen upon one collection and then sought others out with rabid hunger. Why? Because I have an unprecedented and insatiable desire to travel, but I am currently locked in place for of a variety of reasons. I am living a feminist “dream” life. I moved to Washington, DC recently because my partner was accepted to a top program here. I work with women at a local non-profit and I am involved in various activist projects, but I can’t seem to shake my restlessness.

So this blog may have a two-fold purpose—first taking a look at women’s travel narratives and second unpacking my own restlessness that fueled this project. I am amazed by the stories of these women who managed to travel alone when everyone said it was too “dangerous” or better yet became expats. I hope to explore women’s stories of travel from a feminist perspective and in the process possibly explore a bit of myself.