my biggest thank you note (yet)
I have been traveling a lot lately, taking public transport, walking alone at night, etc. and because of this, I feel the need to thank every woman that I have ever seen during these times. I consider myself a fairly confident, assertive, and adaptable young woman but the sheer amount of unintentional and hard to control anxiety I have experienced while in these situations is astounding. And it’s tiring as hell.
What’s incredible about the reality of being in foreign situations (not just alone, but even with other women) is the terror you can feel without ever having anything /happen/. I’m certainly not writing about real terror- run for your life terror- but I think many women can relate to this sort of urge to run, just to be safe. Or maybe it’s the willingness and preparedness to run at a moments’ notice.
Anyway, I’m writing this because after walking alone in the dark through a genuinely safe neighborhood with absolutely no incident- no catcalling, no following, barely even a glance- I still felt a great sense of relief at seeing another woman travelling alone, making eye contact, and smiling knowing that it expressed not only not-flirting, as it is often perceived with a man, but a solidarity between two women at a bus stop near midnight, surrounded by men.
What shocks me is that that’s all it takes- as I’m sitting here typing this she is on her own phone next to me- maybe even texting family and friends that she is safe like I am. We aren’t talking. I don’t even know what language she speaks. But her presence here has meant a lot to me, just as the presence of the woman in the Genoa train station did, or the women in the Medina in Rabat, or the women on the bus in Tacoma.
Whether in your home town or halfway across the world, for many women, the public is unconsciously and in some ways inherently foreign and uncomfortable. So thank you for all the women who make it a little bit less so.