In January, Sarai Sierra, a 33 year old mother from New York, went missing in Istanbul. Last weekend they found her body, covered with a blanket and hidden inside a cavern in the ancient walls. She is believed to have died from a blow to the head, delivered by a blunt object. Her clothes were torn as she attempted to defend herself. She was still wearing her earrings and jewellery, but her smart phone and iPod were gone.
Despite the obvious tragedy of a young woman, a mother, being robbed of her life and taken from her young family, some commentators to the online media coverage of this story seem far more concerned with the fact the she was an attractive woman travelling alone in a foreign country when she died than with the fact that this violence was committed against her.
Comments on the NBC coverage express a general lack of understanding and disdain as to what Sarai was doing travelling to a place like Turkey unaccompanied, with bold statements such as ‘a woman has no business travelling alone’ echoed by many. One reader found it appropriate to comment ‘No way I would even let my beautiful wife out the door to travel to any country alone’ (I hope for the sake of women everywhere that this guy is speaking hypothetically and no woman is actually having to suffer being married to someone so stupid and closed minded).
Apparently, travelling to foreign lands and having amazing experiences is just not an appropriate thing to want to do alone if you are a woman. Astonishingly, one of Sarai’s neighbors back in New York actually attributed her desire to travel without her family as part of ‘an early mid life crisis’.
I read these comments in sadness and disbelief, and despite myself a cold trickle of fear seeped into my heart. As a young woman in the planning stages of solo female travel it is easy to understand how tragic events like this are construed as an example for women as to why they shouldn’t travel alone. In the comments of a few, in closed minded ignorance, the many amazing benefits of experiencing travel alone are negated and reduced to an unnecessary gamble that any woman must be mad for considering. It is attitudes like this that make women believe they will be better off staying at home than going it alone – even if that means missing out on the trip of a lifetime.
Any woman who has planned a solo trip will have encountered the questions, disapproval and plain misunderstanding of others. When telling people of my plans I am generally met with the same responses; from ‘you’re so brave, I couldn’t go alone‘ to the pitying head tilt – ‘have you got no-one to go with then?‘ or a graphic recounting of various horror stories involving women being kidnapped by hairy troglodytes in remote locations and dragged back to a cave, never to be seen again, delivered with a warning frown and furrowed brow.
When I was preparing to set off on my first trip to Vietnam at the age of 18, this line of questioning was frequently targeted at my poor parents (‘you’re actually LETTING her go THERE? On her OWN?! I would never let MY daughter do that’). It’s ignorance borne of a fear of the unknown, but it makes it that much harder to maintain the resolve needed to get on that plane – like making the decision to travel solo doesn’t already take enough courage.
I am not an idiot. I know that there are dangers to be aware of when travelling alone, and that some of those dangers apply more directly to women than to men. However, as long as appropriate measures are taken and a normal amount of common sense is applied I don’t believe that those dangers are any more real than those faced simply walking out of the front door in the morning. If we all lived our lives around fear of what could happen, no-one would ever experience anything.
What happened to Sarai is horrifying and very sad, but could have just as easily happened to her at home in New York as in Istanbul. Perhaps the people who are so eager to comment on her choice to travel should instead focus on the grief of her family and the inherent problems of a world where millions of women are murdered and sexually assaulted, in the UK and US as much as anywhere else. Gender based violence is a global issue – it has nothing to do with which country a woman chooses to visit and whether or not she is accompanied by a burly man to ‘protect’ her. Put simply, the issue here is not solo female travel, the issue is the person who harmed her.
Declaring that Sarai’s murder was in any way a result of her daring to be a solo female traveller is fundamentally wrong, in the same way that it is wrong to assert that women who choose to wear revealing clothes are inviting rapists to prey on them. To say this implies that a woman should curb her passions, ignore her dreams and hide her beauty away, or risk being attacked, raped or killed – and that isn’t a world I want to live in.
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I agree with what you say in your blog .
Personally I think anyone who travels alone is simply an awesome person . I personally prefer company as I love sharing my experiences . I did try solo but felt very alone and unbalanced . Travel is awesome regardless of whether you go at it solo or not so solo 🙂
I totally agree, it’s up to personal choice whether you prefer to travel with others or go solo and both options offer amazing experiences. The important thing is that we should be free to make that choice.
A very important point you’re making here Clare. Thank you for speaking up for all of us solo female travellers! Personally, I think we do need to be extra savvy and alert when we travel on our own, and also be aware that there are variables to gender based crime depending on where we happen to be travelling in the world. However, nothing infuriates me more than when the guilt of a crime is reversed back to the victim. Seriously, it is NEVER EVER a woman’s fault that she got raped, robbed, abused or murdered. Regardless of what she said, wore or did. The guilt stays with one person only, and that is the perpetrator.
Hi Jenny, thanks for reading! You’re right, there is no situation in which it’s a woman’s own fault that she has been attacked, in any way. I was genuinely shocked how many people expressed that view in the comments relating to this story.
Hi, I really like this article just cause I often get the pity look of traveling alone or offered dangerous outcomes. I rarely get the “good for you” and thats it. There is always a “BUT” to every comment and it almost becomes embedding to me; that I too become insecure. I plan to travel to Brazil in 2014 alone for 6 months in order to learn Portuguese, though still working out the details. Thank you for this article.
i am 33, female, and a photographer. i traveled on the same flight from new york to istanbul as sarai sierra. i was also on my first truly solo travel. my experience was amazing (as i am sure her’s was up until the tragic event). i fell in love with istanbul, its people and its culture. my story ended well, hers ended badly. but many people’s story end badly in their very own home towns, male or female. traveling alone is the best thing i’ve ever done, and i plan to do it many more times. but her story did send a shiver down my spine, because it was just so similar to my own…
This is an excellent post, and I was very grateful to read your thoughts. I have just got back from a year of travelling the Americas alone, and I have travelled many other places alone in the past. I too met the same kind of comments such as, “you’re brave,” etc. I actually prefer travelling alone, as far more experiences opened up to me, and I was able to immerse myself in the languages much more when I wasn’t accompanied by a friend. Yes, it was lonely at times, and there were points when a friend would have been reassuring, but part of the trip was to learn about myself, my reactions, my strengths and weaknesses, and this is a mission, at least for me, best done alone.
The point that I appreciate in your analysis of the tragic murder of Sarai is astute. It is such a shame that people, and the media, choose to focus on her choices, rather than the decision of someone to end her life, presumably a man. Quite often in the violence against women discourses, the man is left out of the picture, and the focus is solely on the woman. And, as you mentioned, violence against women is ubuquitous. It is used as a form of control and domination to oppress women in our own back yards, so perhaps the main issue we should be addressing, is why, and what can be done to prevent this gross and systemic violation of women’s rights which happen everywhere, on a daily basis. It is actually men who have a huge responsibility to speak up to their male friends, colleagues and families and be confident enough to not accept negative gender stereotyping and the oppression of women.
Thanks again for your insights, and have an excellent trip. Do not tune into people’s fear, even in the countries where you travel. I was given lots of advice in Colombia, by Colombians, and had to remember that they had lived through a civil war, and do were still steeped in fear. Plus, most of them don’t travel, so they too are speaking not based on experience. Obviously, if someone is telling you that a place is not safe, take precautions, but I suggest following your instincts!!! I wrote about such an issue on my blog, if you want to have a little look http://ladida555.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/8th-may-2013-a-fine-line-in-colombia/
Layla, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this issue here. I agree, it is important not to tune into other people’s fear – often their perspective is completely different and it is always those who have never walked in your shoes who feel that they have to share their ‘advice’ with you! I also agree that men have a responsibility to challenge this kind of behaviour with male contemporaries, and that the media have a responsibility not to perpetuate it by somehow insinuating that the choices a woman makes mean that she is responsible for someone causing her harm. The experiences offered by travelling alone are a gift, and a person shouldn’t be denied that just because she is a woman.