I Want To Live In a World Where Women Can Hitch-Hike

Of course hitch-hiking is dangerous for men too, but I was reading this article -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jun/12/chloe-dewe-mathews-best-photograph?CMP=twt_fd

and after the first sentence I'm thinking, well this chick is pretty cool, but many women react to the idea of women hitch-hiking with 'really oh my god weren't you terrified', they wouldn't think I was cool, they would think I was irresponsible. Then I found out  she was with her boyfriend and that made it a bit clearer, she'd got backup.

I love 'On the Road' and it recently struck me, I will not be able to hitch-hike in my lifetime without most people (sadly myself included) thinking that I am being tremendously reckless, because 'you can get raped you know'. And in our culture and modern world women have been taught from various films and TV dramas that if you try to thumb a lift with a lorry driver or someone similar you will get raped/beaten/murdered/kidnapped. The fact of the matter is, this is so uncool. It exists. There is nothing I can do about it, short of carrying a weapon and being fully versed in martial arts (neither of which are applicable to me).

It just makes me sad that this is the way the world is for me. I run the extra risk when I do something slightly irresponsible purely because I was born with lady parts and not man junk. Why did you curse me Lord, why? In the word of Federico Garcia Lorca, 'to be born a woman is the worst punishment', this was almost a century ago and what has even changed?

This is how I feel.



I think we just have to accept that a lot of people 'aren't very nice'. And they will never be. We can never educate people out of evil acts. It's like that time when Daphne and I were on holiday, Daphne was drunk as a skunk, and I was relatively sober. Then this Spanish guy comes up to her and gives her a drink, I tell Daphne not to drink it, but she decides she wants to trust him. In my view it's better to be safe than sorry, to whip out that cliché, simply because people most likely don't have altruistic motives.

I think I just want to live in a world were were I can walk home in peace, reliant on myself for my safety and not other people to not attack me. I think hitch-hiking will never work,  irrelevant on whether you are male or female, simply because of human nature.