“But isn’t it dangerous? You know, as a woman?”
This question comes up again and again, when I tell people about my travels, and I’m getting increasingly impatient in my responses. Every time I’m asked it, I realise more clearly that it’s founded on racism and xenophobia: to put it bluntly, the assumption that as soon as I leave my own country, I am at risk of being raped by foreigners.
And it’s getting worse. I’ve recently come across other female cyclists who have admitted to changing their own plans to cross continents (including Europe), because of the perceived risk of travelling “as a Western woman”, or of “being the only white woman for miles around”. Now, I am not going to blame these women individually, any more than I’m going to blame the well-meaning people who like to label me “brave” and “intrepid” for going to places where the only thing that really differentiates me from those I meet is our skin tone and style of dress. They have made careful (though flawed) decisions regarding their own safety, much as I have done countless times during my travels, based on the information and advice I had to hand.