Traveling Solo: A Manifesto for the Modern Woman

The first time I took an international trip alone, I was faking it. Well, it’s not like 20-year-old me pretended to fly to Paris and travel across Europe to visit a friend in Budapest. After failing to land a summer newspaper internship, I impulse-bought a plane ticket I couldn’t afford. The deception was there from the start: For some reason I lied and told everyone it was a great deal. It wasn’t. I told my parents I had enough money to see the trip through. I didn’t. I told my then-boyfriend I was super excited about it, that I knew how to have fun alone. I didn’t. I swore up and down that it wasn’t a big deal that I didn’t speak French or German or Hungarian and had no clue about the culture in most places I’d be traveling. I’d never been out of the U.S. before.

Hence all that faking it. I tried so hard to pretend I was the carefree world traveler I desperately wished I’d been raised to be. But in truth I didn’t really know how to have fun alone. I was too scared I’d sound like an idiot ordering at restaurants, so I just bought bread and cheese from the grocery store and ate in public parks. I didn’t make friends with other travelers. I walked until my feet felt like they were going to fall off, then walked some more because I wasn’t sure how and where to relax. I probably would have had a better time if I’d just owned up to being the naive American girl that everyone else saw.

The perception is that 20-year-old me is the norm when it comes to women traveling alone. We might be accomplished professionals or on our third vacation to southeast Asia or just generally happy and confident out in the world alone, but the societal reflection is scared college girl who needs protecting. It’s telling that the State Department doesn’t offer “tips for men travelers.” I was surprised when, after I quit my job in 2010 and embarked on a 5,500-mile road trip around America, how many people expressed concern for my safety, as if every national park and Sonic Drive-In were little more than clubhouses for rapists and murderers.

Like the act of going to a bar alone, traveling solo is a quick way to take the societal pulse about an independent woman. First and foremost, we worry about her safety. Then we feel a twinge of pity; she couldn’t find anyone who wanted to come along? (In case you had any doubt that traveling couples are the default, consider how most hotels and other travel bookings cater to pairs.) And if she seems to be having a good time, we’re even more confused. What is she hiding? She must be faking it.

By design, travelers are surrounded by total strangers — a population that women have been mostly socialized to fear. And, sure, there are still very real safety concerns in some parts of the country and the world. When I asked a friend of mine who’s an avid solo traveler — Colombia, India, Croatia — whether she worries about herself while running around the globe on her own, she replied, “I get the occasional pang about maybe getting acid thrown in my face or sexually assaulted when I travel to countries that have a high level of economic anxiety or disadvantage in addition to a strong patriarchal culture. But I still seek it out because it stimulates me.” She texted me this from the airport, about to depart for an impromptu trip to Baja.

And, of course, sometimes it does go bad. In a recent essay for The American Reader, Vanessa Veselka pondered the fate of several murdered women hitchhikers:

We could use a few more freewheeling, drug-fueled odes to the open road with female protagonists. Thelma and Louise, though undeniably fabulous, is two decades old.

Even when women are portrayed as out in the world alone, there’s a twinge of pity. What extremely sad event or life shakeup led her to take this solo trip? This could be called the Eat Pray Love effect — named for Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller about her global quest for spiritual wholeness in the wake of her divorce. A more recent example (and in my humble opinion, a much better read) is Wild, Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone. While it’s ultimately an empowering tale, it’s another Oprah-endorsed female travel narrative that begins with more heartache and longing than wanderlust and curiosity. Other hikers are frequently confused by Strayed’s solo presence on the trail. “You’re way too pretty to be out here alone, if you ask me,” one guy tells her. She hadn’t asked him.

Yet whether they’re heartbroken nomads or gleeful road-trippers, solo women travelers are actually the norm. In a 2013 poll of travel agents (ok, I’m already a little skeptical because who uses a travel agent? but let’s roll with it), “agents reported that it’s much more common for woman to travel alone than men, with 73 percent of agents polled noting that more female travelers embark on solo trips than their male counterparts.” The average solo traveler is a 47-year-old female. Odds are she’s not wasting much travel time sobbing to her boyfriend — who’s back in the U.S., where he managed to land a highly coveted internship — from a pay phone in the common area of a dumpy hostel in Montparnasse.

Last month, ten years later, I embarked on the second solo international trip of my life. A travel magazine sent me to Osaka for a week, and I had a great time eating squid pancakes and offending salesgirls by accidentally stepping into dressing rooms with my shoes on and Instagramming neon signs and getting drunk with weird businessmen. I was not maimed or murdered, but I may have been pitied. It’s hard to say. I was having such a great time, I didn’t really notice.

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Film Studies With the Ultimate Renaissance Woman, Agnès B.

Agnès b. designer and namesake, Madame Agnes Trouble has always taken an anti-designer’s design sensibility. After being discovered by Elle while shopping in a Paris flew market, she launched her brand and created a new kind of unfussy chic that counts Yoko Ono, Natalie Portman, and David Bowie as fans. In the three decades since starting her company, the bohemian master of the understated has added an art gallery, film projects, and an unabashed pursuit of all things artistic, except, she says, actual fashion. We spoke with her about her latest project, curating a series of her favorite films this summer for the Anthology Film Archives in New York.

“For me, film is not about fashion, it’s about personality,” she says. Her attraction to shiny personalities has led her to form friendships and mentorships with artists, auteurs, musicians, filmmakers, and other bohemian it-kids. Though her film has been the central passion in her diverse portfolio. In 2009, she cofounded a film production company, O'Salvation Films with Spring Breakers director Harmony Korine and later started a second company, Love Streams (a tribute to Cassavetes) to produce her own movies, including the forthcoming Je M'appelle Hmmmm, which she wrote and directed. From July 10-21 the Anthology series Agnes B. Selects will showcase ten of her favorite films. "I’m happy to be able to show these films to people. People need to know more about cinema and fabulous movies."

When did you first fall in love with the movies?
I started going to to the cinema when I was 16 with my husband Christian Bourgois — we would go see a Godard as soon as it came out. These films made an impression on me. I found personalities or characters that showed me how to be stronger or less shy and to see life from other points of view. Cinema, like literature, does a lot for us. It was a formative time for me.

You chose ten movies for Anthology Film, why did you select these?
Some of them came right to mind. Ken Loach's Family Life made an impression on me me. I saw it in 1971 when it came out and loved it very much, I still care a lot for the young girl in the film. These movies were all very important to me, but I think most of them have a very particular character. Almost crazy. Or people think they are crazy but they're just different from others. I like different. I like character. I like to watch people who dare to be themselves. It's a way for me to understand life.

What movie inspired you the most?
The Love of the Blonde from 1965. The main character is in a boarding school, and she's so bored. The movie starts with her at night, whispering [whispers in French] like that.  It’s beautiful. It’s not a big story, but it’s wonderful.

So many of these movies are all about the avant-garde, does it still exist?
There will always be avant-garde people, I'm sure. Or at least I hope. David Lynch and Harmony Korine are very much in the avant-garde.

Are there any modern day movies that you're as emotionally attached to?
Trash Humpers moved me very much. It's beautiful, it's crazy. It's a great movie. It's a piece of art. I love Harmony Korine. He’s a great friend of mine and I love his movies.

Do you want to be an actress?
I never dreamed to be an actress. But I’ve dreamed to be a director. And I did it! I'm making my first movie. I wrote the story, I directed it, I helped with the editing. I did the whole film from a to z, really. 

What is your movie about?
I wrote it long time ago. Maybe twelve to fifteen years ago. I wrote a little novel  and now it's going to be a movie. It’s about a girl who escapes from her home because she’s unhappy. It’s both social and humanistic.

Does fashion play a part in the movie?
No! My movie is a tragedy! I didn't even think about it. I went and got unique clothes from the flea market — a red coat for the man and a red shirt for the woman. I prefer the films that aren’t too à la mode from one time. The film looks old quickly.

Which director best understands the relationship between fashion and cinema?
Hitchcock. The fashion is about a precise woman, a silhouette, a precise look.  It’s crucial in the composition and the image of the film. The woman have to be just so. I love Hitchcock women. They are all beautiful always.

Can I watch any of these movies on Netflix?
Oh, go to cinema of course! It’s only two hours of your life. Go experience the film.

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The GOP Wants to Make Sure Voters Know That Hillary Clinton Is an Older Woman

The Republican Party, which has not been been popular with the kids of late, has a not so innovative strategy for taking the youth vote from Hillary Clinton if and when she decides to run for President in 2016: Remind the public that she is an older woman. Like all of us, Clinton, who is currently 65 years old, will have aged by about four years by the time the next election rolls around, and the GOP is hoping that that will somehow make her look totally decrepit when compared to the Party's serious contenders, most of whom are more than a decade younger than she is. As the New York Times notes, Governor Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul are both 50, and Governor Bobby Jindal and Senator Marco Rubio are 42. (Plus, Rubio has the youth-intoxicating ability to "[drop] the names of rappers like Pitbull and Jay-Z," while Paul came up with the term "Facebook Generation" and is very into legalizing pot and calling out the surveillance state.)

And, to hear Republican strategists tell it, Clinton's sheer oldness is more than just an opportunity to point out that she has wrinkles — it's a tool for labeling her "a has-been." As Republican Governor Scott Walker said in a reference to Bill Clinton's 1992 Fleetwood Mac campaign song, "If you want to keep thinking about tomorrow, maybe it’s time to put somebody new in." And last year, Senator Mitch McConnell compared the prospect of Joe Biden or Clinton running to "a rerun of The Golden Girls," an idea that might actually be appreciated by both 71-year-olds like himself and legions of 18- to 34-year-olds.

Of course, the "time for a new generation" idea has worked before. President Kennedy used it to beat Nixon in 1960, as did President Obama when he ran against John McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. And then there were Mr. Clinton's baby-boomer victories against two members of the Greatest Generation, the first President George Bush and Bob Dole. But there are many ways this strategy could backfire when it comes to Clinton, not the least of which would be charges of sexism for focusing on a woman's age, especially when that woman is trying to become the first female president of the United States.

Additionally, as the Times points out, "Mrs. Clinton’s maturity could be more of an attribute than a liability. American voters have a tendency to elect presidents with the traits that their predecessors lacked, and if Mr. Obama’s term ends on a sour note, the electorate may look fondly upon a candidate with deep experience." And if the Obama term ends well, then Clinton can point to her contributions as part of the administration, as well as all the other things she's done and will do in between now and 2016. Plus, unlike the Republicans' patron saint and oldest President, Ronald Reagan, Clinton has shown herself to be more than willing to directly engage with young people and to laugh at perceptions of her own stodginess while proving that she's actually pretty fun after all.

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Lara Stone: Latest Woman As Naked, Pregnant Art

Nude, pregnant celebrities — a club that's experienced a sporadic growth spurt lately — have managed to capture the eyes of male artists around the world. Artist Daniel Edwards claimed that he wanted the media to "leave pregnant Kim alone!" and responded by immortalizing the pregnant Kardashian in a piece called L.A. Fertility, which accentuates the reality star's "lactiferous breasts" and "voluminous belly." Up next: Dutch model Lara Stone, whose naked, full-body portrait with her belly in full bloom was unveiled at the 55th Venice Biennale festival yesterday.

Stone already gave birth to her son earlier in May. And, to further count the differences between the model and the Kardashian, Stone actually posed for her pregnant artwork. British artist Marc Quinn, who once produced a solid gold statue of Kate Moss with legs contorted around her torso, painted the IMG model posing atop piles of red meat, with her arm protectively cradling her belly. Is the meat a symbol of an even greater "womb" in which Lara is gestating? Was this a reason to remind the world about her natural breasts? Also notable: the only pieces that Stone decided not to remove from her body are the sparkly rings on her finger. Devoted wife and mother!

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I’m a Woman. I Read Slate. I Have Violent Thoughts About a Guy Who Writes About Being Horny. How Can I Stop That?

Today, Slate published a neurotic 2000-word opus from male writer Andy Hinds: "I'm a stay-at-home dad. I'm a feminist. I have erotic thoughts about random women I pass on the street. How can I stop that?" As I read Hinds's lustily imagined paean to penis, I struggled to overcome a powerful animal feeling within. Violence. Female violence. How can I stop my desire to rend limb from limb the innocent men featured in this article?

I'm a woman. I read Slate. I grew up on wacky explainers about race horses peeing. I play the Slate news quiz every Friday, and marvel at the scores of my favorite Slate writers. And yet, deep in the vaginal recesses of my female imagination, I fantasize about tearing Slate writer Andy Hinds limb from limb. Andy Hinds does not deserve to be torn limb from limb. He's not a misogynist. He knows not what he does — but I, oh, I know exactly what I am doing. I am fantasizing about snapping Andy Hinds's fingers, one by one. And I am indulging this fantasy in a very long article on the Internet, because my exhibitionist desire to parody Andy Hinds is greater than my respect for Andy Hinds. 

If I had more respect for Andy Hinds, I might indulge my fantasy about punching him in the gut so hard that he doubles over in pain for a moment. And then I would think about something else, never openly discussing my fantasy, lest Andy Hinds be made to feel uncomfortable by the image I just planted into the minds of thousands of people, including the "neighbor's nanny" and "the Valkyrie on the elliptical trainer" about whom Andy Hinds regularly produces "a never-ending porn movie" "in [his] subconscious."

I would just shut up. I might indulge my fantasy a bit with my friends — just to blow off steam — but I would not use my guilt over wanting to punch Andy Hinds in the face as an excuse to indulge my face-punching fantasies. I would have enough self-awareness to stop myself.

I know it's not Andy Hinds's fault. He notes that he has two daughters, which is why he does not want to objectify the female kind to which they belong. And so here I must note that I love many people who have written crap on the Internet. I personally have written so much Internet crap! More and crappier than Andy Hinds, probably. Unfortunately, like Andy Hinds, I too am but a prisoner to my instincts, no matter how hypocritical or rude. The heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wants violence. It also wants to roll its eyes and stick its tongue out while making a "na-na boo-boo" gesture, so, y'know, that too.

Andy Hinds asked "controversial feminist writer Hugo Schwyzer" for his opinion on "intrusive sexual thoughts." Schwyzer offered an "'affirm and redirect' strategy":

Sure, I may want to throw Andy Hinds and Hugo Schwyzer into a tank full of hungry sharks, but in fact I'm just going to write this blog post, smile patronizingly, and let it all be. Violent rage is the background music every time you read a troll-baiting article on the Internet. Learning to let it come and go without being ashamed is part of growing up. As for not "making it anyone else's problem"? Hmmm, lemme get back to you after I write some more words, and invoke my two young children, who will definitely read this article someday, and learn that women are man-haters and men are pigs.

Violence is bad. Don't act violently toward Andy Hinds. And don't feel bad about being horny, Andy Hinds. It happens. Just keep it to yourself.

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Man Refuses to Stop Drone-Spying on Seattle Woman

Rebecca J. Rosen for The Atlantic 2013-05-13 12:35:36 -0500

Walk onto someone's lawn and you're trespassing; fly over it in a helicopter and you're in the clear — "the air is a public highway," the Supreme Court declared in 1946. But what about the in-between space? Does the availability of unmanned aerial vehicles (aka drones, aka UAVs) throw a wrench in the old legal understandings?

Well, here's where the rubber meets the road for this abstract line of questioning. The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports a complaint it received from a resident in the Miller Park neighborhood. She writes:

This afternoon, a stranger set an aerial drone into flight over my yard and beside my house near Miller Playfield. I initially mistook its noisy buzzing for a weed-whacker on this warm spring day. After several minutes, I looked out my third-story window to see a drone hovering a few feet away. My husband went to talk to the man on the sidewalk outside our home who was operating the drone with a remote control, to ask him to not fly his drone near our home. The man insisted that it is legal for him to fly an aerial drone over our yard and adjacent to our windows. He noted that the drone has a camera, which transmits images he viewed through a set of glasses. He purported to be doing "research". We are extremely concerned, as he could very easily be a criminal who plans to break into our house or a peeping-tom.

The site adds, "The woman tells us she called police but they decided not to show up when the man left."

But even given the Supreme Court's finding that The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal raised in October, it's unclear whether this stranger's drone-flight — not to mention his photography — was legal under current law.

John Villasenor, author of a recent Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy article about the laws governing drones and privacy, explained to me over email that it's difficult to analyze the legalities of the case without more information. What kind of drone was it? How was it flown? These questions would be instrumental to determining whether it was operated in accordance with FAA regulations.

As for the privacy concerns, one of the most important questions is what was being photographed. "If the camera on the drone was always aimed at the public street," Villasenor writes, "then that's very different than if it was capturing images into the home through the window."

The First Amendment provides a right to gather information, but that right is not unbounded; it ends, Villasenor writes, "when it crosses into an invasion of privacy." He continued, "Putting a stepladder up against someone else's home without permission, climbing up the ladder, and then photographing into a second-floor window would be an invasion of privacy. Using a drone just outside the window to obtain those same photographs would be just as much an invasion of privacy."

New technologies may present new ways of violating people's privacy, but that doesn't mean they're legal. It will take courts years to figure out how to apply our laws to our age of drones (and years for legislators to revise them — they're not, after all, perfect), but we're not starting from scratch. That said, police (or other law-enforcement agents) will need to actually enforce existing laws, or they're not all that helpful.

Editor's Note: Man in photo is not in any way affiliated with the subject of this story. Image via ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

This article originally published at The Atlantic here

Topics: Drones, Politics, privacy, spying, U.S., US & World The Atlantic is a Mashable publishing partner that is a multimedia forum on the most-critical issues of our times, from politics, business, urban affairs, and the economy, to technology, arts, and culture. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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