Women's Travel for Shopping in Traditional Neighborhoods: How Does a Woman's Role in the Household Affect Activity and Travel for Shopping?

The paper considers travelogues of Yugoslav female writers Alma Karlin, Jelena Dimitrijević, Isidora Sekulić, Marica Gregorič Stepančič, Marica Strnad, Luiza Pesjak. These texts created in the first half of the 20th century in Serbian, Slovenian and German are on the periphery of the literary field and, with rare exceptions, do not belong to the canon. The most famous of these authors are Sekulić from Serbia and the German-speaking writer Karlin from Slovenia. Recently, the work of Dimitrijević has also become an object of attention of researchers. Other travelogues writers are almost forgotten. Identity problems, especially national ones, are a constant component of the travelogue genre. During a journey, the author directs his attention to “other / alien” peoples and cultures that can be called foreign to the perceiving consciousness. However, when one perceives the “other”, one inevitably turns to one's “own”, one's own identity. The concept of “own - other / alien”, on which the dialogical philosophy is based (M. Buber, G. Marcel, M. Bakhtin, E. Levinas), implies an understanding of the cultural “own” against the background of the “alien” and at the same time culturally “alien” on the background of “own”. Women's travel has a special status in culture. Even in the first half of the 20th century the woman was given space at home. Going on a journey, especially unaccompanied, was at least unusual for a woman. According to Simone de Beauvoir, a woman in society is “different / other”. Therefore, women's travelogues can be defined as the look of the “other” on the “other / alien”. In this paper, particular attention is paid to the interrelationship of gender, national identities and their conditioning with a cultural and historical context. At the beginning of the 20th century in the Balkans, national identity continues actively to develop and the process of women's emancipation is intensifying. Therefore, the combination of gender and national issues for Yugoslavian female travelogues of this period is especially relevant. Dimitrijević's travelogue Seven Seas and Three Oceans demonstrates this relationship most vividly: “We Serbian women are no less patriotic than Egyptian women... Haven't Serbian women most of the merit that the big Yugoslavia originated from small Serbia?” As a result of this study, the specificity of the national and gender identity constructs in the first half of the 20th century in the analyzed texts is revealed. For this period one can note, on the one hand, the preservation of national and gender boundaries, often supported by stereotypes, on the other hand, there are obvious tendencies towards the erosion of the established gender and national constructs, the mobility of models of gender and national identification as well, largely due to the sociohistorical processes of the time.

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BOOK REVIEW: Lila Marz Harper.SOLITARY TRAVELERS: NINETEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN'S TRAVEL NARRATIVES AND THE SCIENTIFIC VOCATION. Madison-Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 2001.

Victorian Studies ◽

10.2979/vic.2002.44.4.716 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 44 (4) ◽

pp. 716-717

Author(s):

Barbara T. Gates

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Travel Narratives ◽

University Presses ◽

Women's Travel

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Gender, Science, and Authority in Women's Travel Writing: Literary Perspectives on the Discourse of Natural History by Michelle Medeiros

Tulsa Studies in Women s Literature ◽

10.1353/tsw.2021.0017 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 166-169

Author(s):

Leila Gómez

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

Travel Writing ◽

Women's Travel

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Sex difference in travel is concentrated in adolescence and tracks reproductive interests

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2014.1476 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 281 (1796) ◽

pp. 20141476 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Emily J. Miner ◽

Michael Gurven ◽

Hillard Kaplan ◽

Steven J. C. Gaulin

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Travel Behaviour ◽

Reproductive Rate ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Sexual Competition ◽

Terrestrial Vertebrates ◽

Market Town ◽

Sexual Selection Theory ◽

Women's Travel ◽

The Life Course

Sexual selection theory suggests that the sex with a higher potential reproductive rate will compete more strongly for access to mates. Stronger intra-sexual competition for mates may explain why males travel more extensively than females in many terrestrial vertebrates. A male-bias in lifetime distance travelled is a purported human universal, although this claim is based primarily on anecdotes. Following sexual maturity, motivation to travel outside the natal territory may vary over the life course for both sexes. Here, we test whether travel behaviour among Tsimane forager–horticulturalists is associated with shifting reproductive priorities across the lifespan. Using structured interviews, we find that sex differences in travel peak during adolescence when men and women are most intensively searching for mates. Among married adults, we find that greater offspring dependency load is associated with reduced travel among women, but not men. Married men are more likely to travel alone than women, but only to the nearest market town and not to other Tsimane villages. We conclude that men's and women's travel behaviour reflects differential gains from mate search and parenting across the life course.

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