writing women back into the countryside: a book

Regarding archaeology, there was some stuff in the news a while ago about sexual harassment of female archaeologists/archaeology students on digs, typically by more senior male archaeologists, which seemed quite a common issue - in some cases also with implied threats to their studies if they spoke out (sorry I can't remember any more detail!).

Sounds fascinating and I look forward to reading it.

I do think a lot of female fear is media generated. Im aware when I'm in a local place that gives me the heebies (small dead end lane with high hedges and no way out) that I'm imagining some ITV crime drama in my head rather than reality). But wherever it comes from, yes there are far more women who literally won't do anything alone, than men. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of competent and unafraid women going solo in all sorts of situations.

www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143423

looks interesting, a history of women walking

I go for walks alone, but I almost never see other women doing the same when I'm out. Couples, groups of women, lone men, yes, but usually if I do see another woman on her own, she'll be running, not walking. It makes me feel like a bit of an oddball, like I'm breaking some unspoken rule of the countryside. It can't be that every single other woman in the vicinity has caring responsibilities, so I do wonder what's going on sometimes.

PS I do get what PP say about the Lone Man in the Wilds and women being much more constrained by DC. When mine were small finding time to walk the dogs properly was a struggle, and the idea of just sodding off hiking for a weekend unthinkable.

I shall have to go and read your blog.

I've lived rurally most of my life and have walked the countryside solo since I was about ten. I'll walk in the pre-dawn dark to give the dogs a run before work. Very rarely have I felt threatened, and I've only had two bad experiences in all those years (unpleasant, rather than terrifying). I feel much more anxious in cities TBH. I've had some great conversations with lone men - bird watching, pest control, the exact ancestry of a working lurcher.

The only thing I'd say, OP, is when you talk about gunshots, just check that you're actually near a military training area. Most live firing you hear in the countryside is either game shooting or pest control. And sometimes - and I am sure you know this - what sounds like gunfire can just be a bird scarer.

Also OP have you considered going on Claire Baldwin's 'ramblings' on radio 4?

Love the 'lone enraptured male' trope! (Not love, but it rings so true).

I wouldn't be scared as such, but walking out of the door and striding off into a line adventure is certainly harder for women. We are conditioned to hold so much of other people's lives in our consiousness that it would take a concerted effort to get childcare, paperwork, household in order to escape the 'wife work' that it's not possible for most women to see this kind of adventure as possible. Pretty sure men can easily close the front door and stride off knowing someone will feed the dog/kids/meter much more so than women. Very interested in examining that and pulling it apart OP

Before my early thirties and kids I don't believe in the 'pram in the hall' as enemy of creativity concept. But now I do see that it's something to battle against.

Basically what I'm saying is that a woman can go on an adventure on her own, but they are definitely making much more of a point by doing it.

I do tend to get epically lost and a bit superstitious out in the wilds. It all goes a bit Blair Witch. Fear of monsters as much as madmen. And of course, since having children, the walks are very short, ciricular, close to home. And anxiety impacts, too. I have a friend who writes on walking and we have also discussed disability and mental health in this context, too.

I have two woman friends who are both fearless travellers. they walk alone all over the world and encounter hostility with real calm - they have extricated themselves from really dangerous scrapes several times. I don't know how they do it. I used to jibber just walking alone in a nearby woodland, although since lockdown everyone else has discovered it too so these days I'm usually surrounded by women with cockerpoos.

Interesting thread and ideas.

OP have you read "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed (?).

She walked for weeks alone in the US and talks a bit about being a woman alone hiking - one dodgy/scarey experience but the rest all good iirc.

Good luck with the book!

It sounds magnificent. And very sellable, if you get the tone right.

This woman recently finished around the world solo ..,quite dramatic at times

www.piphare.com/

Fab thread! I went in a writing course with Kathleen Jamie once and it was so good. I love walking out in my own, too. I deliberately didn’t watch the Blair witch project as I didn’t want to be scared in the woods! Will have a look at your blog op.

I've recently read one of Kathleen Jamie's book and it was really lovely. She's obviously at home outdoors and explores and engages with nature, but her home and domestic life are always there in the background too. I found her writing really engaging.
Watching with interest as this is a topic close to my heart too. Engagement and contact with the outdoors, especially the wilder places is less frequently done by women alone.
Women runners have quite a lot to say on this issue too..

I love walking alone. I feel like I'm too old to care much now but was more reluctant in my younger days. Will have a read over the weekend, OP.

I'm so enjoying this discussion.

I love the 'lone enraptured Male's concept, because it's so true, and the ability of men to take off and let someone else run their real life in the meantime.

There are women doing extraordinary things. But they don't end up with a tv series out of their passions.

I grew up on the edge of rural land and went lots of places alone as a child and young woman without a second thought. It's only in later life I leaned to be afraid of being alone. Not alone as in solitude - I love to travel alone and be in nature - but alone as in no-one being there to help if you came across some dodgy man. Perhaps I've lived in cities too long.
I'm also an archaeology graduate and despite there being an even mix of men and women on my course (over twenty years ago) what you say about archaeology rings true.

I've been thinking about this today and your 'men walking out' are no different to male mountaineers, trans-Atlantic rowers, round the world cyclists, artists or poets but also all those everyday blokes with ordinary jobs, who take up marathon running, cycling, golf, or club cricket, as soon as their first baby is born. (Plenty of source material on 'the cyclists' on MN!). I mean it's just ordinary, everyday male selfishness and sexism, not anything specific to walking.

Then there's the urban / rural split, which is about what people are familiar with.

Then there seems to be something of a class element, if the author you mention interviews 'marine biologists, ultra runners and paleontologists', so mostly professionals working within inherently MC institutions, visiting the countryside for fieldwork, viewing it an an object of study, something other; rather than the rural dwellers for whom those research 'fields' are home and workplace.

I'm open to persuasion and quite interested, I'm just not immediately seeing anything specific to walking, in the points you've made here.

Woods though. There've been a few threads on here, demonstrating how crazy people are about woods. Walk all you like but do not walk through woods (or the bogeyman will get you!).

I feel safe and happy walking alone in the hills but I am always aware that a lone woman is an oddball and I only have to peek at the map to have some helpful bloke wanting to direct me which does make me self conscious

For various reasons women are much less likely than men to roam alone, or even I. Female only groups and also much less likely to be in charge of navigation or pace in a group

Safety , confidence , other pressures. When dd was small I got a much more negative reaction from friends and family than the ex ever did if I took a day to myself in the hill

I don’t like walking by myself in the countryside - but it’s more about cows and loneliness than anything else. I love walking with my mum or my kids, and miss it so much. I’ll do night buses in London and a walk home with much less trepidation than a solo countryside walk that’s not on lanes.

Re: being outside without street lights. I heard someone remark that young men from the inner cities who were sent to Vietnam, were terrified of the dark. They had never experienced it. I also heard the same from someone who took tough inner city kids camping. I feel safer in darkness from human predators but more vulnerable to 4 legged ones.