it is so upsetting listening to so many males talk about all of the times they have gone on road trips alone and slept in their cars alone or on the side of the road, or travelled overseas alone and slept on the floor of strangers homes or in parks or at hostels, and they appear to have such freedom in that they are able to be alone in ways that females, unfortunately, cannot. and there is an ignorance surrounding this in that these boys never seem to comprehend just how fortunate they are that strange people and unfamiliar places and the dark of night are not their enemies but rather exciting, promising things.
“Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night…”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
