NEWS: You Go, Girls

It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure that they'll get more accurate answers from women that polling wouldn't though, and the fact that their sample size will inevitably be smaller and their own biases will come into selecting who to talk to and who to avoid, they might not necessarily get an actual sense of how women view feminism.

And obviously Detroit. I think they avoid larger progressive cities such as Chicago because they already are more receptive to this whole feminist thing.

Smaller towns are more conservative and "old fashioned" for the most part.

Yeah... since when is this the case?

Of course the road trip = manly thing is ridiculous; but it's a part of the culture. Jeez, people, think of the road movies you know: Easy Rider? The Blues Brothers? Bonnie and Clyde? Bound for Glory, Down by Law, My Own Private Idaho, the Grapes of Wrath, Sideways, O Brother Where Art Thou. Of course there are some with women in them--It Happened One Night, True Romance--and the single big girls' road movie Thelma and Louise, but generally (and a lot of this is indeed Kerouac) the road is the man alone finding himself thing.

It doesn't just date back to Kerouac, though; it goes all the way back to picaresque tales like Lazarillo de Tormes. One of the reasons the convention of the road is "masculine" is obviously because of the relative freedom of movement men have had historically; part of it in the US is the cowboy = freedom trope, and yeah, part of it is the association of cars with guys.

It doesn't mean that women don't like or take road trips (hence my tagline); it just means that there's a well-established history of association, one that's obvious in Thelma and Louise, which is deliberately inverting it (and which is so famous largely because of that--after alll, it's not a terribly good movie).

I agree with your last 2 statements. And if people think you are easily defined they have no real reason to listen to what you have to say, and I don't know about other people, but I want people to listen when I speak to them and to base their opinions of me on ME, not a long list of labels.

And from where I stand people suck a whole LOT of the time, and not at all in a good way.

Well, in the ARTS, yes...but in the real world? I dunno if that's so true, frankly. Enh. Not that important a point, really.

And by the way BONNIE, of Bonnie and Clyde, was a woman (s'far as I know). . .

don't forget the greatest female road trip tale of all:



Try the master's house changes, sisters are forever!

I hate to be cliche, but I honestly have never seen the correlation. Not that it isn't there (your examples are sound), I've just never noticed it because frankly, I just saw those as stories about people as opposed to sexes.

Another point already made is that is in the arts. From my own personal experience, when I think of people I know who have gone on road trips, it's all very mixed. Probably leans slightly towards female actually, but probably just because of the company I keep.

Chicago gets overlooked a lot.

Well, yeah, cultural stereotypes generally aren't valid. That's why they're cultural stereotypes and not facts. Not believing them doesn't mean you don't acknowledge that they exist.

Just to give you one anecdote, I was once banned from one side of a famous designers studio because they were doing fittings and the models where in their underwear and they thought I would be staring at them and making them feel uncomfortable! Unbelievable and totally offensive, assuming that I had no self control. I've seen so many models in their knickers, it's really not a big deal at all. Well, there you go....