Illuminations


"All the women in this book embraced the opportunity to travel because it offered them independence and a redefinition of themselves outside the narrow confines of society. They rejected the submissive position of women at home, and had no particular affinity with domesticity. But if they laid the foundations of women's liberation, most of them did it unwittingly, for they were motivated by the desire for self-improvement. Although their vagaries are amusing now, they did not travel frivolously. They put a girdle round the earth by doing: teaching, singing, empire-building, nursing, flying, acting, hunting, dancing, climbing. A minority travelled with their husbands; few were in pursuit of a man, although not proof against loneliness. Many were very frail, but invalidism seems to have a mysterious link with indomitability. In any case, their upbringing had trained them to withstand hardship, for the majority came from middle-class homes that made a virtue of stoicism. Their families provided the finance necessary for their expeditions, and their nationalities gave them prestige in the countries they travelled in. With the exception of missionaries, teachers and empire-builders, on the whole they did not try to change the people they encountered."


from Maria Aitken "A girdle round the earth. Adventuresses abroad", 1987 Constable & Co., London


Thank you dear aunt Maria, for continuous inspiration as an intellectual and as a woman.