1. Travel teaches respect and tolerance

And so does feminism…

Travel is one of the great social levellers known to mankind. Travel is the antidote to ‘otherness’. When you are around people who look different, act different and eat differently to you, suddenly you realise that we are all human. As diverse as we are, as different as our experiences are, we are all human. As a traveller, you can look at someone’s vastly different culture and compare it to your own and by making that comparison you are cementing your belief that we are all same, same but different (as they say in Thailand).

I watched this girl wash her clothes by hand in the Kerala backwaters and the normality of it struck me – how her and her mum just get on with daily life.

Travel is crucial to breaking down barriers between people, just as feminism is essential for breaking down misogyny and gender expectations. If we all stayed in our cosy little corners and didn’t share our ideas, think how small our worlds would be. For good or bad, without explorers and travellers, we wouldn’t be eating chips for tea or writing on paper or drinking coffee. Whilst those first intrepid explorers were after material gains, the riches travellers seek today are experience, memories and new friends.

Children who travel will become more tolerant and with different people.  Childhood is often a small world confined to a classroom and a playground. Travel makes this world seem humongous. Kids will meet such a vast array of people compared to their peers at home and hopefully, these encounters will develop into mutual respect and tolerance.

Sitting and talking to this Masai Warrior in Kenya was initially daunting but ultimately rewarding.

2. Travel teaches children that characteristics are individual, not gender-defined

And so can feminism…

Exploration has always boiled down to survival.

In the distant past, this meant the skills to make your own fire, construct shelter, forage and hunt for food. Whether man or woman, old or young, survival was the essence of your journey. Women and men both had to survive and needed survival skills. Nowadays in a world of jet planes and five-star hotels, survival is more or less assured. However, travel still requires a range of skills that cannot be defined by gender. Speaking another language, haggling prices, backpacking rough trails, lighting campfires…

When you’re somewhere as magnificent as the Great Wall of China, you never feel alone.

Children will quickly pick up the traits that matter when you are travelling. They will absorb through interactions and experience that compassion, communication and courage are essential and desirable skills. Children will begin to understand that men don’t have to be aggressive or loud; women don’t have to be demure or silent but instead, that one has to adapt to the situation. Threatened by a group of imitating hawkers, a woman may need to appear overly-confidence. Conversely, a man will need to display compassion and empathy when meeting orphaned children. Characteristics should stem from the situation and not be predetermined by your gender.

3. Travel encourages children to discover interests for themselves

And so does feminism…

Think of the interests associated with home/daily life. Do you find interests seem to fall into a clear dichotomy between what society has deemed are suitable for each gender (including non-binary people)? Just think football/soccer, ballet, baking cakes, motorsports, heavy metal music. I bet you compartmentalised those pretty quickly! Today much is being done to challenge these assumptions but entrenched deep within Western culture is the idea that some pastimes are for men and some for women. Just go to a toy store and look at the colour branding and marketing of the toy ironing boards and BMX bikes!

This helpful man fixed my sandals in Suchitoto, El Salvador. The ability to recycle rather than buy new again puts things into perspective.

However, when I think of travel and the type of pastimes associated with travel, I see more gender equality. Maybe it’s just me but my sub-conscious is less likely to imagine a partaker of scuba diving, an archaeology dig or multi-day hike as male or female. I find to harder to genderize these roles. This is fantastic news for children of those who travel. Not only will they, over time, see more roles generally (we don’t see many people doing on-street shoe repairs in the UK, do we?) but also they will see how roles are fluid. They will see women climbing mountains and men cleaning hotel rooms. They will realise that Western society (Hollywood!) doesn’t have all the answers, make all the rules and have the final say on what women and men can and can’t do.

4. Travel makes you live with less and share more

Great for promoting gender-neutral choices

When you’re on the road, you have less. Your suitcase will carry all your possessions. Everything that you believe you need. There will be no room for pink plastic doll’s houses or huge remote control dinosaur trucks. Less stuff will mean more sharing. More making do with what you have. Boys and girls will share toys, books, even clothes. Games will be chosen because they appeal to EVERYONE. Great gender-neutral and suitcase-friendly toys and games to travel with include card games, small figurines and cars, drawing pads and pencils, skipping rope and balls.

I spent time with this young Mongolian girl and her family, staying overnight in their yurt. Whilst she didn’t have many possessions, she treasured the toys she did have and was very imaginative in her game-playing.

Children will also interact more with nature and use their imagination to create games. Our son loves beaches and forests and will play there for hours. At home surrounded by mountains of toys, he often lacks the concentration to play for more than half an hour or so with one particular toy. There are no more gender-neutral ‘toys’ than those found in nature!

Need some family travel inspiration? Check out our Destination Section for family-friendly tips and itineraries around Macedonia, Jamaica, Iceland and more…

5. Travel highlights why feminism still matters

“Why’s she doing that?”           “Why is she wearing that?”               “Why isn’t she allowed to talk to me?”

Children are the most curious of creatures and if you’re travelling they will see things and they WILL question what they see…constantly. Questions that you weren’t expecting, questions that are uncomfortable, questions that adults avoid.

This market scene is in Fez, Morocco. I can’t imagine the questions I would have got if Zizi had been with me!

If you travel far and wide enough, you will see women doing courageous and brilliant things which you will want to explain to your children. Yes, she’s hiking alone. No, she’s not lonely – she likes her own company.

Being isolated provides space to think about yourself and other women in the world.

But your children will also see some of the darker sides of life. Why is that young local girl with that old Western man? Why is the lady sleeping in the doorway? Why does that girl have no shoes on? Why can her brother go to school but she can’t? And yes, you will have to work out how to tell your child about poverty, about gender inequality, about homelessness, about extremely difficult concepts. How you answer will depend on their ages and your parenting style but I believe honesty is important.

If you have never talked to your child about Malala, do it tonight. Malala sums up for me why feminism still matters – for every young girl everywhere.

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