A man arrives at the airport. He stops at the bar for a couple of drinks and some nachos before heading for his gate. When early boarding for his flight is announced, he gets in line, although he has no small children and requires no special assistance.
Once on board, he folds his suit jacket and places it in the overhead compartment, taking up much of it. If the nearest overhead bin is full, he calls a flight attendant to take care of his bag. Then he takes his aisle seat, opens his briefcase and spreads his papers on the seat next to him.
A woman arrives at the airport and heads straight for her gate, passing the airport bar. She settles by her gate, checks and double-checks her tickets, and boards when her row is called.
Once on board, if the overhead bin is full of jacket, she apologizes to anyone who is listening as she moves it. If the bin is too full for her bag, she finds an emptier one.
Then she squeezes past the businessman, apologizing for making him move his papers.
Granted, these are caricatures, says Phyllis Stoller, who painted these pictures, but she has learned in her travels and from interviews with flight attendants that they are not far from the truth.
Stoller is president of The Women’s Travel Club, a Miami-based group that organizes women-mostly (with a few men now and then) trips. She believes women don’t get the same quality of service because they don’t insist on it; they don’t operate with the same attitude of entitlement as men, she says.
I believe the reason they don’t insist on equal treatment is because we’re afraid-afraid people might not like them if they are “pushy.”
More caricatures, of my own devising:
A guy wants to go fishing in Montana. His wife hates fishing, so he calls two buddies, and a month later they’re in Montana.
A woman wants to spend April in Paris. She tells her husband, who says, “I’m too busy and I hate French food.” The woman sighs and instead of going to Paris, she goes to lunch with a friend to complain about how their husbands never take them anywhere. It doesn’t occur to them to travel sans husbands.
Fear again.
If anything comes between women and travel, it’s fear.
Fear of asserting themselves keeps women from getting good service when they travel. But greater fears keep them from traveling at all-real fears of real violence done to women every day.
If claiming good service is simply a matter of asserting themselves, so is traveling despite the world’s menace. The trick is overcoming our fears and outsmarting the dangers.
The Women’s Travel Club is a form of assertion. With more than 400 members, ranging in age from 21 to 75, it is about finding safety in numbers, if that’s the only way safety can be found. And it’s the strong voice of numbers insisting on the kind of service Stoller expects for club trips.
The club makes a point of traveling to two or three places a year that are particularly difficult for women, including, in 1994, the Muslim countries of Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia.
The club asserts the independence of women who love to travel but are married to men who don’t. Or who are widowed. Or divorced. Or can’t find friends to travel with. But, as Stoller says, “We can’t change the world.” Nor should they hide from it.
Membership to the The Women’s Travel Club is $35 a year. For more information, contact the club at 8180 Erwin Rd., Miami, Fla. 33143; 305-667-6229.
