WOMEN ON THE ROAD: LEAVE YOUR BAGGAGE BEHIND
WOMEN ON THE ROAD: LEAVE YOUR BAGGAGE BEHIND

Summary/Abstract: "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?”, — asks Bob Dylan in his 1963 song “Blowing in the Wind”— or before you call her a woman, we might add. “Hitting the road” implies an adventurous, boisterous, trying journey, more applicable to men than women. Moreover, examples of past travel teach us that women have never had the same access to the road as men did. From explorers to vagrants being on the road suggests engagement in doing something, although being on the road carries epistemological meaning that is the accessibility of knowledge and independence. Traditionally, while men are on the road, women are on and off, motivated by a cause, rather than a reason. In this paper I intend to highlight some gendered intricacies of travel and their related aspects in relation to home, female identity and male/female experience, as compared to the 19th century Gothic representation of the "[...]

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