Why Women Travel More Than Men

[Martin Hash]

An older woman asked me why so many more females travel verses males. Easy, because it's a dangerous world and most men are at heart cowards. It's not that women are brave, they are simply naive. Because of this naivety, when traveling, women assume they are safe. They assume the attention they attract is harmless, but most women who travel quickly learn to stay in the company of a man. But what makes a man protective? Muscles? No... Respect. Men respect other men because of our dominance culture.

Men worldwide have one thing in common that women seem totally unaware of: a social dominance hierarchy. We learn it during childhood & especially during our formative years through physical & emotionally brutality from stronger males. By early adulthood, when males enter a room of unfamiliar people, they immediately begin looking for clues of their status within the Alpha ranking because the penalty for overstepping your place is always paid, sometimes draconian. This happens everywhere & all over the World. At the most fundamental level, the threat of not maintaining your place is violence. When traveling, men respect other unknown men because it's simply too much trouble & too dangerous to determine hierarchy blind because the threat of violence looms over every confrontation.

[Ex-California]

I never thought of it like this, but its very interesting. I definitely feel different when I travel somewhere and that's partially due to social dominance hierarchy I'm sure.

However, could I offer a few more reasons?

1. Divorce rates: At least in the US, about 50% of marriages end in divorce. In these divorces, women make out on top financially and therefore have more disposable cash for traveling.

2. Age disparity from life expectancy: There are simply more senior women than men due to women having a longer life expectancy.

[Martin Hash]

Very reasonable alternate explanations but not nearly as provocative & original as my suppositions.

[DrYouth]

Most men are at heart cowards?

I think you took a few steps too far down that hypothetical laneway...

Otherwise your theorizing is on reasonably strong ground.

You are of course talking about western women here...
Women travelling without men is almost certainly only a western phenomenon.

[Smitty-48]

Most men are at heart cowards?

Most definitely, and it's only through a process of forcing them to confront one another that you can get them to overcome the natural fears imposed by darwinian evolution, before you start to be able to indoctrinate them into a posture of aggressive dominance uber alles. This is most, there are the natural agressors of course, as well as those who have been pre-indoctrinated by growing up in a harsh realm of social dominance, such as a ghetto for example.

Also agree with Hash that it is not that women are braver, due to their darwinian role, they merely do not consciously consider the true ramifications of aggressive physical dominance until it is upon them, usually taken by surprise, and thus far too late for them to do anything about it by then.

[DrYouth]

Coward is a value judgement...

Otherwise I'm not disagreeing with anything here.

Dominance hierarchies are what they are... and strange humans were always humans most dangerous adversary.

The phenomenon of the perhaps recklessly fearless western woman could be a thread of its own.

[Montegriffo]

Is it because they weigh less on average and have less air resistance when you fire them from a trebuchet?

[Smitty-48]

Coward is a value judgement...

Coward is simply a function of not overcoming your darwinian imposed fears as to rise to the occasion in the face of your fight or flight response. Everyone feels the fear, not everyone can overcome it, although, as I said, they can be indoctrinated to rise to the occasion by a process of confidence building via controlled and/or situational confrontation.

[MilSpecs]

Women have dominance hierarchies; they just function differently from men's. Everyone knows who the Queen Bee is and who her immediate cohort is.

[boethius]

Before we remotely psychoanalyze half the population, how about some numbers on the age of these travelers?

Could be that these extra solo female travelers are the consequence of lifespan and marrying older men