brave
/breɪv/ adjective; ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. "a brave soldier"
noun; a North American Indian warrior.
verb; endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behaviour) without showing fear. "these six men braved the rough seas"
What do you think of when you think of Brave?.
I think of many things. Someone with a debilitating condition getting on with with life
Battling a life altering disease
Getting up in a morning when you're not sure if you can
Running across a rocky mountain top.
Mountain climbing, hiking in a jungle, swimming the ocean.
Probably many more things, but never because I go running and walking alone in remote places. Or because I go on solo overnight adventures!.
But I was referred to as brave, by a woman, because I do this alone. Is this because, simply put, I am a woman and being alone isn't (as) safe for women?. Would a man get the same comment for hiking because he was alone?.
[During lockdown group activities were on hold and many women found themselves out alone, and probably felt more vulnerable].
I've always run, hiked and explored alone, visiting some quite remote areas, usually on less trodden paths in sometimes very unfamiliar places, so lockdown made no difference to me really other than restrictions and removal of my own free movement.
I have never felt that I needed to change what I do because of a few people out there. I've never really felt threatened whilst out running, hiking and exploring.
Maybe sometimes vulnerable, wary, cautious, but that's been instilled into women for years hasn't it?. That we're vulnerable. The survival instinct. To be afraid of being attacked (by a man).
Headline 'a man saw a woman walking home alone, a target, and attacked her'. Although rare this always has, and still does happen (it's as old as time).
When I'm out the only things I want to be worrying about are; bogs, cows, getting lost, falling over, off, in and getting hurt, needing to be rescued, just as men probably do (do they?).
I've always been of the idea that the people out in the countryside are like minded runners, hikers and explorers. I do feel safer out in the countryside than I do on the streets of a town.
Don't get me wrong, I've taken a photo of a number plate and sent it to my husband before getting a lift home. I keep my gps location on at all times so that he knows where I am. I've sent photos of where I'm parked, a step by step of where I'm running and what time I think that I'll be home. Something I presume men don't do.
Years after my (now passed much too young) friend called me brave I am still asked "who do you go with? Alone!" by the women that I work with.
But I won't let 'fear and what ifs' stop me. Why should I. Do men?
So I feel that I'm not brave. Just that I'm exercising my right to be able to run, hike and explore alone, to be left alone and to feel safe as I do so.
Like men do.
