Nina || hetero || cisfemale || Malaysian. [Malaysia, politics, (pop) culture, travels, food, crafting] links & thoughts
Anecdotes frm women who are privileged enough to travel telling you it's no big deal
What You Missed At Our First Ever Zafigo Talk With Amazing Women Travellers
hat challenges do women face when travelling? How do we make travel safer and better for women? Zafigo was founded on this premise - to serve as a medium and platform where women can connect with each other, share tips and advice, and encourage more interesting ways to see the world.
I find the whole thing generally valuable, even if quite white feminism-y, in kulit sawo matang flavour. That's my general feeling about all of Zafigo tbqh, so I find the whole endeavour of providing a travel resource for women to be generally a missed opportunity in practice. And I say this as someone who is only slightly less privileged as these women when it comes to travel and comporting myself in foreign situations. But the editorial board itself doesn't seem to really want to examine and unpack what comes easy and what doesn't when they travel, especially as a third worlder or obviously non-Westerners, and how much of that can they generalise for others, aside from just saying, 'just do it!'. As such, I find it useful as a general travel resource for upwardly mobile urban English-speaking women, tailored for the Malaysian context, but lord what a missed trick.
But that ties in with a more general observation I've found about the kinds of people who'd just go out and do it, whom I call the Entrepreneurs, and the ones who'd lag or stay behind entirely. The latter group can be further divided, but for Entrepreneurs I have learnt not to expect too much reflection, because their motivation and will can indeed overcome a lot of statistically probable concerns. That's your secret hook to success to be quite honest. You can assess the risks and dangers as much as you like, but what Entrepreneurs understand innately is avoiding the pitfall of analysis paralysis and just take that leap. But it does mean that their success and continued wellbeing isn't really that instructive in my opinion. But they sure as hell have great anecdotes.
Sometimes I do feel Entrepreneurial but honestly I've too many Second and Third Thoughts to be a successful one. Ah well, how about y'all?




Works great until the statistical probable concerns become real.
I mean, no disrespect. It's true — you can and will be able to succeed if you're able to ignore the cost and possibility of failure.
But it works when the possibility of failure is low, and the impact is mild.
I'm reminded of Freakonomics' study on crack dealers and their mindset. Turns out that crack dealers all aspire to be the head of an organization, despite the fact that most of them die. That's how the organization continues to exist — it chews up lots of people's lives, who are incidentally minorities and poor.
And what happens if you fail? Who's responsible for that failure?
So, yeah. It's true that having an Enterprenurial mindset will help you succeed. But if the choice is between to roll the dice between being an Enterpreneur and a Casualty, well… it's going to be useful to people in which failure is unlikely, and easily recovered from.
That's not a lot of people.
yaloh, tht's why, like i said, i don't find their stories as particularly instructive, but they are entertaining.
i was really hoping the platform would actually engage in unpacking the various risks etc and it's not like totally absent but it usually only comes through the initiative of the individual contributors. i don't see it reflected as editorial policy and that's a pity. what lesson can i gain from them? as long got money, and material support (i don't even mean personal money; for eg two of the women in tht panel specifically managed to go around as part of their work in international development or NGO work), can travel? well ya loh.
Not particularly useful, tho. and… I dunno. Actively dangerous? They're aiming it for those who don't necessarily have a lot of life experience, who may have grown up on the argument that So Long As You Try Hard Enough™, you can succeed, and if you don't, it's your fault?
I'd have loved to see a network of women supporting other women in travel, rather than it being aspirational anecdotes, which, honestly, sound like status-seeking. Look at my awesome anecdotes! Aren't I amusing and erudite and cosmopolitan? :-/
re: ur 2nd para - yea tht's what i was looking for too, but maybe it's also a generational gap. these are women who cut their teeth on 2nd wave feminism and stereotypical white feminism, and they're privileged enough not to be alienated by it, but hopefully we're getting more conscious voices out there, who are still very much driven. unlike us slackers. :D
slacking off is also resistance!