Frauen reisen

the long version

Frauen Reisen introduces the educated lay reader to the circumstances under which women traveled and wrote about their journeys in the 19th century. Their gender-specific situation at home informed their motivation to travel and how they experienced their journeys. Stunningly adventurous and quite outspoken, these women not only broke barriers but wrote highly popular works about their adventures. As women, they had access to experiences denied to traveling men, for example visits in harems in "the Orient" and interactions with the women there. So their writings often present fascinating aspects of life elsewhere in the world. But as traveling and writing women they also broke taboos and their texts present us with the 'dual gaze' these writers had to apply in their lives and in their works. The book discusses the work of several prominent German-speaking women writers of the 19th century and introduces texts by Ottilie Assing, a long-time associate of Frederick Douglas.