Rachel I don't know if your interest in women adventurers extends beyond the USA, but if so you might consider the following: Mary Kingsley - a Victorian lady who travelled in the roughest of conditions in West Africa. Book title something like "Travels in West Africa" Elspeth Huxley - "The Flame Trees of Thika", "Out in the Midday Sun" - a UK settler's daughter in Kenya. Describes hunting safaris, in which she very soon became put off by the killing, preferring instead to just witness the wildlife. Karen Blixen - "Out of Africa" and many others, similar attitude to EH. In my own experience in Africa, going on game viewing safaris with mixed groups, I find men tend to be interested in the biggest, fastest, meanest, deadliest, One the other hand, women, while showing an interest in the above, are more taken by the quiet moments of mother and infant, or the beauty of an animal, its superb adaptation to its environment, subtleties in behaviour etc. A case in point would be the mountain Gorillas of the Virunga volcanoes, Zaire/Rwanda/Uganda border area. I visit a large family group there, with 2 male and 2 female tourists, and 4 male guides (Zairean). The guides just assumed that we would really only be interested in the silverback male (the lone breeding male in the group, and twice the size of the adult females and subadult males). While his enormous size certainly catches ones attention, after a while I found him boring _relative to the females- (no gorilla in the wild is actualy boring). While he sat, almost posing, occasionally flexing a huge bicep to the ooohs and ahhhhs of the humans, the females were getting on with life. Their behaviour is so subtle, so quick, in a flash two females could have had a showdown over something (eg preferred feeding spot), sorted out who would get precedence and go their separate ways without much more that eye contact, and barely audible grunts. (conflict resolution without violence - in the past led male primatologists to infer that females did not have dominance hierarchies). My human male companions were not the least interested in such things, their eyes were glued to the magnificant body of the silverback, about whom they discussed his power to destroy, eg " he could just rip your arm right off" (true, but something this gentle male would never do). Neverless, his power, strenght and ability to cause harm was their main focus. Meanwhile the most engaging infants scrambled around our feet, swung from trees, that gave under their weight sending them crashing to the ground amid gorilla giggles etc etc. The guides kept moving us to the most strategic location to view the male, despite my protestations that I preferred the other group members, but, they know from past experience that the best tips come from excellent views of the male, so thats what we got. It was after that experence that I really began to notice how many males really only notice the biggest bull elephant (never mind its a matriarchial society, and very peaceful), the fiercest bull buffalo - a loner exciled from the herd for his disruptiveness; the biggest, most scared old male lion, never mind that its the sleek females that do 90% of the hunting, which they then take the "lions share" of. NB this related only to white westerners. African males are not really into the game viewing thing, and are not afraid to admid that they are scared of the dangerous game animals, but then they suffer the consequences of these animals proximity to human habitation. I have seldom had the opportunity to experience rural african womens additudes, but as they are the main agriculturists, I imagine they also see mostly the nuisance valve of such animals. (one elephant or a troop of baboons can destroy a whole crop overnight). As an aside, it is almost impossible to experience the African wilderness without doing so in the presence of males. Apart from self drive holidays which are only possible in some places, any driver, walking guide, park warden, scye for horse riding, anyone involved in making african wildlife accessable to tourists, is male. So, I very seldom get to experience Africa without a male slant already imposed. Hope this provides some different insights to your question Melanie Virtue Nairobi, Kenya
