Girldrive: Redefining Feminism

The American road trip – at least in the novels inspired by it – is a manly domain. Classics like On The Road, Travels with Charley, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas all feature men searching for themselves and their personal vision of America. It’s a tradition begun by the male trappers and traders, and Alexis de Tocqueville, who was sent by the French to study the fledgling American republic in the 1830s. He traveled the dusty roads to find his stories.

That’s what two young women did in the fall of 2007, except that most of the roads were paved. Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein were recent college grads interested in what feminism means to American women today. They interviewed more than two hundred women, along with a few men -- from their role models to strangers who don’t identify as feminists at all.

Their interviews, photographs, and personal impressions are compiled in the book Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism and we invited Nona Willis Aronowitz to tell us about their travels.