My (unexpectedly) feminist pilgrimage: Walking the Camino de Santiago and the freedom I found
I hadn’t planned on walking 500 miles in Spain just to escape sexist assumptions, but it turned out to be a bonus
My (unexpectedly) feminist pilgrimage.
In early 2017, I scuffled through the hallways of the building where I worked. My hands pooled with sweat and my stomach flipped. It was time — after many months of intricate planning — to quit. In addition to giving notice to my manager, I was required to report my departure to the big boss.
This felt a bit dramatic for an administrative assistant like me, but at a workplace with we’re-a-big-family energy, I suppose it made sense to confess my sins to the patriarch before I could leave “the job no one quit.”
His assistant was a warm Mother Goose figure who had worked there longer than most employees. And while she always had a smile stretched across her face, it looked wider that day. The boss — let’s call him John — called me into his office with an equally effusive welcome, confirming my hunch that there’d been a misunderstanding about my visit.
“I’ve had many female employees come to me with this news,” he said.
I paused for a moment and stared at him, trying to process what was happening. Oh, I realized. He thinks I’m pregnant. He thinks I’m requesting maternity leave. When I’d started working there two years earlier, there were six baby showers during my first four months of employment. As a newly married woman in her late 20s, I often felt eyes on my waistline.
Playing dumb felt like my best defense.
“So, Karen told you I’m leaving?” I muttered, feigning ignorance. Karen was my manager — my super-chill and understanding manager, may I add.
John pushed back in his chair as if I’d passed him a basketball full of bugs.
“I’ve decided to transition full-time to freelance writing,” I said. “And first, I’ll be walking 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. My last day will be on June 30.”
John knew what the Camino de Santiago was because he read my blog, or so he told me. The ancient Catholic pilgrimage stretches across Spain and culminates in the city of Santiago de Compostela. I’d already walked 500 miles of the ancient pilgrimage in 2009 and wrote about it frequently. I’d assumed that my coworkers knew that I was a writer and had ambitions beyond my current position. As his smile continued to fade.
I realized my assumption was likely wrong.
“So, I can’t convince you to stay?” John said, now dodging eye contact. In a series of seconds, I’d transformed from the delicate childbearing secretary into, as I read the situation, a trouble-making employee, a headache, a traitor. Not only had I gotten out of there without a baby shower, but I’d gotten out for a job tailored to what I loved to do.
Over the next several months, the news of my radical departure from the “job that no one quit” spread throughout the staff and our particularly gossipy suburb.
Friends approached me delicately, assuming that I was having problems with my marriage. Why else would I “leave my husband alone” for six whole weeks? More than one joke was cracked about him starving and suffering without my assistance.
In response, I’d often say that Ben was looking forward to growing a big beard and leaning into his hobbies. Because he was a big boy. It’s important to note that none of this came from my husband himself, nor was he consulted or asked about our marriage.
Friends approached me delicately, assuming that I was having problems with my marriage. Why else would I “leave my husband alone” for six whole weeks?
My hiking buddy, Christina, received a different brand of sexism when she announced her trip. “Perhaps you’ll meet your husband there” was a frequent response. Finding a man, she’d tell them, was not her reason for walking a spiritual pilgrimage. We determined that it was the only way people could justify her pausing the almighty search for a husband at home. She must be finding a mate abroad!:
We were no strangers to the public’s discomfort with women traveling alone — or, gasp, with each other (are they forming a coven?!) — but this trip seemed to get under people’s skin in a new way. A fellow guest at a wedding nearly spat out her white zin when I told her I’d be walking for 34 days straight.
“I’m glad I’m not you!” she hollered, before asking Ben why he wasn’t joining me. It wasn’t scary for him to go, just me.
Despite the onslaught of judgmental looks, signs of my coming freedom popped up as the trip got closer. The clothing in my hiking pack consisted of two pairs of cargo hiking pants, one pair of shorts nabbed from the school’s lost-and-found, three baggy shirts, three sports bras, five pairs of high-coverage comfy underwear, and two pairs of thick wooly hiking socks.
Nothing about the outfit catered to the male gaze.
The fabrics protected me from the sun, wind and rain. My base layers wicked sweat away from my skin to discourage chafing. On a long-distance hike, chafing is the enemy, not looking frumpy. I swapped my makeup for 55 SPF and floral-scented shampoo for all-purpose Castile soap that would also serve as body wash, face wash, hand soap and hand-washing laundry detergent.
Perhaps you’ll meet your husband there” was a frequent response.
When I visited my hairdresser, I requested she cut my hair to right below my shoulders, no layers. It was the ideal length, I explained, to pull my hair up or braid it away from my face. It didn’t matter what it looked like because I was going to chop the sun-fried bits off when I got home anyway. She kindly did as I asked but made a handful of comments about how nice it is to give your parents a grandchild, clearly disapproving that I was hitting the road instead of reproducing.
About a week before we hopped on the plane.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my hiking gear and with my pragmatic haircut pulled into a loose bun. I looked strong, simple and protected in my new uniform. It was time, I realized, to let my eyebrows, leg hair and that tuft of fuzz above my top lip grow free. And then my mind flipped back to a week earlier when I’d gone outside to get the mail. I was in a bright blue maxi dress that I wore for its notable airflow in the summer.
“Ooooh, you’re gonna get into trouble in that dress,” a gravelly male voice hollered from across the street with a cackle and some kissy sounds. Tucking the mail under my armpit, I shuffled back up to the front door and slammed it behind me. My new unkempt self, I realized, was not just about feeling better in my body, but safer in it as well.
Reality sunk in deeper as the days ticked down, inviting a strange mix of both anxiety and mental weightlessness. Even though my husband and I made an ongoing effort to balance our marriage, heteronormativity and gender roles had snuck into our lives like mold. He worked in the city an hour away and I worked five minutes down the road.
Naturally, this meant that I was home earlier to cook dinner
Naturally, this meant that I was home earlier to cook dinner, feed the cats and chat with our landlord who always seemed to need something.
And then there were all the errands. Since I wrapped up my day at 4:30, going right to Trader Joe’s, the post office or the hardware store simply made more sense. This “convenience” added at least an hour of sitting in suburban traffic to my day. While we weren’t watching, all the paperwork for our lives ended up in my name.
The Chewy order, the Amazon login and even the rent checks all became part of my rounds. The unbalanced house administration didn’t become obvious until I had to hand off a laundry list of logins to even go on a trip.
The hike, it would turn out, acted as a reset, a reminder.
Just because I was “better at multitasking” — a since-debunked theory that saddles women with more household tasks — didn’t mean everything should fall to me.
My new unkempt self, I realized, was not just about feeling better in my body, but safer in it as well.
With a week to go, another family member casually said that they were amazed at how good I was at organizing such a large trip. It took digging my fingernails into my palms not to yell, “Of course I’m good at organizing details! If I don’t do it every day, no one else will!” Perhaps it was time to head off into the hills.
This brings me to the final perk that, quite ironically, a modern Catholic pilgrimage provides: space to think freely.
I didn’t grow up linking Catholicism and inspired thought.
I associated church with social climbing, poverty-shaming and plaid uniform skirts that always seemed to get my sister and I yelled at.
(We weren’t rolling them up, we just had long legs!) To say the least, I am no longer Catholic or a part of any organized religion. I am now weary of joining groups of any kind, from churches to overly enthusiastic yoga studios.
But the religion — if you can call it that — as I experienced it on the Camino is different than the religion preached to my desk in the back of a stuffy concrete classroom.
The space that this pilgrimage provides goes far beyond a belief in a deity at all.
And unlike other long-distance treks, it also goes beyond getting bigger calf muscles, breaking records or planting a flag at the top of a mountain peak. Many pilgrims seem to walk in reverence of movement itself.
They worship the metronome of their feet that sends their minds into a state of steady meditation. They worship long conversations, purple sunrises and cups of coffee with foamed milk so plentiful it spills over the edge carrying it to a café table.:
The natural structure of a pilgrimage offers the traveler a chance to exist without constant distractions. And when women are not pulled to the grimy sink, the smelly cat box, the grocery list, or the demands of those in crisis.
Where does their attention go?
In the early days of a pilgrimage, my mind often went where it always goes: toward guilt. Was I ridiculous for spending all this money? Is Ben sitting at home waiting for me to call? Should I be on a religious pilgrimage if I’m not even religious?
As the layers of the Pyrenees mountains passed by the clouded windows of my busy brain, I missed the bursts of purple flowers emerging from the grass and the starling watching from a tree branch, all because I was shame-spiraling.
By the time I reached Pamplona, my mind rationalized with capitalist nonsense. This hike will make me a better writer and I’ll make more money. Ben was probably craving some alone time and will get to work on his play without me there.
I bet I can put this on my résumé.
When women are not pulled to the grimy sink, the smelly cat box, the grocery list, or the demands of those in crisis, where does their attention go?
Not until I hit the outskirts of Burgos did I run out of things to feel guilty about or rationalize into oblivion. And then, as if they’d been patiently waiting in the wings, the hidden thoughts of weirdness, anger, silliness, confusion, sadness and elation all shuffle-ball-changed to the front of the stage. We were here all along! they sang.
As I walked through the Meseta — the painfully flat part of the trail that lasts approximately 10 days — I made a few discoveries.
I can’t remember the last time I smiled and meant it.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve truly experienced enthusiasm. At some point, I stopped believing that I could have a beautiful life, even when everything around me was beautiful all the time. Every candy bar I grabbed for a late-morning snack tasted like something out of Willy Wonka’s factory.
Every soda was the first soda I’ve ever sipped, the sugar straight from the cane plant, and with just enough bubbles to make me giggle.
A one-euro glass of wine might as well have been from the most exclusive winery.
The bread in the center of the table tasted like the clouds in the sky and the wheat along the trail had a great conversation.
By the time I reached Santiago, I no longer worried about changing on the trail, but instead, about how much the old world would try to make me change back to who I once was.
When I first walked the Camino in 2009, nearly 60 percent of my fellow walkers were men, according to the Santiago Pilgrim Office’s statistics. Women began to show signs of taking the lead in 2018, and anecdotally, there’s no question of that.
I’ve now walked four Caminos and plan to return to walk yet another at the end of 2024. All genders are shifting on the Way. There are more female-identifying people, yes, but there also appear to be more LGBTQ+ individuals. There are more “I’ve never hiked before” people, more “I’m not a religious person” people, and more “I just had to make a change” people.
The Camino looks far less white, straight, thin and male than it did in 2009.
A table at a pilgrim dinner includes a Russian man next to a Brazilian woman and a Norwegian 20-something next to a Nigerian in their 70s. The lady from Texas cozies up with the teen from New York.
We all meet in the Plaza do Obradoiro in Santiago at the end as equals. We all have the same calluses, bruises, knee braces and bandages. We all have the same lopsided sunburn and desperate need of a shower.
We also share the same knowing smile and Camino secret.
The road is out there even when you’re not on it — a place to be equal, heard, and silent enough to hear your own ideas.
Perhaps the true irony of a feminist Catholic pilgrimage is my growing disconnect with the idea of being a female hiker. I certainly no longer walk with “I am a woman” in mind, even as friends still worry about my safety on my “solo female traveler” trips. Identity, it turns out, can drift to farther lands than the strict columns we slip into at home.:
I think about what I would say to that old boss if I could go back to that office with the knowledge I have now. Perhaps I wouldn’t have played dumb. Perhaps I would have gotten angry. Or perhaps — best of all — I would have drowned out his disappointment with an enthusiasm so boundless he would have packed his own backpack and set off to the road himself.
