A girl named Nemo

Ever since I first watched the film Into The Wild—which chronicles the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man from an affluent Maryland suburb who donates his savings to charity, abandons his possessions, criss crosses the United States hitchhiking, and ultimately dies of starvation in the Alaskan wilderness—I’ve been thinking about McCandless’s story in terms of gender.

There are plenty of documented cases of men dropping everything and pitting themselves against the world’s most wild places. But where are the documented cases of women doing the same thing?

I thought reading Jon Krakauer’s book Into The Wild, on which the film was based, might offer me some insight. Instead, reading it just made me ask more questions. Although plenty of people have been quick to deride McCandless as an ill-equipped fool whose reckless behavior cost him his life, Krakauer characterizes McCandless as an explorer who turned to nature in search of truth and beauty--a pilgrim, of sorts.

Krakauer likens McCandless’s nomadic, truth-seeking impulses to those of the iconic 19th-century American naturalist John Muir, whose writings and environmental activism helped preserve some of California’s most awe-inspiring landscapes, including large sections of Northern California’s majestic Redwood Forests. Krakauer also invokes Everett Ruess, a 20-year-old poet, painter, and naturalist from California who changed his name to Nemo (Latin for nobody), and after months of wandering in the wilderness and living off the land, disappeared without a trace into the Utah desert. It took 75 years to uncover his remains.

Author Wallace Stegner said of Ruess, “It should not be denied… that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom.” Historically, have women not craved "absolute freedom" just as much as men? Have“irksome obligations” prevented females from following in the steps of Everett Ruess and Chris McCandless? Or, is there a girl named Nemo whose story has never been told?

I began thinking that the masculine Into The Wild phenomenon highlights dependencies on women. Women's contributions are essential to maintain human society as it is designed. I wondered, have women traditionally just been too busy promoting and maintaining human civilization to abandon it on a whim?

Of Ruess, Stegner wrote, “Call him adventurous boy—at 18, in a dream, he saw himself plodding through jungles, chinning up the edges of cliffs, wandering through the romantic waste places of the world. No man with any of the juices of boyhood in him has ever forgotten those dreams.” Is it really “the juices of boyhood” that motivate such dreams? What about the dreams that girls have?

There are several notable accounts of extended periods of solitude written by women. Sara Maitland’s 2008 Book of Silence—which is one part autobiography, one part historical examination—promises to become a modern classic on the subject. According to the available literature on female solitude-seekers, there are some fairly notable differences between the journeys of men and women. Almost every such book that I have found written by a female author who spent an extended amount of time in the wilderness has been written by a middle-aged or elderly woman, which suggests that women are less likely than men to fully retreat into solitude in their youth.

A possible explanation for this—based on anecdotal conversation with various women about hitchhiking across the country and retreating from civilization—is a very valid fear among young women of physical or sexual assault.

One in every six women will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime. And, college-aged women are 4 times more likely to be victims of assault. Even though most women know their attackers, young women traveling alone Chris McCandless-style (hitchhiking, riding the rails, and sleeping in the streets) are putting themselves in what is thought of as a high-risk lifestyle.

Also, most of the accounts of solitude that I read were written by women living in cabins, with some access to civilization (grocers, post offices, phones, and occasional contact with other people). Based on my literature review, women appear less compelled to try to “live off the land,” or “rough it” as Chris McCandless did. This begs the question: is inserting oneself wilderness by definition a macho ego trip? Do female “pilgrims” search for truth and beauty in different ways?

Since childhood, I’ve been a solitude seeker who has been captivated by the beauty of nature. For me, however, the concept of wilderness is a place that I journey to in my mind, not in the physical world. I’ve always thought of my emotions and my psyche as a great expanse of wilderness to be explored throughout my life. Although there have been times in my 20s when I’ve been tempted to drop everything and retire to some wild place, I always knew that the urge to take off was motivated by something that couldn’t be solved by relocating physically. But whether my stationary journey inward is gender-motivated or purely self-motivated is still unclear.

A recent Times story offers several stories of men who choose solitude over civilization. The director of the Center of Cognitive and Social NeuroScience at the University of Chicago said, “In our culture, there is this mythic individualism that we cherish…That’s particularly true for men — they are supposed to be an island unto themselves. They take that myth more seriously and try to pursue it.”

What stuck with me most after I finished reading Into The Wild is that so many of these famous accounts of men end in death. Is there no girl named Nemo because women are better survivalists? Is there no girl named Nemo because women are more apt to understand one of McCandless’s final journal entries--Happiness only real when shared”--without ever pitting themselves against anything?

In terms of sheer survival and endurance, do women have less to prove than men? Or, does the masculine Into The Wild phenomenon highlight the simple lack of relative opportunity for women to abandon worldly commitments when social limitations constrain and depend on them?

As to unraveling the mystery of why there's no girl named Nemo, I still don't have answers, and I would love to hear readers' opinions. -Jenny Poplar

Jenny Poplar is a New Orleans-based freelance writer and journalist.  She is currently contributing to a PBS documentary about a resident of the Lower 9th Ward who rebuilt her house in the wake of Katrina.