Aeon presents an essay on women hermits, by Rhian Sasseen, titled “She wants to be alone.” Byline: “When even a simple stroll down the sidewalk is an exercise in self-loathing, why don’t more women run away into the woods?” Working subtitle: “Is becoming a hermit the ultimate feminist statement?”
This essay is ten years old but continues to be a succinct expression of the dilemma of women seeking solitude. Mentions a wide range of representative hermits, from Thoreau to Mary of Egypt, from Anne LeBastille to Ji Xian, from Christopher Knight (the Maine woods hermit) to Christopher McCandless (the Alaska bus hermit).
From the essay: “For those of us who want to be alone, who still crave it [solitude] even after all the abuse and skepticism, there are few guides and even fewer celebrations of female solitude. Who is the female hermit? Does she exist? Who is the woman who can look out at the world and in all seriousness say: ‘I want to be alone’?”
URL: https://aeon.co/essays/is-becoming-a-hermit-the-ultimate-feminist-statement