My original intent was to focus less on the issue of security for female
staffers and more on the cultural scripts that potentially discourage
women from visiting sites alone (or, alternately, empower men to do so),
but since the security and safety issue has become tantamount I'd also
like to throw in that females who volunteer in museums may be very
young, like high school age. We used minors to conduct tours at one
museum I worked at--where it was likely that there would only be one
staff person and a volunteer on the site at any one time--and it became
an issue. I won't get into details, but it involved a visitor who
offered a gift to his tour guide, who was a girl under 18. She saw
nothing wrong with this, though the staff did and took actions to alert
parents and police.

So, not just gender, but age plays in as well.

Mary Rizzo

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