Well, I suppose so …

… Dangers of traveling while female - Salon.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

But it’s the reason, too, for more subtle variations in behavior. I’m no longer 15, and I am far more capable of turning away aggressive strangers than I was that ill-fated summer, but as a travel writer, I am painfully conscious of how easy it is for a moment’s lapse to turn me from an observer – an all-seeing eye, freely taking in a Tbilisi hilltop or a Turkish terrace – into a target.