Decades ago, in the 1970s, Israel was grappling with a spate of violent rapes against women. During a cabinet meeting, a solution was suggested: that women be placed under a curfew until the attackers were caught. Golda Meir, then the prime minister, wasn’t having it. Men are the ones at fault, she fired back. “If there is to be a curfew, let the men stay at home, not the women. ”

Meir’s words were the first to come to mind this week as I read a new article — “Adventurous. Alone. Attacked.” — by my colleagues Megan Specia and Tariro Mzezewa. In it, they reported on the phenomenon of solo female travelers, whose numbers have skyrocketed, but not without a dark cloud of gender-based violence, some of it deadly.

News of women — often young, often Western — being attacked abroad has raised hard questions about how the world is greeting the shift. “There is no clear global picture of the scale of violence against female solo travelers,” Specia and Mzezewa wrote .

[READ MORE: Safety Tips for the Solo Female Traveler]

As Jessica Nabongo, who hopes to become first black woman to visit every country in the world, put it: It’s still idealistic to think women can move through the world with the same ease as men. “We tell women what not to do to avoid being attacked instead of telling men not to attack women,” she said, echoing Meir.

Here’s what three other women had to say about their harrowing experiences with solo travel.

“They have a responsibility to tell tourists of all the risks.”