Toban Black

“These streets are mine too!”

Those words are part of a Take Back the Night march sign
(which Anna Overseas posted on Flickr)

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April Streeter (in this blog post) -
“Even in bike-crazy Portland, the stats have showed an approximate split of 70% male riders versus 30% female riders. In Paris, there’s a similar split, says mobility consultant Eric Britton. The numbers are even more skewed in other places.”

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Anna Letitia Mumford on her fifty car pile-up blog -
“A rant from the second wave (but seriously folks, we have a gender problem)”

(I agree that we should find ways to make bicycling attractive, but I also think that we should challenge mainstream standards of sexiness and beauty (like waifish models of femininity); I’ll elaborate on that point below.)

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Dominick Tao (in this journalistic blog post) -
“As a whole, men in the U.S. make three times as many trips by bicycle than women, according to research [pdf] by John Pucher, a professor of urban planning.”

“The numbers are actually worse in New York, where only 21 percent of trips by bicycle are made by women. According to a voluntary survey by members of the New York Cycle Club, the largest organization of its kind in the city, only about a third of the club’s members said they are female.”

“With the exception of areas [of New York] like Central Park and designated bike trails — which female cyclists populate almost as zealously as their male counterparts) — bike riding in most parts of the city is hardly leisurely. ‘It’s like going into battle,’ Mr. Pucher said. ‘You need a helmet and gloves.’”

“Indeed, a ride through Midtown during the rush often means dodging trucks and speeding taxis, weaving through flocks of ear-budded pedestrians, swerving around gouged asphalt, and rocketing across intersections when the traffic signal does not say go.’

Mr. Pucher said to make cycling more appealing to women, and children and the elderly, for that matter, cycling in the city needs to be safer.”

In other words, our streets needn’t be macho battlegrounds.

(Mr. Tao also stresses fashion issues in his post.)

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Anna Letitia Mumford on her fifty car pile-up blog -
“Out of the Spinning class, on to the tarmac”

(Again, I’m going to respond to part of that post — while accepting the rest of what she wrote there -)

Obviously a lot of people do want to follow fashions. If biking were to detract from that fashionability, those people would be less inclined to ride a bicycle. Conversely, a fashionable gloss on bicycling is a way to draw some people into the fold.

That said, I can’t take those superficial appearance standards seriously (which I’m saying as a guy who is exceptionally nonchalant about my own appearance — which is easier for me to do, in this world, since I’m a guy).
I also find fashion somewhat objectionable — in part, because of the wasteful disposal of unfashionable products.

That emphasis on fashion also entails gender issues that I now will address further -

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Several commentators recently have been too fixated on the visible appearance of female cyclists.

Here’s an example -
David Byrne has presented one such perspective (in this article) -
“When more women begin riding, that will signal a big change in attitude, which will prompt further changes in the direction of safety and elegance. I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow. A recent article in a British newspaper showed the pop singer Duffy on a pink bike. The model Agyness Deyn claims never to be without hers, and Courteney Cox reportedly presented Jennifer Aniston with a Chanel bike last year. Tabloid fodder does not a revolution make, but it’s a start.”

Mainstream standards of beauty are conveyed there — by default, and because of the specific females who are mentioned by Mr. Byrne.
(Here are some photos of Agyness Deyn — a woman that Bryne mentions.)

(I appreciated a lot of what he had to say in his piece, but I also object to Byrne’s emphasis on celebrities.)

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Superficial attention to women’s clothing and bodies might get more people on bikes, but such an approach also reinforces mainstream gender arrangements which objectify and degrade women — because they are encouraged to be shallow consumers, for instance.

To give a more specific example of objectification that is a problem: commentators (such as a writer quoted above) have promoted high heels as  they have pointed out how women can be fashionable when they ride bikes; yet, high heels basically cripple women who attempt to walk in the things.

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The objectification of women cyclists also can keep them away from bicycles -

Jessica Reed on a Guardian “Ethical Living” blog -
“What is it about a woman on a bike that attracts such unwelcome attention?”
“From catcalls to lurid comments, should you shout back, or just ignore them? Any tips for those who will not give up their skirts?”

Sarah Goodyear (in this blog post) -
“[American women] are still confronted every day with the idea that being sweaty, or even physically active outside of a gym, isn’t feminine. If you’re not worried about it yourself, you’re constantly being reminded by the [mainstream] media that other, ‘average’ women are.”

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Here’s a different, but related, form of sexism -

On the Brooklyn By Bike blog -
“Women’s Specific Cycling Design, Flowers Not Appreciated”

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This post covers additional aspects of links between women and bikes -

Kyra on the ActionSpark web site -
“Towards Safe Space in Mechanical Environments”

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Here’s a shallow, image-based feminist perspective on women and bikes
on this blog -
“Female bike lifters“