Pedalling Against the Patriarchy

Two women cycling with babies in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in summer 2022 (photo by: Nicole Roach)

A bicycle represents liberation and freedom of movement for so many people around the world. However, women haven’t always been able to enjoy this freedom in the same way as men. 

In 1895, women riding bikes in Europe were given the following advice: 

• Don't boast of your long rides

• Don't cultivate a "bicycle face"

• Don't refuse assistance up a hill

• Don't use bicycle slang. Leave that to the boys

• Don't go out after dark without a male escort

• Don't scratch a match on the seat of your bloomers

• Don't appear in public until you have learned to ride well

• Don't appear to be up on "records" and "record smashing." That is sporty

We may look at that now and think “my, oh my, how things have changed”... but have they really? 

Canada’s first large-scale count of people cycling by gender, age, and race, led by Vélo Canada Bikes in 2021, found that there were twice as many men cycling than women. There’s clearly a problem, and I assure you, it’s not the fear of bicycle face. 

Women today are still facing significant barriers to cycling, such as representation in cycling community spaces, safety while riding, vulnerability to harassment, maintaining appearance, and familial responsibilities. This piece will explore these identified barriers and provide feminist solutions to achieving gender parity on bikes.  

Representation

Women are largely underrepresented in cycling, whether it be in the design process, marketing efforts, or general discourse around this mode of transportation. This underrepresentation is evident as soon as you walk into most bike shops, full of male employees and a limited selection of bicycles made for women. In this environment, women are often made to feel unwelcome, intimidated, and their needs go discredited. Furthermore, research in San Francisco found that women, especially women of colour, perceived that “people like me” do not cycle. This also extends to older women, women with disabilities, and women who are overweight. 

Until we see more visual representation of racialized women and women of all ages, sizes, and abilities cycling, these important demographics will continue to be underrepresented and their unique needs will continue to go unaddressed. 

Safety

Numerous studies on the gender cycling gap have cited ‘safety’ as the number one reason women do not cycle or do not cycle as frequently as men. This is generally attributed to women lacking confidence, being more risk-averse, or having a heightened sense of vulnerability. 

These may very well be contributing factors to the gender gap, however, recent research from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs found that women have greater safety concerns because they are actually at greater risk than male cyclists. A field experiment found that drivers were significantly more likely to pass a female cyclist within 3 feet than a male cyclist. Of the 33 recorded encroachments that occurred, 24 of them (73%) were on a female riding, indicating that a female cyclist was nearly 4 times more likely to be encroached upon than a male cyclist. 

Furthermore, research by the Near Miss Project found that female cyclists face disproportionate road violence, with women in the study being almost twice as likely to experience ‘near miss’ incidents. These findings were linked to the lower average speed reported by the respondents, which is clarified by project researcher, Dr. Rachel Aldred, with “if you’re cycling more slowly, you potentially do face greater hostility than if you’re able to keep up with motor traffic, and not be taken quite so much”. 

Many drivers believe that they own the road, channeling the idea that cyclists have no claim to their road space, let alone female cyclists. This sense of entitlement contributes to greater risks for many female cyclists and keeps many others off the saddle entirely. 

Harassment

Sexual harassment has been a regular occurrence for many women, whether on the street, at work, the grocery store, or just about anywhere else. It is something that women are expected to mitigate through the clothes they wear, the neighbourhoods they visit, and time of day they venture into the streets. 

The reality is, women are susceptible to harassment in almost every area of their life, and unfortunately, cycling is no exception. On a bicycle, a woman is exposed and publicly available to criticism, whether the criticism is for not wearing a helmet, failing to stop at a stop sign, or not having the “body” of a cyclist. In the view of some men, women are supposed to act in a certain way and these ‘un-lady-like’ acts display a level of confidence that some men simply cannot allow to take place without comment.

The guardian recounts the experience of journalist Dawn Foster facing several incidents of harassment while cycling, such as; “a man once pulled up next to me in a van, opened the window and shouted ‘lucky saddle!’. There was another time when a car of four men pulled up behind me in the middle of a busy junction, leered and asked me if I wanted to get in the car. Or when a man cycled past and slapped my bum when I was riding along”. 

It is important to note that this is not a matter of a few incidents, this is a systemic issue weaved through matters of power and entitlement. When these acts of harassment are carried out by drivers, particularly male drivers, they are utilizing their power to exhibit that if they wanted to harm a woman on a bicycle, they could. This extends to cat calls, honks, and many more threats of violence that are often seen as inconsequential. 

Appearance

Women spend much more time, money, and effort focusing on their appearance compared to men. This is potentially attributed to societal pressures, marketing of a feminine ideal, or the historical precedence of competing for desirable men based on their looks. Unfortunately, a woman's appearance is also a consideration for cycling. 

Sustans, an advocacy group based in the UK, observed a significant drop in girls cycling when they entered secondary school, citing a concern with how they look and how boys will perceive if they arrive at school sweaty and disheveled. Now, let's consider working women wanting to commute by bicycle and experience the many benefits that come with it. Unfortunately, women are “at risk” of helmet hair (if they wear a helmet), sweat, and dirt flying in their face, among other “beauty hazards”. In some workplace environments, a woman does not have to worry about her appearance amongst her peers, but in many, that is not the case. 

A study by sociologists Jaclyn Wong and Andrew Penner found that grooming practices could result in a higher paycheck. While the study indicated that men with superior grooming habits also earned more, they were only judged partially for this matter, whereas, women’s grooming “accounts for the entire attractiveness premium for women”. 

In a society that links a woman's value so closely with her appearance, to the extent that it influences career performance and salary, it is no wonder many women would not want to risk compromising that by hopping on a bike. 

Responsibilities

The transportation patterns of men and women are inherently different, largely determined by the associated responsibilities of each gender. For example, women are most often the primary caregivers of children and family members, meaning that women frequently travel with companions and have more frequent stops. 

Research by the Transport for London regarding barriers to cycling cites “home and family responsibilities” as the main barrier for many black and minority ethnic groups, particularly women. Accordingly, many women do not bike because of the perceived convenience of driving for the school drop-off, grocery store run, or other errands that need to be completed with young tag-alongs. This is also attributed to the lack of safe cycling infrastructure and secure bike parking in Canada, which fails to encourage and accommodate women cycling with children independently, in bike seats, cargo bikes, or bike trailers, or for elderly family members to ride along comfortably. 

While an increased popularity of e-bikes, particularly e-cargo bikes, are helping to address some of these challenges for mothers and caregivers, the infrastructure still has a great deal of catching up to do.

A Feminist Solution

There is no easy solution when it comes to issues that are systemic and deeply ingrained within society. However, through many of the studies which have examined barriers to cycling for women, women have been more than willing to share their needs and strategies to eliminate these barriers. 

Most notably, women want to see a completed network of separated and/or protected bicycle lanes in cities and towns across Canada. This network also needs to be all ages and abilities, to accommodate women cycling with young children, elderly women, and/or women with mobility challenges. There should also be greater efforts to welcome women and other gender-diverse people into the cycling community by actively including them in group bike rides, bike shops, and/or community bike hubs.

While these solutions would help address many of the concerns around safety, responsibilities, and representation, they would still fall short in challenging the colonial and patriarchal systems that perpetuate gender-based violence and harassment, which keep so many women off bicycles. 

We shouldn’t have to overthrow or bunny-hop the patriarchy just to get where we need to go on two (or three!) wheels, but it may be the only way to move forward. 

Disclaimer: a version of this blog was previously published in 2020 in the “Write to Move” anthology.