WOMEN AND BICYCLES

By Inés Tijera

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Historically, women’s mobility was often highly restricted. The bicycle offered new freedom of movement for women beyond male family member’s supervision. It was with the development of the first safety bike in the 1890s that women would take up cycling. The safety bike is essentially the bike-model we still use today with inflatable tires, two same-size wheels, and most importantly, brakes. This made the bike much safer to use which played an important role in sparking women’s interest in bikes. However, as cycling before was seen as an exclusively masculine activity, women riding raised considerable social issues as it challenged gender definitions. 

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Manufacturers were aware of this potential threat to a large consumer base and development marketing strategies to gender the bicycle. They developed differently shaped models and gave them distinct masculine or feminine names to set a clear distinction between men and women’s bicycles. Two important adaptation that had to be made to make cycling socially acceptable for women; a different riding-pose and saddle. A major concern for those defending conservative gender structures was the point of contact of the saddle with the female genitals, threatening the sexual innocence of young women. In these times, girls generally were forbidden to straddle any kind of object as it could lead them to discover masturbation. Manufacturers reacted with the simple solution of creating a wider saddle and the promotion of the upright riding position for women. This way any contact with the genitals would be avoided. 

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Of course, that this did not address the true issue at heart the increased mobility of women. Thus, a stronger argument needed to be taken up to make women bicycling acceptable. For this, the medical doctor became a key figure, by arguing for the benefits of women engaging in the physical activity of riding bikes in preparation for childbirth and motherhood, when done in moderation. This was a powerful argument, as white upper-middle-class women were having too few babies at the time and it was this social class who could afford bicycles. Soon it could be read in all advertisements that women should consult their physicians if and to what extent they may engage in riding a bicycle. Thus, through the involvement of the medical doctor, it was again a male authority that supervised women’s activity. This limited the threat that the bike posed for existing gender structures.   

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Yet, cycling did indeed bring about changes in western societies. It eased the path for women’s dress reform diffusing lighter less restrictive clothing. Further, it made it more acceptable for women to be physically active and greatly increased their freedom of unaccompanied travel. 

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Why is a gendered view on mobility important?

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Even though women’s mobility of today is very different from when the first safety bike developed, the debate around women cycling and why they aren’t cycling as much as men is still vivid. In most cities, there is still a significant gender gap. There is a list of assumed reasons, one of the most dominant one being women’s increased concern for safety. However, most policymakers simply attribute the gender gap to the absence of so-called cycling culture. A cycling culture being associated with places where a large part of the population uses bikes as their primary form of transport. There is often an underlying assumption that women automatically take up cycling once it is established as an acceptable form of mobility in the city. This discourse naturalizes this gender difference, hiding its political nature. Yet, if one looks at the history of women and bikes it becomes evident that the gender gap in cycling is nothing natural and deeply rooted in the socially constructed gender differences. Even though every woman has the right to ride a bicycle, they must find it appropriate, including in terms of safety, to do so. 

Bicycles are considered a sustainable method of transportation as it is muscle-powered and for this reason, many cities are attempting to promote the use of bikes. However, rarely there is any focus placed on women when doing so. Yet, we believe to develop a bicycling culture you need to address women’s inhibition first and not the other way around. Only considering men’s mobility is leaving out half the population and we need everyone on board to truly change the way we move about the city. 

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Source: 

Garvey, E. G. (1995). Reframing the Bicycle: Advertising-Supported Magazines and Scorching Women. American Quarterly, 47(1), 66–101. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/2713325