Hi all, this is Jane. You may know me because you’re a member of BikePGH or we’ve met at a women’s ride or workshop. I follow a womyn cyclist named Nam on Instagram and WordPress and they recently posted about the issue of sexism in cycling culture–something near and dear to my heart. Nam gave us permission to re-blog and I am very happy to be sharing their writing with you on BikePGH’s network.

I follow goodolenam because I want and need more womyn perspectives on bicycling in my life. It’s important to me on a personal level and is also significant for the work that I do in BikePGH’s Women & Biking Program. Nam is an inspiration to me as a cyclist and activist and I hope that you’ll feel something from their writing, too. If you love this post like I do, share it not only with your womyn/femme/trans/non-binary friends, but your friends who are men, too. And follow goodolenam!

In Defense of Girlfriends

Oh Em Gee, guys, did you hear about that sexist Pinarello e-bike ad? Sooooo the ad, which has been taken down because of backlash from baddies everywhere, celebrated their e-bike from the narrative of 24-year old girlfriend and “couple rider”, Emma, who can finally ride a bike with her boyfriend now.

This is wrong on so many levels. Let me count the ways:

1. Firstly, it suggests that Emma can not possibly be as fast as her invisible boyfriend on a bicycle. Wrong! Ask Lael Wilcox how wrong- she won the un-supported Trans Am race a few years back.
2. Secondly, what kind of a douche invisible boyfriend is he that he’s not riding with gorgeous Emma?
3. Thirdly, and most importantly, heteronormative patriarchy. Anyone who is alive today and semi-conscious will be able to filter through one of many of reasons why this ad is pretty shitty, but I wanna unpack this beyond the glaring sexism.

Let’s think about cycling culture currently

Anthropologist Edward Taylor, defines culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [humans] as a member of society”. Working from this definition, we can all agree that the messaging that comes from cycling culture currently is male-curated and thusly male dominated.

I would go as far to say that cycling culture as a whole has a bedrock of Patriarchy, as in, the system of domination that gives males power and privilege at the expense of non-males. The Pinarello ad is a primo example of this display of Patriarchy in Cycling, but it’s just a part of the picture. The legacy of male supremacy in cycling will continue to replicate these paradigms of hetero-patriarchy unless we start seeing that complex whole as a culture and community with members committed to creating something else.

Let’s explore

So what would cycling culture without male supremacy look like? There are so many individuals, organizations, bike shops, frame-builders, dirty bike tourers, cleaner bike packers, mechanics, and so on who are already working on making this vision a reality right now. That vision may look like Emma’s boyfriend riding his bike with her regardless of how slow she may be as a new cyclist.

Furthermore, why is Emma so slow on that cycle? Maybe it’s a long ass history of Patriarchal institutions actively suppressing women from riding the bike. In her essay, “The triple Threat: Sexual Pleasure, Women, and the Bike…” Samantha Brennan speaks on this very thing. Brennan makes references to Clergy and medical doctors incredibly concerned with women on bicycles, seeing this as a sign of loose morals and even looser vaginas.

One particularly humorous medical concern made by f***boi Dr Shadwell, M.D. from 1897 warns the risk of something he called “bicycle face”-something a delicate lady definitely does not want! But really the concern is over control. People who are on the move are harder to control. Keep that woman in the house or in church and you can monitor her every move and control her access to the world and her sexuality.

It’s about control, guys, it always has been

So, if you control the culture and you center the pinnacle of bicycle enjoyment around speed (the bicycle equivalent to ejaculation-centric porn), then you’ve created yet another barrier around the compound of male-centric cycling.

And you know what? We don’t need history lessons on active suppression of women on bikes because most women who ride bikes will tell you this sentiment is alive and well today. Go ahead, ask a womxn, trans, femme, or non-binary cyclist how many times they’ve been told “you’re pretty fast for a girl” or  “actually”-d at or “you should be careful” or any number of subtle cultural regurgitations of male supremacy within the sport.

These messages come loud and clear as “you will never be as fast as a man” or “you don’t know shit” or “you’re risking your safety”. Creating cultures of condescension, control, and paternalism in cycling. Let’s think about how we can create a culture of cooperation, liberation, and support instead. Let’s include our girlfriends on the big ride and make sure she’s feeling secure and strong. Let’s make cycling feel safe and accessible especially to those who are shy but curious. Let’s destroy gender as a concept all together because it keeps us from supporting each other enjoying the single greatest gift of flight humans got.

All this being said, I am so happy that so many people were offended at that ad and that the company took it down. It felt like a little win. But I want a big win. I want to destroy gender as a barrier and as a concept altogether. Help me. I know asking for a fundamental shift in culture that “includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits” is a big whoop, and we are so small.

But consider this, from the luminary of our time Adrienne Maree Brown from her brilliant book Emergent Strategy:

“…humans so far have deified and aligned with the ‘king’ of the jungle or forest-lions, tigers, bears. And yet so many of these creatures, for all their isolated ferocity and alpha power, are going extinct. While a major cause of that extinction is our human impact, there is something to be said for adaptation, the adaptation of small, collaborative species. Roaches and ants and deer and fungi and bacteria and viruses and bamboo and eucalyptus and squirrels and vultures and mice and mosquitoes and dandelions and so many other more collaborative life forms continue to proliferate, survive, grow. Sustain.”

It’s not just that Patriarchy gets in the way of non-males enjoying cycling, it’s actually the very thing that keeps cycling from evolving in a way that will sustain the culture. That is, if we use this illumination from Brown as a sign for what’s ahead.

So, in an effort to meet this call of collaboration and celebrating the Small, let me offer up an exercise I learned from another wonderful book Our Bodies Our Bikes where Elly Blue uses the Bechdel Test as a metric to “evaluate images of women in bicycling” calling it The Bike Test.

The criteria is an all-or-nothing trinity:

1) Are [womxn/trans/femme/non-binary folks] present or represented at all?

2) Are the [womxn/trans/femme/non-binary folks] presented as active subjects rather than passive objects?

3) If genders were reversed [or manipulated] would the meaning stay more or less unchanged?

Since Instagram is such a mega-super-enormundo platform for bicycle culture and since this platform is largely filled with images/pictures, it becomes active ground to animate our vision for the end to male supremacist media and toward a sustainable, collaborative, and diverse bike culture. So here’s my ask to you, get mad at blatant sexist, hetero-patriarchal ads, but also see every single picture or other cycling media content with this Test in mind and start changing the narrative and frame that suit us.

Let’s start creating the Cycling Culture we can be proud of show casing to future visiting Aliens from matriarchal planets. I wouldn’t ask unless I knew it was possible. Sound Good?

I asked Instagram for pictures and got many that pass The Bike Test. Here‘s what your feed could look like if we start shifting toward the bike culture of my dreams:

This blog was originally written and posted on December 4th, 2017 by goodolenam.