Like a fish needs a bicycle

[j4]

Further to the ongoing conversation about whether the battle for gender equality is all done and dusted, you might want to read this depressing article about being a female cyclist.

For what it's worth, my own experience is that most of the verbal abuse I get on a bike these days seems (insofar as I can decode the grunting and hooting of overexcited primates) to be aimed more at cyclists than women. Though I guess I might not get so much of that if I was/looked male -- but that's impossible for me to tell, I have no plausible way of pretending to be male while cycling.

(To be fair, I should also confess that I do my own fair share of shouting, but only at idiots who are actively endangering my life by flagrantly disregarding the rules of the road -- and idiots come in all shapes/sizes/genders/vehicles.)

On the positive side, there is some evidence to suggest that drivers give female cyclists more room when overtaking them. Though now I wonder whether (as the researcher hints) that's because they think female cyclists are more likely to behave unpredictably, or just because it's so much harder to look up someone's skirt when they're disappearing under the wheels of your white van. :-/

Comments

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

I used to get quite a lot of wolf-whistling and "HEY PRETTY LADY!" crap on my bike, but this seemed to reduce when I started wearing a fluorescent tabard-y thing, maybe because it put me into the mental category of "cyclist" rather than "woman in public". And that kind of hassle stopped almost completely for me some time ago. I don't know if it's because I put on weight suddenly or because I became a more visibly confident cyclist.

I still get people shouting at me for being a cyclist, but not very often in Oxford. The shouting is more likely to be coming from me these days, for the same reasons as you: "idiots who are actively endangering my life".