Taking the Lane Volume One:

Sharing the Road with Boys

thoughts and stories about

being a woman on a bike

in Portland Oregon

by Elly Blue

Part 1: The Problem

A stranger slowed his car and rolled down his window to tell me: “You’re supposed to ride on

the right.”

I was riding in the left lane of SE 11th in Portland, a two lane, one-way street. There was nobody else on the road and I was heading downhill, nearly at the speed limit. “Actually, I can ride on the left or the right on a one way street,” I said.

The week before, I had attended a bicycle legal clinic where this fact had been discussed in depth. The man was still pacing me, contemplating this information. “It’s a little known law,” I added, throwing him a bone.

We were quickly approaching a red light and he noticed this. “You have to stop at the signal,” he told me, seeming pleased to have found some unambiguous area of the law that he could instruct me on.

As we reached the light it turned green. “Take care,” I said. “You too,” he replied mildly, accelerating towards the next red light.

This man was mild mannered, it’s true. But our encounter has stuck with me as a variety of road rage, not so far afield from my unforgettable encounter with a man who, two years ago when I was assertively taking the lane downtown, spat the words “fucking cunt” out his car window at me with such hatred that I was shaking for an hour.

I’ve been immersed in bicycle transportation for five years. I know the law and its grey areas, written about it, advocated around it. I ride well in traffic, tending towards caution, good manners, and following the letter of the law, but I also know how to safely break the rules to get away from an unexpected turning truck or police ambush. Like anyone, I’ve made mistakes and cut corners. But in both of these instances the way I was riding was perfectly reasonable, legal, safe, and polite.

But these men didn’t know that and perhaps wouldn’t care. Maybe they just didn’t know how to handle their shit sharing the road with Portland’s skyrocketing bike traffic. Maybe they had been reading the anti-bicycle news coverage. Maybe they were just having a bad day. Regardless, they felt the need to put me in my place. And something about the situation made them feel comfortable assuming that it was their right to put me in my place.

And, deep in my lizard brain, where ingrained cultural expectations trump all logic and confidence, I still wish I could have done something differently and avoided the conflict altogether. My first instinct in both these situations was to apologize, pull over, get out of the way, even though I wasn’t wrong, had every right to be there, even if I was slowing someone down for a second. Which I was not.

* * *

When I ride with Joe, it’s a whole different experience. He’s over six feet tall and he takes the lane like he owns it. Men are competitive with him rather than condescending, revving their engines and laughing or snarling as they zoom past us, sometimes far too closely. With him I also ride more confidently and aggressively and people generally leave us alone.

Some of the scariest times were riding with a transgendered coworker. She got the worst of both worlds. Men in giant pickup trucks would buzz past inches away, leaning out their window to drop chilling commentary.

Something about being on the road magnifies the way strangers feel about each other, or at least seems to give us license to express ourselves in ways that we would not if we were just waiting in line together at the DMV. Maybe it’s that romantic, cowboy feeling you get from car commercials of the open road ahead of you, unlimited speed and possibilities. Or maybe it’s the sense of being completely independent, in control. Studies keep finding that most people think they’re better than average drivers, cell phones, cocaine, and alcohol notwithstanding. Or maybe it’s the frustration of all those illusions breaking down as you wait for the bicyclist in front of you, who really does feel free and in control, to find a safe place to let you pass.

* * *

The gender imbalance in bicycling was brought into the spotlight in 2009 by a Scientific American article. Nobody uses only one mode of transportation all the time, so the better surveys use trips as the standard of measurement. Going to work is counted as one trip, coming home is counted as another. If you stop at the store on the way home, that’s an extra trip. Ditto if you make another stop to pick up your kids from their friend’s house.

Most of the media discussions resulting from the study focused on why so few women choose to ride. Many commentators concluded that the reason is simple: women are more concerned about safety and don’t want to mess up their hair or get sweaty.

More astute observers have pointed out that it’s a little more complicated than this. The majority of errands and child rearing duties still fall to women, even in households with two working parents. This means women have to make more trips, often between destinations that are far apart on car-oriented roads, often carrying kids and groceries while still having to look put together for work.

I don’t want to say that riding a bike isn’t a choice—it is, and a lot of people make it despite major obstacles—but it’s also important to notice ways that infrastructure and circumstances can affect your range of choices. Things like zoning, school placement, paternity leave, and the gender gap in wages all play in to who does the driving and who gets to ride.

* * *

What you don’t hear as much about is the experience that women have not just as individuals riding on the road, but as participants—and leaders—in bicycling communities: as employees or customers in shops, at races, in the industry, in advocacy, and in discussions online and off.

Particularly in parts of the bike scene with a strong connection with sports and business, assumptions about gender often remain unquestioned. Things are changing, but it’s still very much a man’s world.

Last fall I went to my first cyclocross race, covering it for a blog. The ‘cross scene has a reputation for being very open to woman racers, as well as to beginners of both sexes. I was standing by the course with my camera and notebook out, enjoying myself and daydreaming about showing up to the next one with a bike when an acquaintance came over and asked, “Are you here to watch your boyfriend race?”

This friendly comment had the effect of killing my budding enthusiasm for the sport. Yes, I could get involved. Yes, it would be more congenial than the traditional racing scene. But did I really need one more area of my life to try to carve out a place for myself while constantly on the alert for hidden pitfalls?

At a race I covered later that month, a representative of a high-end cycling apparel company in Portland was taunting participants through a megaphone for being “beaten by a girl.” This was his favorite refrain, though he had homophobic commentary in the mix as well. I emailed him later to tell him it’d made me squirm. A tedious exchange followed. His final response sums it up well: “It’s cycling, so if you don’t like the off-color I think you might have far bigger issues than the ones you have with me.” So true.

In professional racing, women have an even tougher road. Income depends largely on prizes, and the money is allocated so that a world-class female racer might earn a tenth or less of what her male counterpart does, despite the same expenses and workload. Companies throw large amounts of money at teams with the condition that sponsored team members use their components in competition—but these aren’t often suitable for the weight and frame of women racers, who are frequently much lighter. Women who try to race on these components are at a disadvantage, and racers who go ahead and use their own bikes and parts risk losing their teams and reputations.

For women working in the bike industry, it can be even worse. My friend Kim has been making her career in bike shops and the bike industry since she was in college, where she wrote her senior thesis on the theme of women in Roman literature losing their voice. “Yes, I can tell you plenty of stories,” she said. At one company her supervisor told her that he had hired her primarily because she was attractive. He apologized later, and she believed it was sincere, but she still quit. She has plenty of other tales, including being sent porn by former coworkers and being brought along to make deals over drinks at trade shows as part of the negotiation package.

And of course, almost every woman I know has a story about being talked down to in a bike shop. Mostly we laugh about these, but in the moment it’s mortifying. When you’re already ill at ease it doesn’t take much to reinforce the idea that this is a world you don’t belong in.

* * *

Just as inequality isn’t something that men enact while passive women react, the phenomenon is hardly confined to gender.

Even if you can’t relate to the grimace-inducing experience of having a bike shop employee explain to you, unasked and with exaggerated patience, the difference between a presta and schrader valve, you’ve probably been at some point demeaned, belittled, and brushed aside by virtue of being on two wheels.

Consider the experience of riding on the streets. You relax as you’re waved through one intersection with a smile; a hundred feet later someone accelerates past you inches away screaming obscenities out the window. Whenever you take the lane, you’re told to get off the road; meanwhile the media, police, and the courts tell you that you have no right to mobility or personal safety unless you behave exactly as though you’re driving a car.

It doesn’t help that many people who you hope would be allies are often the ones to tell you that you’re asking for it.

The conventional wisdom goes something like this: Only by putting your foot down at every stop sign and riding meekly within the letter of a host of contradictory and sometimes dangerous laws will you earn the respect of car drivers and the right to safe passage. If anyone driving a car is annoyed or inconvenienced by anyone riding a bike, whether or not the law was broken, that reduces the rights of everyone to ride bikes.

Never mind the double standard. Or the wildly illogical leaps—such as media reports blaming someone for being right-hooked by a turning truck because they were not wearing a helmet. When you are on a bike, you are not only held to a higher bar for legality than if you’re driving, but you’re also held responsible for catering to the unpredictable whims and prejudices of anyone with whom you happen to be sharing the road.

It’s usually easier to be thankful for the kind gestures and friendly waves, and just put the rest aside. Many people are able to go through their day without letting the mixed messages and double standards get under their skin. Just as many others succumb to the temptation to respond in kind, or take out their frustrations on others.

Speaking up invites harsher criticism. The general diagnosis of the upset bicyclist is the same as for the uppity feminist. We’re strident, hysterical, we complain too much, we can’t take the heat, we want special rights that we don’t pay for, we should be satisfied with how far we’ve already come, we hate cars, we hate men, and look—we got you a bike lane and a little pink lycra jersey—will nothing satisfy you people?

* * *

When I wrote about this topic on BikePortland.org the comments filled up quickly with personal stories. One commenter wished I’d brought up the issue of body weight and image. It’s true. There’s a hell of a stigma in all parts of the cycling world against being fat. From mainstream advocacy efforts that include cycling in their arsenal in the battle against the obesity epidemic to die-hard activists scoffingly separating themselves against out-of-shape cagers, fat has become a moral symbol of what the cycling movement is against.

It’s possible to be healthy, fit, and heavy, but fat is a loaded issue and an extra barrier against getting on a bike at all. Particularly for women. There are of course the politics of weight and body image and the heavily gendered stigma of fat. Then there are the logistics.

In bike racing, the Clydesdale category is for men 200 pounds and over removes the stigma (there’s no similar category for women racers). And the industry similarly ignores larger women. Large men who want to buy a bike or a jersey or a rain jacket have options. Large women do not, unless they have a frame that fits mens’ clothing. That doesn’t even take into account how intimidating it can be for any neophyte to go into a bike shop, much less a woman, much less a woman for whom none of the products are intended.

* * *

In March, 2005, I wrote a letter to the mayor about my first experience at Critical Mass the month before. Through a hasty, last-minute invitation I found myself at a meeting between city staff, police, and other riders. I was the only woman in the room. I was later told—a refrain I’ve heard frequently since—that the person who organized the meeting had worked hard to find a woman to attend but that others had not been available, thus my invitation.

From this inauspicious beginning, I launched head on into the world of bicycle transportation. It was an exciting time in Portland, with a new mayor who had run on the promise of being bicycle friendly—one he later proved unwilling to keep as he clashed with his genuinely bike-friendly transportation commissioner, a wave of new activism, and an influx of people moving to Portland specifically because they’d heard it was possible to live here without owning a car.

Critical Mass in Portland was dying, but everything else bike-related was blossoming. I joined up with bike fun group Shift, joined madcap midnight bike rides, and organized daytime rallies and street fairs. I learned—from scratch—how to organize large and small collectively-run events. I earned money doing odd jobs editing and delivering packages by bike. I spent hours every day talking with people who were doing similar work or wanted to, sharing ideas and knowledge. I wrote prolifically about social and legal issues in bicycling. I organized an international conference that gave the carfree movement its foot in the door of the North American mainstream, and for a year and a half was managing editor of Portland’s definitive bike blog.

It rarely occurred to me during this time to think of myself as a leader. The world of grassroots bike activism in Portland is refreshingly democratic. Shift and Critical Mass, where I learned the basic organizing and messaging skills that I use today, both operate on a collective basis. Nobody was in charge and responsibility was seen less as a privilege than as a routine matter of who had the time and energy to take care of a project’s dirty details. Many, if not most of the movers and shakers were women, and gender was hardly an issue. I had no turf to protect, no draining melodramas, no power negotiations distracting from the real, interesting work.

But applying those skills elsewhere, gender dynamics became a constant subplot. For the year and a half that I worked at BikePortland, I often found myself crossing over into unfamiliar territory: the very male worlds of the bike industry and the racing scene, and to some extent, the mainstream of bike advocacy where people wear suits and speak diplomatically and are quick to reassure you that they drive a car, too.

The sound of ruffled feathers—mine and others—provided a soundtrack for that era. But that was where I learned to hold my own, and where the skills I developed in the relatively safe and supportive world of the grassroots activist community developed into confidence and an ability to keep my priorities straight.

* * *

Nowadays I’m a free agent, working to push forward the causes I believe in most. I’m sometimes asked to join committees, panels, and working groups. Sometimes, my fears about these invitations are reinforced outright. “We have no women and I’ve been tearing out my hair,” said one well-meaning coordinator, asking me to serve on an advisory panel for a local bike nonprofit. “I even asked my friend who’s a messenger. She doesn’t know the issues but at least she can provide her perspective.”

I agreed to join because I did in fact have the expertise they needed. It wasn’t the only time I’ve been the only woman in the room.

Clearly the image of the man running around trying to do the right thing and find a token woman is unflattering to everyone concerned. The problem is similar to any other field where white men have long dominated and education, training, and social expectations have not yet caught up to the hopes of those who would like to see a more level playing field.

My advice for someone else in his shoes would be: don’t start with the committee. Know the capabilities of everyone you work with from the start, especially the women. Play to their strengths, whatever they happen to be. Don’t assume that all women will have a particular perspective, whether it’s a gentler, more cooperative approach or a hard-line feminist stance. Choose and promote people based on their expertise, not their gender. If you find yourself in a room full of men, take that as a call to action to re-examine yourself and your organization. A token woman won’t take you off the hook.

Part 2: Solutions

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” -Susan B Anthony, 1896

* * *

“We know the problem,” says my lawyer friend Shannon, impatient with my complaints. “So what are we going to do about it? Lets talk about solutions.”

* * *

My friend Ellee, who has a massage and yoga businesses focused on helping bike commuters, asked me to join her in organizing an event that would showcase Portland’s array of amazing local bicycling-oriented businesses, including her own.

We had trouble narrowing down our list of literally hundreds of business owners to select people to invite. We also started to wonder why so few of those many names were women. Why don’t we, I suggested, only invite women, and see how it goes?

The event fell into place from there. We capped our list of presenters at 20 female entrepreneurs, and the waiting list grew long. We had bike shop owners, artists and craftspeople, and women who delivered cookies and gardening services by bike. Each business was successful, each business owner inspiring and dynamic. Nobody was a token. We were also surprised, as the event came together, to learn that most of the women had never spoken in public before and many simply weren’t experienced with communicating about their work.

The event was a success, and raised over a thousand dollars for a new grant fund for women to develop leadership skills in promoting active transportation. But a couple of funny things happened. The first was that the criticism of focusing on women never came. I had expected that people would demand to know why men were excluded, call the event sexist, and rail against anything that smacked of affirmative action. Instead, there was nothing but enthusiasm, excitement, and praise for the event and our presenters.

We made sure that all our communications were focused on the businesses, not on gender. Still, the night of the event the room was packed—with women. Old and young, sporty and scrappy, straight and gay, all happy and meeting each other and having a good time.

Contrast this with a local bike shop’s grand opening for its new women’s section a year previously which was attended primarily by men, their wives standing nervously behind them suspiciously eying a line of easter egg colored hybrid bikes—the same shop, quick to catch on, sponsored our event.

After the event we heard the slightly peevish refrain of men saying they hadn’t known whether or not they were invited. They hadn’t felt excluded—but they hadn’t felt explicitly included either. Meanwhile, other men suggested ways that we could have done more publicity and gotten the word out better. How could we make men feel more welcome, was the unspoken question. We laughed about this and wondered. Of course we wanted everyone to feel welcome. But should we have specifically catered to men? But isn’t that what the entire world of bikes does? There are even two rides a month that are for men to get together and support each other, be guys together. Why would anyone feel uncomfortable about women doing the same thing?

Ellee described a battle she had fought in college, when she and another student called out the outdoor recreation department for discouraging women from taking leadership roles. They were effective, but she hated the feeling of fighting. “Our event felt different,” she said. “We weren’t fighting for our rights, we were just using them.”

* * *

One night last summer Joe called me up from a restaurant across town. He had a flat tire, was collapsing from low blood sugar, and didn’t have his tools with him. I grabbed some tools, rolled over, took the wheel off his bike, patched his flat, and put the wheel back on. It took a while. Three guys sitting outside the restaurant drinking beers stared in more or less open amazement the entire time. When Joe came outside, their eyes got even wider, and one of them said, “I’ve never seen a girl fix a guy’s flat before.” The rest of them nodded in agreement. “I don’t mean that in a sexist way,” he added, backpedaling. “I’ve just never seen it.”

The first time I fixed my own flat remains the most empowering of all my bike experiences. Previously I’d been grudgingly reliant on the gruff bike shop guys down the street. That had seemed like a fair arrangement—every couple of months I’d get a flat and for less than ten dollars they would chat with me about their riding exploits and fix it up in fifteen minutes. This time, though, it was 8pm on a Friday—well after closing time. And there was a midnight bike ride I wanted to join.

So I got on the internet and figured it out. The beat up Schwinn cruiser I rode everywhere on wasn’t the most intuitive bike to work on. By some fluke, I had all the tools. Someone had given me a patch kit. And I’d bought a floor pump just a couple weeks before in another bid for independence from the bike shop. It took me an hour and a half but I fixed that thing and got the fenders bolted back on and the brakes re-adjusted, and rolled out right on time to get to the bar before the ride started. I felt so high on life.

I’m still trying to figure out how to be a woman, and a leader no less, in the man’s world of bikes—without compromising, but also without always having to fight. I’ve learned the hard way that when you’re in constant battle against the status quo, the danger is that you end up defining yourself even more by your gender, and everyone loses.

The other problem with fighting for an equal place is that it’s not so great to be on top in a macho world, either. Men still get talked down to in bike shops and are under all sorts of pressures to perform, to put other people down. The real benefit for men in the bike world is the privilege of not having to think about their gender, to see themselves as individuals first, respected according to their own merits and able to make choices, about transportation or sports, according to their own interests. This is the privilege that I want for everyone.

After all, there are no essential differences between men and women that affect who can ride a bike, who can compete against their peers of equal ability, who can make a living, who can lead a revolution. The only differences are the ones we create. Humans really like to create power imbalances and gender is one of our favorite ways to reinforce them. Next time you’re in a meeting or on a ride or in a bike shop, take a minute to look and listen. How many women are there? Who is doing the talking? Who gets listened to, who is interrupted? What kind of gendered language are people using? Who’s asking for help, who’s offering unsolicited advice?

Self empowerment works. Community works. Just going out and riding your bike to the grocery store or the mountain and having a great time works best of all. Like the women in the 19th century who found freedom in wearing bloomers and riding bicycles, I’ve found bicycling—on the road and as a political movement—to be incredibly liberating. Even when bikes become a focal point for power imbalances and messed up gender dynamics, the bike is still what I make of it: a machine I can ride, fix, and wield for building the revolution.

Part 3: Stats

MOST CAR TRIPS ARE UNDER 2 MILES.

MOST CAR CRASHES HAPPEN WITHIN 1.4 MILES OF THE DRIVER’S HOME.

IN THE US, TRIPS BY BICYCLE MAKE UP 1.2 PERCENT OF TOTAL TRIPS MADE BY MEN BUT ONLY 0.5 PERCENT OF TRIPS MADE BY WOMEN.

MARRIED WOMEN DO AN AVERAGE OF 17 HOURS OF HOUSEWORK EACH WEEK, WHILE MARRIED MEN SPEND 7 HOURS ON THE SAME TYPES OF TASKS.

IN 2004, WOMEN’S WAGES IN THE USA WERE 76.5% OF MEN’S WAGE

IN THE UNITED STATES, MEN HAVE NEARLY 40% MORE LEISURE TIME THAN WOMEN.

BICYCLES ARE THE MOST WIDELY USED TRANSPORTATION VEHICLE IN THE WORLD.

A shorter version of this essay appeared on BikePortland.org on January 12, 2010, with 198 comments as of this printing.

Big thanks to Joe Biel for editing and believing, Ian Lynam for making it pretty, and Sara Stout, Meghan Sinnott, and Ellee Thalheimer for showing me how it’s done.

What’s it like to be a woman on a bike where you are? I’d love to include more stories in the next edition. eleanor.blue@gmail.com

Also check out the essay “Men Who Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit.

Table of Contents

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