Showing posts with label women and bicycles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women and bicycles. Show all posts

27 September 2024

Her Spirit Lives On—In South Africa

 Susan B. Anthony once said that the bicycle did more to liberate women than anything else she could think of.

I have previously mentioned her comment in my posts.  It articulates something I’ve known for a long time:  Bicycles are vehicles (pardon the pun) of social justice, often in the form of economic mobility.

In Ms. Anthony’s time, bicycles were the first forms of transportation that women could use independently. That is the very reason why some societies and countries have discouraged, or even banned, women and girls from cycling.

In some countries, like Saudi Arabia, that discouragement was passive, if you will, on the government’s part:  Women and girls weren’t allowed in public spaces without a male relative. Saudi Arabia and other countries under Sharia law have families and communities that are even more patriarchal than most Westerners can imagine. So while the government didn’t officially ban women and girls from cycling (or driving or doing so many other things), it essentially used families and communities to enforce second-class citizenship for females.

Another way in which girls and women are kept from riding is economic. Even in countries that aren’t ruled by a rigid religious patriarchy, women and girls in poor families and communities lose out: Meager resources often go to men and boys first.  Girls and women get whatever, if anything, is left over. So, if there is enough money for one bicycle, the father or son will get it, or first access to it.

Such a situation keeps women from finding jobs outside the home that pay better than whatever they can do at home. It also prevents girls from going to school.


Cape Town's bicycle mayor helps township girls embrace cycling
Sindile Mavundla teaches girls how to ride.  Photo by Esa Alexander for Reuters.


Sindile Mavundla has firsthand knowledge of what I have just described. The 34-year-old is Cape Town’s “bicycle mayor.” As someone charged with promoting bicycle culture in his South African city, he is not only working to improve bicycle infrastructure or conduct safety classes. He teaches girls and other first-time riders, many from impoverished communities, how to ride at his Khaltsha Cycling Academy.

Some of his pupils had to walk several kilometers to school—or work. Teaching them how to ride, and helping them acquire a bike, needless to say, improves their prospects in neighborhoods where there are few. But it has an added benefit: “Many of the girls,” he explained , “are not given much sports options.”  The bicycle, he said, “has the potential for changing lives” through improved physical fitness and self-esteem as well as the intellectual independence and economic mobility provided by greater access to schools and jobs.

More than a century on, and half a world away, Sindile Mavundla echoes and reflects Susan B. Anthony’s words and work in his capacity as Cape Town’s “Bicycle Mayor.”

17 March 2023

Cycling In the Holy Londe

 Icham of Irlaunde

Icham of Irlaunde

Ant of the holy londe

Of Irlaunde


Gode sire praye ich the

For of saynte charite,

Come ant dunce wyt me

In Irlaunde.


William Butler Yeats based a longer poem on this medieval Irish lyric.  If the Aer Lingus or the Irish tourist bureau wants to entice visitors, they could hardly do better than those last two lines.

Unless, of course, they invite you to ride in "the holy londe"


From Dublin Cycling


Happy Saint Parick's Day!






25 September 2021

Can A Bicycle Make Your Life 15 Percent Better?

Almost nobody would dispute that receiving a bicycle will improve an impoverished person's lot in life.  But  by how much?

Dave Schweidenback, founder and CEO of Pedals for Progress, has an answer:  "Every one of those bikes represents a minimum 15 percent increase of income for the individual who gets it."

He was referring specifically to the bikes the Green Mountain Returned Peace Corps volunteers are collecting for Pedals for Progress, who is sending them to Guatemala and other developing countries.  But his claim is probably valid in reference to bikes donated to just about anyone, anywhere, whose income-earning (and, in many cases, educational) opportunities are constricted by a lack of transportation.  I would imagine that receiving a bicycle would enable not only people going to regular jobs in stores, factories, offices or other sites, but also folks who weave, sew, cook, bake, carve, paint or practice other crafts--many of whom are women-- and sell their wares.  They could use bicycles to bring their work, say, to a marketplace or to deliver to people's homes.


Dave Schweidenback, founder and CEO of Pedals for Progress, with the 150,000th bike collected.


Speaking of which:  The Vermont-based Peace Corps group is  collecting, in addition to bicycles, used sewing machines.  I would imagine that while a bicycle might increase someone's income by 15 percent, it--or a sewing machine-- might allow someone else in an impoverished area to work in the first place.