Susan B.Anthony, Muhammad Ali And Flight:370

 Today is International Women’s Day.

Whatever your gender identity or your anatomical configuration, if you are a cyclist, you should recognize the importance of women in cycling and, well, the world.  For one thing, we are the majority of humanity.  For another, there have been many great female cyclists, most of whom have ridden without recognition and support. A few, including Beryl Burton, have even beaten men’s records.

But perhaps the most important reason of all is that anyone who cares about gender equality needs to recognize the role the bicycle has played in the long journey toward that goal. After all, Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle did more to liberate women than anything else. (That is why oppressive regimes like the Taliban forbid or discourage women and girls from riding them.) Bikes provided, and continue to provide, independent mobility. They also released women from the constraints of corsets and hoop skirts which, I believe, helped to relax dress standards—and thus make cycling easier—for everyone.

Today also happens to be the anniversary of two events that occurred during my lifetime.  One is one the greatest aviation mysteries of all time:  the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 ten years ago. Such an incident would have caused consternation in any time, but have become much rarer over time.

While that tragedy may not seem to have much in common with bicycles or bicycling, the other event is somewhat more related.  On this date in 1971,”the fight of the century” took place between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. Joe won that bout, but Ali would win two rematches.

To this day, I can’t recall another sporting event-and very few events of any kind-that were preceded by as much anticipation and hype. I’m no boxing expert, but I doubt that there has ever been a title match between two opponents so equally matched in talent and skill but so different in style. Also, Ali had been stripped of his titles—and his boxing licenses—for three years because of his refusal to register for the military draft that could have forced him to serve in the Vietnam War.

So why is “The Fight” worthy of mention on this blog?  Well, as I mentioned in a previous post, a boy named Cassius Clay might never have grown up to become Muhammad Ali, “The Greatest,” had his bicycle not been stolen. In recounting his loss to á police sergeant, he vowed to “whup” the thief.  The sergeant, who just happened to train boxers on the side, admonished young Clay that he should learn how to fight first.

So..did you ever expect to see Susan B. Anthony and Muhammad Ali mentioned in the same post—much less one that includes Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

Susan B. Anthony On Cycling

"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."

Those words were uttered by none other than Susan B. Anthony.  What she said was not at all hyperbolic:  bicycling almost single-handedly brought women's clothing from the 19th to the 20th Centuries.  

In this illustration from an 1895 issue of Punch magazine, the young woman on the left is wearing the then-new "bicycle suit."  The woman on the right, in contrast, is wearing the ankle-length skirt and bodice that were more typical of women's attire until that time.  

I wonder whether the woman in the "bicycle suit" is wearing some sort of girdle or other torture device to cinch her waist. Looking at the woman on the right, and knowing about the fashions of the time, I would guess that she had a corset underneath her outfit.  By the end of the decade, that undergarment would become as outmoded as seamed stockings would later become.  As women were released from the bondage of whalebone, their skirts got shorter and, sometimes, morped into the then-shocking "bloomers", which resembled, more than anything, old-style Turkish trousers.

Even Susan B. Anthony herself probably didn't realize how true her comment was.  Even during the "dark ages" of cycling in the US, women wore clothing that allowed much greater freedom of movement than what their grandmothers donned.  So, by the time the "bike boom" of the 1970's came along, it was that much easier for us to ride--and to work 18-hour days.

How Important Is The Bicycle To Women's History?

In a post I wrote three years ago, I relayed one of the most striking insights Susan B. Anthony offered:
   
    "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling.  It has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."

Yesterday, I came across this:

     "Advertisements, magazines and posters promoted the image of the New Woman, just as other forms of mass media would later exhibit images of the flapper, the housewife, the wartime worker, and the androgynous feminist.  The bicycle was the symbol of the New Woman's freedom outside the home, as she raced off with her friends--men or women--down city streets and into the countryside."

Obviously, that didn't come from Ms. Anthony.  It did, however, come from a source that's intersting, if not as much so as, and for different reasons from, the godmother of feminism as we know it.

The second quote is the only mention of the bicycle in The Social Sex:  A History of Female Friendships, by Marilyn Yalom with Theresa Donovan Brown.  Dr. Yalom is a former Professor of French and senior scholar at the Clayman Institute of Gender Research at Stanford University. Ms. Donovan Brown is a former speechwriter and ran a financial communications firm.

I strongly suspect that Dr. Yalom supplied most of the information and Ms. Donovan Brown did most of the writing.  After all, the section on women's friendships and the salons of 17th Century France contains ideas and insights that only someone who read the sources in the original could have gleaned.  And the prose flows freely--like, well, a good speech.

Therein lies both the book's strengths and flaws.  While Donovan Brown's prose flows freely, it often lacks depth.  While Yalom's research provides the reader with glimpses into the nature of the relationships described in the book, and shines a light onto documents that might otherwise have been lost, those documents (letters, stories, essays and novels) come almost entirely from women (and, in a few cases, men) from, or with connections to, the upper classes.  That, perhaps, is not Dr. Yalom's fault, as most women who weren't part of those classes were illiterate until the 19th Century and rarely went to college before World War II.

Still, the book is an engaging and, at times, interesting read.  It won't turn you into a scholar or an expert, but it's a good starting point for anyone who wants to read more about relationships or women's history.  Finally, there is something to be said for any piece of writing that reminds readers of the importance of the bicycle in changing women's lives, however brief and fleeting that reminder might be.

In Motion On International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. 

As I've mentioned in other posts, early feminists saw the bicycle as a vehicle, if you will, of emancipation.  "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling," Susan B. Anthony intoned.  "I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."  She explained, "It has given women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."

She would especially appreciate the images of Women In Motion posted on World Bicycle Relief's site. 

World Bicycle Relief is, in its own words, "mobilizing people through the power of bicycles."  In doing so, according to the organization's website, "We envision a world where distance is no longer a barrier to education, healthcare and economic opportunity."

To that end, WBR manufactures its own bicycles under the "Buffalo" brand in Africa, and has them assembled by mechanics in the locales in which the bicycles are distributed.  WBR trains those mechanics, as well as others who are involved in the production and distribution of those bicycles.  Recently, their wholly owned subsidiary, Buffalo Bicycles Ltd., has begun to sell bikes to non-governmental organizations, corporations and individuals in need of affordable, sustainable transportation.

Universe (yes, that's her name) uses her bicycle to bring the vegetables she grows and the foods she bakes to a market where she sells them.

WBR has work-to-own and study-to-own programs for those who cannot purchase a bicycle outright.  As you might imagine, those programs benefit women and girls particularly because--especially in areas like rural Africa--they have little or no money and limited (or, again, no) access to the networks that would help them get credit to start businesses or other resources needed to get paid employment, go to school or simply to take better care of their families--or themselves.

Kesia is a health-care volunteer who works with victims of HIV, sexually-transmitted diseases and gender-based violence. Because of the long distances she must travel, she used to meet only four clients a day.  Now, with her bicycle, she can meet as many as 75.

That WBR manufactures, assembles and distributes locally--and trains people to do so, as well as mechanics--is also a major benefit to women, who often can't travel very far from their farms, villages or families to obtain an education or employment, let alone a bike.  It also, naturally, makes it easier for women and girls to obtain bicycles, which in turn gives them the mobility that affords them access to a greater range of educational, business and other opportunities.

Georgina, a 68-year-old widow, uses her bicycle to carry milk from her farm to a collection center 12 km away.

No less than Barron's financial magazine has lauded F.K. Day, WBR's founder and president, as one the most effective philanthropists.  While WBR doesn't bill itself as dedicated exclusively, or even primarily, to women and girls, it's hard not to notice the particular impact their programs have on women and girls, especially those in the most difficult circumstances.

I am sure that, were she alive today, Ms. Anthony would point to the organization and its programs as one of the prime examples of what she meant, especially what she said about self-reliance.

Para Esas Mujeres, Una Opportunidad Fantastica

More than 120 years ago, Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle has done more than anything else in the world to emancipate women.  She certainly had a point:  Cycling itself gave women freedom and mobility we hadn't previously experienced.  It also led to less-restrictive clothing than women had previously worn which, of course, freed us in all sorts of other ways. I mean, I simply can't imagine living in a whalebone corset and petticoats.

Still, the bicycle's potential for emancipating women hasn't come close to being realized.  While I still wish that women's racing would get the attention it garnered, say, 30 to 35 years ago (in the days of Rebecca Twigg and Jeanne Longo), I think the real power of cycling for women lies elsewhere.

One example is in VeloCuba in Havana.  Three years ago, Nayvis Diaz left her job in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and sold her Peugeot car to finance the opening of this rental and repair shop.  All of its seven employees are women, including Dayli Carvo, who once raced for Cuba's national team. 

One of VeloCuba's employees works on a bike.

In addition to repairs and rentals, VeloCuba also conducts bicycle tours of the Cuban capital.  "We place great emphasis on knowing historical matters," Diaz says of her guides, who conduct tours in English, French and German as well as Spanish.  "We are very keen for our visitors to discover art, architecture, new places they can go at night, and learn about Cuban society," she explains.  

VeloCuba has, in its brief history, expanded to two locations--one in the central neighborhood of Vedado and the other in Old Havana.  It has not arrived at its success, however, without running through a couple of obstacles. 

One is something that even the expertise Diaz gained in her old job couldn't resolve:  how to get bicycles.  In spite of its relatively rich history of cycling, the island has no bike industry.  So, VeloCuba has had to buy bicycles from tourists visiting the island.  

The other is that for more than half a century, Cuba, like other Communist countries, had no advertising. Even today, there are few advertising venues. The shop's clientele, therefore, has been built mainly through word of mouth. At the risk of sounding sexist, I daresay that is something we, as women, rely on in so many areas of our lives.

In addition to bicycle rentals and repairs, VeloCuba repairs and maintains wheelchairs--for free.  Diaz sees it as a way to "offer some help to society."

The goodwill she is creating may help her to realize another dream she has:  that "one or two days a week, only cycling is allowed in the city."

I think Ms. Anthony would approve.

Freedom Riders

Today is International Women's Day.

In previous posts, I've talked about the role bicycles played in women's rights.  And, although I've posted it before, I'll repeat a remark of Susan B. Anthony:

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

"Free, untrammeled womanhood." Funny she should say that.  When I started my transition from life as Nick to being Justine, I wondered whether I would continue cycling.  I lost some of my strength when I started taking hormones, though some of that loss may have been due to aging.  (I was in my mid-40's when I started.)  I also wondered whether cycling would fit into the image of femininity and womanhood I was trying to project at the time.

Happily, I didn't have to trade cycling for my identity because, well, cycling is as much a part of my identity as anything is.  Though I am not as strong or daring as I once was, I don't have to be when I'm on the bicycle.  Perhaps this knowledge is also what has allowed me to feel comfortable in riding what I like rather than following this week's trends.

And, here is something else I believe Ms. Anthony would approve:  I see cycling as much a part of my identity, not only as a woman named Justine, but as a feminist.  When you come right down to it, feminism is the freedom to do as we see fit, or as we please. Cycling fits that definition as much as anything--including reading and writing--for me.

So, I am hoping that some of the ice I encountered in the aftermath of yesterday's late-day storm clears out by the time I leave work.  That way, I can celebrate this day with--what else?--a bike ride!

A Ride Through International Women’s Day

 Today is International Women’s Day.

As I’ve mentioned on other posts, Susan B.Anthony—who didn’t live to exercise a right for which she fought—understood what an effective vehicle, if you will, on the long road to equality:

“I think the bicycle has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride byon a bicycle.”

She is right in more ways than one. Bicycles themselves gave women mobility they didn’t have before.  But, just as important, it loosened women’s dress standards:  Bloomers, shorter and split skirts and the elimination of corsets were among the sartorial shifts bicycles ushered. 

Having greater freedom of movement allowed women to move more freely and perform a greater variety of jobs. I can’t help but to think it was an important step in women seeing our bodies, and ourselves, on their and our own terms rather than in the physical and ideological constraints imposed by men. I can understand, a little, how exhilarating that could feel: I think I felt something like it when I realized I could live as a woman on my terms.

And bicycling has been an important part of that journey.  When all is said and done, though I ride, not only in the spirit of Ms. Anthony, but also of Cyndi Lauper:

 Girls just wanna have fun.  Really, what better reason is there to ride?

Oh—speaking of clothing: Sophie Germain’s parents took hers away.  Why?  Because she was teaching herself mathematics, which was not “proper” for a young lady. When that didn’t work, they returned her vestments and let her go to school.

She would make important contributions to mathematics—including work in something called Elasticity Theory, which has proved invaluable to engineers—including one Gustavo Eiffel.

I learned about her when I found myself on a street named for her (rue Sophie Germain) as I cycled south from—you guessed it—the Eiffel Tower.  And, being the curious person I am, I looked her up.

Why Else Would We Ride?

Today is International Women's Day.

I won't sully this post, or blog--or, for that matter, the digital world--by recounting what Trumplethinskin (a.k.a. TrumplerasPUTIN) tweeted.  I will only say that his missives are the very epitome of condescension or pure-and-simple insincerity, depending on your point of view.   

Instead, I'll repeat something I've included in previous posts.  It comes from the far-more-esteem-able personage of Susan B. Anthony:

Let me tell you what I think of cycling.  It has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.

Surely she would have been happy to see these young women helping another learn how to ride:

Also, she would have been happy to see their outfits:  They were free of the whalebone corsets and voluminous dresses and skirts "proper" ladies were expected to wear.  Instead, they were attired in the far more practical "bloomers", patterned after the pants worn by fashionable ladies in Istanbul--and named for their designer, Anthony's fellow suffragist Amelia Bloomer.

Another fitting quote for this day, in my opinion, comes from Queens homegirl Cyndi Lauper:  

Girls Just Want To Have Fun:  Is there a better reason for us to ride bikes?

Who Leads The Way?

Susan B. Anthony remarked that the bicycle did more than anything else to liberate women.

Sometimes I wonder what she would have made of couples on tandems.  Almost any time I've seen a male-female riding duo, the male is in the front, or "captain's" position and the female is in the rear.  That means the man/boy is steering and, depending on how much input he gets or takes from his partner, is determining the course of the ride. 

Is there any way to correct that imbalance?

5 Cyclists, From The Big Apple To The Capital--In 1928

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that one of my passions, besides cycling, is history.  And you know that among my particular interests are the history of women and ethnic and racial minorities in cycling.

Well, I have just stumbled across an account of female African-American long-distance cyclists.   Never before had I heard or read any mention of it.  And were it not for the work of an enterprising PhD student, it probably would still be another forgotten episode of history.

Today Marya McQuirter is an historian at the Smithsonian Institution.  Two decades ago, she was doing research for her dissertation on the history of African-American women in Washington, DC in the first half of the twentieth century when she found these names: Marylou Jackson, Velva Jackson, Ethyl Miller, Leolya Nelson and Constance White.

Photograph by Addison Surlock.  Originally published in Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, 1928.  Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Learning about those women changed Ms. McQuirter's life.  She wanted to understand, as fully as possible, not only what they did, but what might have motivated them.  To do that, she took up cycling.  But being a cyclist wasn't just a role she played and abandoned once she finished her dissertation:  She took cycling classes with the Washington Area Bicycle Association.  Now she teaches those same classes as a Licensed Cycling Instructor certified and supported by the League of American Bicyclists.

What did learning about five women who might otherwise have been forgotten do to inspire Marya McQuirter to become such a dedicated cyclist?  They rode their bicycles from New York City to Washington, DC over three days.  Doing 400 kilometers (250 miles) over that span of time is certainly an accomplishment for just about any cyclist, of any age or background, at any time.  

But those intrepid women--who were African-American, as is Ms. McQuirter--took their ride over Easter weekend in 1928.  Yes, you read that right.

Now, those of us who are cyclists would probably think first about how their ride was made more difficult because of the less-advanced state of bicycles at that time, as well as road conditions (Sometimes there were no roads!)  and the lack of amenities in some areas.  If you know a bit about history, you might think about the fact that they were women:  Even though bicycles may have done more than anything else to liberate women, as Susan B. Anthony declared, the vast majority of long-distance cyclists were, and are, male.   The six-day races popular at that time were almost entirely a white male preserve, even some three decades after Major Taylor won cycling's World Championship.

According to Mc Quirter, though, one of the things that made their journey unique--and the women who undertook it so courageous--is that they were African-American women going from the North to the South.  

When they set out from the Big Apple, "the Great Migration" in the other direction had been in full swing for more than a decade.  Almost overnight, neighborhoods in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and other northern cities became havens for African-Americans fleeing the terror of the Ku Klux Klan and the oppression of Jim Crow laws in the Southern states.  And, at that time, Washington--the nation's capital, no less--was as segregated as Atlanta, Birmingham or any other Southern city you can name. (Many would argue that it is just as segregated now, half a century after the end of Jim Crow.)

According to McQuirter, the Fearless Five returned to New York by train.  Most likely, they would have taken the Baltimore and Ohio or the Pennsylvania Railroad.  On her Facebook page, McQuirter points out that, starting in 1897,  "Pennsy" allowed passengers to take their bikes on the train with them for free.  If only Amtrak had such a policy!

Annie Londonderry: Pedaling And Peddling Around The World

As a teenager, I looked forward to Bicycling! magazine every month.  Aside from learning about bikes and equipment I wouldn't encounter and couldn't afford, I learned that people did all sorts of things on, and with, their bicycles that I never imagined.  In fact, I think the people who did those things didn't imagine them, either, until they undertook them.

One such person was John Rakowski, who rode his bicycle around the world and wrote a series of articles (journal entries, really) for the magazine. As much as I admired him, I would soon learn that he wasn't the first to accomplish the feat:  Thomas Stevens did it eight decades earlier.  Seven years after he completed his journey, Annie Kopchovsky would make a similar voyage.

Well, sort of.  I'll get to that soon.  Ms. Kopchovsky was born in Latvia, but her family emigrated to Boston when she was a child.  At 18, she married Max Kopchovsky, a peddler.    Within four years they had three children.

Much of what comes after that is a matter of debate.  Kopchovsky said that her ride was the result of a bet two wealthy Bostonian men made:  One asserted that women could do whatever men could, and his friend took the bait.  They agreed on a wager that a woman could ride around the world in 15 months(!) and earn $5000 along the way.  Nobody is sure why she felt compelled to take up the challenge as she, up to that point, had never been on a bicycle. However, she, like many other young women of her time, were inspired by Susan B. Anthony's assertion that the bicycle had done more to emancipate women than anything else.

So, on 27 June 1894, she hopped her 42-pound Columbia women's bike (Well, it was lighter than my Collegiate, I think!) dressed in the long skirt, corset and high collar of that time and waved goodbye to her husband and children as she set off down Beacon Street.  From there, she rode to New York.  Before she took off, the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company (rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?)  offered her $100.  In return, she would display their placard on her bike and adopt the nom de velo Anne Londonderry.

From New York, she pedaled west, arriving in Chicago in just under three months after she left Boston.   Along the way, she lost 20 pounds.  In the Windy City, she realized that she would need to make some changes.  First of all, she realizing her bike was too heavy, she switched to a Sterling men's model with one gear and no brakes.  It weighed tipped the scales at half of the Columbia's weight.  Second, she realized she would never be able to ride that bike in her attire.  So, at first, she wore bloomers, and eventually changed to a men's riding suit.

She'd planned to ride west, but the impending winter made her change direction.  She rode back to New York and set sail for Le Havre, France, where she arrived in early December.  Her bike was impounded, her money was stolen and the French press declared her too muscular to be a woman, assigning her to the category of "neutered beings."  Somehow she turned things around and, in spite of bad weather, made it from Paris to Marseilles in two weeks via bike and train.  

In Marseilles, she boarded the steamship "Sydney".  Her itinerary included all sorts of exotic ports of call.  To prove she'd been to those places, she got the signature of the United States Consul in each location.  

She returned to the US in San Francisco on 23 March 1895.  From there, she rode south to Los Angeles, then east through Arizona and New Mexico to El Paso. From there, she  turned north and rode to Denver, then Cheyenne, where she hopped on a train that took her to Nebraska.  She then hopped back on her bike to Chicago, arriving on 12 September.  Then she took the train back to Boston, arriving on 24 September, 15 months after she left.

As you might expect, some accused her of traveling more with her bike than on it.  Most people didn't seem to mind, though:  She was a tireless self-promoter who, while in France and Asia, told tales of being a medical student, the neice of a US Congressman, a lawyer, an inventor of a new method of stenography and an orphan.  Plus, she sold commemorative photographs, silk handkerchiefs, souvenir pins and autographs.  Upon returning to the US, she told tales of hunting with German royalty in India and nearly being killed by "Asiatics" who thought she was an evil spirit. She even insisted that she was involved in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895. On the front lines, she'd fallen through a frozen river and ended up in a Japanese prison with a bullet would in her shoulder.  Or so she said.

But, hey, if she biked even half as much as she told stories, she rode a lot.  And her pedaling brought her family more money, through sponsorships, her own entrepreneurship and articles she wrote, than her husband's peddling ever could have provided!

Good Thing They Didn't Call It The "Jockbra"

In several posts on this blog, I've mentioned that Susan B. Anthony said, in essence, that the bicycle has done more than anything else to liberate women.

Since women started riding bikes, there are probably two things that have done more than anything else to encourage girls' and womens' participation in cycling and other sports.

One is Title IX, the 1972 US law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs--which include school-based sports programs.  Since then, the number of girls' and womens' sports teams in colleges and schools has expanded greatly.  As a result, more girls were encouraged to participate in sports, whether in their schools or outside of it, and one could argue that the subsequent increase in the proficiency of American female athletes has spurred other countries to improve their women's sports programs.

The other is what we now call the sports bra.  Before it was created, girls and women--if they weren't flat-chested--had to live with the pain of their breasts bouncing or the chafing of a bra's wires and straps.  Or they improvised support from duct tape and other items.  Or they simply didn't participate in sports at all.

The last option simply wasn't an option for Hinda Miller.  She had just started working for the theatre department at the University of Vermont and taken up jogging.  She used two bras which, I imagine, restricted her breathing and was probably only somewhat less painful than bouncing breasts.  

Across campus, Lisa Lindahl was dealing with the same problem.  She and Miller reached out to Polly Smith, who made costumes for the university's theatre department.  They bought some bras and tore them apart. "I was taking notes; Lisa was running," Miller remembers.  She was always asking Lindahl, "Does that feel good?"

None of them did.  They tried to come up with a solution when Lindahl's then-husband came downstairs with two jockstraps slung over his shoulders.  He was teasing them, but the proverbial light bulb lit up in Miller's head:  "That's what we want to do," she remembers thinking.  "We want to pull everything closer to the body."

She ran to the store, bought two jockstraps and brought them to the costume shop.  "The waist band became our rib band," she explained.  "We crossed the straps in the back because we didn't want them to fall and it went over our head.  And that was it."

So was the Jogbra born, 40 years ago this month.  It became a national brand and, two decades later, Brandi Chastain cemented its place in our collective consciousness.

Hinda Miller with a bronze plaque commemorating the Jogbra at the University of Vermont.

Today, Lindahl is an artist based in Charleston, South Carolina.  Miller served as a State Senator in Vermont from 2002-2013 and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Burlington (Bernie Sanders' old job) in 2006.  These days, she serves on the boards of a number of organizations as diverse as the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and the Vermont Youth Orchestra.

If I do say so myself, few people in this world can appreciate the story of the Jogbra's origin as much as I can.  After all, I am a cyclist and someone who's participated in other sports--and someone who's lived on both sides of the aisle, if you will.  In other words, I am a transgender woman and one of (I assume) very few people who has used both a jockstrap and a sports bra!

A Messenger For Equality

March is Women's History Month.  As I've mentioned in other posts, the bicycle--as Susan B. Anthony herself said--has played an important role in liberating women. It led to a revolution in the way we dress--freeing women from corsets, hoopskirts and bustles--which, in turn, gave us more independence and mobility, not only into the physical places where we could go, but also in what we could do for paid work (or whether or not we could do paid work at all!) as well as in our free time.

It also took us on our path toward something that, in the US, only men were allowed to do from 1776 until 1920--and a right given only to white men until 1865. I am talking, of course, about voting.  Almost nobody would dispute that when women were able to partake of the other liberties I've described, it made it possible for even the most conservative men to realize that we have the powers of discernment derived from life experience that give us at least the same ability to decide what is best for our selves, families, communities and nation as the other 49 percent of the population.  

What can't be overlooked, however, are the mundane tasks women performed as part of the project of achieving the right to vote.  Here is a bike messenger--in bloomers, one of the sartorial innovations wrought by women on bicycles--at work for the National Women's Party headquarters:

From the National Women's History Museum

Okay, I'll admit that today's post is, at least in part, an excuse to post that image!  She looks about as happy as anyone I've seen in doing her work.  And well she should have been.

Women Cycling For The Environment--In India

Teaching a Women's Studies course during the past semester got me to thinking about the ways in which feminism--however you define it--is tinged with some of the cultural biases feminists have tried to fight.  I have to admit that I brought some of those attitudes and assumptions into my own thinking about gender equality and the ways in which I define myself as a feminist.

I noticed at least one of those unconscious biases while reading one of the best-researched, and most impassioned, papers I read this semester. It was, among other things, an argument that a universal single-payer health care system is the only kind that can help to erase some of the inequalities between men's and women's health care.

The student who wrote the paper hails from Burkina Faso and came to class in a hijab. She expressed her belief that there was nothing incompatible between her religion, Islam, and her wish to bring about gender equality. Another student, who made a slide-show about female infanticide in her native country (Pakistan) as well as other countries like China, expressed a similar belief.

I have to admit that sometimes I still think that the most forward-thinking people when it comes to women's rights are in secular Western democracies. And I admit that I prefer, and probably always will prefer, living in one.

But I must say that some of the most interesting things--including bike rides--undertaken by women have been, lately, in countries where we are supposedly more "oppressed."  One such nation is India.  Now, know some very strong, intelligent and independent Indian women.  And they are some of the most educated women to be found anywhere.  Still, I rarely see one on a bicycle, at least here in New York, or the United States.

That is why I was so impressed to read about a group of 13 cyclists, 10 of whom are women, on a ride through western India.  They left Pune last week and plan ton cover 1500 kilometers (about 1000 miles) in 16 days before they end up in Kanniyakumari on 3 January.  Along the way, they will pass through a number of cities containing some of the most sacred Hindu and other religious monuments, as well as any number of World Heritage sites--not to mention some beautiful mountain, river and sea coast vistas.

Cyclists in Pune, just before they embarked on their ride.

They are riding, in part, to bring attention to some of those natural and man-made wonders.  Why?  Well, India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies:  According to a report I heard this morning on BBC World News, India will leapfrog England and France (ironically, the countries that colonized it) to become the world's fifth-largest economy in 2018.  All of that development means more motorized traffic, cell towers, factories and mines--which mean, of course, more pollution.  Indian cities have some of the world's worst air quality, and, since wind does not stop at a city line, the smog and other pollution are spreading and threatening some of the world's most awe-inspiring sights, not to mention the health of humans and other living beings.

One of the things I learned in the research I did for the class is that in India and other developing countries, women are leading, or at least are giving much of the momentum, to environmental movements.  Of course, part of my own cultural arrogance led me to believe that such nations "don't care about the environment", seduced as they are by their newly-created wealth.  In addition to being disabused of such notions, I have learned that concern for the environment has been spurred, in India, China and other places, by feminists.  They see--to a degree that almost no one, male or female, in the Western world can--that environmental issues are women's issues. And children's issues.  And that men will be better off if women and children are.

And the bicycle is, if you will, a vehicle for delivering such equality--just as Susan B. Anthony said it was more than a century ago.

So You Didn't Marry The Girl Or Guy Next Door? Thank Your Bike!

If the love of your life is of a different race, ethnicity, national origin from your own, you have the bicycle to thank.  I might say the same if your significant other is the same gender as you, or identifies in a way you never heard of until you left home.

That's more or less what University of Arizona historian David Ortiz says.  As I've mentioned in several posts, no less than Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle did more than anything to emancipate women.  Cycling would change the clothing women wore, allowing more freedom of movement.  The bicycle also allowed women to travel unchaperoned by males for the first time.

And, says Ortiz, it also allowed men to travel greater distances.  At the time the "safety" bicycle was introduced, most people never got further than about 50 kilometers from where they were born or raised.  For a young man, then, "the girl next door" wasn't a Hollywood stereotype (well, ok, Hollywood didn't exist then): If she wasn't the one he married, she didn't come from much further afield.

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with marrying the girl (or guy) next door, if that is what you want.  I just think it's nice to know that it's not the only choice.  And, of course, having two parents of very different backgrounds can be a great thing for their kids:  What could give them a better education?

As a transgender woman, I can't help but to think that such heterogeneity, along with women's liberation, helped to bring about, however slowly, greater acceptance of LGBTQ people. It's no coincidence, really, that the first and most vibrant queer communities have been found in cosmopolitan neighborhoods and cities.

So, if I ever find myself hooking up with an Afro-Japanese Brazilian bisexual whose pronoun is "they", I know the bicycle is responsible!  

Seriously, though:  From what David Ortiz says, the bicycle made us freer.  Certainly, I feel freer when I ride!

Her Spirit Lives On--In Saudi Arabia

I know I've mentioned it a number of times, but I never get tired of repeating it.  I'm talking about something Susan B. Anthony said--namely, that the bicycle has done more than anything else to liberate women.

More than a century after she made that observation, it has shown itself to be true, again, in a number of countries--even in one of the nations that has long been one of the most oppressive for women.

I am talking about Saudi Arabia.  For decades, women haven't been allowed to do much of anything without the approval of some male relative.  If they wanted to open a bank account, they had to have a husband's, father's or brother's signature.  If they wanted to travel abroad, they could do so only in the company of a related man.  Police officers were deployed to enforce bans on females mixing with unrelated males in public venues.

Some public venues, such as cinemas, didn't exist at all.

Some things women weren't allowed to do at all, such as driving--and riding a bicycle.

All of this was aided and abetted by the US taxpayer, which propped up the repressive House Of Saud in exchange for allowing the US to build military bases in the kingdom--and, yes, cheap petrol.

But since this is not a blog about foreign policy, I want to concentrate on a change that's brewing, however slowly, in the land of the hajj.  It is embodied in, among other women, Amirah al-Turkistani.  

Amirah al-Turkistani on her bicycle

After earning her graduate degree in 2015, she left Boston and returned to her home country.  She brought her pistachio-colored bicycle back with her.  Friends mocked her.  "What are you going to do, hang it on the wall?" one taunted her.

Now she is riding her beloved machine all over Jeddah, the Red Sea town where she lives with her husband and kids.  She has inspired other women to do the same and one can't help but to think that women like them are inspiring, if not pressuring, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to ease some social restrictions.  They include the ban on women driving, which will end this summer.

Al-Turkistani says she plans to drive, not because she really wants to drive, but to show solidarity with other women who are enjoying newfound liberties.  Also, it will greatly help her in her work as a freelance designer and college lecturer.  Still, she says, she plans to continue cycling.

The Real Reason "Safeties" Won Out?

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

Those words were uttered by Susan B. Anthony.  It's no coincidence, I think, that the women's suffrage moment gained momentum during America's first "Bike Boom," in the 1890s and early 1900s.  Both developments followed the development of the "safety bicycle," with two wheels of equal or nearly-equal size and the rear propelled by a chain-and-sprocket drive.

OK, I'll try to say this without sounding sexist.  I think that the safety bicycle encouraged women to take up riding for two reasons.  One is that is that it's easier to ride a "safety" in the clothes women wore in those days. (I'm not sure how they could mount 60-inch wheels in hoopskirts.)  The other is that women are, on average, smaller than men and would--even if they were wearing lycra tights (which, of course, weren't available at the time) thus have more difficulty in getting aboard a high-wheeler.  

Plus, "safeties" just make more sense--like letting people vote, regardless of their gender.

 

On Two Wheels To The 19th

The United States became an independent nation in 1776.  I would argue, however, that it took nearly two centuries for it to become anything like democracy, and that this evolution came in stages.

The last of those stages came with the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  Before that, the most important event in this evolution came one hundred years ago yesterday, when the 19th Amendment became part of the US Constitution.  It was written to guarantee women the right to vote.

(Interestingly, a few states, mainly in the western part of the nation, gave women the franchise while they were still territories.)

I mention the 19th because, well, it matters to me and because bicycles figure into it.  Although Susan B. Anthony didn't live to exercise the right she fought for, she did see changes, however gradual, in what was considered proper and sometimes even legal for women.  

As I've mentioned on other posts, she acknowledged the role of two wheels and two pedals in emancipating us:  

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.

She beautifully described what kept me cycling during and since my gender transition.  I feel free and happy on my bicycle. Perhaps most important of all, I feel complete autonomy over my body and person.  If that is not a definition of becoming a woman, a full human being--or of feminism--I don't know what is.