In many car-centric cities around the U.S., riding a bike on a city street is equivalent to sticking a target on your back. Being a woman on a bike makes that target 10 times bigger and 10 times brighter.
As much as I love riding my bike, there are times when I feel unsafe and violated, such as when I pull up alongside a bus shelter and a man yells out, “Damn girl. Where you going? You must be riding a lot with an ass like that!” I can’t wait for the light to change so I can get the hell away from this situation.
I never know quite how to respond. A motorist rolls down his window to tell me how lucky my bike is to be ridden by me. I just smile and try to shrug it off, knowing who holds the power in this situation, Often I try to avoid potential situations altogether, changing routes where I know I often get yelled at or not riding at certain times. I once spent a summer as a pedicabber (one of my favorite jobs I ever had), but never took the night shifts after my boss warned me I’d probably be harassed by drunk male college students. Try as I might, street harassment cannot be avoided. A pedestrian once yelled, “I want to cum all over you” on a Sunday afternoon on one of Kansas City’s busiest streets. I didn’t know how to respond other than to break down in tears as I started to climb a hill.
I endure the catcalls on a daily basis and for the most part learn to live with it. But when a few weeks ago, one of my best friends got to work and started crying because a man yelled, “I want to suck your pussy,” on the ride in, I became furious. Words like that are violating and unjust. Too many women are getting hurt.
“No wonder women don’t want to ride bikes,” she said.
It is a well-known fact that women ride bikes at much lower rates than men. In 2009, women accounted for only 24% of all bicycle trips in the U.S. In addition, 24% of women refrain from exercising outdoors in general in order to avoid public sexual harassment and assault, according to the most recent report by Stop Street Harassment. A few bike advocacy groups nationwide have begun to recognize the importance of getting more women on bikes, by hosting forums and summits. For example, the Washington Area Bicycle Association recently hosted a workshop for female cyclists about fighting street harassment.
I do not have a choice when it comes to exercising outdoors as I do not own a car that I can use as a shield from harassment. My bike cannot camouflage the fact that I wear a skirt or a dress every single day–a fact many of my female friends sometimes have a hard time believing. “I try not to wear a skirt when I bike. I seem to attract more negative attention from men,” a friend once told me. I’m not going to let fear stop me from wearing what I want to wear. A woman on a bike is not eye candy for motorists, she is not riding for the attention or the praise. She is riding because she simply loves to ride her bike. She is a cyclist and the road is as much hers as it is yours.
Sexual harassment is not merely a “women’s issue.” It is a mobility issue. If women do not feel safe biking to work or to run simple errands to the grocery store, how can we expect them to pursue alternative modes of transportation? Just as cyclists have the same rights to the roads as motorists, women must have the same rights as cyclists as men.
Heavy traffic, debris in the road, and a lack of bicycle facilities would be enough to deter any woman from riding a bicycle. It is great that cities are beginning to invest more in building bike facilities, such as bike lanes to encourage individuals to use bicycles as a mode of transportation, but the issue of getting more women on bikes extends beyond infrastructure improvements. A bike lane is not going to make a woman feel much safer when she is going to be harassed every day. Without a dramatic change in culture, female cyclists will remain a minority on the landscapes of our streets, their targets still strapped firmly to their backs.
Rachel Krause is a cyclist who is active in the Kansas City bike community. She publishes a feminist bicycling zine called Velo Vixen.
