In the last decade, biking has exploded in popularity (in fact, as our commenters recently demonstrated, it’s even gaining support over driving as a primary form of transportation). Yet one stubborn fact has plagued the cycling ranks since, well, since biking first became de rigeur: Far more men ride than women. In fact, as many as three times more bike trips are made by men than women in the U.S., according to research by John Pucher, a professor of urban planning at Rutgers.
So what’s the explanation for this gaping and persistent divide? Plenty of theories have been tossed out there, and by far the stickiest one is that women are vain (ahem, “appearance conscious”) and are bothered more by things like “helmet head,” getting sweaty, and the restrictions on clothing that bikes bring. As with most questions like these, the answer is far more complex than just “girls hate to get dirty” — you have to factor in everything from social pushes against biking to the difficulty of transporting groceries or other bags on bikes to the deterrent of unwelcome male attention that often accompanies Riding When Female.
One angle thrown in the mix is that in some European countries, women ride nearly as often, if not just as much, as men (though this is hardly true for Paris or the U.K., where the lack of girls on bikes is a continual narrative in the media). Meanwhile, the conversation about women biking is primarily kept on a superficial level — “We need more women on bikes because it’ll make the roads look prettier than having them in cars,” and that sort of thing. (Note: We condone any articles that encourage women to take up the bike mantle. But let’s be honest — focusing on appearances isn’t the most inspiring tactic.)
Still, while many of the above factors do contribute to the dearth of women on bikes, we’d like to offer a dominant theory: Women don’t ride bikes because biking is still incredibly dangerous. The average urban cycler navigates a complex and hazardous maze of lanes, intersections, bridges, and more, and the number of serious injuries and fatalities as a result of accidents has been rising steadily. In a town like New York City, biking can quite literally be, as the Times‘ City Room blog puts it, “like going into battle.” There are physiological facts involved as well — women have lower testosterone levels than men, and are thus less prone to risk-taking, plus on average men have better distance vision (yes, I said “on average”). Add to that the additional hurdles of inclement weather, crazy drivers, and the frequent need to transport other people (aka children) and you’ve got quite the deck stacked against taking out that bike.
All of which leads to our point (we’re getting there, we promise): Let’s stop talking about the “women on bikes” issue as a psycho-socio-gender phenomenon, and start talking about it as a policy call to action. If we reprioritized public and private initiatives to push biking, by creating more safety features like mandatory bike lanes, bike checkpoints and safety checks, as well as more incentivizing programs from employers (”bike to work” payment vouchers, etc.), we might see a real and meaningful change in the number of women — and men, for that matter — who chose to bike.
But for now, it’s a jungle out there, and we for one are navigating it via subway.
(And yes, there is still that problem of distance: We’ve personally ridden the length of Copenhagen in a few hours. The same cannot be said if you’re trying to get from South Brooklyn to Midtown. Though we realize that restructuring American lifestyles to never require the traveling of long distances involves completely re-thinking our current society and attitudes about driving. So it may take a while.)
RELATED:
Video Gallery: Naked Protesters on Bikes
Photo via Flickr
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
You can certainly get from South Brooklyn to Midtown in a few hours by bike. The problem is that this is kind of way too long for most people for a daily commute but it is not unrealistically far for people to have to go on a daily basis. Relatively few Copenhagen residents actually have to go from one end of the city to another every day, I imagine. (Of course, an hour on the N train isn’t much fun either…)
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
What exactly is a mandatory bike checkpoint, and why would this be something in any way desirable? And mandatory safety checks? Are you for real? I love this blog but yesterday’s remark and this post today make it clear that you should probably leave the bike/ped stuff to Streetsblog.
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
James, one word for you: Helmets. We have these safety checks for cars - ever been pulled over and ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt? Plus there need to be regular places to check your tires, adjust your seat, and get all these bikes maintenanced. And at no point did I say these features had to be “mandatory” - bike lanes on streets, however, is a different story.
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
(And yes, as one astute Tweeter pointed out, the woman pictured above is not wearing a helmet. Which in no way should be taken to mean that we don’t think they’re necessary)
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I think part of the problem too is that there just haven’t been bikes available in the U.S. that facilitate things like grocery shopping or carrying kids around. They exist all over the world, but because the market here was focused on cycling as sport, we just never knew about them. There are really good solutions for that, they just aren’t readily available yet in most places in the U.S.
I would also amend your dominant theory to say cycling in the city *feels* dangerous, which is different than saying it *is* dangerous. It’s very relative. It may be dangerous compared to sitting on your sofa, but it is safe compared to driving a car or downhill skiing or many other things we find completely normal. Certainly, the actual danger varies from place to place (as does the perceived danger), but in general, we do things without thinking that are more dangerous than riding a bicycle in a city. Much of the danger level depends on *how* you ride as well.
Anyway, it certainly is a complex situation, with a lot of factors playing into it. I hope we can have more real and effective discussion about it as people around the U.S. look to cycle more for transportation. I hope the discussion can initiate political change as well, we’ll need that a lot.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I used to bike to work, until I got tired or arriving bathed in sweat.
The car was a more practical option, not as healthy, but practical.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:42 pm
“James, one word for you: Helmets. We have these safety checks for cars - ever been pulled over and ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt? ”
Except that bike helmets do not work very well. Most biking injuries are not head related and in the cases that are biking helmets have only a little effect. At the same time mandatory helmet laws tend to greatly reduce biking levels, which in turn increases danger. Studies show that any gain from less injuries is more than undone by this effect. It’s no coincedence that all countries with large bicycle mode share (Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany) do not have helmets laws and still have much fewer accidents.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
“Though we realize that restructuring American lifestyles to never require the traveling of long distances involves completely re-thinking our current society and attitudes about driving. So it may take a while.”
It may not take as long as you think. $4/gallon gas has proven to be most peoples breaking point. And I think we are likely to see that number again sooner than anyone would like.
I would also like to second Dave’s comment about bikes “Feeling” more dangerous. A accident/mile comparison between bikes and driving has shown over and over again that driving is far more dangerous. But humans naturally have a very poor ability to assess danger, often choosing to protect themselves from rare and fanciful events rather than statistically probably risks. Case in point: people choose to arm themselves with guns in order to calm their fear of being attacked in their own home by a masked stranger -then immediately go out and replace said guns when they are stolen from their homes while they are away on vacation. Case 2: a parent of a 5th grader drives the kid 3 blocks to school everyday out of a fear of some masked stranger lurking in the bushes -thus putting the kid in far more danger, statistically speaking, than if the kid walked.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
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December 2nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm
In Copenhagen, 55% of cyclists are women.
For the most part, cycling in North America is still more of an extreme sport practised by a few brave people (mostly men) than an everyday from of transportation. As in other extreme sport, there is the necessary gear including helmets and spandex. Unfortunately, many of these practitioners of this extreme sport view measures to encourage the average person to cycling, such as bicycle paths and cycle tracks, as a threat to their extreme sport and have fought to prevent such measures.
Thankfully, many cities around North America have stopped listening to this vocal minority and are building facilities that will attract more women and men to cycling.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
The best way to increase bicycle safety is to increase the number of bicyclists on the road.
“Cycling is a mainstream mode of urban travel in northern Europe
precisely because it does not require any of those [special equipment] things. For example, most northern European cyclists ride on simple, inexpensive bikes, almost never wear special cycling outfits, and rarely use safety helmets.” - quoth bicycle expert Ralph Buehler
http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/Cycling%20for%20Everyone%20TRB.pdf
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Echoing Richard and Higgenbottom’s remarks, biking is still primarily a niche mode in North America, the domain of spandex wearing weekend warriors with their thousand dollar bicycles and hardcore cycling activists. Here in Japan bicycling is an everyday activity taken for granted without any hoopla or posing- most people (women and men in equal number) ride cheap (avg. $150 cost) single or three speed bicycles with baskets to carry the groceries and seats for the children. And Japan isn’t particularly bicycle friendly infrastructure-wise, with its narrow roads and few bike lanes. Nobody wears helmets either, except the odd Mormon missionary on his thousand dollar mountain bike…
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
There is another physiological factor that was not mentioned in this article. For many women (and men) cycling is simply physically uncomfortable. I am of course talking about seats and the its effect on your junk! I worked in a bike shop for several years and this was definitely the number 1 complaint. For the record, I would like to say that proper fit is absolutely essential for comfort on a bike. Ergonomics of bicycle seats have been vastly improved over the last twenty years, but if you are riding a bike that is too small or large for you you are not only wasting a tremendous amount of energy, you are asking for discomfort and injury. Bike shorts with gel or chamois padding are definitely plus when it comes to comfort, especially if you are cycling a long distance, but are unnecessary for most commutes. One more note, that giant sofa cushion of a seat may not be the best option for comfort in the long run, often these seats are so wide that they cause chaffing. A (reasonably cushioned) quality seat and a good fit should alleviate most problems ( numbness, pain etc) if you still have issues you should have someone at your local bike shop take a look at your positioning,your seat bones should be supporting the majority of your weight,not your pelvic bone.
I know this is a bit of rant, but I also know that it is a very real reason that more people , especially women, give up or don’t try cycling at all. One of the best reasons to bike is because it is fun and it is hard to enjoy anything when your legs are chaffing and your junk numb! lol!
December 4th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Good article and good points about safety and uptake of bicycling.
Increasing perception of bike safety is the best way to increase bike ridership. Increasing ridership is the best way to increase actual bike safety. Seems like a simple way forward, right?
December 5th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
@Richard Campbell - “many of these practitioners of this extreme sport view measures to encourage the average person to cycling, such as bicycle paths and cycle tracks, as a threat to their extreme sport and have fought to prevent such measures.”
I’m not sure where you are in North America, so maybe your experience is different. But pretty much everywhere I’ve been, the apocryphal “spandex-clad extreme riders” are a tiny minority except in a few specific areas on a Sunday morning. When I see people on bikes they are generally younger people who can’t afford or prefer not to drive, working class people who also don’t choose to spend huge amounts of money on cars, people of all ages riding casually, and kids riding everywhere all the time. Yes, the image of cycling and the types of bikes commonly available has been focused on the “sport” end, but that is changing rapidly.
And exactly who are these “extreme sport” riders fighting against bike lanes? I’ve literally never seen that. In contrast, it is generally the cities that are being forced, kicking and screaming, to begin building basic bike infrastructure by the pressure of sport, lifestyle, and transport bikers of all kinds working together. But that’s just me…
December 6th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
[...] plenty of speculation as to why more women don’t be riding bikes like they ride the cotton pony: we have less [...]
December 6th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Okay, so I’m a lady, and as a lady, the major reason I don’t bike as a means of transportation is because it’s incredibly impractical.
I live just outside DC and have a commute which takes fifteen minutes by car, but would take an hour and change by bike in a city that for a large part of the year is cold, windy, muddy, and rain-soaked or hot, humid, muddy, and rain-soaked. So that’s either a small fortune in dry cleaning bills or five more pounds packed in with the twenty or so I’m hauling to to work every day. It’s less vanity than the idea of being miserable for nine months out of the year.
The addition of further safety measures, checks, etc., would come off as safety requirements, just one more hurdle that makes the biking club less appealing (in addition to the biking-as-a-contact-sport crew and the I spent-more-money-on-my-bike-than-I-pay-in-rent club). I hate to break it to you, but women aren’t delicate magnolia blossoms that are constantly fearful of the big bad roadways. It’s just that biking is pretty low on the practical travel economy scale; it has all the speed of walking with all the mental convenience of having to remember where you parked your car. Adding time-consuming safety procedures puts it somewhere below doing cartwheels as a means of transportation.
That said, I like my bike and the opportunities it offers me - but that’s a long way from depending on it.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Chris, re: the practicalities of cars vs bikes - how do you figure? I don’t follow your line of reasoning. A bike is about 5 times faster than walking. I can walk at 3mph or I can bike at 15-20mph. The two modes don’t even compare. If need be, I can take my bike on the train, extending my range by a factor of 2 or 3. Clothes? You leave a few pairs of nice clothes at work and wear something a little more practical for the ride.
I live in New York and do a multi-modal bike/train commute out to my job in the suburbs for much of the year. Obviously, it becomes a PITA in the dead of winter, but if you can do it 250 days out of the year, then what’s wrong with that? It’s totally doable, and when you factor in the money and time saved from no longer needing to go to the gym, it’s an even better deal. On the macro level, I think most of your arguments are kind of bogus. Perhaps your particular situation doesn’t lend itself to bike commuting, but there are millions of others for whom it is actually a sound alternative.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I think that two elements of encouraging bicycle share which are slightly under-discussed are parking and carrying capacity.
When parking is a PITA (i.e. when the market has fairly priced parking in a city) it makes the increased travel time of bicycling more appealing because it’s simpler to park the bike than a car.
Special bicycles and cargo systems (bakfiets, xtracycles) etc make it feasible to trip chain and run the kinds of errands for which many women are primarily responsible. These are not as available in the US, although that’s beginning to change.
Those bicycles, and many non-cargo European bicycles also come standard with clothing protecting chaincases and fenders, so it’s literally get on and go- no special equipment or attire required. True this won’t work for a 15 mile commute, but given the high percentage of trips within a 2 mile radius, it works for the vast majority of most people’s trips.
December 8th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I have an explanation that you haven’t considered: women DRIVE less, too.
I recently encountered the comment that, while men and women drive in roughly equal numbers (not sure how that was measured - licensed drivers?), men drive vastly more miles than women.
Certainly part of that is going to be that when a man and a woman drive somewhere together, it is more often the man who drives.
But is is possible that the reason that cyclists seem to be disproportionately male is because men are more likely to go places? Or that men are more likely to go places beyond comfortable walking distance?
In my (anecdotal) experience, women are more common on buses than men are. This could also account for the lack of female cyclists, and could be caused by any of the factors mentioned above (less likely to catch your skirt in the chain, easier to carry purchases, less likely to get mugged/assaulted, etc.).
@muI live in Virginia Beach. Down by the ocean, you can see all kinds of people on bikes, and once away from the tourist areas there is still a lot of biking, but almost any cyclist you see away from the ocean who is over 25 years old is clad in spandex and riding in the street. And after september, that’s basicly the only kind you’ll find.
They smile and nod as they ride by me in shortsleeves and shorts as I commute on my “comfort bike” in long johns and long pants, sweatshirt and jacket. But they never come and join me on the bike path.
And I don’t really blame them: the older bike paths around here are basicly super-wide sidewalks, and I’d hate to hit an expansion joint every 10 feet at 30mph. The newer paths are tarmac, but like the autobahn they wander to keep from getting boring (sometimes even up and down little hills), and the serious go-fast spandex guys disdain them. And have no problem going to city council meetings and telling the council not to “waste” money on those things, because “nobody” will use them. Better to spend the money to beuild a dedicated track in a city park, a 5 mile loop designed to be ridden at 45mph.
That idea only died when the city decided that A) it should also be a nice place for folks with strollers, B) they could only afford one about 2 miles long, C) the folks in strollers would probably interfere with that 45mph thing, and D) shortening it to 2 miles didn’t save nearly as much money as they thought.
@Chris “It has all the speed of walking, …” Spoken like someone who doesn’t ride. I’m no zealot - I started riding my bike to work because a judge made it really clear that I shouldn’t drive for a while - but ever since I was a kid I’ve known that bikes are faster than feet. It may not seem like it from the rider’s seat, but bikes are much faster than walking. Try borrowing a bike with a speedometer and check it yourself. Just toodling along on a sidewalk, chances are you are going 9mph, and most people walk at 3 and run at 6.
Now, I’m not saying you could outrun your car, but it is great for those little in-between trips. You know, to the store at the end of your block to buy a loaf of bread. “It’s really much farther than I want to WALK, but I feel like such a lazy bastard if I DRIVE to something that close. I can SEE it from here!”
As for the “delicate magnolia” thing, perhaps you’d prefer it phrased this way: men are far more likely to do something they perceive as dangerous, even foolhardy, just for the thrill of having done it and lived. This is balanced by the fact that most of us (men, that is) could die without really harming the species’ chances for survival.
December 8th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Chris, RE: You’ve got it all wrong I’m afraid. I work at a company where I am required to dress up everyday in skirts and heels, and I still ride my bike everyday for an hour each way. It’s the best part of my day by far. I take work clothes with me and change when I get there: this includes the heels and blouses. It’s really not a huge hassle, people have just gotten so used to throwing everything in a car that they feel it’s impossible. As for rain and mud: bikes have fenders, and rain jackets do exist. I have a full-size Montague folding bike, so I could easily hop on the train if I ever get too tired or uncomfortable, but I rarely do because I feel better when I get to work if I’ve ridden, even if I have to change my clothes and drink a glass of water.
All I would really want are bike lanes that remain solely for the use of bikes and not for cars to use as double-parking spots. I’ve been riding for years in the city and I’ll keep riding regardless, but some changes mentioned above would be a nice surprise.
December 8th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
cycling is more dangerous for women because they are less agressive and follow the rules of the road. it’s a fact.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1695668.ece
December 8th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
[...] Women and bicycling. [...]
December 8th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Give me a separated bike lane to the places I need to go and I’ll ride my bike. Overall safety statistics don’t help much when I look at the specific roads I’d have to ride on; too close to fast traffic.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:42 am
The girls in my life don’t ride as much because bicycles are not comfortable!
Also riding in traffic scares them. I commute daily year round (30mi/rt) so I’m familiar with the problems. I’ve outfitted their bikes (the two of the four who will occasionally ride) with fenders, locks, racks, and lights. It makes it better. The best bike being a mt bike with street tires and front shock, but even so, bike seats still suck for women.
As for being in traffic, that needs to change for any regular commuting. They need side streets with low car traffic, and on main drags to have the parked cars between them and the moving traffic.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Mandatory bike lanes as a “safety feature”? Mandatory bike lane laws force cyclists to ride in decrepit, poorly-designed, rarely-maintained facilities that were built by people who don’t ride bikes. Mandatory bike lane laws discourage cycling and increase injuries.
If you still think mandatory bike lanes are a good idea, at least make it clear that cyclists are only required to use well-maintained bike lanes that meet minimum federal design standards — that will eliminate most US bike lanes.
December 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
You want to increase cycling by making it more of a hassle? These proposals are a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.
Working in life insurance, I’ll take actuaries over activists any day.
The actuarial take on mandatory helmet laws is that they increase public medical costs and reduce net life expectancy.
Helmets are modestly effective at preventing a small number of dramatic injuries. The benefits of using a helmet are real, I’m not one of those anti-helmet zealots who say they’re nothing but magic styrofoam hats.
But emprical studies around the world have repeatedly shown that mandatory helmet laws discourage casual cycling. Short trips that could have been taken by bicycle are replaced with car or transit trips that increase injury risks and eliminate the health benefits of cycling as exercise. The health cost of not making any one errand by bike is vanishingly small, but for every one head injury prevented by a mandatory helmet law, tens of thousands of bicycle rides are eliminated.
Published, peer-reviewed research puts the probable health cost of a national mandatory helmet law in the U.S. at about $5 BILLION per year.
We are a nation facing an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other complications of a sedentary lifestyle. The last thing we need is another disincentive to cycling.
It is not a coincidence that the Netherlands has among the highest rate of bicycle transportation, a low rate of bicyclist injuries, and very low helmet usage by commuter and casual cyclists.
December 14th, 2009 at 5:11 am
@Melissa Lafsky
Streets should be so safe (bike infrastructure) that people don’t need helmets.
I feel more safe when I cycle in a white dress than when I wear a helmet.
December 29th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
[...] http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/12/02/why-more-women-dont-ride-bikes-and-what-we-can-do-about-i... [...]
December 31st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
The main reasons I don’t ride a bike to work are:
1) Drivers are crazy where I live and I am scared to ride on the road with them.
2) Sweaty hair. I would have to shower and change when I get to work to look presentable for the day. As I have long hair it would add a lot of time to my daily routine to wash/dry my hair before starting work. I’m lucky enough that there is as shower at my workplace so I could do it if I wanted, but for now I’m sticking to the bus.
That’s just one woman’s perspective.
January 25th, 2010 at 9:01 am
[...] Don’t let the menfolk hog up the glory of using no fossil fuels and losing weight – we have to get more women in the bike lane and even up the score a little. You could also take advantage of the current gender bias and [...]
June 24th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I’m 5o yo female & I bike to work
occasionally. I don’t ride before dawn
or after dusk. It’s 10 miles-1/2 on bike
trails adjacent to a river. The biggest
obstacle is time. With stopping at traffic
lights and my slower speed, it takes about
an hour. I had my
bike”fit” by my local bike shop. Another
obstacle is Im not good at changing
flats so I have agreements with friends
to pick me up should I have a flat.