cyclofeminism vs persistent misogynist harassment ... and violence

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lagatta
cyclofeminism vs persistent misogynist harassment ... and violence

A Guardian article about a woman cyclist being knocked off her bicycle by a raging man, and also providing a litany of such abuse, whether verbal, psychological or even physical, and being yelled at yesterday while I was calmly cycling IN A BICYCLE PATH makes me think back about this subject. Now, while I'm an ecosocialist and certainly an ecofeminist, I strongly reject the idea that women are somehow "closer to nature" or by nature more sensitive to environmental demands (Margaret Thatcher... Sarah Palin ... etc).

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/bike-women-cyclist-...

And as usual, men in the comments (I'm not going to read through all of them), denying that this is a gender or gendered issue - all I can say is that we've seen the same stuff around here recently about an utterly unrelated issue.

Some of us can't even count the times we've been given unsolicited advice on how to cycle, what (bicycle) to cycle, what to wear and what have you, as well as the usual lewd comments about private parts and bicycle saddles...

My late friend Claire Morissette (of Le Monde à bicyclette) wrote on the subject of cycloféminisme in her book on cycling and our future, and in a brief article (in French) here in Canadian Woman Studies:

http://www.synergiescanada.org/fr/journals/ont/cws/398/6616

Cycloféminisme ... La pédale douce

Claire Morissette

Auteur: Claire Morissette Titre: Cycloféminisme ... La pédale douce  Revue: Canadian Woman Studies, 2002 URI: https://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/cws/article/view/6616

I put this in feminism, though it could also be moved to "out and about", if that is preferred.

 

Sineed

Interesting, lagatta. I belong to a biking page on FB, and some of the women have been complaining about an uptick in men randomly yelling at them. I ride about 20 km a day through Toronto, and I'm getting a bit long in the tooth, but I recall almost constant harrassment when I was younger, from honking horns to the guys revving up their equipment on construction sites to make me jump to catcalling. It's an extension of the usual street harrassment women get as pedestrians.

I seem to be unable to download your friend's paper. My computer, like me, is getting old.

Unionist

Sineed wrote:

I seem to be unable to download your friend's paper. My computer, like me, is getting old.

Try this, Sineed: http://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/download/6616/5804