Having biking as a safe transportation option can play a major role in expanding access to new economic and educational opportunities. A century ago, changing bicycle frames away from men-oriented diamonds to step-throughs that allowed for women’s clothing drew new riders to the mode. In a blog post, Emma Glaser discusses the historic role bicycles, and their very design, in increasing the ideas of women’s independence, empowerment, and ultimately, suffrage.
Those who supported and opposed women’s suffrage linked safety bicycles to women’s participation in the public sphere. Because they enabled women to travel more freely and on their own, suffragettes wrote that bicycles led to female empowerment. The popular book, Bicycling for Ladies, by M.E. Ward, stated that “riding the wheel, our own powers are revealed to us… you are continually being called upon to judge and to determine points that before have not needed your consideration, and consequently you become more alert, active, quick-sighted and keenly alive as well to the rights of others as to what is due yourself.” The increased independence that bicycles afforded to women made it possible for them to leave the private sphere and demand increased rights and opportunities in the public sphere.
Read the complete article at cgpartifact
Photo: A step-through bike frame (Gavin Bannerman, Flickr, Creative Commons).