How Bikes Changed Gender Equality

courtesy of Library of Congress

Bike Tour is in its final stages of preparation before starting up in the Southwest! While we're waiting for the final details to get ironed out, let's take a look back at the history of the bicycle and how it changed women's rights.

The modern-day bicycle was everywhere by the late 19th century - people could not get enough of them. Women found their previously restricted modes of transportation (walking slowly due to outrageous outfits or taking carriages with their husbands) shattered by the existence of this not only independent form of transportation, but easy to access as well. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two of the most prominent suffragettes, stated that "woman is riding to suffrage on the bicycle," showing the impact that the bike was having on women's freedom of movement and expression. Women could travel where they needed and get out of the house. Women's clothing, including floor length layers of petticoats and corsets, were transforming into bloomers and ankle- and mid-calf-length skirts to facilitate pedaling. Because of the bicycle, the image of women, their roles, their place in society, and their clothes were sending a clear signal that change was a-comin', and sure enough, the vote was available to women by 1920.

Ladies of Bike Tour 2013

The emancipation of American and European women in the 19th and 20th centuries was clearly linked to the image of a woman on a bicycle. On the African continent, bikes are presently allowing an economic and social liberation for African women. Women on the continent are now able to easily travel between houses, communities, villages, and towns. Many women need to travel to neighboring villages and towns to buy bulk supplies to sell in their own markets. With the bicycle, they are able to do this easily and efficiently, ensuring their own economic empowerment to support their families. In Ghana, a bamboo bicycle initiative has trained 25 women on how to build bicycles, allowing them to earn an income. A Zimbabwean journalist tells her story of how riding a bicycle allowed her to escape sexual harassment on Harare's streets, as she no longer had to rely on hitchhiking to get her around town. Bicycles allow girls to easily travel to school, allowing them to gain an education that would normally be delegated to the boys in their families. Household chores, such as pumping water and fetching firewood, is simplified with the availability of the bicycle. In short, the bicycle is allowing women to simplify their tasks and allowing for more access to education and economic opportunity.

Transporting kids through the market

The bicycle has revolutionized women's rights all over the world. Susan B. Anthony, obviously a huge bike proponent, declared: "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world." How fitting that Bike Tour Burkina Faso is here to do exactly that: fight for gender equality.

Sources include The Atlantic, CNN, National Women's History Museum