British Cycling calls women volunteers and other female riders witches

[BritishCyclingdoesitagain]

This is what British Cycling has sent out to all its Breeze Champions (volunteer ride leaders) in a newsletter today.
😯

"Did you know over 90% of witches have swapped their broom for a bike in recent years?"

As if the CEO stepping down over various controversies including their transgender policy and telling cyclists not to ride their bikes wasn't enough.

They don't have a great record of treating women well at a time when they claim to be trying to increase women's participation in cycling.

How to get women onside, eh?

I can't get worked up about this tbh.

Where do they call those groups of women witches?
It reads to me like a little Halloween joke, that (fictional) witches have swapped their (fictional) broomsticks for bikes. same as you might say ‘Father Christmas spends every summer in Bali’

How dare they suggest Father Christmas is a sex tourist!!! 😡 Way to get men onside. I shall be reporting this!

god arent you a fun soul

Where did you get that from???

Surely a Halloween joke, that’s how I take it.

I think that’s the point.

It's just a joke in connection with Halloween. It can't refer to women because it's not statistically correct - 90% haven't taken up cycling in recent years.

What’s wrong with witches? I’m a pagan witch, and I’m finding your attitude puzzling.

It's just a feeble joke. If you are looking for something to be offended by, there are about a million more deserving options out there.

I'm a witch too and I get slightly more offended by people who can't bring themselves to use the word “bitch” and substitute “witch” instead.

I have also just acquired a bicycle. 🙂

It's just a joke. Unclench.

Never found witch an offensive term. Look into what witches actually were and are.

but this is quite clearly a halloween joke.

That's sort of where I was coming from, they would not say that about more mainstream faiths.

OP I think you need to work on your reading comprehension, it's just a Halloween joke.

What do you mean where you are coming from?

I can’t see any other posts from you? Are you the Op.

I am a pagan and, I expect, what some people call a witch. It’s also halloween. Halloween witches and actual witches or pagans (there’s some cross over and some distinct differences) are 2 completely different things. What would the equivalent of a mainstream faith be?

If you are the Op, then that’s definitely not what you were getting at.

@Ekátn

Sorry that was badly worded, I mean that's what I thought the min I saw it, that they don't know witches are real and that some people celebrate Samhain.

By mainstream I probably should have said more common, so if you took out 'witches' and put in Muslim women and then swapped the broom stick for hijab it would not have been sent out.

Happy new year by the way.

Swapping a broomstick (mode of transport) for a bicycle makes sense. Swapping a hijab for a bicycle makes absolutely zero sense.

They are clearly talking about the whimsical folk-lore witches still popular in children’s stories and not the pagan religion. If it’s acceptable in mainstream culture for children to wear pointy hats and ride broomsticks to celebrate Halloween, then you could probably stretch to forgiving British Cycling for making a joke about the same characters modernising their transportation methods.

That’s not an equivalent though.

muslim women do not have a version of them that’s based on very old made up stories of them in a mainstream cultural event, that actually has nothing to do with them. There’s no mainstream cultural event that has Muslim women attached to it.

I don’t know any pagans or witches that are offended by halloween or people dressing as cultural representations of witches. They are so far away from eachother one doesn’t reflect the other.

Santa doesn’t take Christmas away from Christians. I don’t know any Christian’s (was raised in a catholic family) who believe Santa is damaging their Christian holiday. Though I am sure there’s some extremists that do, but it’s rare.

Some people celebrate Christmas as a cultural event. Some religious. Lots as a combination. One doesn’t take from the other. That’s how I see halloween. Samhain and halloween are, not the same. Connected, slightly.

Also all pagans are not Celtic pagans either. Or have their roots in Celtic paganism. Most people partaking in halloween are not connected to paganism.

Also not all witches have any religion at all. The term ‘Witch’ has no religious connections at all. Though many witches may practice as part of their religion. Paganism is a huge umbrella term and ‘witch’ isn’t a set term either. You can’t compare it to making a joke about Muslim women at all.

Tbf, swapping a hijab for a bike sounds like an improvement. I can't see that women would've chosen to wear hijabs in the first place if not for some bloke (although I know some women do feel comfortable/have become accustomed to them).

We have a witch in the family tree and we're very proud of her. An actual healer/midwife back in the olden days.

If any term needed reclaiming it's 'witch'. It's a massive compliment as far as I'm concerned.