Girls don't cycle?? What's up with that?

[Himalaya]

As a mother of boys I have vaguely noticed that you don't see many teenage girls on bikes these days.

I cycled to my son's secondary school today to drop something off, and in the bike shed counted 40 definitely boy's bikes, 1 definitely girl's bike and 3 that could have been either.

Being able to get around on a bike gives an important measure of freedom and independence to teenagers IME (as a girl, and as a parent). It seems like just another important, fun, freedom-giving thing that girls are missing out on more than they used to.

Anyone got any idea why? What is preventing more girls cycling? Is it parents being more protective of girls/more willing to drive them places? Cycling (helmets?) having an image problem amongst girls?

Himalaya - I think you are rooting around here for subjects of feminist outrage

My DD obviously bucks the trend of non cycling girls. I'm hoping that she'll be able to cycle to the senior school she's planning on applying to as it's only a 4½ mile journey on the canal towpath.

Of course you wouldn't pick her bike out as 'girl's bike' as it's blue.

She is however a lot more cautious on it than her brother. So maybe the reason that more girls don't cycle is because they have more sense of fear. I certainly don't think it's the cycling helmets that put them off.

Teenage girls are more likely to be body/ image conscious so may worry about their hair, getting red-faced, sweaty etc. Schools don't often have nice showers / changing rooms etc that girls want to use.

They also may not be willing to wear clothes / shoes appropriate for cycling.

Girls drop out from all sport at a high rate from the age of 14 onwards, not just cycling.

i have always cycled everywhere, i did as a teen and then at uni as well and do still cycle wiht my kids, bike seats, trailer etc/ BUT i have always had a 'boys' bike i dont like the frames of the girls ones, i get on just fine with a male frame, tho i do change the seat, but to look at it it would like a 'boys' bike, so maybe some of them do belong to girls?

I had lunch in the canteen at my DSSs' school recently (language lunch, the non-Francophone parents volunteer to speak their own language to pupils). The teenaged girls were all charming and all revolted by the fact that they had to do sports with boys, including boxing.

That is much more of a feminist issue than cycling, IMVHO.

Ps - If anyone is interested generally in issues around women and sport look at the women's sport and fitness foundation website.

wsf

What is a 'definitely boy's' bike, though? Does it say 'boys only' on the frame? All of our family bikes are blue, black or red, with chunky tyres and cross-bars (though I do have a more wimpy silver one with a mixte frame for skirt-days).

Cross posts with, ooh, everyone there!

The senior schools around here arel single sex and a glance at the cycle shesd would tend to confirm the OPs observation that cycling is not nearly so common amongst girls as boys.

I think Daisy has it though - it's not just cycling, it's sport in general. Whether that is because girls are pushed away from sport or because boys are pushed too much into sport I'm in two minds about.

Cycling as a method of transport though is generally quite empowering and a pretty good foundation for a healthy lifestyle, so the gender difference does seem like something worth considering for our daughters' sakes.

They have been campaigns to encourage women (not just girls) to cycle. Basically the helmet is one factor, being sweaty etc another, footwear yet another and vulnerability yet another. I very much hope that when dd goes to university she will embrace her bike as a useful tool. At the moment she doesn't like arriving at school with a red face - her skin type pinkens up when exercising. Also walking with her friends is more sociable I guess.

You know, I can see that the footwear would be an issue (hordes of girls round here in slithery ballet pumps and blue legs even in the snow). I'm hoping DD will cycle to secondary , but they aren't allowed to wear trainer-style shoes, and I can just see a nice lace-up going down a treat when I suggest it.

Should I start a new thread in S&B for advice on cycle-friendly school footwear? Or just assume she'll need two pairs?

Girls not taking part in sport is a huge health issue, it makes me so sad that they generally don't do enough.

Osteoporosis is one risk of adolescent girls not being physically active results, even adult women can improve bone density through activity.

(sorry, this is my favourite soap box as I worked in community sports development for a while)

Teenaged girls don't like sport, as a whole. It's like marmite - some love, most hate, very few are indifferent.

This is because of many reasons. They never feel as good at it as the boys. In mixed lessons they are very frequently the victim of sexual comments from the boys. Breasts, especially growing breasts, can be painful when jiggled, even in a good bra. They don't want to get sweaty because they don't want to smell, and neither do they want to use the communal showers. They've often applied their make up quite carefully that morning in order to cover any blemishes or perceived blemishes, and they don't want to risk sweating it off.

Amongst the brighter girls, there is a feeling that sports at GCSE level is a complete waste of time unless one intends to be a PE teacher. At my comprehensive, PE was the ONLY class I deliberately skipped. Not because I had anything better to be doing but because I viewed exercise as a recreational activity and recreation should not be forced. This forcing of activity onto people only makes them reluctant to seek it for themselves.

FInally, PE teachers. Pe teachers have got to be some of the most under qualified and unprofessional teachers in existence. Verbal insults, abuse of power, very little idea of how the teenaged mind works, a complete lack of protection for the emotionally or physically vulnerable in their classes (ignoring sexual abuse from teenaged boys to teenaged girls - and yes, shouting "Wobbletitty wobbletitty" as a girl runs track is abusive)

Now this may very well be my experience of one mental PE teacher - but when you take into account that that pe teacher taught every single female who went to school between 1986 and 2005, in a town with a population of 50,000 - you are looking at a LOT of young women who will now have absolutely nothing to do with sport and that teacher cannot be the only one who was a bad teacher. This cannot be the only town where one bad teacher can ruin the attitude of 70% of the females aged 40 to 20? In what other teaching post is the job criteria "Make them run around in circles and shout at them"??

See, this is why I like the sports specialism at DS's school. They have several different 'pathways' for sport, and those who don't want to run in circles can choose a mix of indoor rowing, cycling, swimming, badminton, gym, table tennis and climbing wall. Far less opportunity to jiggle!
and it tends to be lots of girls per boy which DS rather likes

Just an observation from cycling in the UK, if you are obviously female and cycle, you are much more vulnerable to comments shouted from passing cars. Your legs are on display and apparently this is an invitation to be letched at and shouted at

Thanks for all the answers!

I may have been wrong on 1 or 2 bikes but most of them were most definitely teenage boy bikes (bmx style, very boy graphics, no mudguards etc..) rather than vaguely unisex blue bikes.

I was thinking more in terms of transport than sport. Not cycling when you are too young/too poor to drive means relying on parents, only going as far as you can walk or using public transport (very little of that around here). Why is it that more girls than boys are willing to put up with that impediment to their freedom?

I think its the shoes and hair thing, which seems much more important to girls than when I was at school....and I guess also because there are not so many girls and women on bikes it becomes a self-fulfilling thing with younger girls not seeing others on bikes and so it goes.

Useful info here

I would never cycle on roads because I am too terrified of being run over. But I could name 3 or 4 boys in my circle of friends who cycled to school, college or work, including going on quite busy roads. I can think of one girl, and she was not a typical "girly" girl, she was quite the opposite.

Once you hit 16 it tends to be the boys who opt for mopeds, too. I only ever met two or three girls who used mopeds despite it being a cheaper form of transport than a car, easier to pass the test and available a year earlier. Easily twice the amount of boys I knew had/have one.

Again, personally, I was terrified I'd fall off! This I think stems from school PE lessons too. I always feel like I'm useless at anything physical or requiring balance, co-ordination etc whereas actually I was quite good at gymnastics. Other issues are it being cold and uncomfortable - okay, sounds like a real "girly" complaint but maybe that's a real distinction? That boys are less likely to mind?

Thanks, that looks good. Wish there was more girls cycle proficiency training, and I'd like one of these bags.

But I guess however many showers, cool bags, cycle lanes etc... there are when it comes down to it cycling will always have a bit of an image of mad cat lady/mad professor/Emily Lloyd shouting 'Up Your Bum' in Wish You Were Here etc...

...which are all good things in my opinion but not the prevailing norm in culture which seems to be so constraining on today's teenage girls.

slug....now you have me thinking what might be shouted at me "Who's that fat-arsed momma in Bon Marche joggers holding up the traffic?"

dd has always cycled and my boys dont. But she is a student and its a cycling city. Mind you, she tied her bike up weeks ago and has forgotten where it is .

Yes it really has to do with teenage girls dropping all sorts of physical activitets, and start to become uncomfortable in their bodies :( Sport is really great for taking your mind of how you look to what you can do.
The bicycle meant a lot for women and our liberation in the 19th century:
www.feministfatale.com/2010/07/feminism-and-cycling-the-untrammeled-woman/ (US blogpost but v interesting)

A comic about the rebellious velocipedestriennes: (read this)
beatonna.livejournal.com/154048.html

When you think how body conscious many girls are - the obsession with not getting fat, body image - it's so counter intuitive that they don't do sport or cycle. How many fat sporty people do you see? Easiest way to keep your weight down is to do sport, not to push a lettuce leaf round your plate.

As a teenager all my (girl) friends cycled. Many of us had boys' bikes because the design was better and sturdier. And we certainly couldn't be arsed about our hair. The obligatory rude comments from passing knobheads were swiftly dealt with by a choice (picked from ones we we made earlier) put downs.

Are girls simply wimpier these days?

sportsfanatic - agree with what you have said, sport is good for your physical and mental health. It's also great for meeting friends and if you are single then there are lots of men in running, cycling clubs etc!

However, girls being "wimpier" now - it's hard to compare across generations. In the past possibly girls cycled more because their parents were less likely to have cars / chauffeur them around as happens more these days. Generally we live more sedentary, convenient lives so cycling is more of an anathema than it was 20 / 30 / 40 years ago.

Sport generally hasn't kept up with other changes - e.g. 30 years ago we were all pretty happy with communal changing rooms in clothes shops, now we expect cubicles (and shops know they sell more clothes if they provide nice changing rooms, mirrors etc). Yet gym changing rooms are still usually communal and some are grubby and smelly (even the private ones you pay a fortune for!). Because we have come to expect a certain standard in one aspect of our lives we want it from all.

I've been a bike geek of various sorts since my mid-teens. I've custom-built and loved riding mountain, road and fixie bikes and always shunned 'girls' bikes'. Not because I have some kind of internalised misogyny, but because bikes with dropped crossbars are generally heavier, not as well spec'd and designed for a type of trundly, dull sit-up-and-beg type riding that bored the tits off me.

Any teenage girl who's internalised the idea that they should ride a dropped crossbar bike in order to be seen as 'feminine' is going to have less fun cycling IMO, just because the kit is designed for ladylike pootling around and is definitely not optimised for an exciting, challenging ride.