Originally Posted by AzTallRider

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the biggest factor keeping women away from road racing: Triathlons.

And the women on our team whom aren't tri-chicks seem to have been gravitating towards MTB.

Originally Posted by Enthalpic

Money won't do it. Couple races up here offered free entry, all races offer crazy prizes (funded from the men's fields) and it makes no difference.

Cross country and cyclocross don't have any problem attracting the ladies.

Originally Posted by EventServices

That's a good point about the acceptability of not winning in a 'cross race. It's also because you're in control of your own world in that sort of event.

A female rider I knew from Dayton OH outlined a lot of the problems, and they made a lot of sense:
Athletic women in their teens aren't exposed to bike racing as readily as volleyball, basketball, track, etc.
Athletic women with any ambition in their twenties are in grad school pursuing advanced degrees.
Athletic women in their thirties are chasing a career or starting a family.
Athletic women in their 40s are usually the primary caregiver for a family and don't want to risk getting hurt.

I got harangued for repeating that to a handful of women racers. They didn't agree with a word of it.

Originally Posted by grolby

I think there's a meeting of larger cultural issues (in particular, women being socialized to avoid competition to a much greater extent than men) and some of the particular elements of road racing culture. Like the extreme competitiveness and (contrary to gtrob's post above) often hyper-macho attitudes of most male bike racers. The more even participation in MTB and CX are perfect examples of the difference culture can make. Small fields are also less discouraging in those disciplines than in road racing. It's easier to keep growing if the women's fields in a 'cross race start out at ten riders, because getting dropped isn't really a thing. There's a much more serious chicken and egg problem on the road, where small fields = getting dropped over and over, which means no longer showing up to that race, or maybe no longer showing up to ANY races.

I sympathize with promoters who go to the trouble to incentivize women for racing in their events, only to have them fail to show, but I don't really have an answer to it other than that they need to keep at it if they can possibly afford it, because it's the right thing to do. Complaining about women not showing up to these races loses track of the fact that women have the same right to choose their events for their own reasons that men do, and this problem isn't their fault. It's the larger culture's fault, for making it more difficult in general for women to want to enter competitive sports, and it's our specific fault for having a road racing culture that's so unfriendly to most women as they are. Gary's post being a perfect example of the kind of hostility that isn't helpful, no matter how justified he feels. Gary's post is also a perfect example of why combining men's and women's fields doesn't really do anyone any favors. But see again for chicken and egg, and the logistics of running enough separate fields can be really, really hard for a road event. There's a lot that needs to happen, but one of them is going to have to be organizers continuing to take it on the chin as much as they can while running a sustainable event, because it's the right thing to do.

I don't think things are hopeless. There's good women's racing where there's good participation. Collegiate racing (in the ECCC anyway) has some great participation and good races. And at the highest level of the sport, the quality of the racing these days is crazy, crazy good - the women's Olympic RR was better than the men's in 2012. So was Worlds. It's been just as good since then. It's absolutely worth continuing to try, even if it weren't just the right thing to do.