I'm not sure how we got from women feeling a bit uncomfortable when they come into the Road forum ...... to ****. Can we take several large steps back please?

Let's go back to a comment I thought I read here ... there's too many pages to go through to find it now ... something about society, women, and exercise.


I suspect part of the reason women feel uncomfortable coming into the Road forum has nothing at all to do with the possibility of encountering crude comments, but rather that for some reason society in general still does not encourage women to be active.

When the Paris-Brest-Paris first started, there were women who wanted to participate in it, but they were turned down because it was thought that a ride of that magnitude might kill them ... and also probably because doing things like that wasn't considered lady-like. But that was the attitude of the turn of the century ... women were considered fragile, and participating in sports was considered un-lady-like.

Unfortunately that attitude has continued through the years, although the current curriculums (in Canada and Australia, at least) are trying to encourage girls to participate in sports and to make sports and activity a life-long thing.

In addition to that is the attitude that women are naturally not mechanically inclined. I don't think that's true ... they just haven't been given a chance to become mechanically inclined. Throughout history women have been taught to sew and cook and do that sort of thing, while the men were out working with the horses and plow, or working on the tractor, or whatever. Again, it wasn't considered lady-like to fix a tractor.

And schools promoted this by putting the guys into shop and putting the girls into the cooking classes. Even when I went to school, I was put in one shop class (because they were making a very small effort to make all the classes gender neutral) where I was allowed to bend metal, but that was it ... I was not allowed to actually work on the car or anything, and I was put in several sewing and cooking classes ... which I hated and never did very well in.

So many of the guys here may have gotten their first bicycles when they were 5 or 6 and have been tearing around on bicycles since then, and have been involved in other sports. They may also have been involved in mechanical activities like the shop classes where they rebuild engines etc., so they have developed a mechanical ability. They have also developed the vocabulary that goes along with being involved in sports and mechanical things.

Women may have gotten a bicycle when they were young too, but by the time they hit their teen years most women I know put the bicycle away and if they were involved in any sort of sport, they gradually stopped doing that too. Most women I know have never rebuilt a car or done anything mechanical. They don't know an allen key from a crescent wrench. Most women I know got married and had kids and became working or stay-at-home moms and never gave their bicycles or sports a second thought.

And many women, even here on BF, are still in that sort of mindset. IF they happen to get a bicycle it's because of pressure from a husband or boyfriend, or maybe a vague desire to get into shape. But they feel like they know so little about bicycles that they are not even sure what questions to ask. They might not even have the vocabulary to use. Maybe they venture in here, but they see everyone talking away using words they don't understand or in ways they don't understand. And they see all the teasing that goes on. And so ... they don't come back here to ask questions.


I have had no problem coming here to the Road forum. I've been cycling since I was 6 years old. I grew up in a family where both my parents cycled. I grew up reading Bicycling Magazine. This is all familiar territory to me.

But I'm venturing into the world of mtn biking with the paths and trails around here so I thought I'd go into the Mountain Bike Forum for the first time ever last week and see if I could find any advice on descending. I thought I'd start by reading their Newbie sticky ... because that's what we encourage newbies to do here. I made it about halfway through the first post in the Newbie sticky and was lost. The Newbie thread was too advanced for me. I don't know their vocabulary! I glanced over some of the other posts and felt even more intimidated and lost. I left without asking my question and haven't been back because I was afraid my question would sound really stupid and that I wouldn't understand the answers they gave me anyway.

I suspect that's how a lot of women (and perhaps male newbies as well) feel when they come here too.


What can we do about it? I'm not sure ... but in the Mountain Bike forum I would have appreciated a dictionary of terms as a sticky ... maybe we need something like that here too. Maybe we need to take another look at the Newbie sticky to make sure it is welcoming ... and basic.