How the Bicycle Emancipated Women
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- meligrosa
- added this
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14985/2/
womanlicious!a good quick snippet back in time with women and bikes, and horses and the bra.
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I love history.
--small excerpt /from the mentalfloss blog--
Before bicycles came along, the horse was the best means of individual travel. Of course, women’s access to horses was limited. Horses were dangerous and difficult to control; conventional medical wisdom suggested that riding them could damage a woman’s genitals. Women were supposed to ride sidesaddle, with both legs hanging off one side. In that unnatural position, women were unable to ride for long distances, reinforcing the idea that they shouldn’t be riding at all.
Bicycles, by comparison, were easy to manipulate. There was no reason a woman couldn’t get on a bike and sedately pedal farther from her home than she’d ever been before. No reason, that is, other than her cumbersome attire and the convention that if she did so, she’d either have her virtue corrupted or die of exhaustion.
As the bicycle continues to lend itself to causes of all kinds, it is important to remember its first battle. Liberating is a word easily associated with cycling. Flying down a tree-lined road with the wind in your face is certainly a liberating experience, but for early female cyclists, a simple bike ride was liberating in a much more significant way.
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- tags:
- Current Radio News, History, Transportation, Bikes, 13 more
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stopnoise
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Sequential voting, love that!
- 4 years ago
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stopnoise
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