I think these are wonderful words and very thoughtful and inspiring. I’m extremely curious why they’re only in the “politics” section, which apparently does not espouse the views of the shop, but individuals. Are “women” a minor special interest group that the male-dominated bicycle industry — nonprofit, collective, coop, recyclery, high-end retail shop, whatever — humors when it’s brought to their attention? Is the oppression of women (glaringly apparently especially in a mere lack of involvement from people with vaginas, which is male privilege, not female disinterest) really somewhere between where you want a bike lane, and taking your bike on a train? This is an issue that deserves constant vigilance and not a demotion to “politics,” a section of the site where probably only people who are already “down” are gonna look.

Some time back there was a thread on the thinktank mailing list where mostly white males did a head count on shops with women and trans nights or programs. It was a program I was interested in, and when I followed up with a new thread asking for some information on making it happen (how many people come on average, do you sign up or drop in, etc.) the same mostly white males had absolutely no information.

People without penises do not become involved in bicycles to make people with penises feel like better activists — but because, um, we’re able and competent and interested in bicycles. I’m sure the males on staff realize that on their own as human beings, and thank you, but it still needs to be reiterated aloud. In an actively male-dominated field, a passive ally is useless. Non-males (and non-whites) are not an “other,” and there are aggressively sexist reasons why there must be such a program in the first place. You can actively respect women and trans night, you can actively promote it, you can actively be undefensive to critique (as the least sexist men tend to hear the most about it — when it’s not accompanied by a punch in the mug, it’s a compliment coming from me), you can actively seek out your male privilege and only then confront it. Since males have such an extreme and undeserved majority in bicycle culture and “activism” in general, sincere males are therefore obligated to be the majority fighting gender oppression. It’s not a woman’s gentle, nurturing place to develop programs and constructively confront sexism with special interest side-projects. Do I have all the answers? Of course not. I’m only one bicycle nerd, and I do my part the best and most imaginatively I can, every moment of every workday. I expect the same from sincere male allies, and since most people involved are male — just think what you can do to fight oppression with your power, influence, and pure numbers.

I am saying this here because receptive audiences are rare and isolation sucks — not because I have any damn idea what I’m talking about! Woo! For all I know you simply haven’t launched the program yet, thus haven’t put this in its appropriate section of the site. I guess I have an interesting (and long-winded) concept of “encouragement and support,” but that’s my intention.

To make a long story short: Angie, this is fucking excellent and lifts my weary spirit and wrench.

I sincerely wish you guys a mild winter, overwhelming success in all your excellent work, and all the best.

P.S. — Maybe I’ll return to Michigan some day. I hear GM is hiring!

Andrea,
I did just want to respond and say that our women’s + trans night is under development. Angie was our only female collective member and got a few nights going, but since then has had to step down to go back to school in another city.
We’ve been keeping in touch with Angie and other female volunteers to hopefully develop and revitalize the women’s night in the future, but that will take some time since we want women to build the program and not us current wiener owners on the collective (though having a penis doesn’t make a man).
So all in all this article is to spark interest to help keep the program alive. Also, I think this news note is in the “politics” section because feminism is politics. The personal is political. Also this night does speak for the shop. We wouldn’t allow a women’s night in the space if we didn’t believe in what it is all about.
If you are interested about starting a women’s night at your local shop you should contact Allison at http://www.bikesaviours.org/ who has a lot of great resources on women’s nights and bike advocacy in general.

hope that helps and answers some questions.

- Jason X

I notice that neither Angie’s words nor mine mention ‘feminism’. If you are so generous to ‘allow a women’s night’ because you believe in ‘what it is all about’ . . . what is feminism? Why is it interchangable with WaTN? What is ‘it all about’?

Hi Andrea! I’m glad Angie’s writings on W+TN (is it too much to abbreviate? is abbreviation demotion?) motivate you to respond.

this is my short response, as I’m on deadline for a number of bike-shop related things:

1) It seems like the negative-tinged criticism is aimed at the fact that this type of discourse isn’t on our front page/more clearly stated as one of our goals.

1a) There’s no way for you to have known this, but I’ve kicked up some serious dust to contact qualified people (re: not male-identified, bike-savvy, and with time) and connect them in order to facilitate the existence of that particular night. If that sounds defensive, it’s only defensive to the part of your essay that makes it sound like we’re not trying. Not to the part about all the male privilege stuff. That’s all pretty obvious (to me, at least).

2) Your second comment about being “generous” sounds a bit aggro, to me. Though tone of voice is tough to get a grip on in text. I don’t want to speak for Jason X, but how that reads to me is that we wouldn’t have programming in which we didn’t believe. But hey, maybe the privilege of being able to deny is the same as the privilege of being able to grow.

2a)I’m not sure I follow the “WaTN = Feminism” track, either. Maybe I could if, in this context, it were merely about eliminating a male-identified presence in an bike-educational environment, but that’s likely a bit simplistic, though. Care to elaborate?

3) To complicate things, consider the following hypothetical:

-I am a male-identified employee in the bicycle industry
-I work and have access to bicycles and their maintenance as trade/industry
-I wear spandex at work sometimes.
-People of all ranges of identities expect to be able to leverage the possibility of sexual access towards receiving my services/goods at a reduced rate.
-This is generally acknowledged to be a result of wearing spandex.

3a)Dilemma:
-Do I smile and ignore (or even invert) this dynamic, as many waitresses/bartenders/service industry folks do?
-Do I alter my garb, make a conscious choice to not wear spandex?
-Do I as an “active ally” have an obligation to confront/broaden and potentially cost myself and my organization a dollar in a discretionary-income poor area where money goes a long way and we’ve got a long way to go?

Of course that’s a complex dilemma, and likely an unfair question (exactly as unfair as asking a dude to define feminism, I’d argue) and there’s no right answer all the time and every interaction gains it’s own perspective by being dealt with on a case by case basis, but hopefully my short-form here addresses some of your concerns.

I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to respond, and look forward to being able to read/write further later this week!

-jdr

I’ll take the bait. To me feminism is the belief that women are human beings deserving of respect, freedom and rights that all other humans as well should enjoy. Sadly, in todays world that is a radical idea.
So is women and trans night feminist? Yes it is and I am fully aware I am a somewhat male identified person labeling a night I don’t put together as feminist. However, my genitalia doesn’t determine my gender experience or expression which is a concept the “+ trans” population can understand. So maybe I should use the term “trans-feminist” which I don’t have a definition for, but I see more as a movement that has moved beyond a binary understanding of gender justice issues. That is a whole different conversation though. Bottom line, genitalia doesn’t determine gender.

Back to the point at hand, yes women are under represented in the bike “industry/scene/population.” Often men will take wrenches out of women’s hands or assume they don’t know what they are doing because of their gender presentation as if mechanical know how is a gendered thing.
This doesn’t sound pretty but it is a reality. Also, as far as me “allowing” a women and trans night – yes that is exactly what is happening. Because as much as I would like this world to have no authority and destroy hierarchies, the fact is that I am on the collective of the HUB and have power over how the space is use. Another reality is that at this current time all of our collective members lean towards the male point on the gender spectrum. So there is definitely a male orientated power dynamic at the HUB. I’m not saying that there is nothing we can do about it, but simply that it is the current reality we are opporating under.
With those realities laid out, I would say that within this system of current hierarchies and current realities that women and trans night is in fact a feminist endeavor. The reason I label it as “feminist” is because of all the reasons I’ve laid out. I like to think that the reason the night exists and I support it is because I look at the world through a feminist’s lens otherwise I would be blind to the inequalities within the shop.
I don’t have theories or academic sources to referrence a world wide accepted definition of feminism and how it relates to women and trans night. I view feminism like anarchism – a very simple idea on life that can be carried out many different ways. Debate and discussion on these issues only helps understanding of them and due to their simplicity discussion must really be never ending to see them realized, but making something like feminism too defined and academic restricts those that are willing to participate in social justice issues.

I hope that begins to answer your questions,
Jason X

You think you’ve won; fuck you. You’ve done nothing but pat yourself on the dick. I have been silent because all you have explained is why women are shunned and unwelcome from The Hub and the bicycle industry. I hope you die. I hope you continue to loll blissfully in your misygynist-profit model — you will never know what hit you. We organize only to oust you and your supremecist kind. You will have a taste of your own ‘radical-dude’ medicine and it will leave you bloody, raped, co-opted and worthless. You want direct action? Shoot yourselves. This is war.

Andrea,

At first I wanted to envelope, squeeze, crush you with the bigness and complexity of the issues anyone who has walked through our doors (and countless many who have not) gets to face every day.

I had written a very concise, complete, and artful response to the hatred you post here. But then I realized that the folks I work alongside,

-the folks who bike to work in the freezing snow, in the middle of a car-steeped town,

-who volunteer their time even if only to try and build their knowledge base

-the folk who are committed to bringing more access to bicycle knowledge than there are right now

-the folk who take the time out of their day to get together and put together a plan of action even though they aren’t asked to, and aren’t necessarily getting paid to,

-the folk who care more about what you want to learn than about what you look like

They deserve more of my time and words than you.

Their actions, which you may never get to watch, will husk, mill, and crumble your hatred away before your very eyes.

When this cold reality embraces you, and you must warm yourself with something other than hatred to stay alive, then maybe my time will be well spent.

Until then,
jdr

Damn, put down the thesaurus and take responsiblity.

-the men who bike to work in the freezing snow, in the middle of a car-steeped town, who were conditioned from birth to believe that they are capable of being strong and athletic, and are less likely to be injured or killed in traffic. Being conditioned since birth to believe they are mechanically inclined, if these men instead embrace cars, they may join the 98.4% of car mechanics in the US that are male. Also, members of their own sex will control the industry, be more likely to get jobs on assembly lines, control the unions, own dealerships, teach drivers ed, and will not be derided as ‘woman drivers’. They will not be overcharged because of their gender or be sexually harrassed if they choose to have someone else service their vehicle. If these men instead embrace walking, they will be much safer on the sidewalks than women.

-the men who volunteer their time (of which they have more to spare than women, since they will be paid more and get more desirable jobs, do less unpaid domestic work, do not contribute equally to child rearing, are not required by society to spend as much time or money on grooming — according to the OECD, American men enjoy an average of 38 minutes more leisure time per day) even if only to try and build their knowledge base in a field that welcomes their sex.

-the men who are committed to bringing more access to bicycle knowledge than there is right now, and bring it primarily to other men and were taught by other men, and will not accept any responsiblity for this boys’ club because they blatantly benefit from perpetuating it. They will quietly exclude women, then turn around and teach a man how to fix his girlfriend’s bike for her, and claim moral blamelessness the whole time.

-the men who take the time out of their day (perhaps including the 38 minutes more leisure time they enjoy than their female counterparts) to get together with other men and put together a plan of action even though they aren’t asked to, and aren’t necessarily getting paid to, although they stand an excellent chance of getting and keeping a job in the industry compared to women (and will not be harrassed and threatened because of their sex at this job), and are often capable of paying themselves and other men.

-the men who care more about what you want to learn than about what you look like, as if claiming to be ‘gender blind’ makes oppression and male priviledge magically disappear.

Mz. Hernandez,

Y’all from Fayetteville should come up and visit Detroit some time so you have some frame of reference. Otherwise you just come off sounding like this:

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=24419

Also, asking someone to put down their thesaurus just so you can pick yours up and read the “men” entry is pretty tacky.

Gotta say I agree with dude above about not wasting time on hatred, so I’m off.

Can we all just get along? NO.
We are different, we are not made equal, we are equal, but different…….made that way.
Go mutate with your choice……….Gal. 6:7