Not all men
But enough of them that it has to be everybody's problem
Last week I had a conversation I’ve had many times before.
This time it was with Tegan Phillips, whose work you may well know.1 She had recently posted on Instagram about an annoying encounter with a man, and been inundated with messages from women, telling her their own stories of how men have accosted them, patronised them, insulted them, lectured them, interfered with their bikes, invaded their space, and generally wasted their time. It happens so much.
I’ve been cycling seriously for 19 years now, and I still have to deal with men who talk to me as if I’m a beginner, or go to great lengths to demonstrate that they are the expert. I must have had literally hundreds of these encounters. I’ve listed some of the more memorable ones below. There are a lot of them – I don’t expect everyone to read to the end of this post – but I wanted to try and give an impression, to those who don’t experience this, of just how much it happens.
Whenever women rant about men’s bad behaviour, as Tegan and I did the other day, we attach the obligatory disclaimer: not all men.
Perhaps this is fair enough. I’m sure there must be a few men in existence who have genuinely never belittled a woman, and it’s apparently vital that we don’t offend them. But I wonder if ‘not all men’ ends up absolving too many men of responsibility, and tells them that if they don’t recall causing offence, they don’t need to worry about it.
I think we all need to worry about it. There are so many men behaving like this. They’re really letting the side down.
Some people reading this will probably dismiss me as a man-hater, but that’s missing the point. It would be much easier to just be anti-men, but as it happens, men are varied and complex creatures, and it’s impossible to put them all in one bracket. There are numerous men in my life who I adore, admire and in some cases slightly idolise. I have learned from men; been challenged by them; had my life changed by them. I have more in common with many men than I do with many women. I’ve met good men who occasionally get it wrong, and dreadful men who have some redeeming features.
I mean, they’re just people, aren’t they? They contain multitudes.
And that’s part of the problem.
We don’t have the luxury of dividing men into ‘the good ones’, and the annoying bastards who make sexist assumptions. I’ve heard off-colour comments from men I otherwise really liked, and I’ve had to process my annoyance and get over it, because on balance it was worth keeping this person in my life.
And yes, we should take this seriously, because a world where men constantly belittle women, and women have to deal with it, is not a healthy one. I’ve been deflecting sexist comments for very nearly twenty years now. There’s no way that a sustained pattern like that won’t affect people’s behaviour and outlook.
Women will end up internalising the idea that they’re less knowledgeable and proficient than the men that surround them. Men will miss out on the opportunity to learn from experts in their field. Women will get fed up with it all, and lose patience with the men in their lives.2
What if the men who underestimate women are the ones deciding who gets jobs in the cycling media and the bike industry?3
What if women become cynical, and defensive, and ever on the lookout for an opportunity to prove that they bloody well know what they’re doing?
If you are a man, and catch yourself thinking ‘what’s the big deal?’, or trying to explain or minimise all of this – please accept that this might just be an experience that you can’t relate to. It could well be invisible to you, like some of the other unsavoury ways in which men behave towards women. It might not happen when you’re around. There may be no obvious analogy with your own life.4 You’ll just have to take our word for it.
It’s such a pervasive problem that it implicates all of us. Even if you’re not a perpetrator or a victim, you need to be setting a good example, or trying to come up with the ultimate all-purpose comeback that will stop it from happening. We women are already doing everything we can think of.
None of this is intended as an accusation. I have no way of knowing which of my readers are guilty of this behaviour, and if you’re innocent, then thanks very much for being a decent person.
You still need to know this is going on though, and how pervasive it is.
Yes, not all men – but it’s always a man.
It was a man who expressed surprise, when I met him on the Woolwich ferry, that I had cycled all the way from Brixton. It was my first year on the bike, but I was already obsessed, and this was a route I occasionally did if I was bored at home – I’d ride out through Peckham and New Cross, cross the Thames on the free ferry, and ride back via Canary Wharf and Wapping. Probably 20 miles in all.
“Good for you!” he exclaimed, “good for you!” He was taller, older, wearing ‘proper’ cycling kit.
I was puzzled. A couple of hours’ ride was clearly not a big deal for him, so why was he applying a different standard to me? I considered putting him right, and telling him about the hundred-milers I’d started doing at weekends, but that would have felt like boasting.
It was a man who wouldn’t leave me alone as I fixed a puncture in my first year as a courier. Even after I insisted that I didn’t need help, he stayed to supervise the process, and kept up a running commentary that made it look like he was advising me on every step.
It was a man who approached me in a panic, as I was delivering something to the loading bay where he worked.
“Love – love – love! Your tyres have gone bald! Look, there’s no grip left on them. You need to get them changed!”
He nodded impatiently through my explanation of knobbly versus slick tyres.
“Yes, well, as I said, you should get them looked at asap.”
It was a man who repeatedly sprinted to overtake me on my commute one morning – and then would immediately slow down, so that I was left with the choice of overtaking him again, or crawling along behind him at a pace that would make me late for work.
Eventually I gave up and took a different route to get away from him. When we re-encountered each other at a junction, he smiled and waved, clearly assuming that we had been racing, or perhaps even flirting with each other.
It was a man who yelled “you need to learn to ride that thing properly, love!” in objection to something perfectly legal and sensible I had done that momentarily obstructed the taxi he was driving.
It was a man (several men, in fact), who asked me how I was getting on with riding fixed, or said “I see you’re on a fixie now,” even though I had never ridden anything else.
It was a man who talked me through the process of fixing a puncture, as I waited for him to patch his inner tube beside the road in Serbia.
(We were both several months into long-distance bike tours.)
It was a man who informed me I was “actually quite a strong cyclist,” when we rode together in Turkey, having cycled there from Belgium and Wales respectively.
It was a man who insisted on ‘helping’ me, as I dismantled and cleaned my bike in the courtyard of his guesthouse, so that the entire process took twice as long and I had to stop and check the bike after I left, to make sure he hadn’t caused any damage.
It was a man who laughed out loud when I told him I was planning to ride 200km from Kerman to Bam the following day, and told me he would personally escort me to the train and make sure I got on it, because it was too far, and too dangerous to cycle.
Thankfully I was rescued from his guesthouse by an awesome (female) Couchsurfing host I’d managed to get in touch with, otherwise I think he would have carried out his threat.
It was a man who immediately bent down and started adjusting my brakes, without asking permission, when I crossed paths with him and his wife in Lahore.
It was a man who, after I had stayed with his family in the Punjab, made a big performance of squeezing my tyres before I set off, informing that one of them was ok, and that I should go to a workshop in town to get the other one topped up.
(They were both fine; I had a pump.)
It was a man who barged in and took over when my friend Michael asked me for help with his brakes in a hostel in Kashgar.
After examining the bike for several minutes, with an air of expertise that we all instinctively deferred to, he shook his head as if in amazement, and said “I’ve never actually seen this type of brake before.”
(It was an off-the-peg bike with Magura disc brakes.)
It was a man who explained the different types of bike to me, as we sat outside a off-licence with some fellow couriers.
“And that’s a touring bike,” he said, pointing at the bike I had built myself and crossed a continent on.
It was a man who had sucked his teeth at that same bike, two days into my trip, when we met on the Severn Bridge.
“Are those non-standard wheels?” he tutted. “Ooh you’ll have trouble finding spares for them outside the UK.”
(I had built the bike with 26” wheels precisely because that was the international standard.)
It was a man who said “nice bike – is it your fella’s?” when I eventually swapped back to my much-loved Joe Waugh fixie.
It was a man who sent me an unsolicited message, warning me off bike touring in Iceland, because it would be cold.
(But not as cold as Turkey and Iran, where I had previously bike toured.)
It was a man who blanked me when I tried to ask about membership of the expensive South London cycling hub where he worked.
Once I had managed to convince him to accept hundreds of pounds of my money (I really should just have walked out), he went through the timetable and pointed out which Wattbike classes to avoid, because they were “hardcore.”
It was a man who smiled sympathetically and asked “first time?” as I stood in Brixton Cycles with my carbon road bike, tan lines and high-end kit, shortly before racing across Europe.
It was a man who offered me unsolicited advice on pacing, as we rode alongside each other on the first night of the Transcontinental.
It was a man who expressed surprise at my ‘toughness’, when I overtook him five days in.
It was a man who strode up as I was carefully trying to remove my pedals at the end of the race, so that I could pack my bike up for the journey home. I was using the small multitool with which I had put them on, but I knew there was a good chance they would have seized or tightened in transit – in which case I would have to go and see if anyone on the race crew could lend me a bigger tool.
The man, who didn’t speak English, elbowed me aside, and put all his force through the tool, instantly breaking its ratchet mechanism. As I reeled in shock, he raced off to a storeroom (we were in the hotel that housed race HQ), and came back with a large adjustable spanner, which he tightened round the bit from my tool, and successfully removed the pedal.
He handed it to me with a ‘you’re welcome’ expression, and hurried away before I could make a fuss about the broken tool.
It was a man who held forth, at considerable length, about his various touring and time trialling achievements, as we sat at the top of Bryn Du Road outside Llanidloes, waiting for the Tour of Britain to pass through.
I listened politely and asked appropriate questions, wondering if the conversation would come round to my own interest in cycling, but it didn’t. The only conclusion I could draw was that he didn’t think I’d have anything worthwhile to say.
It was a man who invited himself on a Women’s 100 ride I organised (to ‘support’ us), and then raced off to be first to the top of every hill.
It was a man who paused as he stepped onto a train, on a rainy night in November, placed his hand on my front tyre where my mudguard ended, and stared at it for a few moments, as if wracking his brains for what to tell me about it.
“Well that’ll end up spraying you in the face,” he eventually said, shaking his head. He moved on into the carriage, and the queue of people waiting behind him were finally able to board the train.
(Think about the way the wheels turn on a bike – he was wrong.)
It was a man who asked “so is this the first time you’ve cycled for three weeks?”, as we rode together on Le Loop – an event I had already captained for several years.
Would you have asked that of a man? I silently fumed.
It was a man who offered me weight loss advice, on the first day of that ride, before he realised what my body was capable of.
It was a man who appeared as I was assembling my bike at the start of the Tour of Wessex (a three-day, 600km sportive in the south of England), and tried to help me put my front wheel on.
“Thanks, but I’m ok.”
All around us, tall men were getting their bikes out of their cars, and putting their front wheels on. I wondered how he had singled me out as being in need of help.
As ever, it took a couple of attempts to get the wheel in at the right angle. My new friend took this as confirmation that I couldn’t do it, and swarmed back into my personal space, as I twisted away from him, trying to keep his hands off my bike.
Eventually the wheel was on, and we both relaxed.
“I’ll see you on the road then,” I said, hoping this would make him go away.
“Ah, well I’m actually working on one of the food stops.”
“Oh great – well, see you there.”
“Umm, yeah, maybe. It’s just, not everyone’s going through that one – it’s quite far out.”
I see. Nice of you to assume I wouldn’t be doing the longer route.5
He finally left me in peace.
A couple of minutes later I discovered that I had damaged one of my stem bolts, and went to queue at the mechanics’ gazebo, to ask for a spare. Annoyingly, that very same man happened to walk past and see me.
“I knew you’d need help with that,” he gloated, and chuckled to himself.
It was a man who walked past later that day, when I had stopped in a small village to help another rider with a puncture. It turned out he had very little experience fixing them, so I did it for him, and then leant against a nearby wall and waited as he put his wheel back on his bike.
It was at this point that the man came past, and with a knowing smile, said to me:
“It’s nice having an on-board mechanic, isn’t it?”
Clearly his reading of the situation was that I was watching passively while my husband/boyfriend fixed my bike for me.
Both the rider and I regretted not putting him straight, but as often happens, the encounter was over before either of us could figure out what to say.
It was a man (one of the organisers, in fact), at the end of that sportive, who said:
“You’ve cycled 600km this weekend. Do you realise that’s over 300 miles?”
His tone suggested that I might not know, and that I should be feeling a sense of awe at what I had achieved. And true, that’s a big distance, but I was at the height of my ultra-cycling powers, and had probably done more miles that month than anyone else there. He didn’t seem to be congratulating any of the men.
It was a man who responded to a cycling selfie I sent him by saying:
“FYI you don’t need to wear a cap with your helmet.”
It was a man who asked which distance I was planning to ride, when we met on a press trip hosted by the Mallorca 312 sportive. (We had the choice between the full 312km route, and truncated versions of 225km and 167km.)
“The 312,” I replied.
“Oh! Well good for you. Go for it!”
His surprise then turned to sympathy, as if I had sought his reassurance.
“Well, it’s long. But you’ll be fine. Just take it nice and steady.”
I was actually planning to smash it. I had already ridden a 300 every month that year, plus the rest, and was feeling on top of my game.
“Which route are you planning to do?” I asked.
“The 312, of course,” he responded, as if that should have been obvious.
It was a man who dropped the hammer and sprinted away from me and a friend, as we all rode along the Wye Valley one sunny
He and his wife were pootling along on rented hybrids, dressed for a picnic. My friend and I were on a recovery ride, also going pretty slowly, and when we called out “hello, coming past on your right,” he pedalled away as fast as he could, and didn’t look back.
We said hi to his wife as we passed, and carried on at our sedate pace. I wondered if we might pass him further along the road, panting at the top of a hill as he waited for her. But we never saw him again.
There are more I haven’t included because they’re harder to explain, or just plain repetitive: the tyre-squeezers, the puncture supervisors, the serial overtakers, the interminable monologists, the innumerable mansplainers. All the men who ignored or talked over me when I tried to contribute to a conversation, or gently point out that they had got something wrong. Or the incidents that seemed more fatphobic than directly sexist, or that involved groping or cat-calling, or unsolicited touching to ‘help’ me up a hill, because you have to draw the line somewhere. I’m sure there will also be plenty I’ve forgotten. Sometimes it’s not so much an incident, as the tone of a conversation, or the tenor of a relationship.
If you’re a woman who cycles, and if you have some things to get off your chest, feel free to do so in the comments. This is a safe space.
If you’re a man who has felt uncomfortable reading this, you’re very welcome to stop reading, and go elsewhere. But if you can bear it, I’d urge you to sit with that discomfort for a while. We women have gone to such lengths to make you feel comfortable over the years – nodding, smiling, listening to your monologues, forgiving your missteps, accepting the help and advice we didn’t ask for, remembering to say “not all men” whenever we complain. How about returning the favour?
Until next week,
Emily
I think this might be one of the reasons some of us appreciate women-and-non-binary spaces so much – they’re usually wonderfully respectful and supportive environments, with far less chance that someone will behave weirdly because something has troubled their ego.
I mean, they undeniably are – just look at how male-dominated certain events, publications and brands are.
Though someone did once tell me that the frustration I feel when a man explains my bike to me sounded a lot like his experience of being out with his kids, and having to fend off unsolicited advice from well-meaning women. That might ring a bell with some of you.
It’s not be all men who make the comments but how many men call out their fellow men, how many men say ‘she probably knows what she’s doing’, how many men say ‘that’s not an appropriate comment’ how many men say ‘don’t talk to her like that’ how many men say ‘ leave her alone, she’s not interested’ Their silence means they are complicit. I am fed up with women being told they have to fix this. No it’s men who do it and it’s men who need to fix it.
It may not be easy to call out your friends but it’s not easy to constantly be the recipient of these comments and harassment. It’s time for not all men to stand up and be counted.
Not cycling, but the mountaineering world is chock full of this as well. Some of my 'favourites': the man who accosted me on a high peak in the Lakes one December afternoon with the line 'you do realise it's going to get dark soon?'; the man, also in the Lakes on a different day, who informed me I should be in boots not the trainers in which I'd been to 5,000m in the Himalaya a few weeks before; the Italian guide in the Himalaya who had no relationship to me but insisted on re-doing my abseil set up after I'd done it exactly correctly myself; the French guy at a crag in Chamonix who took it upon himself to walk over and 'check' the knot on my climbing harness, which just happened to involve him pawing around my groin; the elderly gent on the Malvern hills who informed me I was wearing too little clothing for the 'strong winds' on the summit 5 metres away. Etc etc. And that's not even to get started on the mansplaining from shop assistants.
I have also, obviously climbed with many men who have built my confidence, and very literally put their lives in my hands. But I am absolutely sure that the frequent implicit questioning of my competence, usually by random strangers who have no need to talk to me at all, has held me back from feeling as sure of my self as my skills, fitness and experience should have allowed me to feel. (Yes, I'm angry - and then my default is to try to tone that down, and acknowledge once again that 'it's not all men'.)