A council has apologised after publishing a report using sexist stereotypes to describe the benefits of electric hire bikes to women.
Liberal Democrat-run Kingston-upon-Thames Borough Council’s Place Committee was debating the latest contract tendering for e-bike hire companies. Attached to the committee documents was an Equalities Impact Assessment, evaluating the policy’s implementation and proposed impact on different communities. However, the council has now conceded the language used in the document was “outdated and inappropriate.”
The original document is no longer available online, but a section has been published in both the Daily Mail and Metro detailing how e-bikes “may increase women’s access to cycling and physical activity by making it easier for women to meet their traditional domestic responsibilities, as well as stay looking ‘nice’ on a bike.”
Among the social media comments compiled by the Mail were “Kingston council e-bike sexist horror”, and “Weep, women of Kingston, weep!”
In response, the council said the wording “was a direct quote from a peer reviewed academic paper [published in 2021] which was used as part of the research” for the Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA).
“While the research quoted highlights how the availability of e-bikes is challenging sexism and making cycling more accessible for some women, we accept that using the quote, especially in isolation and without reference, is likely to cause offence, therefore it should never have been included in the EQIA.
“This description does not align with the council’s commitments to fairness, inclusivity and protecting the rights of all women and girls.
“We would like to sincerely apologise for this error and for any offence caused. We are committed to fairness and equality of opportunity, working with communities and partners to ensure Kingston is a place where we celebrate diversity, tackle inequality and strive to ensure that everyone feels safe, valued, and heard.”
The council has since published an updated equality impact assessment, which now refers to “the wider population” and removes reference to stereotypical expectations.
The full paragraph now reads: “E-bikes may increase active travel amongst women as well as the wider population by for example enabling carrying of goods or shopping and allowing more complex trip chaining that people with caring responsibilities may face more regularly.
“They are challenging sexism in cycling in important ways: making bike retail and repair environments more inclusive for women, challenging sexism in bike design and marketing and increasing women’s sense of confidence and entitlement to occupy the road space. They are also opening up more empowering and enjoyable opportunities for physical activity to a wider group of women.”
However, an anonymous resident told the Mail the updated language “still frames women in terms of assumed roles, rather than providing a balanced, evidence-based assessment.”
32 thoughts on “Horror as council issues report saying e-bikes can help women to meet their “traditional domestic responsibilities””
Appalling gender stereotyping. To avoid discrimination maybe Kingston on Thames BBC should have also pointed out the benefits of e-bikes to men?
They can commute home quicker allowing more time to eat their tea (cooked by the missus while wearing high heels and an apron) and spend the evening in their vest and slippers, watching the football and farting.
If the man isn’t interested in football he could maybe spend the time after tea welding or laying concrete.
@Mr Blackbird it’s true, as soon as I started cycling again as an adult I found myself yelling “alright darlin’!” at every young woman I passed. I also started smoking a pipe, falling asleep while reading a newspaper on Sundays and developed an uncontrollable urge to explain things to random strangers.
KoTBC’s advice could also lead to an increased level of 1970s sitcom style RTAs.
Eg a vicar crashing his Morris Minor into a duckpond after glimpsing a young female ebiker’s suspenders.
@Mr Blackbird I miss the old times when a vicar would simply drive into a pond when sexually aroused. Seems like a good way to keep the libido in check.
Perhaps e-bikes could help councillors to meet their traditional responsibility to engage their brain before opening their mouth?
@Backladder I fear there is no such traditional responsibility
@AidanR They declare that they will faithfully fulfil the duties of their office to the best of their judgement and ability, I would say that that requires engaging their brain and also that many councillors do not take that declaration seriously these days
Though to be fair on the councillors, they almost certainly didnt compile or write the report, some council officer or possibly ludicrously overpaid consultant did that. Still begs the question of what kind of time warp Kingston upon Thames might exist in? Is it safe to cycle through or does your bicycle suddenly mutate into a Raleigh 3 speed and your lycra shorts grow buff corduroy stripes with buckles below your knees?
I assume all the proof readers are elderly, white males.
Nope – I check all those boxes and I’m sure I would have caught this before it was released. Perhaps we should add “misogynist” to the list above.
There were proof readers, right? Please tell me there was at least one.
@Terry Hutt Hoo kneads a proof reader when ewe have a spell chequer?
I’d expect this sort of thing from a Reform led council.
Exactly what I thought! It’s probably official policy for them. Expected better from the Lib Dem’s though. @OldRidgeback
@OldRidgeback
You beat me to it.
Maybe LD and Reform UK Party Ltd have swapped ideologies?
It’s good to see The Mail leading on equality and promoting modern, progressive ideas. It’s a champion of such.
“In response, the council said the wording “was a direct quote from a peer reviewed academic paper [published in 2021]”
Was the research paper published by Kabul University?
@Pub bike I think they meant 1921
“Peer reviewed” maybe as in some curmudgeonly old toff who spends most his time asleep on the back-benches of the house of lords?
That would fit
The paper, I think: https://activetravelstudies.org/article/id/991/
Unsurprisingly, it’s a rather more nuanced study than the clumsy quote suggests:
“Our research suggests that electric bikes are reshaping the cycling landscape in ways that both reinforce as well as challenge traditional gendered mobility and physical activity ideals. This new bike technology makes it easier for women to meet their traditional domestic responsibilities, as well as stay looking “nice” on a bike. But e-bikes are also challenging sexism in cycling in important ways: making bike retail and repair environments more inclusive for women, challenging sexism in bike design and marketing and increasing women’s sense of confidence and entitlement to occupy the road space. They are also opening up more empowering and enjoyable opportunities for physical activity to a wider group of women.”
@quiff Women in intensely faith-based communities perhaps still have to fulfil “traditional domestic responsibilities” and to dress in more traditionally feminine ways, so cycling is not seen as good for them.
This make me think of the early days of the bicycle – European countries which at the time still had prescriptive and quite restrictive views of female roles and appropriate behaviour and there were certainly outpouring of concern about the idea of women cycling. (Although I believe there was more acceptance of the zoo of “wheeled self-propelled contraptions” of the Victorian era).
And … maybe they were right in that perhaps this did lead (eventually) to some social liberalisation / young people mixing?
Also thinking about an example the other way where NGOs working to help people have provided bicycles to eg. assist women bringing produce to market, only to find that these are all appropriated by men. (Perhaps a bit like “the man drives the car” which can still be seen to some extent in the UK).
Of note is that Dutch women on average make more cycle trips than men. That’s nothing to do with ebikes, but the efforts made (infra and built environment) to make driving not be the default for shorter trips. Plus women still do more of the admin / (child)care than men there.
I am the woman who complained to the Council and put a post on my local FB group. I was away last week and have been encouraged by the rightful outrage across the country. The trouble is the failure is not limited to that ine awful statement. The whole assessment is totally flawed. You can watch a summary of my thoughts in tiktok here: ▶️Watch the full video now!
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRvGhrSy/
@cooji The problem generative AI (I know you’re not trying to pretend it’s anything but), having grown up in that neck of the woods I’m pretty certain Kingston and Worcester Park aren’t in the same direction from the Fountain roundabout, and East London’s 175 bus route most definitely does not run through there!
I know. I didn’t want to use up.too much electricity or water generating the image. The moderators of the NM FB group wanted a local image though. Here is the generic one I did first.I asked for an image od a woman looking nice on a bike with he Guildhall and telephone boxes in the background. Still not perfect…
@cooji The attempts I made in infant school at drawing a house were more realistic and convincing than the above image.
Scrapbook or it didn’t happen?
I know. I didn’t want to use up.too much electricity or water generating the image. The moderators of the NM FB group wanted a local image though. I did a generic one first.I asked for an image a woman looking nice on a bike with the Guildhall and telephone boxes in the background. Still wasn’t perfect and obvs not sufficiently NM specific …
Below is the reference and abstract of the work used by Kingston. Two women co-authored it (with one man), and it’s a summary of interviews. The actual words used by Kingston is a direct quote from the main text, and appear as a paraphrase in the abstract below. They are written to reflect the views of New Zealand women. Kingston’s mistake is in not explaining the source context, and whether cycling norms are comparable in Kingston and New Zealand. Anyway, maybe road.cc could contact the lead author to get her impression of how her work is going down in the UK.
Reference:
Wild, Kirsty & Woodward, Alistair & Shaw, Caroline. (2021).
Gender and the E-bike: Exploring the Role of Electric Bikes in Increasing Women’s Access to Cycling and Physical Activity. Active Travel Studies. 1. 10.16997/ats.991.
In low-cycling countries like Aotearoa New Zealand, women are much less likely to cycle. Previous research has identified improvements to cycling infrastructure and increasing gender equality as key ways to open up cycling to women. The electric bicycle (or e-bike) may be another tool that could be used to lift women’s cycling rates. In this paper we explored findings from the Electric City research project in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand that touched on aspects of gender and e-cycling experience. We used data from interviews with three groups, e-cyclists, e-bike retailers, and cycling planners and policy-makers, to gain insights into the gendered dimensions of the e-cycling assemblage (rider, bike, environment). The results showed that e-bikes act as a cycling enabler for women in ways that both reinforce as well as challenge aspects of traditional gender socialisation: E-bikes enable women to meet traditional care responsibilities, and achieve traditional feminine expectations of presentation on a bike. However, they also increase women’s cycling confidence and assertiveness, provide less fit women with more empowering physical activity experiences, improve the quality of bikes available to women, and can create more inclusive bike retail environments. We concluded that these benefits are less likely to be available to lower-income women, due to the high cost of e-bikes.
@Jitensha Oni I see no misogyny in that abstract. Many communities around the world, particularly those focused on religious faith, demand that women act and dress in what others might see as outdated, unnecessary and restrictive ways. E-bikes might have benefits for such women.
@This Wreckage I never realised it wasn’t misogyny if it was based on religion, I wonder what else I will be able to get away with once I found my own religion!
I reckon you should go for some patriarchal system – you might grow to like it and I reckon it would be popular with lots of men who seem to feel hard-done by. Perhaps you could institute a holy sacrament which would allow you to circumvent local drugs legislation, or at least get some tax exemptions (coffee?).
Anyway – we all love a good protected-characteristic-fight – today misogyny versus religious discrimination!
@chrisonabike I could call it mamilism and get cheap bikes and lycra 😉
My comment from 11.07am is still awaiting moderation.