Friday Cartoon: A woman walks into a shop…

I read Elly’s account of the patronizing attitude she encountered at bike shops or other cyclists on account of her sex with great disappointment. I thought the bikey-culture was supposed to be progressive. Sections at bike stores devoted to pink cruisers seem more “Mad Men” than Portland. Women cyclists should not lose hope at ingrained sexist attitudes. Already, women such as Mia Birk and Michelle Poyourow have played crucial roles with transforming Portland into a cycling Mecca. Bad habits die hard, and likewise, sexism can’t die soon enough. As a male newcomer to the Portland last year, I am highly indebted to a few women who introduced me to bike scene.

Sure, but why do commuter bikes all have to be set up the same way? Come to think of it, that is more or less the description of three of my bikes. I’m a rolling caricature! Argh. Perhaps I need the pink cruiser, just to get over myself.

As the potential customer for a Pashley Princess–complete with basket–I’d just like to say: let’s not throw the girly bike out with the sexism.

The Portland bike scene, in my opinion, needs more of the former at the same time as it works on getting less of the latter.

Seriously, where is a good shop to get that stuff?

And the sad thing is…that really happened to me including…”and it comes in pink.” (OK, I wasn’t asking for the same set of components, but….).

Needless to say, that shop no longer gets my business (and, my wallet knows, I do spend a healthy amount each year on my habit.

@Lauren #6 I guess what I’m groping to communicate on this forum is that I ride a bike every single day in Portland, I’m part of the community, and I get the terminology wrong because I don’t care about it. And I don’t really care about it because it’s kind of irrelevant to me.

BikePortland isn’t the only community I’ve found that seems to want to be inclusive, and says they’re advocating for more bike ridership in Portland, while unconsciously dismissing bike-riders like me.

I’m just trying to make it conscious.

Actually Anne, in your defense, I don’t see that you got the terminology wrong – you never actually called the Pashley a cruiser, just a girly bike, which it certainly is. And a lovely wonderful girly bike at that. 🙂

comment 10, if you are talking about those shells that sit on a rack behind the stoker, i will acknowledge that in a shop i used to work in we called those child killers, and while they may not have been outlawed in ten (or any) states, i would not and did not recommend them to customers. nothing to do with sexism, has to do with killing children.

Go buddy,

Throw that middle finger up to your sponsors.

Pretty typical of the PDX shop experience, some guy behind the counter who already knows everything and has all the answers, regardless of the needs and want’s of the customer! This cartoon hit the nail on the head!

JM- at the risk of veering too far OT; I do somewhat agree with Anne, although I don’t think it is bikeportland.org proper as much as the COMMENTERS on BP. I won’t name names, because we are all guilty of it in one way or another.

Good comment Anne.

Why is the worker here being depicted as a male and the customer a female? I see about 66/33 split IRL myself, and it inches closer to 50/50 everyday.

This isn’t reality. It’s just a set-up, entrapment if you will. Do the women here only experience these things when they’re across the counter from a guy? And it’s discrimination, right, not one of about an infinite number of things, it’s discrimination definitely? You’re positive on this, I mean no proof, no nothing, just some circumstantial evidence, and a cherry-picked scenario?

I am under the impression that the so-called ‘women’ sections of bicycle retailers are a market response, and not the other way around. Maybe this ‘toon dude has serviced thousands of female customers and they uniformly purchased the items he is recommending? If so, he made a mistake in judgment, which is hardly discrimination.

I am routinely discriminated against as a man in bike-stores these days. If that’s what we’re calling rude, under-qualified help now. Just the other day I had a young girl get huffy with me over a wheel repair. I asked for a service that she did not know about, became insecure and defensive about it, and proceeded to be a jerk. Why make a gender issue out of crap like that? It could also be one giant-sized chip on your girl-shoulder, personal experience here, that elicits sexist behavior, you know?

The assumption this ‘toon makes is that men only do this to women, isn’t that sexist? If you speak to, “pervasive”, I’m gonna require some citations, be for-warned. (Otherwise it’s just too pat.) This ‘toon demeans a certain riding style too, and implies that if you wish to be taken seriously that you have to ride a certain type of bicycle. Since men and women tend to ride different kinds of bicycles, isn’t this sexist?

Much like hair-styles, face-make-up, plastic-surgery and the rest, this is all up to you women. Guys don’t have anything to do with it. You like to blame it on us, but it’s completely arbitrary, throw-back left-over culture kind of stuff from the caves. Not too sinister that. It’s not like we can physically force you to continue/stop behaving this way; ergo, you do it to yourselves. If you would like to see less pink bikes, by all means, feel free to stop buying them.

Whatever. The bottom-line is this is yet another media piece inadvertently casting dispersions onto an entire sex. That’s not sexist, no. Only when it is a woman who is the victim is it sexist, what WAS I thinking?

I get so tired of this. I notice the dude ‘toon is depicted as white too. Yup, no black or brown men in cycling. Only a white guy would be sexist. Plz, grow-up.

Derailleur of any stripe is the absolutely worst thing anyone can put on a commuter bike. Cannot even shift when stopped!

That woman needs serious advice–try the new Sturmey 3-speed fixed hub. Failing that, try the Shimano Alfine group set. Includes a nifty dyno hub.

She will be much happier!

I see myself as being passionately interested in bike-riding and its implications for my health, the city, and the environment, without one iota of interest in competing, racing, joining group rides, fixing my own bike, or naming its parts. I’m convinced that that huge, elusive 40% of people who “might ride, if…” contains a bunch of people like me for whom not safety, but a sense of ineligibility to join the club, is the first big “if”.

Anne, I think it’s a fine approach. As a shop employee, I draw a line between a) the person who just doesn’t want to know everything and b) the person who gets angry when they realize they’ve destroyed their bike through negligence. The latter camp’s obviously irrational and there’s nothing much I can do for them apart from give them a quote for service – it sucks, but it’s the best I can do to help them. I don’t take any pleasure in seeing someone discourage themselves from riding their bike. (The “surly mechanic” stereotype, which is sadly justified, baffles me.)

The former camp, where it sounds as though you fit, is where it gets tricky, because there are some critical issues which aren’t always obvious, but the employee also needs to avoid being presumptuous about the customer’s existing knowledge and interests. There are a few things that might get viewed from the angle of “I don’t need your conventional cycling wisdom, it’s freakin’ subjective and a matter of opinion!” – stuff like saddle height, foot position on the pedals, gearing, and so on. In any case where I perceive that a person might be hurting their bike or (worse still) themselves, I have to speak up, because my function as a bike shop employee is to keep people riding and enjoying it. This comes down to the employee having to provide unsolicited advice without trying to sound pushy or dominant.

I always try to first ask questions regarding a given subject so that I sound more conversational than accusative. If the response fits my observations, I continue with a few further questions, and try to suss out if making a recommendation is advised. Anything subsequently suggested is presented on the physical basis for the “right” way of doing something, rather than “so here’s what the pros do!”, and with the caveat that there are variable factors that might result in a different experience for the individual customer. Not everything is in fact that subjective (cross chaining *is* bad, wheel truing *is* important, and so on), but presenting it in this way tends to cut down on perceived hostility substantially. My goal is to promote a better cycling experience without providing the experience of being dominated.

I know how my customers usually take this in person, but I’m curious to know your take on the process. Does it sound effective, reasonable, fair, unfair, domineering, or…? Thanks in advance for your input.

Thanks Vance. Once in a while a moment of sanity is needed in this knee-jerk forum, and you provided it.

What’s a “canti brake lever”?

mindmochi – Try addressing Vance’s statements with specific criticism in lieu of caricature for a more potentially productive dialog. Please?

Vance – Under-trained staff (PLEASE don’t call staff “help” – historical implications aside, we’re more than “help” -in bike shops, we make it all go!) is different from some old-timer who’s been behind the counter for years and years and has his preconceived notions about what what a particular customer is going to want. He might be under-trained too, but there’s a huge difference between “I don’t know” and “I know what you want”. A mistake in judgement would be more along the lines of “I’ve inferred the wrong conclusion from your statements”, whereas what’s being addressed in the cartoon is “I don’t need to listen to what you say you want because I already know”. It’s not just that it’s a woman coming into the shop that makes the “pink basket cruiser” leap ludicrous, it’s that she told dude what she wants outright and it couldn’t get much different from what he suggested.

Thinking about that scenario makes me feel crappy because I’m a dude who works in a bike shop, but on the other hand, I’ve got too many female acquaintances who have experienced almost exactly the same type of crap – stuff like “I want this type of brake lever” getting met with three different (and incorrect) excuses at three different shops, to the point where the woman in question got so fed up she let the last place sell her the wrong thing amid her seething anger and frustration, and I’d *never* known her to get that confused and angry in the face of difficulty otherwise.

The only sexism I’ve ever witnessed negatively affecting men in bike shops has been as follows:
-Man gets ignored by staff fawning over attractive woman shopping/needing service.
-Man gets ignored by staff fawning over his attractive wife/girlfriend/female acquaintance.
-Woman customer who has been given the run-around one too many times by bike shop dude behaves aggressively/treats unsuspecting friendly male staff with heavy suspicion.

The latter is the only case I’ve witnessed (read: experienced) where the woman is making an inappropriate assumption about a man. I try to put up with it because (I think) I understand where those notions are coming from – negative experiences. I don’t get it crazily-often, but when I do, it’s massively uncomfortable, and my only hope is that I do well enough to where I might present a better experience that I can only hope feels a bit less condescending and demeaningggg.

All that aside, I do think there are indeed some valid things to say about negative stereotypes of men. But I don’t think they necessarily apply here. The cartoon might make me angry if I were an older, balding, beard-sporting bike shop guy, but then on the other hand, if that *were* me, I’d probably look at it like, “Man, I’ve seen this crap happen a ton over a couple decades” instead of my current “I’ve seen this crap happen so much over a few years”. Elly’s proposed “bike industry” labeling may actually have been a cleaner approach. Then again, suggesting the industry is a balding bespectacled beardo would no doubt be a disservice to good people in the industry and 3B-ers alike, so who knows. 🙂

Rich – Saliently stated! Wish I could’ve been as concise.

What I can’t believe with anecdotes like yours (and I mean “I totally believe it”) is that someone at a bike shop skimps out on offering the customer the proper selection of in-stock parts, the customer says “I’m willing to spend more on it than that”, and the employee doesn’t go for it…just completely slam-my-head-on-the-desk there. Presenting an opinion like “I don’t personally think it’s worth it” is cool, a churlish remark and refusal to at least show the available item is not. I hope you didn’t go back there.

That (the cartoon) can happen when local bike stores let their national suppliers dictate too much about models, colors, and inventory levels to them. Stone-age gender consciousness aside, being required to fill a store with California-spec merchandise can prevent a shop from stocking what locals want and need.

mindmochi #30 – Uh, I did and all a popular search engine tells me is: Magnetic Resonance Angio-somethiing-or-other. Other than for that it’s organizations that have ‘motorcycle’ ‘race’ and America, or association, in their title. Can you provide a link please? If this is some pop-culture reference, please remember I’m old.

Vance Longwell #23, putting aside whether I agree with your opinions on feminism, I think they aren’t relevant here because you are reading your own notions into the piece. I see almost nothing in the graphics that lends itself to such a narrow reading, or to much interpretation at all. They just establish the setting and propel the plot.

If every affectation illustrated were open to interpretation, we could consider the comic a commentary on breast size, baldness, fashion, cash registers, and nose size (perhaps there’s an anti-Semitic message?). But that is obviously going to extremes. I’d ask you what is there, on the page, that makes you think it contains such a broad social message, and that unfairly prejudiced message in particular?

Now if this comic were one in a series that demonstrates the woman character’s bad treatment at the hands of men, then, yeah, maybe your interpretation would be relevant. Or if there were an epilogue that put the first four frames into relief — say, showing how different the interaction is when the customer is a man or is black or is a woman with large breasts, or when the worker has hair or a smaller nose or a button-down shirt, or when the cash register is a modern point-of-sale terminal — then, again, there is something to interpret. Or if it had captions like TYPICAL CHAUVINIST MALE or SOPHISTICATED WOMAN CUSTOMER, as some political cartoons do… .

Again, I don’t mean to criticize the beliefs you’ve expressed. But I don’t think they truly apply to our discussion.

Let’s see, how can I portray the unfortunate stereotyping of a particular type of customer at a bike shop?

Oh I know! I’ll stereotype people who work at bike shops! It’s brilliant!

Jim Lee #25

Seriously? In the context of an article about sexism you essentially argue that derailleurs are too darn complicated. Certainly NO way that they’re competent enough to figure out how to shift before coming to a stop. Or, god forbid, they simply know what they want and your experience/prejudice isn’t the be all and end all.

Claiming derailleurs are “the absolutely worst thing anyone can put on a commuter bike” is just silly. It speaks more to the narrowness of your mind than it does to the breadth of your experience.

man, it’s like someone went to velo-orange and wrote up my shopping list.

Also, for that much money, you could probably keep your cross bike as a cross bike and get a city bike to abuse too.

I’m a guy, and I’ve definitely walked out of bike shops because I’ve been talked down to, assumed I’m inexperienced, or been given the run-around on a part I want.

Einstein said: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

If the variable of gender is changed, but the behavior that you attribute to that variable remains the same, then your theory has been called into doubt (if not proven wrong.)

Your hypothesis of “Every time I’m talked down to in a bike shop is a result of sexism” needs to be rethought. Perhaps change the “every time” to “sometimes when.” Quantitative or qualitative claims, of course, would be inappropriate without proof, so avoid words like “most” and “a minority of.” Those words are only appropriate when backed up by numerical unbiased research, not anecdotal evidence.

Sometimes I feel that it would be convenient to be a minority and be able to blame all my negative personal interactions on “isms.” Please don’t fall into that trap. Think with your brain, not your heart and emotions. Please analyze your (reverse?) prejudices.