Less than one in 250 girls cycling to school in Ireland regularly with many saying they feel judged and intimidated while cycling.
An Taisce has conducting research on the issue and has now launch a campaign titled #andshecycles to raise awareness and try to encourage more girls onto their bikes.
Jane Hackett, An Taisce’s manager of its ‘green schools
programme’, said clear issues had been raised when the charity interviewed
Irish girls about cycling to school as part of the new campaign.
“In first year when I first started, I was so self conscious
about it,” said one of the interviewed Irish schoolgirls about cycling.
“If you see a lad on a bike it’s not really… different.
You just think of it as ‘yeah’. But if you see a girl on a bike in her uniform
or something, it’s different.”
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Said another: “I felt like everything was stopping me
from cycling to school. Peer pressure is literally everything.”
A third girl said of why she did not cycle: “Fear of
being judged; a fear of being judged by people.”
Some of the girls said they were harassed by boys and
men. Others complained that having to wear a helmet was off-putting and that
items of school uniform, like having to wear skirts, interfered with cycling.
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One interviewed girl said of people’s attitudes: “They
just see girls as, like, dresses and skirts and make-up and boys as bikes and
athletic stuff.”
The same girl added when two male friends saw her cycling
they gave her a look as if to say ‘what’s she doing on a bike?’”
“But I didn’t care,” she added, “I just have them a big
smile and waved.”
Others said they had gotten back into cycling and really
enjoyed it, one saying there was no better feeling that cycling along her local
canal and seeing the path stretched out in front of her.
“You’re sweaty and you look awful but, like, you just
feel good about yourself,” said another girl who cycled.
An exhibition of portraits of young women and their bikes was held at the Science Gallery in Dublin yesterday to launch the #andshecycles campaign aimed at getting more girls to cycle to school.
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