‘I wouldn’t take the risk of the attention, you know? Just a lone girl biking’: examining the gendered and classed embodied experiences of cycling

Abstract

This paper frames the embodied experience of bicycling using theories of performativity and materiality. In doing so, the paper provides insights into embodied processes that regulate the gendered and classed cycling body across age. Drawing from interviews completed with newcomers to Toronto enrolled in a bicycle mentorship program, this paper highlights how context-specific social norms exist around who is read as cycling appropriately. Two norms consistently discussed are that cycling can be at odds with femininity and that it is a symbol of poverty. These norms act as discursive regulatory frameworks for gender and class performativity. Cycling can also be an experience of ‘intense embodiment’ in that it can bring the absent body back into consciousness. This experience is dynamic and elicits diverse emotions. Furthermore, cycling is not only found to increase people’s awareness of their materiality, but also their bodily fluids challenge the notion of ‘secure’ bodily boundaries. These material processes can be gendered and/or classed, and can affect access to mobility and public space. By studying identity formation processes as they relate to cycling, this paper sheds light on the power-laden underpinnings of identity-based differences in cycling.