Forum menu
This is how a thread should be. Starting off with a certain question and within a couple of post turns into something completely the opposite, as above from women to panthers.
There are still: Esme, ebygom and others on here. However yesterday ashat posted some sensible remarks on the Dick thread and was feeling compelled to leave. I decided because of this not to post on that thread, as I knew my own thoughts would lead to the usual rubbish being spouted out and myself feeling outnumbered and wishing I hadn't posted, sigh.
within a couple of post turns into something completely the opposite, as above from women to panthers.
Classic deflection. I should probably see someone about that.
I'm not a number, I'm a free... oh bollocks.
am refusing a Covid jab as I don’t want to be part of a medical experiment.
Worth pointing out that having it does NOT make you part of a medical experiment, the technology for the mRNA vaccine has been around for roughly forty years, and was used successfully for the Ebola and MERS outbreaks, and the first SARS outbreak, IIRC. The other variety of vaccine isn’t any different to other types of vaccine, so your reluctance is entirely misplaced.
still visit, don’t post much as I don’t ride mountain bikes now really,
Good to see you haven’t abandoned us completely, emsz, I haven’t ridden my bikes for a few years now, injuring my knee coming off one of my bikes for an inexplicable reason has shaken my confidence and left me worried that coming off again could cause further damage that might require surgery or stop me working.
Looking at d3o soft armour as a way of getting back out on the bikes, but getting back to the subject, I’ve no idea of the gender of most members, except where a username might give a clue, or it gets mentioned in passing in a post - until the other day, I had no idea ThePilot was female, and honestly didn’t really care; I think the only time that it becomes relevant is when gender gets to be part of a discussion, but then only rarely.
There have certainly been instances in the past that have been referred to where certain members have made comments that have caused some other female members to leave, which should never have happened, but as with the thread about violence to women shows, there are some individuals who just can’t help themselves behaving in an abhorrent manner.
@CountZero Women are pilots too, you know!
Seriously, I am not meaning to have a go at you, it's just sexism is so deeply engrained in our society, it's going to take enormous change from both (all?) genders if we are ever going to change things. We are brought up to think that pilots are men and air stewards women. I suppose in old English that would be air hostesses. Interesting that we differentiate between air stewards and air stewardesses but there's no such thing as a pilotess. It's just presumed pilots are men. It could be argued it's an equality thing as there is no reason to attach a gender to the job title and hopefully in the long term we will not automatically and unconsciously assume that pilots are men and cabin crew women or gay men. But for now we are all guilty of doing it all the time.
It's like the surgeon experiment. Here if anyone doesn't know it:
https://www.workingvoices.com/insights/we-are-all-sexist-how-unconscious-bias-drives-inequality/
Perhaps it was nothing to do with my username. My username on the pet forum I joined was a mixture of my name and my dog's name and I was referred to as he there too. Don't know why. Perhaps it's what I say. I didn't correct it as it as I didn't think it was important.
Yep still here, putting up with you lot ;-P And yep it’s Tasha. I’m dyslexic so my name backwards fits my brain at times!
I have ‘outed’ myself at numerous times. Not because gender matters the vast majority of the time, but it does come into things such as bike fit etc (though I am tall enough to ride ‘men’s’ bikes). And I do get a bit annoyed being called fella/he in that the assumed norm is always blokes ride bikes. Even get that on the trails - often an ‘alright lads’ from another group. My mates normally leave me to reply and say ‘yeah fine thanks’, and people do a double take (thankfully the number of woman riders has hugely increased to when I started 15 yrs ago). But to be honest, as an Associate Prof in a STEM subject, much like ThePilot, this is day to day life.
However yesterday ashat posted some sensible remarks on the Dick thread and was feeling compelled to leave. I decided because of this not to post on that thread, as I knew my own thoughts would lead to the usual rubbish being spouted out and myself feeling outnumbered and wishing I hadn’t posted, sigh.
I’m sorry you felt like this. Ok gender did come into that thread, but it was my own personal experience, irrespective of gender, that lead my to step away. I normally try and follow Tracys lead of not getting involved in the stress on here, but I caught myself up there and I just didn’t need it - personally. It totally up to you what you talk about.
The vast majority of the time I enjoy it here - just as a mountain biker. Though I really wished I hadn’t started reading Scotroutes thread about Zwift chaffing ;-P
@ahsat I'm not really a pilot! When I joined I had a Scott Pilot bar/stem combo to sell hence the name 🙂
Damn. I fell into the same trap....
Equally you could well have been a pilot 😉
There is a lot more women’s riding networks these days - eg a very large and active FB group. As a result I think despite the huge increase in female riders, for many STW isn’t the space they would then choose to frequent. Due to the recent growth in female riders, a lot are quite novice and they value friendly spaces to ask questions that on here would sometimes get some very mixed responses! And a woman’s saddle thread is very different...
I'm of the opposite opinion of most of the posters it seems!
While it makes no material difference knowing if you are male or female, I do find that from a personal view it helps me to know who I'm talking to and adds some context to views etc.
That being said, if you don't want to tell anyone whether you're male/female/nonbinary etc then thats totally your choice.
Redmex, this...
There must be couple of lumberjacks on here that cut down trees, wear high heels, suspendies and a bra while riding their bikes
needs more applause!
@ Angallis Arvensis
And yet I really am the scarlet pimpernel
That's a relief I thought you were Gavin Henson
Even get that on the trails – often an ‘alright lads’ from another group.
As an aside, we regularly get a "hello boys", "alright boys" and similar when riding. I'm 62 and one of my regular riding mates is 65.
I thought my Zwift thread title was explanatory enough 😊
I may well have outed a female member of the forum in the past if I've seen someone referring to them with masculine pronouns. I was doing it out of politeness, clarity. It hadn't really occurred to me that was a problem, but every day is a school day.
On the subject of gender stereotyping . . . I remember hearing a tale, about a child growing up in the 1980s:
"Mummy, could a man be prime minister one day?"
@crazyjenkins01
To me, that approach risks attaching far too much importance to gender and seeing men as one group and women as another. A white, privileged man and likely to have far more shared experience and similar views to that of a white, privileged woman, than he is a man of colour who works two jobs trying to provide for his kids.
My wife rides a lot and gets her "community" through womens Facebook riding groups - she's not really up for the mostly non-riding arguments on here
Edit - she does enjoy reading the mag though