chiefgrooveguru

Yes but we also need to acknowledge that no-one grows up in a vacuum so much of what appeals to them will depend upon their upbringing.

Yes, I agree as in they will most likely pick the most appealing choices from those presented or perceived to be acceptable to them but I think we have a more basic instinctive response to things that don’t appeal without us needing to experience them first.

@stevextc @outofbreath

We’re not trying to force women to cycle (obviously, that would be stupid)
We’re not trying to force participation to 50% (which would also be stupid)

We’re trying to reduce negative social conditioning, in all areas. Not just women in MTB, this is just one example. Social conditioning definitely 100% exists, there is no question of this, and I’m absolutely sure that social conditioning is dissuading some women from some sports that they would otherwise enjoy.

All of your posts about the sense of forcing women to do this or that, or answering for them are ridiculous. That’s not what’s happening here and certainly not what we’re advocating.

“I think we have a more basic instinctive response to things that don’t appeal without us needing to experience them”

But that makes absolutely no sense at all. Humans have been around for about 100,000 years and our brains have changed very little in that time. Bikes have been around for about 150 years. How can anyone have an instinctive response to bikes based on no experience? Almost the entirety of your so-called instinctive response has to be a learned response.

To expand on that further, if presented with a bike with no knowledge of it, a human will not know what it is or what it does. To understand it requires seeing one being used. If everyone you see on a bike is male then you will assume it’s a thing for boys/men to ride.

I think we have a more basic instinctive response to things that don’t appeal without us needing to experience them first.

I disliked swimming as a kid. It didn’t appeal. None of my family were swimmers. The only people who seemed to be interested in the actual process of swimming at school were girls. I looked into swimming later in life because of living near the ocean and not enjoying feeling vulnerable/weak as a swimmer after nearly drowning in a rip current 20 years earlier. No encouragement, I just decided to commit and soon found that I really enjoyed regular swimming and soon invested in proper goggles and pool membership. Eventually it was the high point of my week and a great tonic for stress also.

No idea what point I’m making other than not sure what my human ‘instinctive response’ to swimming would have been otherwise. If at all.

I think we have a more basic instinctive response to things that don’t appeal without us needing to experience them

To an extent, but a large amount of it is culturally acquired.

Take India again as an example. Cricket is the sport, everyone’s mad for it. But are they genetically predisposed to cricket rather than football? Of course not. It’s pretty obvious that people play cricket because it’s popular and everyone else does it. This is social conditioning.

The argument about women being less competitive etc is pretty rubbish too, as participation in many sports is high – just not cycling. Running is comparable from an exertion point of view – that’s popular with women. Hill walking/climbing is comparable with regards being cold/wet/outside – also popular with women.

I don’t like “blokey” stuff and am put off any activities that I count as “blokey”.
Obvious things such as football and rugby but I would also put MTB into that category. Maybe that goes across other types of cycling but probably not as much.
I don’t see the same in running, walking, swimming etc,.

I have loved bikes since the age of 3, don’t know why, and have done all sorts of cycling ever since but others new to it could well be put off by the male group behaviour, who knows.

I think it’s interesting to note the changes in attitudes towards women in sports over the decades. When I was at school in the 1980s, girls seemed as keen and active as boys, although PE lessons and clubs didn’t cater for certain sports for girls, including football and basketball.

I continued with various sports after I left school but in the 1990s I was always struck by the lack of sports kit for women: sports shops consisted of an enormous roomful of kit for boys and men, and a token one pink T-shirt and pair of shorts for women hidden in the corner.

Since then, girls get to play football in school, there are many more visible role models in elite sport, and sports shops sell loads of clothing for women. I keep hearing that a huge % of teenage girls quit sport after compulsory PE lessons stop. So why is that? It doesn’t seem to match the greater visibility of women in sports these days?

I keep hearing that a huge % of teenage girls quit sport after compulsory PE lessons stop. So why is that?

Good question and I certainly never played football or rugby as soon as I didn’t have to so maybe the sports that are being taught are not actually enjoyable. As for cycling, that is nothing to do with school so would always have to be a chosen activity anyway but general dislike of sporty stuff via school may stop sporty stuff outside of school (i.e. cycling).

Great question ^. I feel a bit better not knowing the answer myself. I think things are slowly, over decades, getting better though.

I think this whole gender/sport thing is pretty baseless. A few people have mentioned football and whether or not they take an interest in a ‘boys’ sport. In the US and (NZ/Aus I believe) the men are usually playing oval shaped ball games, and football is seen as the girls sport. It’s all a societal construct. Plus women’s rugby here is hugely popular now. So I really don’t buy into guys sports and girls sports, just attitudes in each time and place. It’s also fine to not like football.

Speaking anecdotally, I’d say that women’s sport has been a real winner over the last decade, but cycling (especially Mtb) has mostly missed out so far despite Trott/Pendleton/Atherton etc.

All I can see is that all the sports that I’d think of as being comparable to cycling have a much broader range of participants (running/hiking etc). I don’t get how cycling is seen as being different.

Actually that point from Vicky was particularly interesting as I think Mtb/cycling is a great sport for people who like sport but hated PE.

I always wanted to ride my bike loads when I was a little girl, but I wasn’t allowed. My brother was, but my mom was too worried about me going out by myself. I didn’t learn to ride without stabilisers until I was 11, and even then was only allowed to ride in 5 minute loop around the village, on the pavement.

I tried getting a bike in my early 20s, but was a bit clueless and got ripped off by Halfords (as I said, clueless…) and ended up with a bike that was far too small for me. I finally got to learn to ride a bike properly when I was 27, but I’m still terrible and cowardly, I think largely because I never got to play on bikes much as a kid. Bloody love it though.

(Incidentally, my school also didn’t allow girls to play football even during breaks. I think people massively underestimate how society shapes people’s perception of stuff).

but cycling (especially Mtb) has mostly missed out so far despite Trott/Pendleton/Atherton etc

depends, I went to Whistler a couple of years back, and the difference out there is startling in comparison to the UK. I’d say on “average” a good 20-30% (in total) of the lift queue was women, and couple times it was 50/50. It just seemed like those barriers to entry didn’t exist. Perhaps the lift helped, and I’ve seen similar in the Alps and other lift accessed hills, but nothing like the numbers there are in Canada.

but I’m still terrible and cowardly, I think largely because I never got to play on bikes much as a kid

My partner doesn’t ride for broadly the same reasons, didn’t learn until she was 17 as there was other stuff; choirs and piano…(seems familiar huh?) fell off and bust her arm, learned how to drive, never went back to bikes ever again.

I keep hearing that a huge % of teenage girls quit sport after compulsory PE lessons stop. So why is that? It doesn’t seem to match the greater visibility of women in sports these days?

It’s not just girls, it’s everyone in their late teens and it’s not that difficult to answer. We’ve all been teenagers – have a think back and ask yourselves what you were doing when you were 12, 13, 14, 15 and then what activities you continued to do as you grew older. Why did you give up those activities?

It’s not just getting into cars, alcohol, drugs or sex. As you move through your later teen years your friends change, and a lot of activities are based around friendship groups. You aren’t going to continue doing some activities once all of your friends move away, or drop out. Some activities will be associated with your childhood anyway, and seen, probably incorrectly, as childish. And a lot of the time, kids don’t particularly want to be doing the activities that their parents push them to do in earlier life, and drop them as soon as possible. There are a lot more answers, but these are just off the top of my mind.

Awesome – more than happy to be proved wrong on that one.

Maybe Canada is just ahead of the curve compared to the UK. Hopefully we will follow.

Nice to know there’s another terrible cowardly rider out there 🙂

Actually that point from Vicky was particularly interesting as I think Mtb/cycling is a great sport for people who like sport but hated PE.

That’s true of Mr Pea.

Personally, I enjoyed some PE but not netball or hockey because of the whole picking teams thing. Also the teachers pets got the best equipment (hockey sticks, tennis rackets, etc) and the rest of us made do with the broken stuff!
I played 5–a-side football as an adult since it “wasn’t for girls” at school.

And a lot of the time, kids don’t particularly want to be doing the activities that their parents push them to do in earlier life,

A very good point! My parents didn’t push me to do any sports when I was a kid (except learning to swim) which is probably why I have a life-long interest 😄

“It’s not just girls, it’s everyone in their late teens and it’s not that difficult to answer.”

It’s not just girls but it is more prevalent amongst girls. And how many teenage girls do you see hanging around messing about on bikes? Any? Plenty of teenage boys though…

I keep hearing that a huge % of teenage girls quit sport after compulsory PE lessons stop. So why is that?

I think the problem actually starts before that. Extracurricular exercise often starts tailing off around about the time puberty starts.

chiefgrooveguru

“I think we have a more basic instinctive response to things that don’t appeal without us needing to experience them”

But that makes absolutely no sense at all. Humans have been around for about 100,000 years and our brains have changed very little in that time. Bikes have been around for about 150 years. How can anyone have an instinctive response to bikes based on no experience? Almost the entirety of your so-called instinctive response has to be a learned response.

Yes and no. I agree that a lot of what I would call instinct is most likely learned from experience or observation of something vaguely similar to a given thing. I wasn’t refering to bikes as such, as I said in an earlier post it is hard to imagine someone who has absolutly no experience of riding/observing bikes at all but since you have, let’s think about small kids first learning to ride a bike.

I have raised a child and been around friends/neighbours raising children so am speaking from experience/observation. At some point, we decide it’s time our child learned to ride a bike(social conditioning). Child A has observed a sibling or friend riding bikes and is mad keen to have a go(social conditioning). Child B has the screaming abdabs the moment you try to sit them on a bike seat and is obviously terrified of the wobbly unfamilliar thing. Would that be instinct @chiefgrooveguru ?

If I think about my own experience. My dad was one of the top local footballers and cricketers and absolutely lived for his sport. Football and cricket were always presented in a positive way to me and as far as I am aware I have never had a negative early experience with either sport but I have never ever had even the slightest interest in taking up either of them. The only time I had negative experience with them was in school years when I was forced to play and so grew to hate it. I can’t think of any label other than instinct for my early lack of interest.

@vickypea interesting observations! I can’t comment much from experience. I was aware through my son’s school years in the 90s and 00s that things seemed to be improving and becoming much more inclusive but even in my school years in the 70s there were many girls who were extremely active in their “allowed” sports with many of them continuing after school years, one of whom is still a good friend and very proficient MTBer.

My own thoughts on equality are probably skewed because I have always known women who have done their own thing regardless. My first wife was always outdoorsy and I can credit her for us getting our first “proper” mountain bike. If anyone had tried to tell her they were just for men she would have laughed in their face. Curent OH left school and went to college to do outdoors stuff. Climbing, caving, kayaking etc. She has worked on building sites, solo foreign travel, trained for the fire service and rides MTB. Even my 85 year old mother who is the epitome of social conditioning in a “you can’t do this, you can’t do that, it’s not for the likes of you” way was a bit of a tomboy(her words) when young. Back in the early 50s she would ride her BSA Bantam 40 miles to work and on days off ride it on the moors with her brother and his collegues who were in the White Helmets display team. Her brother’s daughter/my cousin was a prolific team sports player at school and after. And her daughter is now a semi pro football player.

I keep hearing that a huge % of teenage girls quit sport after compulsory PE lessons stop. So why is that?

I have discussed this a bit, my mum was a PE teacher for 30 years. The most common reason for lack of participation that she observed was indeed social conditioning. As kids head into puberty they become a lot more self aware and look towards the adult world for cues. And that means being into boys, makeup, clothes etc and not being sporty. Just check out a ‘women’s magazine’. So PE suddenly becomes lame and they don’t want to do it. In most schools there is always a sizeable group of girls hanging around during PE lessons in their normal uniform because they’ve managed to get out of PE somehow. That never happened in my Mum’s lessons however, she really did excel at getting kids to participate willingly and enjoy their PE lessons. There was nothing different about those kids, but she just managed to make it worth doing and offset the conditioning.

And as above, a lot of people hate PE but then go on to like cycling or climbing or other non-school sports. At least in my day the curriculum was pretty narrow and heavily biased towards competitive team sports. Which I loved by the way!

“is hard to imagine someone who has absolutly no experience of riding/observing bikes at all”

I’ve had staff at work from inner city / council estate backgrounds who’ve never learnt to ride a bike. It’s not that unusual.

“ At some point, we decide it’s time our child learned to ride a bike(social conditioning). Child A has observed a sibling or friend riding bikes and is mad keen to have a go(social conditioning). Child B has the screaming abdabs the moment you try to sit them on a bike seat and is obviously terrified of the wobbly unfamilliar thing. Would that be instinct @chiefgrooveguru ?”

I wouldn’t call that instinct, I’d call it bad teaching! 😉 I’ve taught my elder two to ride bikes and the third one is next (but she’s only just got the hang of walking). They started on balance bikes and it all came together pretty easily on pedal bikes, especially with the second who’d learnt pedalling on the trikes at nursery.

“ My own thoughts on equality are probably skewed because I have always known women who have done their own thing regardless”

Yes, they clearly are. It’s a similar problem to all the Tory MPs from less privileged backgrounds who say, “well, I managed to make loads of money and end up in a position of power despite being working class, non-white, state school educated, so if I can do it, anyone can, we don’t need to help the less-privileged”. Some people are a lot better than others at swimming against the tide.

@chiefgrooveguru

I’ve had staff at work from inner city / council estate backgrounds who’ve never learnt to ride a bike. It’s not that unusual.

I am genuinely surprised to hear that, but I was very careful to say “ride/observe”.

Just to be clear, I am not trying to argue that these issues are not real. I am sure they are for many people. I am all too aware of social conditioning. I have never let it stop me doing what I want to do with my own time but it has had a great effect on my life in many other ways. In my last post I should have said “awareness of” rather than “thoughts on” equality issues.

Some people are a lot better than others at swimming against the tide

I agree, I just think some of the solutions proposed earlier in this thread are unachievable and is why I said:

Why can’t we equip people to recognise when they are unhappy/dissatisfied with whatever they are doing and teach them that there is nothing to fear from trying something new even if it means moving out of their current social circle?

I went to Whistler a couple of years back…

Cultures vary. My wife is from the Mid Western USA and whilst they are generally very old fashioned with regards gender roles, the women do generally do a lot of practical hands-on things that involve physical work and getting dirty etc. This is a relic of the colonial era of which the state became rather proud. So for example we’re landscaping the garden now and she’s been on the tools as much as me, if not more. And the neighbours are a little surprised; people keep assuming I’m doing all the work and she’s sitting inside watching TV and criticising my work… Another popular Western North American theme is the outdoors, which I guess is a romanticised vision of frontier times.

So given those two ideas circulating I’d imagine that could boost participation amongst the young, if they can get over the traditional sexist values that the older generation might share.

My own thoughts on equality are probably skewed because I have always known women who have done their own thing regardless.

@Jordan
I can identify with that. I’ve pretty much done my own thing regardless, but it’s not always easy. In my 20s/30s I found that many of the women I knew would get together and talk handbags, shoes, spas, and cocktails whereas I wanted to play football, go MTBing, and down the pub with the blokes.
Thus, I never fitted in with women’s social circles, which reinforced my own choices. This is not meant to be a criticism of those women, and I know there are plenty of them with similar interests to me out there. Nevertheless it was my experience that doing what I wanted to do meant excluding myself from other stuff that might be expected of a woman.
To this day, I’ve never owned a proper handbag or managed to walk in high heels 😆

@vickypea it can be possible to do both but maybe not if you genuinely have no interest/nothing in common with other women you know.

My OH seems to slip very easilly between one world and the other. She is a very social animal, much more so than I am and has lots of girly friends who share none of her other interests and is quite happy to have a girly night out talking handbags/nails/hair etc.

I deliberately titled the thread to cover time and place as I’m aware that era and culture (geo/socio/historical) were the major factors to my experience of which kids rode bikes for fun and which ones didn’t.

I grew up in a rag-tag urban conurbation of the West Midlands, among a generation whose strongly self-identifying ‘working class’ parents had carried on (to some extent) the social attitudes of their great-grandparents (essentially working Victorian/Edwardian working class)

Women absolutely didn’t ride bikes. No female in my family (great grandmothers, grandmothers, mother, aunts, cousins etc) to my knowledge ever set had rhyme or reason to set foot on a bicycle and so had never learned to ride one. Those funny Dutch and Chinese may have done it, but not us. In contrast we were (to our own minds) ‘civilised and progressive’ where bicycles were ‘uncivilised and regressive’. We were also ‘masculine, moneyed and motorised’, not ‘unisex, communist and poor’.

I do know that 19-1950s Britain had many working class people commuting on bicycles, yet where I grew up our grandparents had largely worked in factories right on their doorsteps, ie a short walk from home and were served by trains, buses and (later) cars. So ‘cycling’ wasn’t really a thing at all as far as our families were concerned.

Locally, us 1970s-80s boys absolutely rode bikes for fun, and most boys at school had some kind of bike from Raleigh Chipper to fully fledged road racing bike. Grifters, Bombers, Tomahawks, Choppers, Vektars, Strikas, Burners/BMX etc. We rode around in little boy-gangs for a while then when reached 15-16 most boys ‘graduated’ their transport interests to motorbikes, scooters and cars and the ‘fun’ of cycling was socially relegated to that of a child’s toy. This again was in line with our parent’s/gread-grandparent’s attitudes to bicycling for fun ie ‘not the done thing’.

They (bikes) in the ‘adult’ sense were thought for very poor people, drunks, TDF or geeky social misfits/failures.

My father kept an old Raleigh Wayfarer in his garage from days when he couldn’t afford to get to work by car. He finally got a BSA Bantam and then a car, and the bicycle was then only kept because it was his, not because it was used. It sat in the garage until I used it once as a teenager. Then I procured my own bike and Dad’s again sat unused for a further 35 years until they moved house and it was scrapped or sold (probably scrapped)

As for advertising, in the 70s/80s I remember Raleigh bikes being marketed to both boys and girls – with the vast focus being on ‘boy’s bikes’ ie primarily about daring fun, while the ‘girl’s’ bikes were primarily about flowers, gaiety and light shopping trips with a Barbie doll in the basket etc. Looking back at a typical Raleigh TV ad of the time … did you spot the girl?

I like this one (2013)

I finally got around to watching the vid in the OP – LOVED it! The joy of biking and hanging out with friends really came across for me. I bet it would be a fun day out riding with them. Thanks for posting, p7eaven.

To this day, I’ve never owned a proper handbag or managed to walk in high heels 😆

Me neither, vickypea! 😃

As for advertising, in the 70s/80s I remember Raleigh bikes being marketed to both boys and girls – with the vast focus being on ‘boy’s bikes’ ie primarily about daring fun, while the ‘girl’s’ bikes were primarily about flowers, gaiety and light shopping trips with a Barbie doll in the basket etc.

I find this interesting. I grew up in the 70s and rode my bike in the woods with my brother and a bunch of local friends – actually mainly girls – and most of us definitely subscribed to the ‘daring fun’ idea of riding. IIRC my bike was blue (a Raleigh!), and just a smaller version of my (older) brother’s bike. I do wonder if wanting to do what my brother did shaped my view of the use of bikes for careering down hills and flying over jumps, rather than wanting a basket for my dolls or cuddly toys.

@molgrips

We’re trying to reduce negative social conditioning, in all areas. Not just women in MTB, this is just one example. Social conditioning definitely 100% exists, there is no question of this, and I’m absolutely sure that social conditioning is dissuading some women from some sports that they would otherwise enjoy.

All of your posts about the sense of forcing women to do this or that, or answering for them are ridiculous. That’s not what’s happening here and certainly not what we’re advocating.

You are speaking here for some collective rather than yourself. So the following is addressed to you more personally.

When you say “not forcing” what do you personally mean… where exactly do you draw the line between not listening, talking them into it, coercion and forcing.

If someone of any gender tells you “its just not for me” how far would YOU go to try and change their mind? What justification do they need to give you before you accept they just don’t like the idea?

More importantly in the wider context is what justification do people need to give why they don’t want to do anything…
Many people with an agenda will only accept the answers that agree with their agenda. They will totally ignore what the person says right until the person says what they want them to say.

They will then publish another fake paper referencing previous fake papers that diligently refused to listen to what people actually told them or just asked the same question until they got the answer they wanted.

This is an important distinction between “you” and “they”. I don’t think “you” would deliberately mishear, mis-record or mis-represent the reasons but some of “they” would.

They will then publish their misrepresentation for it to be used by another “they” as fact.

Again I’ll draw the parallel between my sons’ mother, uncle and aunt. Both brought up a few miles from ski/bike lifts with both parents fairly outdoors types, both parents ride bikes a bit.

My son’s aunt does any and every extreme sport known. She spent a time in hospital every year for at least the last decade as a result. I posted the news video to her recent rescue from an avalanche after which she had to have everything pelvis down reconstructed.

My son’s mother (her sister) is averse to any discomfort or lack of amenity… getting cold, getting hot, getting wet … If Jnr or sister try and encourage her to ride MTB she’ll say anything and everything, including “women shouldn’t be doing that”.

Does she really mean “women shouldn’t be doing that”? or perhaps she’s tired of being told “you’ll enjoy it” …
I suspect she is protective of her little sister and thinks people in general shouldn’t be risking their lives in extreme sports more than any gender belief. She has 1001 reasons Jnr shouldn’t be cycling DH… and does everything she can to discourage him.

I have discussed this a bit, my mum was a PE teacher for 30 years. The most common reason for lack of participation that she observed was indeed social conditioning. As kids head into puberty they become a lot more self aware and look towards the adult world for cues. And that means being into boys, makeup, clothes etc and not being sporty. Just check out a ‘women’s magazine’. So PE suddenly becomes lame and they don’t want to do it.

You just swapped and changed …

As kids head into puberty

that means being into boys, makeup, clothes etc and not being sporty

Quite simply as kids head into puberty their hormones kick in.
We cycled Sat with a mate and his daughter … actually not true. Me and my mate cycled Sat and Jnr and his daughter went off and did some stuff that involved some cycling.

She only actually wanted to go when my mate told her Jnr was going…

The other side of that is the school side.

After being forced to do sports they dislike for years as kids head into puberty they become a lot more self aware and realise they don’t have to do something many of them hated for years

Others may have actually enjoyed a specific sport for years but simply want to exert their right to be a teenager and rebel.

Others might simply want to do something different with their time.

Social conditioning definitely 100% exists

Sure but why aren’t you up in arms over this discrimination and social conditioning?
BPW

CHILDREN – Children aged 16 years and under must be accompanied by an adult at all times (including on the trails and on the uplift), no adult, no ride, no refund! If a booking is made for a person under the age of 17 you must notify BikePark Wales as soon as you book, notifying us of who will be accompanying them.

Imagine being a teenage kid in Merthyr and banned from riding at BPW unless someone pays for an adult to accompany you (assuming you can find one).

Do you not think this might very strongly discourage most teenagers (of any gender) from carrying on? A requirement to drag lame dad or mum or uncle Molgrips down Enter the Dragon

Sure but why aren’t you up in arms over this discrimination and social conditioning?

I would take a guess because it is neither discrimination or social conditioning. They are just covering themselves from a safety point of view.
You are really struggling with this social conditioning thing aren’t you.

@stevextc much as disagree with many of the things you have said, you do have a valid point regarding positive pressure. Unwanted encouragement is also a part of social conditioning and is equally wrong.

I can speak from personal experience, as a youngster who positively didn’t want to do a great many things. If I heard the words “why don’t you try it, you might enjoy it” I would percieve that as pressure and dig my heals in even harder. Others may not be so strong/stubborn.

kerley

You are really struggling with this social conditioning thing aren’t you.

I’m not the one struggling.

I would take a guess because it is neither discrimination or social conditioning. They are just covering themselves from a safety point of view.

The fact they are covering themselves legally doesn’t mean it’s not social conditioning.

The fact you think this is a safety point of view simply illustrates you are a victim of social conditioning. How does forcing a kid to nurse an adult down a trail they are uncomfortable riding help safety?

In this is seems to me that you have been socially conditioned to think a teenage kid shouldn’t be riding without an adult but because that doesn’t fit your agenda you don’t even see it as social conditioning.

Either way in your book the last person we should ask are presumably the teenagers who stopped riding or their parents … as you might get some answers you don’t like.

The fact you think this is a safety point of view simply illustrates you are a victim of social conditioning.

Yes, of course it does. I don’t actually agree with the BPW rule and would let kids do what they want. It is safety from a BPW point of view not mine, maybe they have been socially conditioned

I won’t be replying to any more of your nonsense and I should have never fallen for it. I will let others waste their time.

@jordan

much as disagree with many of the things you have said, you do have a valid point regarding positive pressure. Unwanted encouragement is also a part of social conditioning and is equally wrong.

I can speak from personal experience, as a youngster who positively didn’t want to do a great many things. If I heard the words “why don’t you try it, you might enjoy it” I would percieve that as pressure and dig my heals in even harder. Others may not be so strong/stubborn.

That’s pretty much what I’ve said the whole way through… rather than what others have inferred or twisted to their agenda.

If I heard the words “why don’t you try it, you might enjoy it” I would percieve that as pressure and dig my heals in even harder.

Ok… so I’m going further but in what I believe is the same thing.
The step further is just not listening and trying to convince them/you why you just don’t want to do something.
The step after that is to keep asking until they give the answer you want…

Don’t get me wrong .. I’m not saying we can’t encourage but that we have to know when to stop and I apply this equally to any gender.

To take what you said .. I had years of “you really do like football” .. and years of having to justify myself.. and as you say (and especially as a teenager) that simply made me dig my heels in further.

When I take it that step further then as a teenager being forced to justify why those “telling me” simply refused to accept my answers I’d just say pretty much anything.
What I did learn is they are not interested in the actual reasons just proving their agenda.

I’ve mentioned before I spent a lot of time at country council the child psychology service where the one thing they refused to do was listen to my reasons and instead promote their agenda with dolls and trying to get me to say how my father sexually abused me.

They would ask questions like “why do you refuse to do homework” to which I started with the truth.. “I hate the school” .. quite honestly at one point after months of inane questions and refusal to accept my answers I think I was almost ready to go along with them just to get them to STFU… IMHO you don’t need a degree in psychology to work out why a kid who’s parents got divorced and has been forced to go to a school they don’t want to go to hates the school and is simply trying to get expelled. More to the point I told them this directly .. they just didn’t want to listen because it didn’t fit their agenda.

Sadly their career aspirations didn’t include writing down “child hates school”, rather they wanted a nice juicy career ladder and they were quite prepared to ignore the truth they were being told and invent their own as fact to prove a popular meme.

I guess the shorter version of that is not only do people dig in their heels but sooner or later they will invent totally fictional reasons they hope to match the interrogators expectations.

It is safety from a BPW point of view not mine, maybe they have been socially conditioned

It has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with liability.

I won’t be replying to any more of your nonsense and I should have never fallen for it. I will let others waste their time.

Ah so typical conspiracy theorist behaviour hands over eyes and ears …. yeah gravity… I’m not falling for that … the CIA are paying you to pretend the earth is a sphere…

@stevextc I can’t disagree with anything you said in that last post aimed at me. I definately agree re. football 🙂 Although most football pressure came from friends, they and my dad soon gave up on me with that one once I had demonstrated how truly crap I could be at it.

kerley

You are really struggling with this social conditioning thing aren’t you.

I’m not the one struggling.

🤔🙄🤔🙄😃😃😃😃😃😃

You can encourage women to ride bikes without ever even talking to one, much less trying to force them onto a bike

vickipea

I think it’s interesting to note the changes in attitudes towards women in sports over the decades. When I was at school in the 1980s, girls seemed as keen and active as boys, although PE lessons and clubs didn’t cater for certain sports for girls, including football and basketball.

I continued with various sports after I left school but in the 1990s I was always struck by the lack of sports kit for women: sports shops consisted of an enormous roomful of kit for boys and men, and a token one pink T-shirt and pair of shorts for women hidden in the corner.

Since then, girls get to play football in school, there are many more visible role models in elite sport, and sports shops sell loads of clothing for women. I keep hearing that a huge % of teenage girls quit sport after compulsory PE lessons stop. So why is that? It doesn’t seem to match the greater visibility of women in sports these days?

Lots of different questions ….

sports shops consisted of an enormous roomful of kit for boys and men, and a token one pink T-shirt and pair of shorts for women hidden in the corner

Most shops are going to use their space for what sells the most.
Perhaps a different question might be why do we have male and female specific cycling jerseys/tops?

Granted I buy mens ones but mine all fit over body armour so it would need to be a very well endowed lady (or whatever politically correct way to say that) that it didn’t fit… but when I do see womens specific cycling tops (looking for sizes for my lad) it seems to be tailored.

I’d also question why anyone but especially people cycling for leisure rather than elite level racing even needs cycle/football (etc) specific clothing… (excluding short liners/boots)

That to me is just social conditioning… it just applies to both genders.
As a few people on here know I usually wear an old pair of jeans and whatever top is cheap at Sainsbury’s when riding.

Another way to look at the shopping experience (not right or wrong just an alternative)

sports shops consisted of an enormous roomful of kit for people in general, and a couple of women specific items

Why do lots of girls quit sports after being forced to do them at school ?
Same reason many boys do… you listed a few but jobs, moving away from their mates etc. etc.

If I take what you wrote and rewrite it in a gender neutral way …

In my 20s/30s I found that many of the friends I knew would get together and talk about stuff didn’t interest me

Thus, I never fitted in with the social circles of the people I’d grown up with, which reinforced my own choices. This is not meant to be a criticism of those people, and I know there are plenty of them with similar interests to me out there. Nevertheless it was my experience that doing what I wanted to do meant excluding myself from other stuff my mates from school were doing.

This is the basis of what I’m trying to say…
Some people like different stuff and some people like stuff their mates do… quite a lot of that will be depending where you live as well.

However that falls gender wise it is what it is… I guess what I’m saying is why worry about someone’s gender in terms of their interests rather than just what their interest are instead of their gender?

Firstly, @stevextc, make your posts shorter. They ramble and are hard to read.

where exactly do you draw the line between not listening, talking them into it, coercion and forcing.

If someone of any gender tells you “its just not for me” how far would YOU go to try and change their mind?

I don’t advocate persuading or coercing anyone to do anything, that’s patently ridiculous. What I want is positive representation. You don’t talk to girls/asians/whatever and try and convince them to do the thing; you show people like them doing it, and that removes the image barrier from them doing the thing. So they may decide they enjoy it – or they may not, of course.

Sheesh, if you thought we were advocating trying to force people to do sports, no wonder you were arguing. That’s clearly stupid. Another tip though – if someone appears to be saying something totally ridiculous online, perhaps read it again through more sympathetic eyes, because they probably aren’t being ridiculous.

That’s pretty much what I’ve said the whole way through… rather than what others have inferred or twisted to their agenda.

Tip 3 – that’s a very toxic statement. We’re not twisting anything to an agenda, that’s a hugely negative accusation – we’re trying to explain how we can be more positive and inclusive.