Commuting in a short dress - Recommended!

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theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
Seen recently thanks to a similar conversation in an entirely different place: check your privilege

Like it!
 
Errr excuse me? When I'm asking people to think a bit more before posting mindless twaddle you're saying I have issues? That is one hell of a momentous jump.

:rolleyes: As immutable as Godwin's Law, and an almost infallible technique - when defending the (border-line?) indefensible, suggest the other person "has issues".

+1 for "asking people to think a bit more before posting mindless twaddle".
 

lukesdad

Guest
I get comments about my leg bits from males and females. I can only deduce that they have a scar fetish, but there's nothing wrong with 'window shopping' I suppose.
I draw the line at a bandage though...

Lukesdad has got nice legs. Proper cyclist. :smile:


Why thank you dear !
 

dellzeqq

pre-talced and mighty
Location
SW2
oh dear - poor Teef, he's got a perv to deal with!

I come from a family of men too and grew up as a massive tomboy (despite what they wanted for a girl).

Thanks, it is thinking about stuff- I'm quite tough and vocal, there are some forummers who aren't and may possibly lurk or find CC distasteful for those reasons.

Just use some grey matter that's all- that's all I'm asking.
that's a difficult one.

When you look at the number of women running in London (over 50% in my neck of the woods) then you're bound to wonder why more women don't cycle - if I had to make a guess I'd say that women made up no more than 20% of commuting cyclists except on a couple of major routes. It may be that the attitude in bike shops is patronising, or that the attitude of people, motorists, pedestrians or even other cyclists is demeaning or intimidating. I've certainly noticed that Susie gets all kinds of grief from motorists when it's not apparent she's with me.

So there is a problem, and one would hope that CC would be part of the answer to the problem, rather than a contributing factor.

I'm not claiming to know the answer, not least because the proportion of women on the FNRttC has been stuck at 25% for two years, having briefly risen to 30% in 2009. I've been told that Ditchling Beacon puts women off the ride to Brighton, and this may well be true, and I've been told that the attitude of some of the men on the ride is off-putting and this may also be true - I've certainly had to take one participant aside and put him straight, but there's always a bit of boysiness that some women will be comfortable with and some women will not be comfortable with.

In the end we're not all going to get along all of the time, but it doesn't hurt to think about things when somebody as wise as TT makes a point, not least because sexism runs through all our lives.

And, to repeat, 'humour' is just as likely to offend as anything else.
 

007fair

Senior Member
Location
Glasgow Brr ..
can't help you there!

it's a bit like Wittgenstein and apples (I can hear TC warming up her keyboard to tell me that it's not like Wittgensteing and apples at all, but I'm hoping she'll stay her hand...). If I say apple then you think that I mean what you think of as an apple - so it behoves each one of us to take a little care. Personally I thought that some of the posts were a bit rank. Personally I think an apology is in order.

On the other hand, if we were ever to meet, you'd probably work out that the person who posts on these forums is by a long way a lot more polite and a lot less foul-mouthed than the person that rides his bicycle. Setting aside Shaun's swear-filter, I like to think of myself as having a few social graces, which is why one poster didn't get told to '**** off and die, you pervy little ****', a remark that could be, alternatively, deeply offensive or sidesplittingly funny. I'll vote for both.

It's the blindness of humour that makes it, from time to time, so repellent.

Hadn't heard of wittgenstein - a philosopher? I'll look 'it' up as I have a passing interest
The problem is that there is a huge difference in what some people find offensive and what others do. You say an apology is required - this may be true - but that would be to the OP. An apology is not due to any random person who would find the comment offensive IF it were aimed at them - especially after making the comment more explicit and worse than it was.

I agree care is required - of course But there is the flipside - not to take all slightly 'sexist' joking too seriously too quick
 

theclaud

Openly Marxist
Location
Swansea
Hadn't heard of wittgenstein - a philosopher? I'll look 'it' up as I have a passing interest
The problem is that there is a huge difference in what some people find offensive and what others do. You say an apology is required - this may be true - but that would be to the OP. An apology is not due to any random person who would find the comment offensive IF it were aimed at them - especially after making the comment more explicit and worse than it was.

I agree care is required - of course But there is the flipside - not to take all slightly 'sexist' joking too seriously too quick

It certainly is a "passing" interest if you haven't heard of Wittgenstein...

I see you didn't bother to read Dan's link...
 
Do you know. I didn't read this thread because I didn't think I'd ever commute in a short dress. Then I saw it had reached 14 pages and had a look in. I should've guessed really.
 
How has this got to 14 pages? About eight pages back, a forummer asked for a bit of thought & respect from people making comments. Is that so difficult or complicated?

fwiw: My personal experience is that, riding with my partner, who has long hair, sometimes wears short dresses over her cycling shorts, and sometimes wears pink lycra or helmet, is that I get a lot more trouble from drivers acting like pillocks than she does. But I've only once been wolf whistled recently, and it means something rather different from what it does when at a woman.
 

Msmancunia

New Member
Location
Chadderton
I think there's a fine line between banter and sexist remarks at the best of times, and a lot of what is said is usually backed up when you know the person you're talking to, or if you're able to read their body language and so on. On an internet forum, you usually don't have either! So things can be taken out of context to a certain extent and I think you do have to tred with a little caution.

Plus people have different opinions on all this - not better or worse, just different. What's offensive to one person is just harmless banter to another. There's a Grill the Gash (hate that word) in the MTB forum on BR at the moment that was opened up by two girls who I have no doubt could hold their own if being abused on their bike on the street. It's not my kind of thing, but if that's something they want to do, then fair enough.

So, different strokes for different folks, and people should bear that in mind. I don't know anyone on this board personally, but I'd be a lot more careful/guarded about what I said in a personal comment on here, than to someone I knew in my personal life for precisely that reason.
 

MissTillyFlop

Evil communist dictator, lover of gerbils & Pope.
Sometimes I would just like someone to point out a positive attribute (or just lie if there aren't any!)when I'm cycling, rather than pointing out the colour of my hair or my skin.

For the record, I am quite aware that I am ginger. I have this great new invention called EYES.

Having said this, I did once work for a guy who asked me to sew all the costumes because I was a "lady of a certain age".

Surprisingly, I did not use the c-bomb, but rather explained that I would be happy to if he showed me how (I am quite a good seamstress, but I wasn't giving him the satisfaction). And I would happily return the favour should his computer break down...
 

fimm

Veteran
Location
Edinburgh
I am going to add, rather cautiously, that I also felt that one or two of the early remarks were a bit inevitable. Request for pictures, sigh... I contemplated saying something and then didn't... and when I got back from a meeting I found the thread had grown quite a lot - first I thought it was going to end in an enormous arguement but it seems to be managing to remain a bit more thoughtful.
 
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