Next, if you compare cycling to something like running, generally the female participation is far far higher in the latter. I think this is, in part, due to the equipment aspect. Hear me out:
Anecdotally, of all the hobbies I have participated in (motorsports, shooting & cycling) the number of females at any given event is <5% at a guess. Those activities all have something in common = equipment. At a very basic level, a little boy still gets given Lego while his sister is given a doll. I know we've probably come a long way since I was a kid, but from walking past the toy aisle in shops I see this is still very much a thing. Of course, these are very broad generalizations. That's not ALL women, but you can see that the net number of women likely to be interested in something like long distance cycling quickly diminishes.
Yes. Cycling requires equipment. Equipment for cycling is not unisex, at least not to the degree people think it is.
Something all cyclists can do, all those who consider themselves to be male allies, is to ask your local bike shop about their women's range. Suggest they should stock more than 1 women's bike, they should have a range of women's clothing.
Right now, If I was to give a man and a woman €1000 in cash, send them into a bike shop and say "Get a bike for audaxing", the man would have a choice, and could walk out with a bike there and then. The woman is unlikely to have a choice of models, is unlikely to find one in stock in the right size, and is probably going to have to wait a few days to a week for a bike to be ordered in.
Now, this is not an AUK problem, this is not a problem AUK can solve, but it is a problem, and I think it would be good if the cycle industry could recognise this.
I would normally insert here a massive rant about how all off the shelf bikes are stupidly over geared and how this disadvantages new women riders, but this week Shimano have announced their GRX groupset, which with it's 46/30 chainset, has the possibility of fixing this. Tho it'll take a while for it to be available on prebuilt bikes.
And while we're at it, if you see shop assistants being sexist shits, trying to sell the wrong thing, upselling pointlessly, etc... call it out. This goes for everyone. The Local Bike Shop is not the welcoming happy place for women that it is for men, but it should be.
When you consider that Audax is a niche within a niche, I think it speaks (complementary) volumes that I am yet to ride an Audax where there wasn't females at the start.
That's not to say we can't or shouldn't do more. But I think care needs to be taken how we do it. With regards to a purposefully 'female friendly' event, Liam's LWL is undeniably a success in terms of numbers. But, find the different entry requirements for men and women pretty uncomfortable to swallow on principal. Equality of outcome is never the same as equality of opportunity, never should we kid ourselves that it is. The problem with using cold hard metrics are success indicators carries unintended consequences, take school league tables for example. Gun-in-mouth stuff. But, as a temporary vehicle to achieve an equality of opportunity, I find it acceptable. Having a visible female presence will doubtless show others that Audax IS really fun and really quite achieveable.
Positive discrimination is discrimination. There's no beating about the bush with it. I'd love to live in a world where it wasn't needed for things like this, but I can't see a better option.
The women I know who are already riding show that there is no physical barrier limiting participation. They are all bloody strong cyclists. The underlying societal sexism that goes un-noticed, certainly by me and i guess lots of other men, DOES exist within Audax as I suppose it does everywhere. I am told it is very gradually improving but my very esteem'ed female Super Randonneur friend feels it's still MORE remarkable when an event passes WITHOUT some form of back-handed complement ("Gosh, aren't you doing well (for a girl)!") or swerving inquiry as to her marital status ("So, are you riding with your boyfriend/husband/Male Chaperone?") She was particularly narked that the former example happened at LWL, when she rolled into a later control in the front 10% of the field.
This, so much this.
"Are you here with your boyfriend?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise one was a requirement"
If I had €5 for every time this exchange happened at an audax, I'd be able to buy some new wheels...
I don't get the "aren't you doing well thing", I'm always lantern rouge. But I've friends who have been on the receiving end of it.
Ramble over. TLDR - Female participation is low because of reasons. While we can do things to help, it's not our sole responsibility to change the world.
It is my sole purpose on this rock to leave the world a better place than I found it.
J