The episode in detail
When everyday mobility is gendered without anyone noticing
Mélodie Cros Ferréol trained as an engineer. She spent 12 years developing transport projects (metro design and commissioning). Alongside this, she became an urban cyclist, co-chair of the La Ville à Vélo association in Lyon, and a facilitator of workshops on mobility and sexism. For her dissertation at the Institut de la Transition, she brought together two subjects that had long occupied her: cycling and gender norms.
What she found is not new to mobility specialists, but remains largely unknown to the general public. Women travel differently from men, regardless of age, social background or region. Their trips are shorter, slower and more frequent, spread across the whole day. They chain stops together (pharmacy, school, shopping) where men make simple round trips between two points. Spanish researcher Inès Sanchez de Madariaga gave this reality a name in 2013: “mobility of care”, domestic mobility.
“Women travel fewer kilometres and spend less time travelling, but make more trips. For a 38-year-old woman, that is around one more trip a day than for men.”
Cycling should be women’s ally. It is their blind spot.
A paradox: cycling fits this complex mobility perfectly (short trips, easy parking, flexible routes). Yet it is the only form of active travel where women are less present than men, roughly half as many, according to figures from the FUB (Fédération française des usagers de la bicyclette).
Mélodie identified three categories of barriers. First, physical, social and technical insecurity: fear of accidents (60% of women cyclists fear an accident risk “often or all the time”), fear of conflict with drivers, fear of mechanical breakdown. Second, bodily pressures: the helmet that messes up hair, sweat that runs make-up, the gendered relationship to physical effort that puts women off hills. Third, the lack of solutions for domestic mobility: parking a cargo bike safely while children play nearby is a source of stress that few planners have anticipated.
“Women are not less able to climb a hill. They are socialised not to want to. That is the question of gender at stake.”
Three gender norms, three locks to break
Mélodie draws on the work of researcher Camille Froidevaux-Metterie to link these barriers to three deep gender norms. Social inferiority produces the feeling of insecurity, even though statistics show that women have at least half as many cycling accidents as men. Sexual availability imposes aesthetic pressures that make the body “decorative” rather than “capable”. Maternal devotion turns every trip with children into a social trial: “Am I a good mother if I cycle on the road with my children?”
Women interviewed for the dissertation report direct criticism from other passers-by, including other women, accusing them of “endangering” their children by cycling with them.
“When you’re a mother, the issue of insecurity is multiplied tenfold. The fear of an accident applies to yourself, but also to your children. Am I entitled to choose this way of getting around?”
A cycling ecosystem designed by and for men
The problem is not limited to riding. In the cycling ecosystem (manufacturing, sales, repair, infrastructure planning), women are under-represented: 13% in cycle distribution, 23% in contributions to cycling infrastructure, 35% on association boards. At La Ville à Vélo, despite several successive female co-chairs, women make up only 30% of members.
This absence produces what Mélodie calls a “bias of ignorance”: men design solutions based on their own experience and unintentionally overlook women’s needs. Structuring cycle networks (such as the Lyon voies lyonnaises) favour long commutes, which matter for decarbonisation, but fall short if local trips (schools, shopping, healthcare) remain dangerous or uncomfortable.
“If it’s too complicated to take my children to school or go shopping by bike, even if my commute to work is decent, I won’t choose cycling. The local trip isn’t safe.”
Four levers to change the situation
The dissertation does not stop at description. Mélodie proposes four courses of action. The first: tackle sexism in the cycling ecosystem through concrete training and awareness actions, not vague calls. The second: improve women’s representation within organisations, with measurable targets for recruitment and parity in key positions. The third: count and measure by gender. Set gendered modal shares (not just “12% of cyclists”, but “12% of women cyclists”) and apply gender mainstreaming to infrastructure projects. The fourth: work on cultural representation, showing women mechanics, mothers cycling with their children, and women chairing associations.
Cycling, a tool for emancipation then and now
In the 19th century, the bicycle let women travel without being accompanied by their husband or father. Cycling also sped up the authorisation of trousers for women. For Mélodie, this emancipatory potential remains intact. Pedalling means reclaiming a capable body rather than a decorative one. Learning mechanics breaks the myth of technical incompetence. Riding in the middle of the road means occupying public space.
“Cycling helps lift these barriers and challenge social norms. You reclaim your body’s capabilities, regain confidence, take your place on the road. For a woman, that is not a small thing.”
