putting the 20th anniversary of critical mass to the bikey bechdel test

to follow up our conversation from last week where i talked about the bikey bechdel test, i thought i'd put the 20th anniversary of critical mass to the test. crtical mass turns 20 tomorrow, which is the last friday of september 2012.

there are several ways to put CM to the bikey bechdel test. their promotion has been on FB, on local radio stations, local weeklies, art posters for sale, and a popup store on valencia street. let's take a look and see how CM fares with the bikey bechdel test.

to refresh your memory, here are the rules that will be applied:

1. Are women present or represented at all?
2. Are the women presented as active subjects rather than passive objects?
3. If the gender were reversed, would the meaning stay more or less unchanged? (Or would the image become hilarious?)

FB page:
their logo is of a person wearing a skirt with pigtails holding a bike upside down.

1. yes. we can assume this is a woman, albeit a silhouette. there is no one else in the image.
2. active: i would say holding a bike is a pretty active thing to be doing.
3. i thought about this silhouette being a man (wearing a dress and pigtails) and didn't think the meaning would change at all.

the FB icon passes.

much of the rest of their FB talks about various articles. the SFCM persona is most likely a lot of people, females included, but things being shared are not women's voices.
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local radio station interview on KQED.
1. no. the people talking about critical mass on the radio were all men.
2. there were no women representing CM on the interview. there were 4 men. a few emails written by women, and a few female callers.
3. if the gender was reversed, the meaning would change because it means women have a say.

the radio station interview fails.
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local weeklies (in this case sf bay guardian)
1. yes. the first (and only) woman to say anything of substance is buried on page three. the other woman is the "girlfriend" of someone.
2. yes and no. lisaruth is an active participant, having co-edit a book called shift happens and talked about various critical mass rides around the world. she is the only female voice talking about the event and belonging to a community. there are only two women mentioned in this article and many more men mentioned. i would say the girlfriend mention alone (after all, her boyfriend was not called "boyfriend of marie"), makes her representation, unfortunately, passive.
3. if gender was reversed, would be no women represented, so the meaning would be CHANGED.

the local weekly mention fails due to gender disparity represented in the article.
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art posters for sale
there are three posters for sale to help out CM. let's take a look.
--
mona caron's 20th anniversary poster

1. yes, women are present...as an angel. bonus points for the genderless child in the front.
2. unclear. the woman is engaging the viewer by staring directly out to catch the gaze. however, she's twisting her body in a pose that is slightly suggestive towards being more sexual in nature. she's not on her bike but rather holding it by the handlebars. she also has wings, so might not need a bike?
3. i believe if the gender was reversed the image would look ridiculous.

hard to say if this passes the bikey bechdel test or not. on one hand, this is created by a woman, but the woman/angel represented is sort of sexually suggestive. i'm inclined to say this image does NOT pass.
--
hugh d'andrade's 20th anniversary poster

1. yes, there are women silhouettes present.
2. they are being active participants riding their silhouetted bikes.
3. unclear. both genders are represented pretty equally. well, 3 men, 2 women, and a child. if the gender was reversed on the mother, in particular, it would be changed for the "awesomer", because that would be a father riding his child around on a bike.

hugh d'andrade's poster PASSES.
--
Jim Swanson 20th anniversary poster

1. yes, there are women represented.
2. they are being active participants riding their bikes.
3. no, the meaning would be unchanged. these are just regular people riding their bikes. the genders seem to be evenly represented.

jim swanson's poster PASSES.

so there you go! seems like after 20 years, there's still some gender stuff to figure out. but i do like that lisaruth and mona are well-represented. just need more females doing things for CM for it to pass the bikey bechdel test.

thanks, and see you at the 20th anniversary on friday! mixed feelings about the ride myself, but i do have mad respect for them and all they do.

bikey bechdel test

last week was the first ever national women's bicycling summit. it took place close enough for me to consider attending, but between my two jobs, was just kind of hard to make that commitment. so i sort of sat back and waited for what the blogosphere would report back.

wellwellwell. i'm liking what i'm seeing so far. in particular the feminist spin on the representation of women in bikey things ranging from advocacy, racing, policy and advertising.

i went to an all female undergraduate college, and nearly every class had a powerful female lens to it. we became well versed in the concept of the male gaze and, outside of class, we were well versed in other strong female voices ranging from comics, to music. both are variations of art forms dominated by a male presence. sort of like all things bikey. this is why the phenomenon of female bike bloggers is so important to me, and to all of us associated with the blog. they show a diversity of interests ranging from not just fashion, but to photography, interests in bicycle geometry and road racing, among many others.

so what i'm getting to is one of the things to come out of the NWBS is the bikey bechdel test. are you kidding me? that's amazing!! here's a video summarizing the bechdel test for those who are not familiar with the concept. this is covering the 2011 oscars, and demonstrates why most movies are not worth my time lately.



now comes elly blue's post called "is this thing sexist? introducing the 'bike test'" (hint, if you have to ask, it probably is sexist. jussayin'). here is elly blue's the bike test:

The Bike Test:
Here are the criteria:

1. Are women present or represented at all?
2. Are the women presented as active subjects rather than passive objects?
3. If the gender were reversed, would the meaning stay more or less unchanged? (Or would the image become hilarious?)


keep in mind this framework for this test was introduced in 1985. that's almost 30 years ago.

let's apply this to a picture that came out from the interbike industry show.

yesterday this picture came out from the interbike FB page introducing some sort of who knows what. but it's got a blonde in a bikini! behind a cage! in vegas! was captioned with "Dunk tank at the wtb booth at OutDoor Demo!"

test application:
1. yes
2. passive.
3. meaning would become ironic and probably "hilarious" if the man was in a bikini. but to be fair, both genders definitely have had their share sitting on at a dunk table.

30 years everyone. THIRTY.

there's some talk of the real-life "mcdreamy" (ahem...we wont discuss that nickname here, because i don't really have a favorable view on it), who is pretty interested in seeing women becoming serious racing competitors. while that's great that he feels that way, i can't help but think that with women's growing buying power, that we can do this this for OURSELVES. or in conjunction with a gender balanced bikey think tank with funds.

h/t to jenny and richard.