The archive / Morals and safety
1890–1900 · Europe and the USA
Doctors warn: cycling gives women “bicycle face”!
Women on bicycles
Panic meter
The verdict
Cycling was said to harm women’s health and morals. Instead it became a symbol of women’s freedom.
Reality meter
What was said?
During the cycling boom of the 1890s, many women took up the bicycle. Doctors and commentators sounded the alarm: the exertion was said to produce a strained, haggard "bicycle face", to damage fertility and to lead to immoral behaviour. Divided skirts and solo rides without a chaperone caused particular outrage.
The verdict: what happened next?
There never was any such thing as "bicycle face". The diagnosis vanished about as quickly as it had appeared.
Instead, the bicycle gave women a new freedom of movement. The American suffragist Susan B. Anthony said in 1896 that the bicycle had done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.
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