Barbara Gruehl Kipke

Mobility for the Majority: Making Women and Children Mobile

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WOMEN

Women are presently often the beasts of burden in developing countries. It may be a picturesque photo when women carry headloads, but for the women and children affected it is a daily unnecessary chore/load which leads to health problems. Women and children seldom have access to bicycles in a household - these valuable items are reserved for the men. This leads to the ludicrous situation that a girl might spend her whole day walking back and forth to fetch water for the entire household while a bicycle might be standing at home! Sometimes the water she is carrying weighs more than her own body weight. Just imagine the waste: In developing countries this task can be someone's major occupation.

In some regions women can cycle; eg. Muslim women in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso cycle. Regional differences in cycling by women have not been explained adequately.

Gender disparity already begins at childhood when less girls learn to cycle than boys. Even if girls are allowed to cycle, there are societies where it becomes unacceptable to cycle once a girl comes of age. Women in developing countries are often pregnant or have small children - since there are few and in some cases no children's seats in the market, bicycles end up being unsuitable for these women.

Women have less access to bicycles since the first "vehicle" is reserved for males and the household can not afford further vehicles (similar to the initial motorisation of men in industrialized countries).

Often the special needs of women are not analysed in transportation studies. The transportation plans are often produced by foreign (male) consultants, who are only familiar with the Western transportation model: planning that is oriented towards motorised traffic and mainly serves the needs of the minority (ie. adult men).

The subsequent discussion will concentrate on cycling issues although the fate of pedestrians is also an interesting and often forgotten topic.

If the needs of women are to be adequately planned for the following special areas of concern need to be addressed among others:

This overview demonstrates that traditional transportation planning is not sufficient in order to adequately achieve the goal of bicycle promotion. Other areas that have nothing to do with infrastructure have to be added if the "wheels are to go round".

When interviewed, women stated they would like to cycle but were not allowed. Their fathers and husbands do not allow cycling because they are worried that their women would gain too much freedom. It is thus necessary to reach a larger audience than the women themselves - a societal transformation of values has to take place.

Women and girls can benefit greatly if they can cycle. Beforehand some obstacles have to be overcome. Some of these advantages and obstacles have been summarized below:

Clothing is not a real obstacle since men are able to cycle in long, traditional gowns (eg. Tamale, Ghana).

Sometimes it can be difficult to distribute bicycles to women. In some cases women accept the bicycles only to pass them on to other household members. In this case one can only place hopes on the next generation (refer to next section).