One hundred women in three days on a bicycle route on the AIDA cycle path - From Verona to Milan, passing through Desenzano, Brescia and Romano di Lombardia.
100 Women united around a shared passion show that unity is strength.
One hundred women, three days on a bicycle route on the AIDA cycle path - From Verona to Milan, passing through Desenzano, Brescia and Romano di Lombardia in 3 stages.
"“Riding a bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world”, said the American feminist Susan Anthony, at the end of the 19th century. And not without reason: the wheel gave women freedom of movement, allowing them to pedaling from one place to another by themselves, and also helped to change the clothing that limited their movements.
At that time, doctors like the Frenchman Phillipe Tissié claimed that cycling would harm women, and could even cause female sterility. Others claimed that the bicycle would be indecent, because it would bring pleasure by “friction in the private parts”. This was nothing more than an argument created around the refusal to accept that women conquer this autonomy, but fortunately there were already those who defended its use, such as the Frenchman Ludovic O'Followell, who claimed that cycling was good for women's health.
The Americans and French were the pioneers in the use of the bicycle. This personal freedom came at a time when women were fighting for their rights, especially to vote, to own property and to sign contracts.
Elisabeth Staton, who has worked with Susan Anthony for women's rights for more than 50 years, went so far as to say that "women cycle towards suffrage". Maria Pognon, president of the French League for the Rights of Women, called the bicycle “egalitarian and equitable”, and an excellent means of “liberating the female sex”.
The image of the bicycle was linked to the figure of the New Woman in the United States - the concept of the woman who contested traditional roles and became involved in activism, claiming her rights, especially the right to vote.
That's the word that best defines the bike. And so it was at the end of the 19th century. Before depending on the consent and help of men to take them where they wanted to go, Americans and Europeans began to move according to their will and disposition, gaining autonomy. They began to circulate more in the public space, to go further and to meet with other women without the presence of men, whether to discuss and work for their rights or just to have fun.
As a result of the desire and need to use the bicycle, women were also able to free themselves from the clothes that suffocated them. Large skirts, which weighed down and limited their movements, and tight corsets, which compressed and hurt their bodies, were replaced by lighter, tighter clothes, such as spencers (an adaptation of the men's coat used at the time) and bloomer pants. Launched in 1850 by Amélia Bloomer, an ally of Susan and Elizabeth and editor of the first newspaper for the female audience, baggy pants somewhat resembled skirts, but allowed for a more comfortable use of the bicycle and even made walking easier.
The bicycle brought women freedom of movement and displacement, directly and indirectly, leaving a legacy that extends to the present day. And it was already, for more than a century, situated in the midst of struggles and conquests of rights and freedoms, accompanying those who fought for a more just and egalitarian society."
(source: https://vadebike.org/2013/03/bicicleta-emancipacao-feminina/)
Today, from 30 to 70 years old, the cyclists of the MIA Women Ride are welcomed by the communities where they pass as if they were the Giro d'Italia in Pontoglio. Pedaling together - forming a united and firm column showing that even after the last bike disappears on the horizon, our echo will remain, the echo of a choice:
"We are here and we will not stop."
