When “for everyone” isn’t enough

blog(s) Introduction

This blog was inspired by an experience at an event highlighting women’s safety at night — where I was overlooked and side-lined by cis men. And, just as the irony didn't escape me, neither did the reason why we were there — to highlight this kind of experience.

My initial draft was considered a little angry. And so, because I wanted to reach those who didn't necessarily agree with me, I decided to soften it, removing potential "trigger words" — even including a language note! (In my files, it’s entitled 'When “for everyone” isn’t enough: What it takes to make cycling work for all — less angry')

Now that the Audit has its own website, I’ve decided to post both versions. They cover the same evidence and core points, but differ in tone and approach. So you can read neither, either — or both!

Version 2: When “for everyone” isn’t enough: What it takes to make cycling work for all — less angry

First published 13th January 2026 by Norwich Cycling Campaign

Language note: In this article, “men” refers to those who have historically held the most influence in public spaces — usually white men. Experiences of safety, policing and public space are not the same for all men. For example, a man of colour on a bike is more likely to be stopped by police than a white woman.¹

“Men” also means those whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender men, for instance, can face gender-based discrimination similar to women, so their experiences may be different.

In line with this, “women” is used in an inclusive way to include anyone who faces discrimination because of their gender. Excluding these people would repeat the same narrow focus that centres men who have historically held power.

Numbers tell a story

Our gender shapes how we move through the world — and the numbers make that clear. In the UK:

• Over two-thirds of women have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces.²

• Around one in five women have been stalked since the age of 16.³

• Nearly 30% of women in England and Wales have experienced sexual assault (including attempts) from the age of 16 onwards.⁴

These figures help explain why many women continue to feel less safe in public spaces — even before we look at cycling:

• Women cyclists report higher rates of near misses and harassment than men.⁵

• Women cyclists experience around 50% more close passes per mile than men.⁶

• Progress on reducing close passes has improved for men but stalled for women, widening the gender gap in cycling safety.⁷

The same fears that shape women’s movements through public space — of exposure, threat and vulnerability — are only compounded by the realities of cycling.

These painful everyday realities understandably shape how women move through the world — how they plan, dress, travel and occupy space. And they’re not accidental. They stem from choices made in a world where men’s experiences were treated as the default — a legacy that still shapes how our spaces work today, in their physical, social and cultural forms.

Cycling’s uneven ground

For much of the last century, transport and urban planning have been shaped around a narrow idea of the typical traveller — someone commuting by car from home to work and back again. That model reflected men’s working patterns at the time and still shapes how our cities function today.

Men remain more likely to drive and cycle, while women are more likely to walk or take the bus.⁸ Yet the modes women depend on most — walking and public transport — are often the least protected: slower, more exposed and more dependent on safe, accessible streets. Of course, cycling remains risky for everyone, but the fact that fewer women do it reveals the deeper barriers at play around safety, comfort and feeling welcome on the road.

While roles have shifted — with more men involved in caregiving and more women in full-time employment — gendered patterns of mobility have remained largely the same. In England, women continue to be more likely than men to provide care, accounting for nearly seven in ten unpaid carers.⁹ As a result, women’s journeys have continued to be shorter, more complex and often linked to care — combining school drop-offs, shopping or visits to relatives. Yet these multi-purpose trips remain rarely factored into planning decisions.

The result is infrastructure that fails to serve the way women actually move through cities: poorly lit routes; narrow pavements cluttered with obstacles; disconnected paths. And while safety campaigns are beginning to change, they’ve too often focused on women’s behaviour — walking routes, clothing, vigilance — rather than fixing the conditions that cause fear in the first place.

Cycling infrastructure reflects the same issues. Routes tend to be radial from the centre, not taking into consideration the more intricate journeys taken by many women. Cycle paths are too often painted lines rather than protected routes, failing to account for the higher risks of aggression and close passing women face. Many routes are poorly lit, ignoring the heightened risk of harassment and assault faced by women.

And cycling spaces still tend to reflect male perspectives — in their leadership, culture and tone. Campaigns, maintenance workshops and community rides often grow from traditions shaped by men, even when the aim is inclusion. At events or rides created to centre women, visibility and leadership can still sometimes slip into the background. Building genuine inclusion takes more than good intentions — it means actively creating space for a wider range of women, and for different voices and ways of leading.

Of course, the culture that makes many women feel unsafe in cycling spaces doesn’t stop there — it reflects wider social patterns. The same attitudes that silence or sideline women in everyday life also play out on our streets, shaping who feels welcome, visible and safe.

These patterns have real consequences. Women, and many others who are marginalised or underrepresented, still don’t stand on equal footing. The evidence — both statistical and lived — makes that hard to deny. When we dismiss women-centred initiatives, we risk overlooking the realities that still hold people back.

Resistance to redress

Sometimes, initiatives that focus on women are met with hesitation — from women-only rides to mentoring programmes or events about safety. After all, cycling on roads can feel risky for anyone. But the risks aren’t felt equally, and that difference shapes who rides, and who doesn’t.

The argument that cycling initiatives should be “for everyone” — and that making cycling safer overall will naturally make it safer for women — is well-intentioned and rooted in a genuine belief in fairness. But it overlooks something important: designing for “everyone” often ends up serving those already most visible and represented — which, in cycling, usually means men.

There’s also the argument that focusing on women ignores the fact that men struggle too — that many men feel unsafe, excluded or overlooked, but find it harder to talk about it. There’s truth in that. Social expectations around masculinity can make it difficult for men to express fear or vulnerability. But using that silence as a reason to resist women-centred work misses the deeper issue. Gendered systems affect everyone — just in different ways.

The systems built around male norms still tend to serve men better — even when those same norms limit them too. When we design cities, policies and spaces with women and other marginalised groups in mind, we create places that work better for everyone. Including those perspectives doesn’t exclude men: it dismantles the assumptions that hold us all back.

If we truly want everyone involved, we have to take into consideration the other half of the population. Cycling can’t thrive when so many still feel unsafe, unwelcome or unheard. Real progress comes from recognising and addressing those inequities — and being willing to see what still needs to change.

Levelling the road

Creating women-centred spaces isn’t about exclusion — it’s about balance. It’s a way of levelling the road and reclaiming freedom, visibility and safety in environments that haven’t always recognised women’s realities.

And centring women isn’t bias: it’s correction. The systems that shape everyday life were built around male norms, and asking women to adapt to them isn’t equality. Real equality means reimagining those systems so they work for everyone.

Meaningful progress depends on broadening who helps shape cycling — whose experience informs design, policy and culture. Including the perspectives of women, trans and non-binary riders, and others too often left out of decision-making, leads to better understanding of safety, care and inclusion for everyone.

That’s why women-centred rides, campaigns and spaces matter — not because women want separation, but because genuine equality still isn’t built in. The world, including the world of cycling, wasn’t designed with women in mind. As long as that’s true, centring women isn’t an extra — it’s how we build something fairer for everyone.

Only part of the story

People’s experiences are shaped by other factors beyond their gender — including class, disability, sexuality and migration status. These factors can add to gender-based discrimination, creating greater barriers and influencing who feels welcome on our streets, how people are represented and whose needs are prioritised in planning and infrastructure. Although this article focuses on gender, understanding these overlapping factors is important for creating safer, more inclusive public spaces for everyone.

Shifting the balance

Change is already underway. Across the UK, women are reshaping cycling — not just by riding but also by organising, repairing, leading and creating space for others to do the same.

In Norwich, Bicycle Links was founded by a woman, and Boudicca Bikers are a well-known, supportive cycling community, welcoming women and gender-diverse people of all experience levels. The Women’s Cycling Safety Audit, initiated by the Norwich Cycling Campaign and now run as a stand-alone project, will draw on lived experience to understand what helps — and what hinders — women from cycling, and what would make cycling feel safer and more possible in everyday life across the city.

In Cambridge, the city’s cycling campaign is led by a woman. Across London, JoyRiders has helped many hundreds of women — particularly from Muslim and ethnic minority backgrounds — build confidence on bikes and reclaim their freedom to move through the city. Groups like Women of Colour Cycling Collective and Bee Pedal Ready are building communities where care and inclusion come first. And national organisations are beginning to follow suit: Cycling UK now has a female Chief Executive.

These examples show what’s possible when inclusion stops being an afterthought and becomes the foundation.

Imagine what could be built if energy no longer had to go into fighting for space, recognition and understanding, but into creating something better together.

Footnotes

¹ Lam, T. (2022). ‘Towards an Intersectional Perspective in Cycling.’ Active Travel Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.16997/ats.1264

² UN Women UK. (2021). Prevalence and reporting of sexual harassment in UK public spaces. https://docslib.org/doc/9394944/prevalence-and-reporting-of-sexual-harassment-in-uk-public-spaces

³ Office for National Statistics. (2024, September 26). ‘I feel like I am living someone else’s life’: One in seven people a victim of stalking. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/ifeellikeiamlivingsomeoneelseslifeoneinsevenpeopleavictimofstalking/2024-09-26

⁴ Office for National Statistics. (2022, August 25). Sexual offences victim characteristics, England and Wales: Year ending March 2022. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/sexualoffencesvictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022

⁵ Aldred, R., Woodcock, J., & Goodman, A. (2015). Cycling near misses: Findings from the first year of the Near Miss Project. Westminster University. https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/Nearmissreport-final-web-2.pdf

⁶ Aldred, R., & Goodman, A. (2018). Predictors of the frequency and subjective experience of cycling near misses: Findings from the first two years of the UK Near Miss Project. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 110, 161-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.09.015

⁷ Cycling UK. (2025, March 31). Seven years of cycling progress reduces barriers for men, but not women. https://www.cyclinguk.org/news/seven-years-cycling-progress-reduces-barriers-men-not-women

⁸ Department for Transport. (2024, August 1). National Travel Survey: 2023. UK Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-2023

⁹ Adult Social Care Data and Publications Team, NHS England. (2024, June 27). Personal social services survey of adult carers in England, 2023–24 (Key findings report). NHS England. https://files.digital.nhs.uk/18/D42B0E/PSS-SACE-2023-24-report.pdf

Version 1: When “For Everyone” Isn’t Enough: Why Cycling Campaigns Must Put Women First

Many still argue that cycling campaigns don’t need to focus on women — that making it safer “for everyone” will be enough. But women aren’t starting from the same place. Safety, freedom and even belonging are distributed unequally — and general fixes don’t repair that.

Numbers Tell a Story

Gender shapes how people experience the world — and the data makes that clear. Across gender, those who are not cisgender men, i.e., someone who was assigned male at birth and identifies as male — including women and trans and non-binary people — face disproportionate risks and barriers. These patterns reveal how deeply inequality is built into our systems.

In the UK:

• Over two-thirds of women have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces.¹

• Around one in five women have been stalked since the age of 16.²

• Nearly 30% of women in England and Wales have experienced sexual assault (including attempts) from the age of 16 onwards.³

No wonder so many women feel unsafe simply existing in public spaces — and this is before we even look at statistics specific to cycling:

• Women cyclists report higher rates of near misses and harassment than men.⁴

• Women cyclists experience around 50% more close passes per mile than men.⁵ 

• Progress on reducing close passes has improved for men but stalled for women, widening the gender gap in cycling safety.⁶

The same fears that shape women’s movements through public space — of exposure, threat and vulnerability — are only compounded by the realities of cycling.

These painful everyday realities understandably shape how women move through the world — how they plan, dress, travel and occupy space. And they’re not accidental. They stem from a world largely designed by and for men — in its physical, social and cultural forms.

Cycling’s Uneven Ground

For decades, transport and urban planning have prioritised the journeys and bodies of men. Roads were designed to move cars efficiently — reflecting the historic male commuter pattern of travelling straight from home to work and back again. Today, that imbalance persists: men are more likely to drive and cycle, while women are more likely to walk or take the bus. The modes women rely on are two of the least protected: slower, more exposed, and more dependent on safe, accessible streets. Cycling also remains largely unprotected, yet the fact that fewer women choose it appears to reflect the extra barriers they face.

These differences in travel are not accidental: they reflect wider social patterns of work and care. While roles have shifted — with more men involved in caregiving and more women in full-time employment — gendered patterns of mobility have remained largely the same. In England, women remain more likely than men to provide care, accounting for nearly seven in ten unpaid carers.⁷ As a result, women’s journeys have continued to be shorter, more complex, and often linked to care — combining school drop-offs, shopping or visits to relatives. Yet these multi-purpose trips remain rarely factored into planning decisions.

The result is infrastructure that fails to serve the way women actually move through the city: poorly lit routes; narrow pavements cluttered with obstacles; disconnected paths. And safety campaigns too often focus on women’s behaviour rather than fixing the environments that make them unsafe in the first place.

Cycling infrastructure reflects the same issues. Routes tend to be radial from the centre, not taking into consideration the more intricate journeys taken by many women. Cycle paths are too often painted lines rather than protected routes, failing to account for the higher risks of aggression and close passing women face. Many routes are poorly lit, ignoring the heightened risk of harassment and assault faced by women.

Likewise, cycling spaces remain male-dominated: campaigns, maintenance workshops and community rides are still largely shaped by men in their culture, language and leadership. Even at events intended to celebrate inclusion, women’s visibility and leadership can still be overshadowed. Without consciously centring women, even well-meaning initiatives risk repeating the same hierarchies they hope to dismantle.

Resistance to Redress

Yet somehow, initiatives that centre women still provoke discomfort — from women-only rides to mentorship programmes and even events highlighting women’s safety. Efforts to redress inequality are often dismissed as divisive or unnecessary, an irony given the world already tilts heavily towards men. When women are the focus of policy or design, resistance often follows, as though inclusion for one group means exclusion for another.

You hear it often: that campaigns should be “for everyone”, and that making cycling safer in general will automatically make it safer for women. It’s a comforting idea, but it misses the point. Designing for “everyone” too often means designing around those already visible and represented — which, in cycling, usually means men.

It’s also argued that focusing on women overlooks the fact that men struggle too — that many men feel unsafe, excluded or ignored, but are simply less likely to talk about it. And that’s true to an extent. Masculinity still carries expectations of strength and control, which can make it harder for men to express fear or vulnerability. But using that silence as a reason to resist women-centred work again misses the point. Gendered systems harm everyone — just not in the same way.

The structures built around male norms still serve men better, even when those norms constrain them. When we design cities or policies to include women and other marginalised groups — when we stop assuming one “default male” experience — we make the world more humane and functional for everyone. Addressing those biases doesn’t exclude men: it dismantles the assumptions that fail us all.

And the consequences of those assumptions are measurable. As the data shows, women’s barriers to cycling aren’t only about traffic or infrastructure. They’re about harassment, safety after dark, and the culture of cycling spaces themselves. A new cycle lane doesn’t fix a culture that tells women to “be careful” — or a campaign meeting where their voices still go unheard.

Women — along with other marginalised and minority groups — remain far from equal footing with men. The evidence, both statistical and lived, makes this impossible to deny. To dismiss women-centred initiatives within cycling as unnecessary is not only ignorant, but regressive — it reinforces exclusion and denies the realities women face.

And even if you only care about the “for everyone” argument, cycling cannot flourish when half the population feels unsafe, unwelcome or unheard. Real progress depends on recognising and addressing these inequities — not pretending they don’t exist.

Levelling the Road

Creating women-centred spaces isn’t exclusionary: it’s a way of levelling the road — reclaiming freedom, visibility and safety in environments that have long ignored women’s realities.

And centring women isn’t about bias: it’s about correction. The systems that shape daily life were built around male norms, and expecting women simply to adapt to them isn’t equality. Real equality means reimagining those systems so they work for everyone.

This means that change cannot be tokenistic: it needs to shift who holds power, whose voices are heard, and what cycling is imagined to be. Too often, what’s missing are the perspectives and lived experiences of women, trans and non-binary riders — as well as other marginalised and minority groups — whose insights could transform how we think about safety, care and inclusion.

That’s why women-centred rides, campaigns and spaces matter — not because women want separation, but because equality still isn’t built in. The world, including the world of cycling, was not designed with women in mind. Until it is, centring women isn’t optional: it’s essential.

Shifting the Balance

However, change is already underway. Across the UK, women are reshaping cycling — not just by riding, but by organising, repairing, leading and creating space for others to do the same.

In Norwich, Bicycle Links was founded by a woman. In Cambridge, the city’s cycling campaign is led by a woman. Across London, JoyRiders has helped many hundreds of women — particularly from Muslim and ethnic minority backgrounds — build confidence on bikes and reclaim their freedom to move through the city. Groups like Women of Colour Cycling Collective and Bee Pedal Ready in Manchester are building communities where care and inclusion come first. And national organisations are beginning to follow suit: Cycling UK now has a female Chief Executive.

These examples show what’s possible when women lead and shape cycling culture — when inclusion stops being an afterthought and becomes the foundation.

Imagine what could be built if energy no longer had to go into fighting for space, recognition and understanding, but into creating something better together.

Footnotes

¹ UN Women UK. (2021). Prevalence and reporting of sexual harassment in UK public spaces. UN Women UK. https://docslib.org/doc/9394944/prevalence-and-reporting-of-sexual-harassment-in-uk-public-spaces

² Office for National Statistics. (2024, September 26). ‘I feel like I am living someone else’s life’: One in seven people a victim of stalking. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/ifeellikeiamlivingsomeoneelseslifeoneinsevenpeopleavictimofstalking/2024-09-26

³ Office for National Statistics. (2022, August 25). Sexual offences victim characteristics, England and Wales: Year ending March 2022. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/sexualoffencesvictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022

⁴ Aldred, R., Woodcock, J., & Goodman, A. (2015). Cycling near misses: Findings from the first year of the Near Miss Project. Westminster University. https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/Nearmissreport-final-web-2.pdf

⁵ Aldred, R., & Goodman, A. (2018). Predictors of the frequency and subjective experience of cycling near misses: Findings from the first two years of the UK Near Miss Project. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 110, 161-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.09.015

⁶ Cycling UK. (2025, March 31). Seven years of cycling progress reduces barriers for men, but not women. https://www.cyclinguk.org/news/seven-years-cycling-progress-reduces-barriers-men-not-women

⁷ Adult Social Care Data and Publications Team, NHS England. (2024, June 27). Personal social services survey of adult carers in England, 2023–24 (Key findings report). NHS England. https://files.digital.nhs.uk/18/D42B0E/PSS-SACE-2023-24-report.pdf