good lord, what an awful way to phrase his point. There is an obvious cat & bus focus to gritting, with cycle paths often ignored, but what an awful way to phrase it.
Heard it here first, women don’t go to work in cars
Unless their men drive them, maybe
I just don’t understand how someone can say “gritting routes are sexist” without thinking to themselves “hang on, I shouldn’t phrase it like that, that’s mental.”
It seems pretty obvious that you should prioritise gritting roads that have 2 ton boxes flying around, rather than a pavement.
First things first, it’s difficult enough to get roads gritted let alone all the pavements and cyclepaths.
Thirdly, the data linked above shows that women make about 20% more pedestrian journeys.
In conclusion, it probably isn’t really sexist.
I think he’s making two separate points—one is that they miss out active travel routes, and one is that they prioritise routes useful for business over routes useful for social care. I don’t know about the merits of either of these points the way he’s muddled them up when making them is definitely silly!
This is actually a huge thing, a study was done in Sweden showing that if you grit pavements before roads you *massively* reduce injury/accidents on snowy days because you help walkers (traditionally more women than men) over drivers. Almost universally the people making the decisions were drivers (traditionally more men than women) and so they gritted what they gritted.
It’s sexism but not maliciously, it’s just the result of not asking for everyone’s needs.
Actually surprised so many are shook by this, I thought it was one of those boring TIL things that pops up all the time.
I would say it’s more ageist than sexist. Older people are more likely to walk than drive and cycle. And, are more likely to suffer severe injury if they do fall.
Oh fuck off.
We’ll be back to ‘air con is misogynistic in the office’ soon.
Does this moron think he lives in Saudi Arabia and women don’t drive to work?
When people say it’s “woke” or “PC gone mad”, this is what they’re talking about.
To call it sexist is a little bit ridiculous, but the man has a point:
“*Current routes need to work better for active travel users – cyclists and pedestrians – and for those engaged in social care, rather than being focused on business users*.”
However, it is a fact that, for example, most care workers are women (only 18% of care workers are men) – although many use cars, as it’s the only way to get to their appointments in time.
It’s a fair point that only gritting main roads used by motorists ignores a huge number of trips. It’s very strange to make it about sexism though.
I seem to remember a book that came out years ago that discussed the difference in travel habits of women compared to men, and talked about the issues of bus routes, cycle routes etc. not connecting the kind of destinations a woman would ‘typically’ make. The message wasn’t ‘women need to take the kids to school and men need to work’, but was that mothers still typically more then dads do things like taking kids to safer school clubs, the pharmacy, daycare etc, which I can’t say I have any stats on so I don’t know if that’s still the case for the average family.
I suspect that’s where this way of discribing it comes from and it’s definitely a headline grabber. But despite the pretty cringey title, the fact that gritting routes need to accommodate (for everyone) more than just corridors to work to be able to help people who need to travel to other destinations is a good one.
What’s more sexist the fact more men are having to travel to work than women, or wanting to make it so less men are able to get to work..
​
Either way, it’s sexist and he should resign.
~75% of cycle commuters are male, seems pretty bizarre to frame this as a gendered issue.
Please please please don’t start gritting all pavements. Ice is easy to walk on. Wet slushy scree is not. I’m just about managing to get around in winter by sticking to ungritted backstreets.
Looking at the context he has a bit of a point but Christ people need to know that the papers are just going to go to town on this being “woke” and it will just get lost.
18 comments
good lord, what an awful way to phrase his point. There is an obvious cat & bus focus to gritting, with cycle paths often ignored, but what an awful way to phrase it.
Heard it here first, women don’t go to work in cars
Unless their men drive them, maybe
I just don’t understand how someone can say “gritting routes are sexist” without thinking to themselves “hang on, I shouldn’t phrase it like that, that’s mental.”
It seems pretty obvious that you should prioritise gritting roads that have 2 ton boxes flying around, rather than a pavement.
First things first, it’s difficult enough to get roads gritted let alone all the pavements and cyclepaths.
Secondly, data shows that men make about [3 times](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/walking-and-cycling-statistics-england-2021/walking-and-cycling-statistics-england-2021) the number of cycling trips that women do.
Thirdly, the data linked above shows that women make about 20% more pedestrian journeys.
In conclusion, it probably isn’t really sexist.
I think he’s making two separate points—one is that they miss out active travel routes, and one is that they prioritise routes useful for business over routes useful for social care. I don’t know about the merits of either of these points the way he’s muddled them up when making them is definitely silly!
This is actually a huge thing, a study was done in Sweden showing that if you grit pavements before roads you *massively* reduce injury/accidents on snowy days because you help walkers (traditionally more women than men) over drivers. Almost universally the people making the decisions were drivers (traditionally more men than women) and so they gritted what they gritted.
It’s sexism but not maliciously, it’s just the result of not asking for everyone’s needs.
Actually surprised so many are shook by this, I thought it was one of those boring TIL things that pops up all the time.
I would say it’s more ageist than sexist. Older people are more likely to walk than drive and cycle. And, are more likely to suffer severe injury if they do fall.
Oh fuck off.
We’ll be back to ‘air con is misogynistic in the office’ soon.
Does this moron think he lives in Saudi Arabia and women don’t drive to work?
When people say it’s “woke” or “PC gone mad”, this is what they’re talking about.
To call it sexist is a little bit ridiculous, but the man has a point:
“*Current routes need to work better for active travel users – cyclists and pedestrians – and for those engaged in social care, rather than being focused on business users*.”
However, it is a fact that, for example, most care workers are women (only 18% of care workers are men) – although many use cars, as it’s the only way to get to their appointments in time.
It’s a fair point that only gritting main roads used by motorists ignores a huge number of trips. It’s very strange to make it about sexism though.
I seem to remember a book that came out years ago that discussed the difference in travel habits of women compared to men, and talked about the issues of bus routes, cycle routes etc. not connecting the kind of destinations a woman would ‘typically’ make. The message wasn’t ‘women need to take the kids to school and men need to work’, but was that mothers still typically more then dads do things like taking kids to safer school clubs, the pharmacy, daycare etc, which I can’t say I have any stats on so I don’t know if that’s still the case for the average family.
I suspect that’s where this way of discribing it comes from and it’s definitely a headline grabber. But despite the pretty cringey title, the fact that gritting routes need to accommodate (for everyone) more than just corridors to work to be able to help people who need to travel to other destinations is a good one.
What’s more sexist the fact more men are having to travel to work than women, or wanting to make it so less men are able to get to work..
​
Either way, it’s sexist and he should resign.
~75% of cycle commuters are male, seems pretty bizarre to frame this as a gendered issue.
Please please please don’t start gritting all pavements. Ice is easy to walk on. Wet slushy scree is not. I’m just about managing to get around in winter by sticking to ungritted backstreets.
Looking at the context he has a bit of a point but Christ people need to know that the papers are just going to go to town on this being “woke” and it will just get lost.