St. Paul daily globe., 1894-09-02
WOMEN AND R.CyCLEs

The contest of woman for a place
among the breadwlnners Of the world
has been against two potent forces. con-
ventionality and sentiment. The con-
ventiOnal binds her with its dread of the
unusual, its slavishness to what has
become customary, the natural repulsion
of doing that which. by reason of its
being different from what others do.
attracts attention and eXcites com Ment
ranging through all the degrees from
grave dissent down to derison. Men
teel the force OF this, if they do not
admit 1t, and fall into the professions of
the habitual rather than draw attention
by moving on separate lines. The
dress coat rules them today as absolutely
as the knee breeches and perukes ruled
their great tgrandtatters, and lie would be
a brave man, with encrusted sensiblli-
ties. who would dare .abjure the swallow
tail coat for the easy sack On any formal
social occasion.
Ii this Is the case with man, how much
more tyrannous is custom with women,
and how much drawer is the woman who
dares depart from 1t, and assert her
right to think and judge and act in
dependently of it, aud as her own tastes
or judgment dictate. She was a bold
woman who first turned her face away
from the vocations cOhventionally open
to her when necessity obliged her to
win her own bread. 1t is hardly a gen.
eration's span since she could find in
teaching. dressmaking or millinery the
fit.t ptA kha <>r
labor where she dared venture. She
has broken the barriers which kept her
out of the mannish vocations, first ten.
tatively by one OR more venturesome,
self-reliant ones, until today her exemp-
ton from thraldom and her presence in
all the fields men held is illustrated by
the lineman on his pole congratulating
himself that there. at least, woman will
not intrude her services.
If the conventional has been a re-
straining force. sentiment has been one
of no less power. There yet survives
the chivalric conception of woman as
dainty creature to be loved and petted
and fought over; to be shielded and
cared for. She is still the clinging
tendril Of the masculine oak, incapable
of self-support. In the minds of many of
both sexes. This is a different feeling
from the respect the tenderness, the
devotion OF men to women springing
from the fundamental passion Of love
and the filial affection for the mother
which no change can ever obliterate,
because it is among the basic emotions
of humanity. But 1t always has been,
and Is largely yet, an obstacle in the
way of woman's fullest development.
1t takes the expression of fear that she
will "unsex herself ii she trenches on
the fields which men have heretofore
monopolized. 1t relegates her to the
sphere of the home aud the care of
children, as II man had no part in home
or children keeping and caring. 1t bars
her way to all interest and share in
public matters that concern all, women
and men and children and homes alike.
And convention and sentiment are up
in arms against the woman who rides the
bike. Fathers object, mammas protest,
sisters sneer, lovers imagine it skaters
their ideal. She was but recently a
bold girl who faced all this, aud def.
antly asserted her right to .besride the
wheel and take her place among the
men and boys who were getting health
and amusement and gain OF time with
their bikes. The boys derided her on
the streets; the men turned to stare at
her, and the women turned up their
noses at the bold creature who was un
sexing herself. But jokes and sneers
| and protests and objections were all in
vain. The example of the first girl was
c0ntaglon that spread quickly. The
bachelor girl who had taken her lessons
in Independence gladly embraced the
new means of getting to aud from her
work quickly. easily and in glorious in.
| dependence OF the. street cars or weary
ing pedestrianism. 1t spread to the girl
with leisure, who felt the want of exer-
else in the open air. 1t is now, we learn,
making its way among the four hun
dreds of the nation, and is becoming
| fashionable. The girl on the bike is
here as permanent feature Of our
lives, and we hail her advent.
With the wheel there will come a
revolution in the absurd subjection to
flowing skirts, which is one of the
things incomprehensible when one
takes off his goggles of habit and looks
at the dress of women from rational
standpoint. The skirt. impeding the
| freedom of iocomotion-not to mention
its insufficiency in the primal Obipct of