Bicycle riding, bicycle face, and bicycle fears for Victorian ladies

In the late 1800s, Victorian values had made many folks worried — VERY WORRIED — about girls and women partaking in a new trend. Medical doctors and many Victorian-influenced bourgeoisie thought this new pastime would make them unhealthy, lusty (a bad thing, in their minds), or even UGLY. The name of the new trend? Bicycle riding.

Bicycles had emerged in the United States and Britain in tandem with the technology to make rubber tires and affordable metal frames, and they grew popular for many reasons. Girls and women enjoyed newfound mobility, since they could go far from male chaperones on the new vehicles. Furthermore, riding the bikes allowed them to change up their clothing because the corsets and long skirts of the Victorian period didn’t suit riders very well. Shorter skirts and no corsets turned out to be popular among the fairer sex.

But females who could move independently and who wouldn’t wear chaste attire threatened many. Bicycles became associated with the women’s suffrage movement, and that could be worrisome indeed. And so, many doctors warned of “bicycle face” being a possible ramification of riding, and one that disproportionately affected women, causing exhaustion and “a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes.” Charlotte Smith, founder of the “Women’s Rescue League,” argued that bicycling had caused many women to become reckless, helping to precipitate them into a life of “outcast women.” Concerns of bike riding stimulating masturbation were rife (and this was even thought to be somewhat of a problem for boys). An 1898 doctor warned that climbing hills or a bike could excite “feelings hitherto unknown to, and realized by, the young girl.” Oh, dear.

It turns out that ladies were not, as a medical doctor named A. Shadwel claimed, “people unfit for any exertion,” and so eventually, women rode their bikes freely. They also got rid of corsets and were able to vote. At least they did in many countries.