I’m Allowed on the Road

Yesterday, a man screamed at me virulently out of the window of his pickup truck and called me a F***ing C***. It was horrifying, scary, and demoralizing.

Why? Of course, there is no actual justification for this, but it’s because I’m a woman on a bicycle who dared to take up a minuscule amount of space on the road.

I am allowed on the road.

If I may be honest, it’s always men in pickup trucks. Last week, I cycled into a median style turning lane to — geez, I don’t know, turn? — No one was in that lane with me, and I was about to turn left, when a man in a pick up truck drove by on the right side of the road and honked his horn angrily a bunch of times because I guess I’m just a dumb broad who is biking in the middle of the street for no reason.

But yesterday was much worse. I was at a stoplight. There were two cars ahead of me, then me, and then traffic behind me. Whenever I can be in a bike lane, that’s where I am, but once more, let me assert that I am allowed on the road. I am quite literally following the rules of traffic. I am not supposed to be on the sidewalk. I am supposed to be on the road.

The light turned green, and I biked right behind the cars ahead of me. I kept up with them at this point because they were only starting to speed up, and there was a bike lane 30 feet ahead of me. That’s precisely where I was headed. No one was stalled by me. Though again, if they were, that is my right. I am allowed on the road.

I was on the right side of the lane so anyone could pass me. To share how much I inconvenienced no one, this man and others did pass me. They had space to do it.

And that’s when he drove by and screamed, “YOU’RE SLOWING DOWN TRAFFIC, YOU F***ING C***!!!!”

It took my breath away.

I spent the next 15 minutes so nervous of being on the road, that I was biking slightly off of the road in areas of rocks, debris, and gravel. This is dangerous, of course, because this is exactly the kind of situation where someone can spin out, fall, and maybe tumble into traffic. “What’s more dangerous,” I wondered. “This? Or angry, violent men in trucks?” I had to do that risk assessment.

Eventually, I took my space on the road again, and now I was angry.

I am allowed on the road.

We all know that if I was a man wearing cycling gear, no one would have yelled at me like that. I was wearing a helmet but also a sundress. Apparently, that makes me a target for misogyny. Just for being. Just being who I am.

For the rest of that ride, I zoomed home safely, fuming, and then thought of it as an analogy too.

I am allowed on the road.

I know some lovely, knock-it-out the ballpark human beings, including many cherished men in my life. And.. there have been eras, too, where I was denied to have needs, when I was scapegoated, when I was targeted, when I was cast out, when I was made to be a symbolic stand-in so other people could reenact their unresolved traumas. And damn it — let me now be the one to curse — I am allowed to take up space. I am allowed on the road. I am a person. I am not just a role for people to channel vitriol and unresolved emotions. That has happened to me too many times.

And it has happened to many others, countless times. Many women, of course. Sometimes, men. Certainly, many — and I would actually say, all — people who carry identities far more marginalized than mine.

I am allowed on the road. So are we all. Buckle up, do the work of learning how to regulate your own emotions, and stop yelling at us.

—Renee Roederer