'Skills to Pay the Bills': Gender Difference in Mountain Biking on Display

Abstract

SiteS is licensed CC BY 4.0 unless otherwise specified. sites: new series · vol 14 no 2 · 2017 Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol14iss2id370 -article -'SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS': Gender differenCe in Mountain BikinG on displaY Mike Lloyd1aBstraCt This paper analyses a short video showing the opening of a skills area in a mountain bike park. After the official ribbon cutting by the mayor, we watch nearly twenty mountain bikers putting in some showy runs. Amongst this, there are only three women riders, and in contrast to a core group of young male riders, they appear to ride very cautiously. Given this contrast, a possible reaction to the video is that it is 'sexist', giving the message that women are less competent at mountain biking, bolstering an existing view that 'mountain biking is for men'. Clearly, a single video needs to be treated with caution, nonetheless, the gender difference is stark. However, by considering the specifics of mountain biking skills, and its 'interactional ecology' the interpretive point made from the video is that the assumption of gender difference may need 'undoing'. This is pursued not by conceptual discussion, but by showing what can be made of the video in analysing key visual fragments. Additionally, the details of the video are supplemented by reference to one other key piece of cycling research, and one other 'natural video record' of mountain biking practice. The paper contributes to the growing recognition of the value of video data in the ethnographic analysis of mobile interactive practices.