When I shared Tuesday’s post on Untokening Influence In Cycling, I made a call for cycling brands, journalists, industries etc to end tokenizing influencers of color. While the institutions of cycling organizations, brands, journalism, and activists orgs need more action for better representation and inclusivity, I want to share how we can #InfluenceInclusivity of women of color, age, size, and ability on social media and our spaces in cycling.
To be transparent, I’ve recently started to implement some practices to make sure that I am supporting women of color either as influencers, writers, business owners, activists, athletes, or organizers by diversifying my social feed and donating to women of color who are doing the educating and work to diversify the dialogue of representation and inclusivity.
In the past, I’ve shared brands and organizations in cycling by women before but have not highlighted the women who are doing the hard work to decenter the privileged narratives in cycling. I plan to share them with you soon but would like to encouraging you to read the posts in hashtag #InfluenceInclusivity.
When I started this blog, part of my goal was not only to give women a voice in cycling but also to work for myself which included paid brand work and writing for various cycling media but here’s the thing, I realized that if I’m going to be an ‘influencer’ I’m going into it with an attitude of inclusivity and a purpose in having some part in challenging the status quo and bringing the community with me. This doesn’t make me entirely desirable in the cycling influencer sphere but at the end of the day, I’m proud of the partnerships and community I have built on my own terms. After so many years of blogging, I’m aware that the current systems are not inclusive, they uphold the same homogeneity and oppressive attitudes of women, especially woc.
And this goes way beyond the lack of representation too. Whether intentional or not, social media influence is finding itself walking into the same old basic structures and it needs correcting, stat.
In order for us to be part of that correction, let’s break a few things down before we get to action items.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
I’m going to be real here – a lack of transparency is playing a large part in why there is a lack of diversity in many cycling campaigns. Be it with organizations or brands themselves, or the influencers sought for campaigns – a lack of diversity is bad for business, and bad for brand reputation. It does affect the bottom line because ultimately consumers want to relate to brands that share their values and appreciate our glorious differences and experience. Information travels fast on social media and we talk about whose practicing “tokenization” and whose actually given a seat at the table.
When the same type of faces are on repeat not only is it basic and boring, it’s harmful. Harmful because it perpetuates the narrative that unless you are white, thin, and young, you have no place, no business here, and that is just as harmful – it creates distrust and makes others feel that they need fit in as a singular type of cyclist if they want to feel belonging to cycling community. It’s enraging to feel like you cannot take space or have representation unless you conform to this narrow definition of what is traditionally seen as acceptable.
Aja Barber, sustainable fashion influencer and anti-racist advocate quoted that “women of color, age, size, and ability are never the first to be approached. In fact when pitched to or approaching brands, the paid work is still not forthcoming or mentioned.” Do you know what that means? It means the Social Media Influencer industry is once again dominated by white folks and our labor is not valued equally.
WHAT ACTIONS CAN YOU TAKE?
Diversify Your Feed/Support – “Twitter. Instagram. Pinterest. If everyone on your social media looks like you, holds the same amount of privilege, and comes from the same socioeconomic background (or higher), how can we fully expect to build an equitable world where everyone can participate in movements? When you follow individuals who are different from you, really listen. Don’t listen with the intent of waiting to speak, listen to listen.” – Aja Barber.
I’m all about supporting brands, orgs, and women who do the hard work to provide space and educate us on inclusivity and representation. The best way to support them is to buy their products, donate, and share their work. You can obviously see why I include Machines For Freedom’s #bibsforeverybody campaign photo here, they’re getting it right. But there are plenty of other cycling and athletic brands who are leading this movement too.
Tell brands and PRs they need to do better – There is a bias towards women of color, age, and plus size in cycling. Everyone wants to use us to learn from, to have conversations with our community, to learn about competition of brands or trends but few want to pay us for our work. It’s the same emotional labor rollercoaster that gets unpaid while some people benefit from it.
This blog is a great example of it. While, I happily do the work to create space for women in cycling and accept sponsored work from brands I believe in, I also want to share things I know women in cycling can truly benefit from but in order to truly create an equitable movement, it’ has to go further.
For many women’s owned brands in cycling, it’s already a challenge to be financially sustainable and get their work noticed when it’s self funded. In addition, attitudes of femininity and lifestyle cycling are already stigmatized in mainstream cycling culture that invokes folks in wanting to fit into a certain niche of cycling that is hypermasculine!
My goal here isn’t to call out any one brand but to ask us all to do better. I have been fortunate to create good will amongst women’s owned brands and partnerships, and while I’m picky, it’s because I understand women’s cycling culture and know the value they can provide in the community that will enable women to believe in themselves and cycle.
Influencers – Before I work with brands, I do an inclusivity check: diversity, age, gender, and size. A more recent practice is to ask if they are willing to make custom sizes. Whether you know it or not, followers/consumers hold power in their privilege to hold brands, influencers, and Influencer Platforms and PR agencies accountable. Use that power and invoke an inclusivity rider. A non negotiable set of conditions for working on a brand campaign that ensures equity, diversity and inclusiveness. Make this the norm, have this in your regular vernacular and media kit. We need that critical mass to tip the scales in our favor, to level the playing field.
So, here on out let’s move forward and make our movements more inclusive and diverse. Cycling culture is horribly behind and ignorant of social movements and we need to drag ourselves out the dark. Social inequalities trickle down from our streets to our cycle wear. Time to move forward.
Image: Machines For Freedom