Claiming the Throttle: Multiple Femininities in a Hypermasculine Subculture

Consumption, Markets and Culture,Vol. 9, No. 3, September 2006, pp. 171–205

ISSN 1025–3866 (print)/ISSN 1477–223X (online) © 2006 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/10253860600772206

Claiming the Throttle: Multiple Femininities in a Hyper-Masculine SubcultureDiane M. Martin, John W. Schouten & James H. McAlexanderTaylor and Francis LtdGCMC_A_177176.sgm10.1080/10253860600772206Consumption, Markets and Culture1025-3866 (print)/1477-223X (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis93000000September 2006Assistant Professor [email protected]

This feminist re-examination of an ethnography of Harley-Davidson motorcycle ownersuncovers a world of motivations, behaviors, and experiences undiscovered in the origi-nal work. The structure and ethos of subculture are understood differently whenexamined through the lens of feminist theory. Through the voices of women riders in ahyper-masculine consumption context we discover perspectives that cannot easily beexplained by extant theory of gender and consumer behavior. We find women engaging,resisting, and co-opting hyper-masculinity as part of identity projects wherein theyexpand and redefine their own personal femininities. This study reveals invisibleassumptions limiting the original ethnography and thus reiterates the problems ofhegemonic masculinity in the social science project.

Keywords: Masculine; Feminine; Consumer Behavior; Subculture; Community; Bikers

The consumer behavior literature has largely neglected the potentially valuable theo-retical contributions of re-inquiry research, especially that which is interdisciplinary(Mick 2003). Re-inquiry need not be mere fact checking. It has the potential to teardown walls of paradigmatic perspective and reveal whole new landscapes. We find acompelling example in the work of Thompson, Stern and Arnould (1998), which

Diane M. Martin is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Pamplin School of Business Administration,University of Portland. John W. Schouten is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Pamplin School ofBusiness Administration, University of Portland. James H. McAlexander is a Professor of Marketing at the Collegeof Business, Oregon State University. Correspondence to: Diane M. Martin and John W. Schouten, PamplinSchool of Business Administration, University of Portland, 5000 N Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR, 97231, USA.Email: [email protected]; [email protected]. James H. McAlexander, College of Business, Oregon State University,Corvallis, OR, 97330, USA. Email: [email protected].

172 D. M. Martin, J. W. Schouten & J. H. McAlexander

unearthed rich new understandings of consumer behavior beneath Arnould’s original(1989) investigation of indigenous women of Nigerian Hausa society. They explainthat, “our approach enables underlying paradigmatic conditions to be systematicallyexplored, challenged, and reformulated so that a more inclusive and richly texturedaccount emerges” (Thompson et al. 1998, 107). Such examination and critique ofunderlying paradigmatic conditions lies at the heart of feminist scholarship and theo-rizing. As it has with other aspects of social life, such as politics, economics, or religion,a feminist lens turned on formal and informal structures of markets and consumerculture can provide provocative insights.

This article is a re-inquiry of Schouten and McAlexander’s (1995) ethnography ofHarley-Davidson owners. As a profound example of hyper-masculinity, the Harley-Davidson subculture is particularly ripe for theorizing about gendered consump-tion. Hyper-masculinity, a form of male heterosexual attitudes and behaviorsrooted in dominance over women and other masculinities (e.g., Bird 1996; Connell1987), stands firmly on a foundation of hegemonic masculinity. Thompson (2002)asserts that a critical-reflexive reexamination of the Harley owner subculture“would likely identify a more diverse range of Harley core values and/or reveal adistinct set of struggles, limitations, and meanings that contextualize women riders’experiences” (144).

Over time, researchers have provided nuanced descriptions of multiple feministperspectives (e.g., Bristor and Fischer 1993; Calas and Smircich 1996). Rather thanlimiting our analysis to one feminist perspective, we follow a multi-perspectiveapproach, incorporating features from liberal feminism, women’s voice/experiencefeminism and poststructuralist feminism into our interpretive analysis. A liberal femi-nist perspective holds that differences between men and women are due primarily tosocialization and opportunity and that the remedy to inequity is equal opportunity.Women’s voice/experience feminism is based on the view that men and woman arefundamentally different, but that these differences do not imply an inferior/superiorrelationship. As with other deconstructionist and poststructuralist philosophies, post-structuralist feminism is based on the assumption that all experience is sociallyconstructed and mediated by the dominant discourse. Poststructuralists challenge thehegemony of men and masculine discourse that disenfranchises women and minori-ties. Rather than force findings into a single ideological mold, this multi-perspectiveapproach provides a framework for interpretive analysis that allows the lived experi-ences of women to emerge. In bringing the possibility of multiple feminist perspectivesto the “new biker” ethnography we pose the question, “What drives women to engagein a subculture that is male dominated and hyper-masculine at the deepest level of itscore values?” The answers bring new insights to theory about gender and consumerbehavior.

Feminism and consumer culture have often been framed as oppositional forces,arising from the alignment of feminist theories with other critical theories in their over-arching critique of the capitalist turn (e.g., Ferguson 1984). Catterall, Maclaran andStevens (2000) note that, rather than a simple dichotomy, the relationship is multifac-eted and complicated. The wide spectrum of feminist theories suggests a range of

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possible cuts in the feminist lens (e.g., Bristor and Fischer 1993; Calas and Smircich1996; Catterall et al. 2000). Rather than a strict adherence to the theoretical tenets ofone feminism over another, this study focuses on women’s behavior as gendered activ-ity and underscores the feminist identity constructions of women motorcyclists ridingin defiance and/or expansion of general sex role expectations.

Our favored theoretical framework is a feminist perspective of the performance ofgender as socially constructed communicative practice (Butler 1990; Trethewey 1999).Beginning with the work of Judith Butler (1990), the understanding that gender issocially constructed through everyday performance has developed in a variety of disci-plines including communication (e.g., Ashcraft and Mumby 2004; Buzzanell 1994;Martin 2004; Trethewey 1999), sociology (e.g., Gherardi 1995), and management(Calas and Smircich 1996) as well as in consumer behavior. The fundamental notion isthat gender, separate from the sex of an individual, is performed through symbolic acts.An individual’s femininity and/or masculinity varies from situation to situation,accounting, for example, for the observable gender shifts when a man dresses in dragor, more subtly perhaps, when a professional dons black leathers and fires up a motor-cycle.

Gherardi (1995) notes that in everyday life, men and women enact both masculini-ties and femininities by “doing gender,” a process that can reify or destabilize the socialbeliefs that legitimize gender differences and inequalities. In essence, doing genderinvolves the manipulation of symbols to manage the dual presence of femininity andmasculinity in any given situation. It involves “shuttling between a symbolic universecoherent with one gender identity and the symbolic realm of the ‘other’ gender”(Gherardi 1995, 131). In doing gender one can destabilize and then re-stabilize thesymbolic and performative nature of gendered life, leading to opportunities for thesynthesis, reframing, and transcendence of traditional sex roles. Martin (2004) arguesthat middle-management women in traditionally masculine workplaces often “dogender” to negotiate gender paradoxes they encounter in the process of being simulta-neously women and managers, bosses and subordinates. Martin’s gendered stancetoward women in management is consistent with the destabilization of representativeauthority and the resulting development of reflexivity in consumer research advocatedby Thompson et al. (1998).

We know from previous research that consumer behavior is rife with gendersymbolism (Levy 1959), that products are perceived as gendered and expressive ofgender (Iyer and Debevec 1989), that gender symbolism is more salient in certainconsumption situations than in others (Gould 1996), and that the salience of genderidentity influences gendered consumer behaviors (Patterson and Hogg 2004). Sherry,Kozinets, Duhachek, DeBerry-Spence, Nuttavuthisit and Storm (2004) show thatquintessentially gendered consumption situations may also be gendering; that is, theyreinforce gender roles or stereotypes. Other consumption contexts allow people tochallenge or blur gender boundaries (Goulding et al. 2004) in a carnivalesque fashion(Bakhtin [1965] 1984). Thompson and Holt (2004) invoke Moore’s (1988) concept ofgender tourism in theorizing about the feminine pursuits of men as periodic retreatsfrom intensely competitive masculine endeavors. Which, if any, of these theoretical


perspectives explains the increasing prevalence of women riders in the quintessentiallymasculine subculture of Harley-Davidson owners? More importantly, which, if any,capture the lived experiences of women riders? Are heterosexual women bikers engag-ing in gender-identity play or experimentation? Are they expressing masculine genderidentities? Are they taking a holiday respite from their femininity?

This study addresses three general research objectives. First, we examine genderedconsumption through women’s performances in the hyper-masculine subculture ofHarley-Davidson motorcycle owners. Next, we explore women’s values and experi-ences including the struggles, limitations and meanings that contextualize their motor-cycle rider performances. Finally, we develop a more inclusive, polyvocal, and richlytextured account of women as riders and riders as women. Embedded in these objec-tives are the research questions guiding the work: What does it mean to be a womanconsumer in a hyper-masculine consumption context? Do women riders embrace orresist hegemonic masculinity? Or do they somehow paradoxically do both? What morecan a critical turn reveal about feminine versus masculine ways of knowing and doing?

Research Methods

Following the example of re-textualization offered by Thompson et al. (1998) we beganby revisiting Schouten and McAlexander’s (1995) original ethnographic work. Thepaucity of data focusing on women and women’s experiences suggested that the kindsof gendered assumptions underlying Arnould’s original work (1989) were also robustin that of Schouten and McAlexander. The same lack of women’s voice necessitated areturn to the field. This paper maintains the spirit of re-textualization but by necessityoffers a complete re-inquiry. Schouten and McAlexander’s account accuratelydescribed what most cultural accounts address in consumer research: the dominantvoice of the dominant members. They had unwittingly fallen into the common trap offailing to recognize the ways consumer research is gendered (Bristor and Fischer 1993).Like others before them, Schouten and McAlexander’s account misses something bymarginalizing the voices of minorities. They tell a good story, but it isn’t the wholestory. By focusing on women riders this ethnographic re-inquiry attempts to tell partof a “new story” (Thompson et al. 1998, 114) that incorporates voices unheard fromthe original ethnographic position.

New data collection mirrored many aspects of the original ethnography. Methodsincluded observation at rider events, informal and formal ethnographic interviews, andthe first author’s participant observation both as a passenger and as a new rider. Allauthors ride motorcycles and participated in data collection and analysis. As part ofongoing ethnography and consulting with Harley-Davidson, Inc. the second and thirdauthors have tracked trends and sales figures in the motorcycle industry for over fifteenyears. The first author participated in two riding instruction courses and bought andlearned to ride her first motorcycle. She joined a beginning rider training class andlearned along side other novices. These shared experiences with classmates led to ongo-ing research relationships that were maintained by correspondence and subsequent in-person visits.


Augmenting women’s voices in the corpus of data we also conducted in-homeethnographic interviews with eighteen women in two large American cities in theMidwest and Southeast (see the Appendix for short biographies of each informant).The Midwestern interviews were skewed toward white, blue-collar perspectives,whereas the Southeastern city provided a sample that was more affluent and multi-ethnic. The sample included riders of varied experience levels. Riders included bothspouse-sponsored learners and women who learned to ride independently of maleinfluence or sponsorship. Riders’ motorcycles included various makes and models;however, all riders perceived themselves as either part of a Harley-Davidson ownercommunity or aspiring to be so. Ages of the primary informants varied from late twen-ties to late forties, spanning the baby-boom and X generations.

The authors and one additional experienced (and paid) ethnographic interviewermade up the two-person, bi-gendered, research teams which conducted all interviewsand analyzed all the data. Home and garage tours allowed us to incorporate the infor-mants’ motorcycles into the interviews and revealed additional information about theiraesthetic sensibilities and lifestyle activities. We collected data in written field notes andon video tape. Over fifty hours of video tape were collected. All references to women’smotorcycle experience were transcribed for analysis.

Analysis of the data started with a critical deconstruction of the major themes iden-tified by Schouten and McAlexander (1995). At the same time we allowed for the emer-gence of additional themes illuminated by the focus on women and their livedexperiences. We examined similarities and differences among the informants, and wereflected our findings against those of previous ethnographic work and against the firstauthor’s participant observation experiences as a new rider.

Our re-inquiry into the Harley-Davidson subculture begins with a return to themain themes of structure and ethos developed in Schouten and McAlexander (1995).These themes are discussed first in terms of changes in the subculture generally since1995 and then in terms of women’s experiences. We specifically focused on thesethemes to understand to what extent these aspects of motorcycling resonate in the livedexperiences of women riders.

The Subculture is Dead—Long Live the Subcultures!

Past work in sociology offers important insights into dynamics and dimensions ofsubcultures (e.g., Clarke et al. 1976; Hebdige 1997; Willis 1997). The historic value oftheir work lies not only in the identification of such groups as Mods (Hebdige) andHeads (Willis) as subcultures but also in the claims of homogeneity of the rituals,symbols, and styles within each one. As a counterpoint, McRobbie and Garber’s (1997)investigation of girls in youth “teddy-boy” subculture of 1950s England showed agreater similarity of behavior among “teddy-girls” and mainstream girls than betweenboys and girls in the subculture. According to McRobbie and Garber, this indicatedthat gender was more likely to “structure difference than subculture attachment”(1997, 115). Thornton’s (1997) work investigated girls’ behavior in a youth subculture,suggesting that after age, gender is the salient maker of subcultural capital, that is, the


power within the subculture. She notes that girls in youth subcultures either “acknowl-edge the subcultural hierarchy and accept their lowly position within it” or “emphati-cally reject and denigrate the feminized mainstream” (Thornton 1997, 204). McRobbieand Garber’s and Thornton’s arguments challenge an assumption of the homogeneityof behaviors, motivation, and participation of women in subcultures. Adopting amulti-feminism perspective, holding lightly the intellectual underpinnings of liberal,women’s voice/experience and poststructuralist feminisms, allows us to investigate thelives and experiences of women motorcyclists without falling into the trap of expectinghomogeneity.

We should preface our findings with the observation that a lot has changed in theworld of American motorcyclists and particularly Harley-Davidson owners since 1995.Collectively during the last decade the authors, as researchers and consultants forHarley-Davidson, Inc., have ridden many thousands of miles on many different kindsof motorcycles, participated in and observed scores of events, and conducted hundredsof hours of depth interviews and focus group discussions. We have focused our atten-tion beyond the predominantly white, male, baby-boom population that fueled thegrowth of the Harley-Davidson market to include more women, more Gen-Xers, moreecho-boomers, and more ethnic minorities. In these intervening years we havewitnessed the death of the relatively monolithic subculture of consumption thatSchouten and McAlexander first encountered. In its place we have observed the emer-gence of something larger and richer, something we are more comfortable calling acomplex community or a mosaic of microcultures.

Relative homogeneity has given way to multiple homogeneities. One reason for thisphenomenon is growth. Through the eighties and nineties, the interest in Harley-Davidson inspired a motorcycling renaissance in America, which in turn has attractedan increasingly diverse population of motorcyclists to the sport. That diversity has ledto a broader range of meanings attached to motorcycles and to riders. In current popu-lar culture, the heroes and outlaws who ride motorcycles are as likely to be seen inbrightly colored leathers on sport bikes as in black and riding Harleys. Furthermore,they are more likely than ever to be female (e.g., Lara Croft or Charlie’s Angels) or non-white. Among Harley-Davidson owners the black leather uniform is giving way inmany circles to less conformist styles and personal expressions. Hundreds of thousandsof new riders have acquired Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the last decade. Manymore have purchased look-alike bikes from Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki.Japanese “Harley clones” or “metric cruisers” have so closely approximated the Harleylook and sound that even experts occasionally do double-takes to tell the difference.Japanese manufacturers have also filled an unmet need for smaller, less expensive alter-natives to the Harley line-up. The generation that grew up with imported automobilesand electronics has demonstrated a higher degree of acceptance of Japanese cruiser-style motorcycles. While pockets of xenophobia still exist, Japanese motorcycle or“rice-burner” bashing is no longer the norm.

Sheer growth in the number of riders has also created a fundamental shift in how thenon-riding public views bikers. In the early nineties most people didn’t personallyknow anyone who dressed in black leather and rode a Harley-Davidson. Their points


of reference were primarily mass-mediated, and the dominant media portrayal was theoutlaw biker. Now, however, it seems like everybody knows somebody who rides aHarley-Davidson, and that person is likely to be their dad, their uncle, their neighbor,their boss, or increasingly their mom or the lady next door. The outlaw biker stereotypehas become a cliché, the biker image has lost its sharp edges, and the intimidating bikerno longer serves as the public’s dominant frame of reference.

One of the limiting factors of the original ethnography is gravitation to the overtlymasculine myths of the Wild West outlaw and folk hero. From a male perspective themetaphors were apt, but such stories leave little room for feminine viewpoints. Pushingthe frontier metaphor harder, it may be possible to accommodate female heroes as well.Much of the hard and heroic work of “civilizing” the Western frontier ultimately fell towomen. The crucial mistake from a feminist standpoint, however, is not so much infailing to fairly articulate the roles of women as in hearing women’s voices articulatetheir own roles and meanings.

Women have had a place in motorcycling as long as there have been motorcycles.Although their numbers have been few, their presence has been powerful and at timespioneering (Ferrar 1996). Still, if we need evidence of motorcycling as a masculinedomain we need look little further than the sensation created by a woman on a bike.During an interview with Tina, a woman rider, we also met her mother, a woman inher sixties and a long-time motorcyclist. The mother recalled a time many years agowhen she was pulled over by a traffic cop while riding with her teenage daughter on theback seat:

I had a helmet on and a cop stopped us. He thought I was her boyfriend or something, andI took my helmet off. He was shocked, and he said “Your license plate’s dirty.” It wastotally bogus, but the shocked look on his face was just wonderful! Cause he was going tohassle me.

Today, it is more common than ever for women to be on the front seat experiencingthe world from their own motorcycles. While a woman on the front seat may have beenan anomaly twenty years ago, according to a survey by the Motorcycle Industry Council,

Female motorcycle ownership is up to nearly 10% of the total motorcycle owner popula-tion. The percent of female ownership increased from 6.4 percent in 1990 to 9.6 percent in2003. (http://www.webbikeworld.com/Motorcycle-news/blog/)

Social Structure: Multiple Voices, Multiple Authenticities

Schouten and McAlexander (1995) described a biker subculture in which social stand-ing derived largely from demonstrations of authenticity and commitment. While theyacknowledged that both authenticity and commitment take on different meaningsdepending on the standpoint of the individual making the judgment, they failed toarticulate either construct from women’s perspectives. Instead they observed thatmale bikers regarded women as little more than objects of male status, essentiallyignoring the historical roles of women in motorcycling. In contrast, Belk and Costa’s(1998) ethnography of modern mountain men describes a subculture that embraces


authenticity; however, (white) women and children are granted a more central role inthe subculture than is historically warranted.

We now find more women challenging traditional roles and relationships with maleriders. They have developed opportunities for all-woman and cross-gender ridinggroups, and they have taken charge of more of their rider education. If we listen towomen’s voices and acknowledge women’s experiences we inevitably encounterwomen’s authenticities.

The Lure of the Outlaw

A re-inquiry that makes more room for women’s experiences of the social structure ofbiker culture still must deal with the inherent hegemonic hyper-masculinity of theoutlaw mythos. Despite changes in the motorcycling landscape, the outlaw mythosremains foundational. The allure of the outlaw club is part of the fun of motorcyclingfor some women riders, although not the majority of women we encountered. Whilesome women riders may have an interest in joining outlaw clubs, they are not fullmembers, participating only as men allow (Joans 2001). Women riders with connec-tions (always through men) to true outlaw clubs tend to downplay issues of illegality.Informant Allie describes her outlaw fiancé as “the good boy who looks like the badboy.” She adds, “but I don’t like the outlaw side of it.” Although the interaction withtrue outlaw clubs (the so-called one-percenters whose sole allegiance is to the club) islimited, some women ride with clubs that mirror and follow many of the cultural prac-tices of outlaw clubs. Caroline describes these clubs as “nice clubs, the three-percenters,” and explains that their allegiances run to family first, the job second, andthe club third. While they are not true outlaws, their ties to outlaws are still important.She explains that three-percenters “have to be sponsored by a one-percenter. If you’vegot colors (patches worn on one’s clothing as a sign of affiliation), you have to be spon-sored by a 1% club.”

Women who ride have significantly more status in hard-core motorcycle clubs thanwomen passengers. When women take the front seat, their status in relationship tooutlaw clubs takes a dramatic turn. Compared to their non-riding counterparts theyhave a better ticket to the concert, but they still don’t have a backstage pass. Carolinerecalled a time when she rode to a club bar: “I had a beer and one of the guys startedbugging me, and another one said ‘You don’t want to mess with her, she rides her ownbike.’” Allie noted that when she has taken her bike to outlaw parties, she has found themembers were a lot more lenient toward her than they were toward female passengers.Speaking generally in the third person she says, “it’s like cool that she rides.” She’sattained status as one of the “old ladies,” and remarks that the members “don’t give metoo much crap.” As passengers, women are relegated to the lowest status in the group.Allie describes women passengers who are attracted to the outlaw image as “patch chas-ers.” She explains:

They think any guy who has a back patch is so bad because they think it is some prestigiousthing. It’s the typical stereotype thing of “girls on the back.” They like to get wasted anddon’t have to worry about driving. I don’t think it’s wrong to be satisfied to be on the back.


Most of the other girls there are biker girls. That’s who they are, that’s what they are; thereisn’t another part of them. They think they have to right to be this way. Bikers are this wayand that’s the way it is … they are all about the party.

Still, the misogynist cultural norms of the outlaw mythos within some biker groupsprevent women from attaining the highest levels of social authority. Since outlawculture is rife with hegemonic masculinity, women can never be truly authentic oroutgrow/outlast their prescribed status in outlaw culture. In outlaw motorcycle clubswomen, both riders and passengers alike, are excluded from club meetings and leader-ship roles.

The enhanced status afforded women riders aligned with motorcycle club membersilluminates a gendered paradox in the subculture. A woman is well within expectedgender roles when she rides on the back of her boyfriend’s bike. For example, Aliciahates the way the club members ignore traffic laws, and she doesn’t want to risk a ticketon her own driving record, so when she wants to go with the club she rides as a passen-ger. By virtue of her status as rider and her gender, she is allowed a flexibility of perfor-mance not afforded male riders, who would be denigrated for “riding bitch” (i.e., onthe rear or pillion seat).

While the influence of outlaw culture has diminished in the broader motorcyclingcommunity, the traditions and artifacts of reified gender roles remain. The world ofHarley-Davidson riders is still very much a “boy’s club.” Hyper-masculinity is thebackground against which all performances are staged. The same may be said for otherconsumer subcultures as well. An exaggerated form of masculinity dominates thecommunity of modern mountain men (Belk and Costa 1998). Ironically perhaps,traditional heterosexual masculinity even trumps more feminine expressions in gaymale subcultures (Kates 2002).

Socialization: The Boys’ Club

Motorcycling has long been a predominantly male activity. For women, socializationinto this “boys’ club” as riders tends to take one of several different paths, each definedby its orientation to men. We refer to these paths of socialization as riding around (onthe back) with boys, riding against boys, riding for boys, riding beside boys, and boyson the side.

Riding around with boysOur informants’ early experiences were often a direct result of the fellowship they feltwith boys as they rode on the backs of their motorcycles. For these girls riding with ateenage boy served as resistance to social and gender roles and rules. Self-confessed“rebels” or “bad girls,” such as informant Beth, rode in defiance of the express prohi-bitions of parents. As a direct result of a teen boy’s recklessness and exhibitionism, a girl’sexperience on the pillion seat was often perilous. Girls often complained to the boys thatthey rode too fast or too dangerously, foreshadowing a key motivation for moving to thefront seat and riding their own motorcycles later in life. Many women riders occasionally


still find riding on the back as a viable option for relaxing and enjoying the scenery. Somealso find the physical closeness romantic. Others flatly refuse to be on the back, arguingas Mary does that it’s “really boring.” Caroline asserts that the back seat means “you can’tsee, don’t have the wind in your face, you can’t feel the bike, you don’t have the Zen,you’re not in control … you can’t move with it, you can’t bond with it.”

Riding against boysSome girls, especially in rural areas, grew up with motorcycles of their own. Typicallythese were dirt bikes, which they rode for the sheer fun of it. Some of these youngwomen crashed the boy’s club through competition. For instance, early experiences inlocal motocross races gave Caroline a chance to compete against the boys. At age twelveher slim body and ability to tuck her long blond hair up under her helmet allowed herto disguise her sex. As a girl, her biggest liability was the male ego. If the boys knew theywere racing a girl, their behaviors became particularly vicious and they targeted her forelimination. She recalls, “If they found out you were a girl, they were going to beat thegirl. They didn’t want to lose to a girl. … I only raced five or six times but I was alwaysin the top ten.” Consistent with a liberal feminist approach, Caroline demonstratedthat all she needed to be competitive at the race track was an equal opportunity. Mary,a rider since her youth (but not a racer) enjoys friendly, informal competition with themen she rides with, noting that, “All the men make fun that I speed in front of them. Ijust love to go fast.” Making fun of Mary’s need for speed allows the men she rides withto save face in front of a woman who is willing to take greater risks than they are.

Riding for boys: fulfilling his fantasySometimes the real competition in motorcycling was for a man’s attention. Women arehighly aware when their spouses or significant others are openly attracted to otherwomen, and women on motorcycles attract attention. Alicia admitted that she didn’tthink she was going to like riding:

On my own I was afraid I was going to be intimidated. I learned how to ride because of hiscomments all the time. We went to Sturgis and it was like “look at that little girl on her ownbike” and “it’s so attractive when you see a woman riding a bike” so that’s why I learned.When I came home he had a bike sitting in my driveway and had signed me up for thecourse. So that’s why I learned.

By taking the front seat, Alicia was fulfilling her boyfriend’s fantasy. By the samelogic that maintains that women dress for other women, she suppressed her own fearof riding to face down possible competition from other women riders.

Riding beside boysOpportunities to ride together surfaced as a strong theme among married couples.Many women prefer riding alone with their husbands on their own bikes. Marta, a longtime rider, used to ride behind her husband and watch him as he learned to ride. As hisskills improved she began to relax and enjoy riding alongside him. Although Marta


didn’t actively push her husband into motorcycling, when he began to show interestshe became an encouraging and supportive partner, carefully managing her displays ofsuperior skill in order to shield his ego. Nancy signals her affection for her husbandwhen they are riding together: “When we ride we have a little signal that if we want totell each other we love each other we do a little S curve (a playful swerve to one side thenthe other).” Kerry notes that riding together is “such a good thing for Tom and I as acouple, as a household, and [it has] given us a stronger bond.” Part of her decision toride was so they would have an activity that they could do together.

Boys on the sidePositive identification with female role models propels some women to the rider’s seat.Some informants decided to ride when they saw other women taking control of thethrottle. “If she can do it, I can do it” is a common and somewhat competitive responseto seeing other women like themselves riding. This initial competitive response oftengives way to a desire to see more women on their own bikes. Here we see women devel-oping the basis for a sisterhood of riders rather than merely making places for them-selves in the biker brotherhood. For Tina, her mother’s decision to ride, against herfather’s wishes, made a deep impression on her. Marta recalls vividly her admirationfor her older sister’s “sexy girlfriend,” who came around the family home in Venezuelaon her own motorcycle. Nancy cites the influence her neighbor, a white, middle-aged,upper middle-class woman like herself, in her decision to learn to ride.

Many women who initially are drawn to the rider community for its social aspectseventually find that the hegemonic masculinity begins to grate on them. They begin tomilitate for sisterhood, or at least gender equality, within the community. The socialaspects of riding are particularly evident among the Harley-Davidson brand commu-nity. Kerry echoes the oft heard notion that Harley-Davidson ownership is “a lifestyleand a new social group.” However, the male domination of the local Harley OwnersGroup has frustrated her and she looks forward to taking a leadership role in the HOG-sponsored Ladies of Harley, which she hopes to transform from a women’s auxiliaryinto an organization better oriented to women who ride (cf. Joans 2001). While genderequality is far from the norm in biker culture, some groups are making strides in thatdirection. At a recent national HOG rally we interviewed a woman who, perhaps bene-fiting from liberal feminism, had served in several leadership positions, culminating ina term as the president of a HOG chapter in the Southwestern US.

Women’s Authenticities: Choice, Control, Relationships and Gender Paradox

The move from the pillion seat to the front seat of a motorcycle results in a quantumleap in status for a woman in a biker subculture. As it is for men (Schouten andMcAlexander 1995), status for women riders is based on judgments of competency andauthenticity. A woman who rides her own motorcycle commands more respect frommale and female riders alike than does a woman who rides strictly as a passenger.Among women, however, issues of status and authenticity are more nuanced and


complicated than they are for men. In taking control of their own motorcycles, womendraw a spotlight of attention that, while gratifying, illuminates changes in their rela-tionships with other members of a biker subculture.

While the incidence of women riders is increasing, the woman rider without her bikeis suspect, a potential imposter. Kerry asserts that when she tells people she has a Harleythey doubt her, “There was no way I could be a biker, because I don’t smoke, havetattoos, or drink excessively.” Allie described the incidence of participating in a dunktank for a “give a biker a bath” fundraiser. A couple of men laughed at the thought thatshe was a biker, until one of the men riders told them that “Her bike’s right back there!”

Women riders are generally very supportive of other women riders. Demonstratingwomen’s voice/experience feminism, they see each other as free spirits and members ofa sisterhood, and they commonly support other women in overcoming fear and learn-ing to ride. They tend to develop esprit de corps in rider education classes (womentaking the classes with male significant others are the exceptions), and they often stayin touch with fellow female graduates. Our first author has experienced such connec-tions in two different rider education classes.

Caroline privately mentored Nancy in learning to ride; they were neighbors at thetime but not close friends. Kerry encourages women to ride by taking a leadership rolein her local Ladies of Harley group and by “talking up” riding to women at work. Bethencourages other women to take their bikes out: “Sometimes it’s just going over therewith a group of people on bikes and saying ‘Come on,’ and riding with them.”

The influence of female role models is likely to grow, perhaps explosively, as pioneer-ing women continue to provide active encouragement for their daughters, sisters-in-law, neighbors, female work colleagues, and other women in their social spheres.Nancy notes: “(I have) talked to a lot of younger women and they’ll say ‘I want to dothat,’ and I really try to give them as much information as possible because they will getthe nerve up. They’re still just under the idea that it’s a guy thing and they don’t havethe power to handle it.”

Women also find a special kind of companionship among other women riders.Caroline remarks that when riding with a male pack, “they dominate the speed, thetimes that you stop, the place you are going. … With men there is a testosterone levelyou can feel. When I ride with a pack of females, it’s a totally different feel, much more‘look at the trees smell the grass,’ more visual.” Once again we hear echoes of a femi-nism that acknowledges and legitimizes women’s different voices and experiences.

Although women have more choice in taking the pillion seat than men do, thatchoice when made by a woman with her own motorcycle invites criticism from otherwomen riders who may treat her as a backslider or traitor to a cause (cf. Joans 2001).Mary recalls “playfully” chiding Alicia for being on the back of her boyfriend’s bikerather than on her own: “Don’t talk to me,” she said. “You left your bike at home on abeautiful day. Don’t even talk to me.” We interviewed two women on a Posse Ride (alarge, multiple-day group ride organized by the Harley Owners Group) who hadchosen to ride as passengers with their husbands. After making sure we knew that theyalso owned and rode their own motorcycles, they offered elaborate, if not defensive,explanations for their decisions to ride as passengers. One of them remarked, “I’m just


luggage,” and lamented the almost total lack of agency she had as a passenger in deci-sions such as where and when to stop. They also related the upsetting experience ofbeing denigrated for riding as passengers by another woman who rode her own bike aspart of the posse. For some women, moving to the front seat represents not only animportant personal achievement but also a gain for women and feminism. To see otherwomen giving up that gain, even temporarily, is an affront.

Male partners may also pressure women riders to stay off the pillion seat, in partbecause it is more fun to ride alone than two-up (with a passenger). In an interviewwith a couple on the Posse Ride who rode two highly customized Harley-Davidsons,the husband pointed out that upon buying his wife a motorcycle (implying his agency,not hers) he had switched his stock double seat for a solo saddle that makes carrying apassenger impossible. Ironically, women create more choices and greater freedoms forthemselves by learning to ride, but certain forces in the subculture may then militate torestrict their freedom to ride as passengers.

Gender paradox arises when women demonstrate competency and leadership inroles traditionally claimed by men in the context of hegemonic masculinity (Martin2004; Trethewey 1999). The paradox is that their performance suggests higher status atthe same time as their gender accords them lower status. Against the hyper-masculinebackdrop of a biker subculture, a woman rider’s status can be ambiguous andconflicted. She is caught between the expectations of male riders (the hegemonicmajority) for other riders and the quite different expectations they have for women.

Regardless of their skill levels or experience, we have found many women riders toaccept or be relegated to subordinate positions with respect to their male partners. Forexample, Caroline and Marta were already accomplished (although not actively riding)motorcyclists prior to meeting their non-riding husbands. When the husbands decidedto learn to ride, both women were delighted, because it meant that they too couldreturn to riding. While the novice husbands learned to ride, both women were carefulnever to “show them up,” make corrections, or otherwise risk wounding their egos. Itwas more important to the women that their husbands have positive riding experiencesso that they would continue to ride. The implication was that neither woman feels freeto ride unless the husband does also. Their own identity constructions as riders aresubservient to their marriage relationships.

Other evidence of gender paradox surfaces in comparisons between husbands’ andwives’ motorcycles. With no exceptions among the couples in our sample, the man’sbike was purchased prior to the woman’s or simultaneously, even if the womanpreceded the man in being a rider. In no case was the woman’s bike superior to theman’s in terms of size (bigger is better), brand status (Harley-Davidson is better), orexpense (more customization is better). In cases where one bike was a Harley-Davidsonand the other was a Japanese “metric cruiser,” the less expensive, lower status Japanesebike always belonged to the woman. This could easily be construed as a form ofeconomic marginalization of women riders. Women riders of Japanese bikes, such asAllie, routinely claim they’d like to own a Harley (a decision that would be roundlysupported by their subcultural peers), but that costs are a barrier to ownership. Ahusband’s or boyfriend’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle serves as the admission ticket


for both the man and the woman rider to participate in the subculture. While the oppo-site may be true, that is, that a man can participate on the basis of a wife’s or girlfriend’sHarley ownership, we have never seen it. Lynanne speculates that if her husband wason her Yamaha and she was on his Harley, his friends would say, “Man get a real bike.”

In a study of middle-management women Martin (2004) describes how women usehumor to negotiate or mitigate gender paradox experienced in a masculine workplace.The ultimate expression of gender paradox may be women’s jokes about turninggender inequities upside down by relegating a man to the pillion seat: the idea of boys“riding bitch.” Lucy noted that her boyfriend doesn’t know how to ride: “I told him hecould ride bitch if he wanted and he just kind of said ‘whatever’.” Allie described thelengths her boyfriend went to in order to avoid embarrassment when she gave him aride after his bike broke down and left him stranded: “When we stopped at stop lightshe pretended that he was instructing me how to ride. I’m just sitting there dying laugh-ing. It was summer and guys had their windows down and he’s sitting there going,‘You’re doing really good.’ It was hilarious.” Alicia and Tina each jested that they mightwant to put “property of” labels on their boyfriends’ jackets, rather than wear the labelsthemselves. In each case the intent of the statement was humorous, which is alsoinstructive. The humor only works because of the absurdity it represents in the face ofactual gender dynamics.

Ethos: Performing Gender at Sixty Miles Per Hour

Reframing Freedom: The Eagle and the Butterfly

Schouten and McAlexander (1995) identified personal freedom as a core value of thenew biker subculture. Freedom as they define it, either as liberation or as license, isexperienced primarily as the absence or removal of constraint. Notions of freedommust be rethought when viewed through a feminist lens. Women in society face differ-ent kinds of constraints than those encountered by men. Therefore we must expect thatfreedom may also have different meanings for women. In a hyper-masculine subcul-ture we may even find that certain of men’s freedoms accrue directly from constraintson women.

A primary motivation for women to ride their own motorcycles lies in the bound-aries that circumscribe their personal and gender identities. For many women, at somepoint in their lives, the boundaries of traditional feminine roles have begun to chafeand constrain them. The boundaries are both emotional and social, held in place bytheir own doubts and self-definitions on one hand, and by perceptions of social normsand pressures on the other. Their approaches to these boundaries are, therefore, neces-sarily both personal and public.

Freedom to feel freeThe theme of freedom permeates motorcycle talk by women. Many of the women weinterviewed lead complex and demanding lives combining careers with extensivefamily and household responsibilities. Their lives put enormous constraints on their


time and energy. Motorcycling represents the freedom to slow down and enjoy. Theirdescriptions of freedom tend to focus on pleasant sensory experiences. Women ridersin our sample recalled the scents of flower fragrances, pine, fresh cut grass, and lesspleasantly, chicken farms. Kinesthetic and visual pleasures for women are subtle, suchas “the cool air that comes off a creek,” the “touchable, great, big sky,” and “the way theleaves are on the ground in a wooded area.” The genesis of Tabitha’s desire to own amotorcycle was a ride at age forty on the back of her older brother’s bike. She says, “Ifelt just like a butterfly.” She compared the sensation favorably to that of skydiving orparasailing, two other experiences that she had found particularly liberating.Compared to the fierce American eagle emblematic of men’s sense of freedom in bikerculture, Tabitha’s butterfly suggests a different species of freedom.

Freedom over our bodies: managing physical riskBeyond the freedom of sensory experiences associated with motorcycling, riding allowswomen to express freedom over their own bodies. To become riders, women oftenhave to overcome social barriers around physical risk (cf. Celsi, Rose, and Leigh 1993)while being mindful of how riding fits into other roles in their lives, especially in thecase of mothers. In a classic gendered double-standard, many men who ride cite phys-ical risks in objecting, sometimes strenuously, to their wives or girlfriends riding. Oneof the first author’s classmates in a rider education course enrolled over the protesta-tions of her husband. After she completed the course successfully, he forbade her to buya motorcycle. In an email to the author she complained that it may be time to rethinkthe ten-plus-years marriage, but that she was definitely getting a bike (she has sincefiled for divorce).

While choosing physical risks, women riders tend to be careful in their approach tomotorcycling. They often take rider safety classes and learn to be responsible riders.Many are also proud of their toughness and wear bruises and scars with pride. Maryshowed a burn on her inner thigh that she got from putting her kickstand down in ahurry. She admits she shouldn’t have ridden wearing shorts. Lucy doesn’t mind thatshe eats a few bugs when she rides without a helmet. The wind in her hair is worth theoccasional bug-splat and, presumably, the risk of severe cranial damage in the event ofan accident. Nancy recounted a close call on her bike, but learned that she could slidea little and still be okay. Says Beth, “You can take risks in life that are just ridiculous andscary or you can take risks that are fun and bring you to another level.” The physicalrisk from riding is real, and so is the sense of accomplishment in facing it.

For women who start out as passengers on men’s motorcycles a major motivationfor riding one’s own bike can be the desire to take more direct control over physicalrisk. The first author resolved to buy her own motorcycle as a direct result of an acci-dent and injury while riding behind her husband who lost control of his bike. Shedecided she would be better off and more confident if she took the handlebars. Nancyexplains a similar motivation:

I wanted control. I wanted to choose my path and go wherever. I just wanted to be thedriver. When my husband drives, he tends to wait until the last minute to change lanes. I


wanted to try it myself. I wanted to get over the stigma attached with women being tooscared, and I wanted my own bike. I just thought I could do it.

Risk to property sometimes figures into the motivation as well. Barbara describes herinitial motivation to learn to ride: “There was an incident when we got pulled over andI thought, if they haul him to jail how am I going get this motorcycle home?”

Motherhood may mark changes in a woman’s decision to ride. The prospect oforphaning children is chilling. For some women, riding will cease while they are preg-nant, but they reserve the right to make that decision for themselves. Tina explains thatshe “wouldn’t marry a person who would ask her to not ride once she becomes amother.” While admitting that she may want to start a family someday, Mary has post-poned motherhood because she believes it would keep her from riding for at least a yearor two. Karen chooses not to ride on her own since having her son. For others, moth-erhood is compatible with riding. Barbara rode through the first eight months of herpregnancy with her daughter and continued to ride shortly after the delivery. She andher husband occasionally rode with small children nestled on the tanks in front ofthem. Caroline was the mother of a five year old daughter when she started riding againafter several years away from the sport. For Allie the decision to have children is pred-icated on being able to afford to be a stay-at-home mom, but giving up riding is not inthe cards.

Cognizant of other people’s fears, some women riders are hesitant to talk aboutmotorcycling with their own mothers. Nancy, a mid-forties mother of two teenagersnoted that, “I still can’t tell my mom. Even though she knows I have it, she freaks. Sowe kind of skirt around the issue.” Nancy’s effort to avoid conflict with her mother isconfounded by her views toward her own children’s interest in riding. She can foreseea time when she, her husband, son and daughter are all riding together, each on theirown bike. Barbara will let her seventeen-year-old daughter make her own decisionabout riding. Beth likes to ride to her teaching job, noting that her student’s love itwhen she rides to work. Caroline is sure that her teenage daughter will eventually learnto ride. That these women riders hope to inspire their daughters to ride may suggest akind of defense of freedoms. Like veterans of a gender battle, they long to see their gainsappreciated and preserved by the next generation.

Freedom over our bodies: owning our sexualityA woman rider enjoys more freedom to frame her sexual identity than does a passenger.A woman riding as a passenger behind a man leaves little doubt about her heterosexu-ality or her specific attachment. In contrast, a woman riding her own motorcycle createsambiguity about both her sexual orientation and her attachment. This ambiguity is agreat source of power. It is the power to be sexual actors as opposed to sexual objects.

The most obvious and extreme example of the objectification of women in bikerculture is the “property of” designation given to women involved in outlaw clubs. Suchwomen subject themselves completely to the desires of one or more male club members(Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Among the so-called new bikers researchers havealso observed women passengers being displayed, or displaying themselves, as objects


of adornment and sexuality (Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Dynamics of objecti-fication change when women take control of their own motorcycles. Several informantsfelt the move to the front seat made them even sexier and more desirable to men. Thesewomen are highly aware and appreciative of the male gaze. Tina, for example, recountswith pride photographs taken of her on her bike and published in trade magazines. Sheclaims that being the rider is sexier than being on the back. Sexiness is even a majormotivator for some women to start riding. Marta recalls how she had seen her sister’ssexy friend on a bike and thought, “That is what I wanted to look like.” She then remi-nisces about her early riding days in New Orleans, “I used to wear one piece suits, skintight and high heels, and wear a miniskirt on my motorcycle.” Beth notes that she likesto be seen as a feminine woman who can “go out there and look sexy and hot on mymotorcycle and feel myself and my femininity. It’s a very positive thing for women.”

Women on the front seat claim a sense of control over their sexual image in relationto the male gaze. Heterosexual women riders are quick to point out symbolic markersof femininity that clarify their sexual orientation. A few mentioned deliberately thwart-ing assumptions of lesbianism. Lucy just likes being “a girly girl, getting all dressed upand going out.” Allie points to her love of shoes, “Precious Moments” collectibles, andother frilly things as evidence of her femininity and social markers of heterosexuality.She craves the attention she receives as a professional and feminine woman who rides.She describes herself as “independent” and “assertive,” and she wears conspicuousjewelry to underscore her femininity. Caroline, who dresses with less overt femininity,notes how other women’s assumptions about her looks have sometimes scared themout of the restroom: “You never have to wait for a stall when you are in your Harleygear. It’s awful. You want to say ‘It’s okay, Just want to wash my face and I just want togo to the bathroom.’ I still want to be a female. And I want to wash my face.”

Romance can be a powerful aspect of motorcycling when it is shared with a lovedone. Many women regard the activity as a form of relationship therapy. By riding withtheir spouses, they reclaim time together that would otherwise be time apart. While afew couples encourage children to ride along, the more common pattern is for couplesto ride without children. Beth called riding together “a nice bonding for a husband anda wife.” Motorcycling becomes, in effect, a simulation of the empty nest, a time whenMom can cease being Mom and become, instead, simply wife and lover. Nancydescribes her playful, sexual side. Sometimes when she and her husband are riding ona stretch of lonely road, she will take her hands from the handlebars, lift her top, andflash her breasts at him. He calls it “hitting me with her high beams.” Of the same ritualNancy says, “I like the way the wind feels on the girls (her breasts).” She has effectivelyco-opted and reversed the “show your tits” objectification (Schouten and McAlexander1995) that women passengers commonly face from men.

Engaging, Resisting and Co-Opting Hyper-Masculinity

Another core value of biker culture, one that gets at the heart of our research questions,is that of machismo or hegemonic hyper-masculinity (Schouten and McAlexander1995). We find that many women riders are attracted to motorcycling because of its


hyper-masculinity, not in spite of it. They resist some aspects of it, they co-opt otheraspects of it, and they use it to frame and redefine their own femininities. This aspectof using hyper-masculine consumption behaviors to enact different or expanded femi-ninities resonates clearly with poststructuralist feminism.

The hyper-masculinity inherent in biker culture attracts women to motorcycles fora variety of reasons. They commonly cite empowerment and fulfillment, but thebottom line is that mastering a motorcycle is more empowering than other activitiesprecisely because it is a strongly masculine endeavor, or as Nancy says, “the fact that it’sa girl doing something that is typically done by a guy.” Many informants cited greatlyincreased self-confidence as a major benefit of learning to ride. Barbara, who grew upwith a harshly oppressive father, says it succinctly, “All my life I was taught I couldn’tdo this, I couldn’t do that. (Learning to ride) increased my confidence in learningthings in life. It gave me a sense of confidence for myself.”

Mastering a motorcycle is empowering in other ways as well. For Beth her motorcy-cle stands as a symbol of her courage to change her own life. She recalls that the “wildchild” of her youth was smothered by her first marriage and her privileged life as adoctor’s wife: “I was so bored. I felt like I was somebody’s Barbie doll and I didn’t feelmy power as a woman.” She left her husband, took her two small sons, and “did whatI had to, to bring fulfillment to my life.” Her two most important subsequent decisionswere becoming a school teacher and riding a motorcycle: “Both empower me,” shesays. “You can still be a traditional woman and cutting edge at the same time. I’m amom and a teacher. I live in the suburbs. … The tennis mom is not really my cup oftea. I hang out with women more like myself, but not just moms.” It isn’t the teachingthat makes her “cutting edge.” It’s the motorcycle. For women who feel stifled by tradi-tional feminine roles, riding a motorcycle provides an ideal counter-balance to all the“just a mom” aspects of life.

Once women have begun riding they may begin to resist aspects of male dominationand decision-making within biker culture, especially when men’s ways of riding putthem in danger or ill at ease. Allie, for example, stopped riding with her boyfriend’smotorcycle club because she did not share their disdain for traffic laws: “My group issafe fun, his is wild. I rode with them the first two years and I obey traffic signals (butthey just rode through red lights). I just got to the point I don’t want the ticket.” Somewomen gravitate to all-female riding groups in order to embrace the aforementionedfreedom to slow down. Women’s ways of riding are generally different from men’s.They are based on different rhythms, values, and aesthetics.

Resistance to hyper-masculinity within bike culture sometimes takes more assertiveand publicly rhetorical forms. Several of our respondents wear motorcycle helmetsfestooned with stickers that proclaim gender politics. Some are specifically motorcyclerelated, making statements such as, “A Woman’s Place Is in Front,” “Biker Bitch,”“Badass Toys for Badass Girls,” or “I Got a Harley for my Husband—It Was a GoodTrade.” Others are more explicitly sexual or counter-sexual, including: “A Hard ManIs Good to Find” and “Don’t Talk to my Tits.”

Some women riders adopt hyper-masculine vernacular in the form of tough talkwith respect to their own experiences and vehicles. Tina dismisses the insinuation that


her car, a Mercedes Benz, is a feminine vehicle: “It’s got balls! It’s a V 12!” Invoking asimilar anatomical improbability Alicia argues that women riders “need to haveballs.” Such talk emphasizes their gender equality and independence. Alicia equateshaving the “balls” to ride a motorcycle with other aspects of her independence, “Idon’t need a man to live with. I make a good living. I don’t have a fear of tryinganything. Mom’s gone through a couple of divorces and she’s taught me I don’t needa man.”

All our informants are clear about their femininity, but they are equally clear thattheir interpretations of femininity do not fit neatly within the bounds and constraintsof traditional feminine roles. They have engaged the hyper-masculinity of biker cultureas a way to explore and expand their personal boundaries, to challenge social pressuresand judgments, and to attract attention to their achievements. Mastering the machinegives them greater self-confidence. It tells the world that they are more than just theirjobs, their responsibilities as parents and their roles as spouses. The motorcycle is a roll-ing celebration of self, and it is the anvil on which they fashion new, more complex, andmore powerful femininities.

Conclusions

This research offers new insights into gendered consumer behavior by exploring thedecisions of some women to engage in behaviors that are widely regarded as hyper-masculine. What attracts women to a consumption subculture that is rife withmachismo? None of the extant theories of gender and consumption accountsadequately for the phenomenon. If all we knew about gendered consumer behavior wasthat products are gendered and expressive of gender (Iyer and Debevec 1989) we mightsuppose that women riders are themselves highly masculine. However, our resultsfirmly contradict such a supposition. If we factor in gender-symbolism salience (Gould1996; Patterson and Hogg 2004) we might revise our expectations to include displaysof situational masculinity. That may get us closer to the truth of some behaviors suchas “tough talk,” but it still doesn’t square with the overwhelmingly feminine expres-sions and desires of the riders we have interviewed and encountered.

Sherry et al. (2004) found that ESPN Zone, as a quintessentially male-genderedconsumption situation, tended to reinforce gender stereotypes. Biker culture should beexpected to do the same; however, we find little evidence of the acceptance of rein-forced gender stereotypes among women riders. Women riders deliberately transgressgender stereotypes. It makes us wonder if all the women at ESPN Zone fit uniformlyinto “cheerleader” roles, or how long it might be before ESPN Zone sees incursions bygroups of football-passing, basket-shooting female sports enthusiasts and Title IXbeneficiaries.

There is something undeniably carnivalesque (Bakhtin [1965] 1984) about a gather-ing of bikers. Riding is a costumed affair, and protective apparel, which is basicallyunisex, offers women the opportunity to challenge and blur gender boundaries(Goulding et al. 2004). In terms of ability and empowerment our informants certainlychallenge gender stereotypes, but not in terms of alternate sexual identities. On the


contrary, many go out of their way to accessorize and feminize their appearances inorder to communicate unambiguous femininity and heterosexuality.

Perhaps riding motorcycles might be characterized as gender tourism for women(Moore 1988). If so, then it is a markedly different phenomenon than that of mentemporarily escaping a fiercely competitive, dog-eat-dog work world into private femi-nine respites such as knitting (Thompson and Holt 2004). We have evidence of womenescaping temporarily from traditional feminine roles. However, unlike male gendertourists, women riders are escaping into a situation that is starkly public and where fail-ure entails palpable physical and social risks. Also, contrary to what we might expectfrom gender tourism, women riders or bikers embrace and flaunt their gender-roletransgressions as important aspects of identity. We resist the interpretation of gendertourism in favor of one of expanding and liberating femininity.

Women riders, or at least the heterosexual women riders we have encountered,engage the hyper-masculine activities and trappings of biker culture as part of an iden-tity project in which they expand, complicate, and empower their own femininities.The women who choose this hyper-masculine context for their identity work appear todo so because they find traditional feminine social roles to be constraining, limiting,and chafing. Riding motorcycles allows them to demonstrate for themselves and othersthat they are not limited by the categories and choices currently on offer by much ofsociety. It allows them to take emphatic control over their own bodies, choosing therisks they will take and the levels of sexuality they will express. They enjoy treadingupon the expectations and sensibilities of anyone who would seek to judge them orhold them back from doing what they want to do. The feminism in practice of womenriders is not primarily a battle of the sexes (although in some family situations it mayinvolve a battle of wills). Our informants view riding motorcycles as an enhancementto their femininity, their sexuality, and their relationships.

Along side the serious issues of empowerment and identity rides another motivatingforce: fun—a traditionally male kind of fun that in the past has easily excluded women.Women riders want their share. They are not content to maintain the home fires whilemen hit the road for pleasure. Nor are they content to ride along as passengers or“luggage.” Women riders have discovered the unique sensory and kinesthetic pleasuresof motorcycling. They have discovered the satisfaction of taking control of a vehiclethat offers what many people describe as the closest thing to flying you can achievewithout leaving the ground. Not only have they discovered motorcycling, but they havealso brought their own rhythms and interpretations to it.

When contrasted against Schouten and McAlexander’s (1995) ethnography of thenew bikers, this work demonstrates how theory development or a search for social-scientific truths can easily succumb to hegemonic masculinity. By failing to accountadequately for women’s voices and women’s experiences, they only told part of thestory of a consumption subculture. This other part of the story, unearthed throughfeminist theory and female voices, adds complexity and richness to our understand-ing, not only of an interesting and evolving subculture but also of the motivationsand behaviors of women who wish to expand the power and reach of their feminin-ity. The fault in the 1995 ethnography may not be simply one of omission. It may be


symptomatic of a much larger tendency within the academy. It may be the case thatall scholarly endeavor that ignores issues of gender and power defaults to a culturallyembedded set of masculine assumptions. While we have demonstrated this flaw in aninterpretive study, we have no reason to believe that the theories and measurementsunderlying hypothesis-testing paradigms have escaped the same omission. This studyis but one response to the ways research has been conducted as implicitly male andmasculine (Bristor and Fischer 1993).

This study has implications for critical methods in consumer behavior. What beganas a re-textualization rapidly developed by necessity into a complete ethnographic re-inquiry. It turned out that we couldn’t represent women’s voices fairly without listen-ing to them and privileging them from the onset, that is, in research design and datacollection as well as in analysis. It might be tempting to call this feminist re-inquiry “therest of the story” regarding the new bikers. It is not. As much as the original ethnogra-phy may have suffered from invisible assumptions of maleness, it also suffered frominvisible assumptions of whiteness, heterosexuality, ableness, and adultness. To theextent that other differently empowered social groups, such as Blacks and Hispanics,gays and lesbians, paraplegics, and children also engage biker culture, there remaindifferent stories to tell. All social science research has qualities of reductionism. It isimpossible to fully capture any aspect of the human experience, especially whenencumbered by the invisible assumptions of a hegemonic majority, which act like aradio receptor equipped with only one band of frequencies. This study reiterates theneed for critical re-inquiry and invites us to tune our research instruments to frequen-cies that don’t appear on the AM/FM dials of traditional interpretive or positivist para-digms. We also assert the need to illuminate marginalized voices without thelimitations of a single critical approach or perspective. In working to understandwomen’s experiences and motivations we found it helpful to analyze them from theperspectives of multiple feminisms.

We could not revisit the Harley-Davidson owners’ subculture without also revisitingthe theory around subcultures and other consumer collectives more generally. As Holt(1997) suggests and this study reinforces, products and brands at the heart of sharedand ritualized consumption may be consumed by people with different social charac-teristics, including gender, class, and generation. As such the meanings derived fromconsumption may also vary in ways that remain hidden to a research perspectivenarrowed by the assumptions of a hegemonic majority. As Kates (2002) found in hisstudy of gay men, subculture affiliation is deliberate, reflexive, and strategic. In the caseof this study, women bikers relate to the values at the core of the Harley-Davidsonsubculture, including freedom and hyper-masculinity, but they interpret them differ-ently. More to the point of gendered consumption, they interpret them in ways thatchallenge male hegemony and expand and enhance multiple femininities.

This study also helps us to better understand the evolution of subcultures ofconsumption. McAlexander, Fushimi, and Schouten (2000) found that as symbols ofsubculture travel across cultural boundaries they are reinterpreted according to theunderlying premises of the receiving culture. A similar process appears to occur acrossdifferent social groups. The biker subculture began in post-war America as a movement


among veterans. More antisocial forces co-opted motorcycles as a symbol of defianceand, with the ignition of a riot in Hollister, California, the outlaw biker subculturecoalesced and eclipsed the meaning of motorcycling to other riders. The new bikersubculture as documented by Schouten and McAlexander co-opted symbolism fromthe outlaw subculture and made it their own. As they enacted new and expandedmasculinities they also legitimized Harley-Davidson ownership for more and moremainstream consumers, ultimately diminishing the relevance of outlaw bikers as solearbiters of authenticity. The effect is one of multiple authenticities and the fragmenta-tion of subculture into multiple microcultures.

Women adopt the symbolic behaviors of motorcycle ownership and ridership fordifferent reasons. Some take control of the throttle for personal challenge or empow-erment. Some do it to take more direct control of their personal safety than they havefrom the passenger seat. Some do it for reasons of kinesthetic pleasure. Regardless oftheir initial motivations, all of our informants enjoy subverting traditional ideas offemininity. They co-opt hyper-masculine symbolism into their own dynamic feminin-ities. By successfully transgressing traditional gender boundaries they manage toredraw the boundaries. Similar boundary deconstructions are probable among othermarginalized groups. To understand consumer subcultures and other communities ofpractice requires that we revisit them not only periodically but from multiple perspec-tives. The pervasive fact of hegemony in all our underlying assumptions requires thatwe explore marginal or minority perspectives vigorously, heeding the call of Denzin(2001) for more radical approaches to critical consumer research.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank our colleagues and clients at Harley-Davidson, Inc. for providingthe opportunity and resources to conduct this research. We also thank our anonymousreviewers for their insights.

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Appendix: Informant Biographies

1. Theresa, forty-five, married with three teenagers, bike: none.

Theresa’s early exposure to motorcycles occurred in college when she often rode on theback of her boyfriend’s motorcycle. Her first ride was the result of the boyfriend’s dare.Unable to resist the challenge she climbed on the back of the bike. After that experience,the motorcycle became an economical means of transportation and, although shespeaks wistfully of a motorcycle-related camping trip, little else. She complains that herboyfriend rode too fast which frightened and motivated her to always wear a helmet.Of course, she hid the motorcycle side of her life from her parents, who would have hadgreat difficulty with her riding.

Once they married and had children, Theresa’s riding days were over. Even thoughher husband pleads with her to ride with him again, Theresa refuses until the kids aregrown and out of the house. Maybe at that point she will ride again with her husband.Even still, she claims to be more fearful today than when she was in college. Further,she has no desire to be a driver. When on a motorcycle, Theresa feels out of control andunsafe. Even her sister, who is a motorcycle enthusiast doesn’t ride in the front seat.

For recreation Theresa skis, rides horses and bicycles, reads novels, sews, and coachesthe cross-country team at her school. In the summers she works part time at Williams


Sonoma. On occasion, Theresa will “let loose” and have a cocktail with her fellowmiddle-school teachers.

Although she has noticed more women driving motorcycles these days, in Theresa’sworld, motorcycles are still part of the man’s domain. She sees women who drivemotorcycles as being very different from her. According to Theresa, the women whodrive motorcycles are young and tend to be on the wild side. They are not women thatTheresa entirely approves of. Most of her colleagues do not know that her husbandrides a motorcycle, and this information she keeps private. While her husband owns aHarley, Theresa prefers Yamahas because Harleys are too loud.

2. Allie, thirty, single but engaged, bike: Yamaha V-Star

Allie is much more comfortable hanging with the guys than with the girls. She is a“guy’s girl” who likes adventure and is fearless, but she does have a more feminine sideas well. She is a self-described “shoe freak,” who collects Precious Moments figurinesand Disney cartoons. She wears make-up and does her hair, but draws the line at havingher nails done, which she thinks is “too much.” While she has no children of her own,Allie’s maternal instinct kicks in when she is with her friends. Because she rarely drinks,she often takes on what she calls the role of “mom” where she will act as the designateddriver or the voice of reason for the group.

In high school, Allie rode on the back of motorcycles with the older boys and lovedit. She often had crushes on the boys that rode and more than once ended up roman-tically involved with a rider. Neither her mom nor dad liked that she was riding andactively discouraged her, but once her dad realized she was serious, he bought her a newbike; one that would be safe and reliable. Soon after, she took the MSF class because sheloves the motorcycling world. Her desire to be a part of this world was strong enoughthat she took the class by herself.

A few years ago she watched as her first fiancé crashed his motorcycle in a fatal acci-dent. She resolved not to let this experience change her passion for riding and demon-strated her determination by riding her motorcycle to his funeral.

Allie belongs to a local ABATE chapter. (ABATE, refers to either American BikersAimed Toward Education or A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactment. ABATEworks to protect the rights of all motorcyclists through direct involvement in the polit-ical process. It is a not-for-profit, safety, educational, charitable, and advocacy motor-cyclist organization. Its aims are to promote safety, protect rights, and help others.) Sheloves the feeling of group riding and often rides with her ABATE group. She got a hugerush after her first ABATE rally. The thousands of bikes excited her and being a part ofit made her glow. Her current fiancé is in a club that some would classify as “outlaw”but which Allie sees as just a group of people who share a common interest. She is quickto point out that, in contrast to some of the women associated with the club, she is notthe property of anybody. Allie no longer drives on outings with her fiancé’s clubbecause she feels that they are not as safe or organized as her ABATE group. She has noproblem riding on the back of her fiancé’s bike while with his club. In fact, at times Allieprefers to be a passenger because she finds it more relaxing.


3. Alicia, thirty-three, divorced with eleven-year-old daughter, bike: Harley-Davidson Sportster

As a little girl, Alicia was terrified by her uncle, a sterotypical outlaw biker. His outcastdemeanor, long hair, leathers, and tattoos were frightening. His bike, on the otherhand, was exciting. Later in life, to escape the monotony of her all-girls high school,Alicia secretly sought out the dangerous boys who rode sport bikes and hung out in theparking lot at night. It wasn’t until years later, when she met her current boyfriendFrank, that Alicia seriously considered becoming a driver herself. It was Frank’scomments and constant encouragement that pushed Alicia to finally make the transi-tion to the front seat. Frank would point out women riders and note how attractive itwas to see a girl on a bike. Alicia began warming up to the idea, and then one day shecame home and found a brand new Sportster in her driveway.

Now Alicia loves the attention she receives as a professional woman who rides. Sheenjoys the surprise on people’s faces when they learn she rides, but makes sure toconspicuously wear jewelry when riding so as not to be classified as “unfeminine.”While riding is becoming an important part of Alicia’s life, it is not an all encompassingpart of her identity. She does not belong to any biking clubs and rides mostly with herboyfriend. Do not make the mistake of calling her a “biker chick.” She prefers to simplybe called a biker and makes a point of the fact that she is no one’s property. Aliciaadmits it takes a certain amount of courage to drive a motorcycle and sees herself asindependent and assertive. Alicia’s ideal riding experience is a romantic ride spentenjoying the sights and sounds of the outdoors. She shared with us, for example,pictures of a romantic ride that she and Frank took around the island of Maui onrented bikes.

4. Karen, forty-four, married with ten-year-old boy, bike: none

Time and money are the big obstacles that keep Karen from owning a motorcycle. In ahousehold supported by the earnings of a housepainter husband and the wages of aschool bus driver, Karen feels the real economic constraints of the working class. Herson is active on sports teams (football and baseball) that her husband coaches, whichfurther stretches the budget and also fills the weekends. Her dream, to own a motorcy-cle (perhaps a Harley) is deferred for now, until her son is older and more debts aresettled.

The dream began when she was young. As a grammar school kid on the south sideof [City], Karen’s daily path to school led her by an outlaw biker hangout where shefound “nice people” with beautiful motorcycles. Years later, she learned from friendsthat maybe they weren’t so nice. Much to her mother’s dismay, as a preteen she rodedirt bikes with her mostly male friends. Teenage years sometimes found her holdingtight to some cute boy on the back of his bike. Today, she rides on the back of herhusband’s Shovelhead chopped Sportster, still making her mom unhappy. As a largewoman (but dieting), the tiny backseat is not that comfy for her or her husband. Herhusband has been encouraging her to look for a bike; they’ve even peeked at a few


Harleys when they’ve been at the dealer to buy parts for his Sportster. There is somequestion as to who’s bike the new one would be; however, it is clear that if the new bikeis not a Harley, it will be Karen’s. A fellow bus driver, an ABATE chapter president, isencouraging her too. And her recent entry into ABATE membership is moving herslowly from a hobbyist biker toward a biker lifestyle.

5. Lucy, twenty-five, single, bike: Buell Blast

When her mom and stepdad were involved in a bad motorcycle accident last year, Lucywas there to witness the physical trauma her mother experienced. Lucy saw the brokenbones and wired jaw, but it did not stop her from buying her own motorcycle twomonths ago. Lucy’s stepdad has had the strongest influence in developing her determi-nation to ride. One of her earliest memories is that of riding between her mom andstepdad on the back of his bike. This early enculturation into motorcycling led Lucy toseek out boys who rode. In high school, Lucy would often ride on the back of her guyfriends’ dirt bikes. Her mom, who also rode, was not thrilled that her daughter wasriding with high school boys, and at times even Lucy was frustrated by the lack ofcontrol she had over the speed and driving style while she sat on the back.

Originally a small town farm girl, accustomed to riding on dirt roads and going“muddin,” Lucy finds driving in [City] too scary and keeps her Buell with her mom andstepdad in Iowa. She has not feminized her motorcycle but is very clear in expressingthe fact that she herself is feminine. Lucy views herself as someone who is strong, inde-pendent, and adventurous. She feels that she is someone who has the courage to ride amotorcycle and climb the corporate ladder, and yet also pursue more feminine activi-ties like selling Mary Kay products on the weekends.

Lucy finally took the MSF class with a close friend after he chastised her for procras-tinating. While Lucy is aware of the image that surrounds Harley riders, she laughs atthe false stereotype and insists that the people who ride Harleys are nice and riding isreally just about having a good time. She loves to take late afternoon rides with her step-dad. For birthdays and Christmas, Lucy is sure to get at least a couple Harley Davidsont-shirts because everyone knows how much she likes them and her collection is becom-ing quite large. She is proud to be a member of HOG and does not foresee a time whenshe would buy outside the Harley family.

6. Linda, forty-three, married with stepchildren ages twenty, eighteen, and fourteen, bike: Harley-Davidson

Linda works part time at Walmart and her husband is an iron worker. In the past fewyears, Linda’s family has become their own biker gang. She shares a household goal as“six people, six bikes,” one for each member in the house. It is clearly evident, though,that this goal reflects strongly her husband’s interest. Linda’s husband has made itknown to all members of the family that they will ride. Linda’s role in creating thisdream is largely with respect to “implementation.” Linda, for example, continues topressure her daughter to ride in order to “put a smile on her father’s face.”


Linda did not grow up around motorcycles. Her parents were strongly biased againstthem. Her first ride was at age nineteen with her first husband. They eventually sold thebike because Linda did not trust him enough to ride with him. It appears her initialdistrust of her first husband was well founded. When Linda discovered he was a cocaineaddict, she quickly ended the marriage.

Linda bought her first bike two years ago, just after her father passed away. One ofthe reasons she waited so long was out of respect for her dad, who was against it.

Linda is very proud of the fact that she bought her first bike all on her own, but alsofreely admits that she would never have done it if her husband had not been so insis-tent. In fact, he made her do it, and if he quit riding tomorrow, she would stop as well.Occasionally Linda and her husband go on Poker runs or attend Harley cookouts, butfor the most part they ride with family and close friends. Just recently they convincedLinda’s brother and his girlfriend to take up riding as well.

7. Mary, thirty-five, married, bike: multiple Harley-Davidsons

Mary is Italian. She met her husband Gus at his car stereo shop. Not long after they met,Gus re-established a latent interest in motorcycles and purchased a new Fatboy. Hisinterest in motorcycles has grown to the point that he has expanded his retail businessto include custom motorcycle production and sales. Behind the car stereo storefront isa large garage where Gus makes custom motorcycles notable for their power and beau-tiful paint jobs. Gus’s bikes have been featured in a number of different motorcycleenthusiast magazines, including Easy Riders.

Mary’s twelve years of motorcycle riding began with Gus’s re-entry into the sport.Mary quickly grew bored riding on the backseat of Gus’s Fatboy and decided it wastime to learn how to drive. Gus tried to teach her how to ride, but when she couldn’tstand his constant yelling, she ended up teaching herself.

In total, Gus and Mary own thirteen motorcycles and simply deciding which one toride each day can be a dilemma. Since Mary made the switch from passenger to driver,she hasn’t looked back. The rare days that Mary is forced to ride in the passenger seatare embarrassing for her. Her friends laugh and point because it is so unusual. Maryand Gus are not long distance or bad weather riders (they trailer their bikes, for exam-ple, to Sturgis), but in the summer they ride everyday.

With four brothers in her family and no sisters, Mary was exposed at an early age toscooters, dirt bikes, and go carts, but those toys didn’t give her the thrill she was seek-ing. Mary’s love for speed, adventure, and danger has repeatedly gotten her into trou-ble. For a Halloween prank, she once climbed the water tower in [City] and createdsuch a scene that she had to be escorted off by the mayor. She would love to race carsor motorcycles, only Gus won’t let her. Her independent streak seems to have beencurtailed somewhat by her relationship with her husband.

Although Mary is a self-described tomboy, she does have a feminine side. She lovesto shop for Harley Davidson clothes and leather boots. Many of her accessories comefrom places like Neiman Marcus or DKNY, but most of her possessions share a similarmotorcycle motif.


8. Trish, forty-three, married with three children all under age seven, bike: Harley-Davidson

For Trish, riding motorcycles is a romantic way to connect with her husband. Twice ayear they send the kids to relatives and take long trips together. Trish and her husband,Craig, met when she was just thirteen. Craig was doing cookies on his dirt bike in anattempt to impress the girls. Those must have been some very impressive cookies, forCraig captured Trish’s heart from that point on. Trish’s parents did not like that theirdaughter was riding with Craig, but they knew he was safe and that made it moreacceptable. In high school, riding was not the cool thing to do, and few of Trish’sfriends understood why she liked it so much.

Both Trish and her husband ride Harleys, but they do not feel comfortable in theHarley dealerships. They do not think of themselves as being social people. They preferto ride by themselves and, in general, steer clear of large groups. Trish’s riding hasattracted some attention from her colleagues at work and she just had an article writtenabout her in the company newsletter. At one point, she was referred to as a “motorcyclemama,” which Trish found derogative. She would prefer to be seen as an independentwoman who happens to ride a motorcycle. There are times though, when Trish feelsstigma for riding, especially when people discover she has children and sometimes rideswith them. She does not like being thought of as an unsafe mom. Trish feels that whendone properly, motorcycling is safe and those that judge simply are not aware of thestatistics.

With respect to the qualities of her motorcycle, Trish wishes her bike had betterfunctionality (e.g. bags where she can put the mail, a purse, a camera, etc.) and alsomore clearly express that it belongs to a woman.

9. Tina, thirty-eight, single but engaged, bike: Harley-Davidson

Tina is an attractive hairdresser who works with very wealthy clients in the [affluentarea] of [City]. She drives a twelve cylinder Mercedes and sports rather large andexpensive jewelry (tokens from her entrepreneurial fiancé). Tina believes she can livein the up-scale world of her clients, yet still identify with and feel comfortable in themore working class environment of her roots.

Most of Tina’s friends have typically been guys, but surprisingly her earliest motor-cycle experiences come from her mother. Tina’s mom started riding (against herhusband’s wishes) when Tina was in junior high school. This introduction almostnaturally led Tina to a string of romances with motorcycle guys.

Tina has ridden with outlaw bikers and rich urban bikers. A serious accident onthe back of a boyfriend’s bike conveyed to Tina that it was time to exert morecontrol and buy her own motorcycle. She describes it as “sexy to be the rider,” andthat being the rider is “intriguing to men.” Tina’s riding includes trips to the localbiker hangouts as well as cross-country marathons. On long trips she is just ascomfortable camping as staying in hotels. Tina makes fun of the fringe décor hang-ing from the handle bars of her mother’s bike (she thinks it’s girlie) but sees no


similar connotation of “girliness” from the horse tail hanging on the bars of herown bike.

Tina’s extreme confidence is demonstrated when she describes herself as a“phenomenal motorcycle rider.” She is one with the bike, a natural, and her motheragrees. Speed is an important part of the riding experience for Tina, and her mother’spokiness is a major reason the two never ride together. Tina’s individualistic naturemakes it difficult for her to wait or slow down, even for her mom. Tina’s fiancé last rodemotorcycles in high school, and this has curtailed her own riding habits. Most recentlyTina finds herself behind the wheel of the Mercedes more often than on the seat of herbike. She hopes the fiancé will again ride, but does not seem too optimistic. When shedoes ride now, it is primarily with an ex-boyfriend, but she also enjoys riding alone orwith small groups of friends.

10. Athena, forty-one to forty-five, married with child, bike: none

Athena is a flamboyant, gregarious, melodramatic African-American woman with abroad smile, a deep artistic streak, and an entrepreneurial attitude. She runs threedifferent businesses from the living room of the [City] home she shares with her mild-mannered engineer husband, John (her second partnering, his fourth), and her bright,eight-year-old daughter, Jasmine. For the interview Athena is wearing brightly coloredclothes with a Caribbean flair, including a turban of sorts, and a pair of Harley-Davidson sandals that she bought for fifteen dollars from a “consolidator.”

Self-transplanted from [another city], Athena grew up as the baby of three siblings.From the age of six, Athena was climbing on the backs of neighbor boys’ motorcycles anychance she got. At nineteen she hung out with the street racer crowd, the only girl racerin the bunch. Her fondest memory was “borrowing” her father’s Rally Sport Camaroone night and drag racing it in the quarter mile. Her desire to ride is fueled by a longingfor the freedom and openness of a bike, both literally and metaphorically. Literally,she wants to escape feeling “confined by all that steel” in an automobile. Symbolicallyshe wants to communicate the completeness of her escape from the “corporate box.”

Athena’s friend, Jill, is an abstract artist whose ex-husband rides a Honda whileaspiring to a Harley. Athena thinks Jill would buy a bike if Athena does. Athena’s ex-boyfriend (Jasmine’s dad) also rides, and Jasmine feels comfortable on the back.Athena’s ideal bike is a Harley with a sidecar. She sees herself and Jasmine going out asBatman and Robin, respectively.

11. Barbara, thirty-five to fifty, married with daughter, seventeen, and son, fifteen, bike: none

Barbara is an experienced and dedicated motorcyclist who has been sidelined fromriding by chronic fatigue syndrome. She and her older husband Lucky, a retired fire-fighter, have owned a long string of motorcycles, including a Gold Wing, an ST1100,and sundry other Hondas. Barbara’s favorite personal bike was the Kawasaki ZL600,which she affectionately named Zelda.


As the youngest daughter in a family ruled by a chauvinistic, bigoted stepfather,Barbara grew up with a wild side that drew her to motorcycles. Her older sister’sboyfriend, loathed by her parents, rode a motorcycle, and Barbara rode with him atevery opportunity. She met Lucky on a blind date on a Friday night, and by Mondaythey were living together. After four years of two-up riding, and after the birth ofdaughter Chelsea, Barbara began the move to the front seat. Her earliest rememberedmotivation was the nagging question: “If Lucky gets hurt or goes to jail, how will I getthe bike home?” She bought a Honda Rebel, signed up for the MSF course, and founda new source of pride and self-confidence in her life.

Lucky and Barbara rode side by side as members of the “Scooter Scum TouringTrash,” logging thousands of miles, going to rallies, espousing “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll,” and hanging out at a motorcyclist-owned campground where they married,conceived a child, and generally celebrated all their rites of passage. In later years theyhave discovered Jesus, leading to a rift between them and the SSTT. Now they are activeHOG members, and at rallies they seek out rather than poke fun at the ChristianMotorcycle Association crowd. They will continue to ride two-up until such time asBarbara is physically capable of riding her own bike or, alternatively, they decide toprocure a sidecar for Lucky’s pride and joy, a post 9/11 Harley-Davidson Electra-GlideFirefighter Classic.

12. Caroline, late forties, married with one teenage daughter and a dog named “Harley,” bike: Harley-Davidson

Caroline owned a marketing media company which produced TV shows and printwork. Now she works as a consultant, presenting customized training programs andcreating brochures or catalogues for marketing departments. She is an independentand strong woman, who sees her teenaged daughter’s karate and team sports as positivesocializing forces for her future in a competitive world.

Caroline has been riding for thirty years. Her dad had dirt bikes, and at the age of tenshe was already a “speed freak.” Her childhood Texas home was near some woods andan old golf course, which the neighborhood kids used as a dirt bike track. She was theonly girl who rode. At motocross races, she would tuck her long blonde hair up in herhelmet so the boys wouldn’t know they were competing against a girl. “If they foundout you are a girl,” she says, “They are going to beat you. They didn’t want to lose to agirl.” Caroline competed in several races, and always finished in the top ten. As a teen-ager, she never wore make up, and she hung out with guys working on cars or ridinghorses. She didn’t ride a motorcycle again until she met her second husband. She rodeon the back and found herself craning her neck to see what was happening. She wantedto be in control and feel the bike. She’d like to teach her teenage daughter to ride, butshe feels there is no appropriate space near her upper-middle-class suburban home toteach her.

Most of Caroline’s neighbors are “tennis club people.” She finds these women stand-offish, but contends that it doesn’t really bother her. She sees herself as daring, like a“fighter pilot.” She believes some of the neighborhood women categorize her as a rebel


and she suffers their cattiness. She says she has friends on the tennis team, but theydon’t have a lot in common. Not long ago she influenced another neighborhoodwoman to begin riding, and she even took a part in teaching her to ride.

Caroline started seeing more women riders about five years ago. She prefers ridingwith other women, because men dominate the ride: “The speed, the times that youstop, the place you are going. … When I ride with a pack of females, it’s a totally differ-ent feel, much more ‘look at the trees smell the grass,’ more visual. It’s hard to find alot of females to ride with. If you ride in packs you are very safe, we try and ride withthree or four others.”

13. Kerry, thirty-three, married, no children, bike: Harley-Davidson

Kerry had only been on the back of her husband’s new Harley for one month before shedecided to take the Riders Edge class (Harley-Davidson’s new rider course) and get herown bike. Although she liked to be on the back (liked the closeness of being close tohim, and liked looking at the mountains from the back), she prefers riding her ownbike. Tom encouraged her to buy, but didn’t teach her to ride; it had been twenty yearssince he had ridden a dirt bike.

They both work very long hours in the trade show industry and have little free timetogether. Getting the bikes represented a lifestyle change: “Before Harley, Tom wouldnot take vacations, he was a workaholic, and now he is using every last hour of his vaca-tion time. We are always planning vacations to go ride. … So much of what we dorevolves around the bikes. Every purchase we make is equated to Harley parts. I had toput tires on my truck … thinking it was money we could have spent on the bikes.”Kerry likes being an inspiration to other women. She had an active role in influencinga single thirty-three-year-old friend to take the rider course, and now she’s on a BuellBlast (a 492 cc single cylinder motorcycle designed for beginners). She sees her formerhobby, golf, as traditionally a male-dominated sport: “There is more opportunity forthe women to be involved in motorcycling than in golf. Motorcycling is more fun in agroup. I have a sense of community now, which didn’t have since we moved up here.We spend so much time working.”

14. Beth, forty-five, married with two young sons, bike: Harley-Davidson

As a teenager, Beth liked to sneak off and date guys who rode, meeting them a coupleof blocks from her parent’s house. Her “wild child” nature was subsumed by her firstmarriage to a doctor and an affluent lifestyle of Mercedes and private school for hertwo sons: “I was so bored I felt like I was somebody’s Barbie doll and I didn’t feel mypower as a woman.” She left her husband and “did what I had to, to bring fulfillmentto my life; I was in the Jewish community box. I wanted things that are not just playingtennis and going to lunch with the ladies. I’m not a soccer mom and I don’t drive mykids back and forth to soccer.” Leaving her first husband marked an identity shiftwhich Beth likens to a “spiritual awakening, a transformation to another level withinmyself.” She sees herself as cutting-edge and a trend setter. “Somebody who is willing


to be unconventional and open minded, but still a mom. You can still be a traditionalwoman and cutting-edge at the same time.” Being a biker, she feels, “sets me apart. Themajority of people have to conform to successfully raise a family.”

She sees riding as a way to forget her troubles, “I don’t care about the bills if myhouse is clean. [Riding is] better than doing drugs and better and Xanex.” Beth, a thinblonde, also likes the public reaction to her being in the driver’s seat: “But I still get thateven today, ‘You look so great on that bike’.” She likes to ride with other women,“behind with the ladies in the back; they (the men) will wait for us, and the guys are stilllooking out for you.” When the nest empties, Beth looks forward to selling the houseand getting a motor home with bike trailer, snow birding around the country with hersecond husband Robert, and managing RV parks.

15. Marta, forty-ish, married with one teenage daughter, bike: Harley-Davidson

Marta is a cherry bomb—a lot of bang in a very small package. Growing up in an afflu-ent Venezuelan family, this four-foot-ten Latina always thought of motorcycles asbasic urban transportation. She moved to the United States (Baton Rouge) for college,where she took her degree in architecture. Her first architecture job, in New Orleans,forced her to buy reliable transportation, and when she found she couldn’t afford anew car, she decided a new motorcycle made more sense than a used car. Enter aYamaha Route 66 (tailor-made for Marta’s miniscule inseam), which she taughtherself to ride. She had a lot of fun with the Yamaha, both for the sensation of riding,and for the validation she got from motorists and the generally admiring public. Shedelights in describing the picture she made in her skin-tight riding suit or miniskirtand high heels.

Hiring on as the lead architect for [Restaurant chain] took Marta to [City], whereshe met and married the company CFO, Anthony. Her Yamaha was stolen about thattime, and her new salary allowed her to replace it with a car. Soon, however, sheyearned for another bike. Anthony wasn’t into motorcycles yet, but he had jet skis, andMarta’s interest in bikes intrigued him. Cost was never an issue in the hunt for a newmotorcycle; the family garage also houses a 7-series BMW, a new Hummer, the daugh-ter’s Jeep Wrangler, and multiple ATVs and jet skis. The only real considerations forMarta were seat height and style. Living in [City], she became aware that the only reallycool brand of bike was Harley-Davidson. A fully lowered hugger in basic black suitedher perfectly. Why black? Because it is the perfect background. She provides the color.She wants people to look at her, not at the bike. “If have something glitzy,” she says,“it’s going to be me.”

Although not as comfortable or as confident in the saddle as his pistol-hot youngerwife, Anthony has embraced Harleydom completely. Along with his new Road King(third Harley so far), he has no fewer than a couple dozen H-D leather jackets, andaggressively collects other branded paraphernalia. Their riding consists primarily ofdressing up and cruising the stylish [trendy area] bar and coffee shop scene. Marta hasno real interest in back road riding, which bores her. Although they enjoy the ATVsand jet skis, they spend more and more time on the Harleys because of the ease and


spontaneity they provide compared to something that has to be trailered to a remotelocation before they can fire it up.

16. Nancy, mid-late forties, married with two teenage children, bike: Yamaha V-Star

Nancy’s older brothers rode mini-bikes, but by the time she was old enough to ride, thebikes been used and broken. Nancy was no tomboy. She was a cheerleader, rode horses,and describes herself as “very spoiled.” She and her husband Blaine rode on his bikeduring their courtship, but she hadn’t been interested in riding until they moved to[City]. When she met Caroline, she got interested in riding on her own. Mostly, Nancywanted to get over the stigma attached to women as being incapable of riding. She likesthe idea that she’s doing something that is typically done by a guy. Nancy still can’t talkto her mother about riding; her mother knows she rides, but they both pretend shedoesn’t know. Riding brings out the devil-may-care in Nancy. Sometimes when sheand Blaine are riding on a long stretch of lonely road, she will lift her top and flash herbreasts at him. He calls it “hitting me with her high beams.”

Nancy is an artist and interested in the aesthetic sensibilities of her bike, a sage greenV-Star (a 650 cc V-twin cruiser from Yamaha). She likes the attention she gets whenshe rides around her suburban neighborhood. Her neighbors “do tennis like it’s areligion. There are politics of tennis here and these women are nasty as hell. It used tobe a fun neighborhood. Now people who move here think their shit doesn’t stink.”Her desire to distance herself from the other moms in the neighborhood extends to herChevy avalanche. The appeal of the truck is both aesthetic and practical: it can carry herarts and crafts supplies (ladders, etc.) and it’s the anti-minivan, anti-housewife vehicle.

17. Lynanne, thirty-five to forty, married with children, bike: Yamaha V-Star

This rural [State] native grew up around motorcycles from the time she was six. Herdad and uncles had dirt bikes. She learned to shift gears on a “little bike” and rode ATVswith girlfriends and an older brother when she was twelve or thirteen. Her ex-husband,the first motorcyclist she ever dated, rode a crotch rocket. She wouldn’t ride with him,and with her short stature she found his bike too tall and too heavy to ride herself.When her current husband (of nine years, a former dirt rider), Terry, started talkingabout buying a Harley, Lynanne immediately decided she wanted one of her own. “Iwant to be in control of my destiny,” she explains.

Lynanne became aware of Harley-Davidson in her early twenties. A guy at work had“a real pretty black and chrome one.” However, it wasn’t until she and Terry went tothe one-hundredth anniversary promotion that they became committed to beingowners. Other influences include Terry’s ex-wife and her husband, who ride a Harleyand “look like they are having so much fun.” Other Harley owners in their sphereinclude a neighbor and wife (church friends), her sister and brother-in-law, and friendson all sides.

Terry bought a DynaGlide, and Lynanne looked at the Hugger. It felt too heavy, andshe opted for a Yamaha V-Star instead. Now that she’s beginning to feel comfortable


on the road, she has her sights on a big twin, something like a lowered Fatboy. Part ofdiminutive Lynanne’s motivation in all this is defiance. “I don’t like someone telling Ican’t do something,” she says. Now she spreads the word to other women. “I talk aboutit to everybody at work. … Only a couple (HOG) women now ride their own motor-cycles. … I just tell them they have to do it themselves. … If I can do it, you can do it.Their husbands just aren’t as supportive.”

18. Tabitha, forty, single mother, bike: none

Tabitha idolizes her older brother, Bobby. At forty, she still remembers vividly her firstride on the back of Bobby’s motorcycle. It made her feel “like a butterfly.” Shecompares the sensation favorably to that of skydiving or parasailing, two other experi-ences that stand out as highlights in her mental scrapbook. As a single mother, thisAfrican-American travel agent and former flight attendant may have difficulty afford-ing a motorcycle. Nevertheless, she dreams of the day she can. Her dream bike is aHarley-Davidson, not because she has any real knowledge of brands or models, butbecause a Harley was Bobby’s dream bike, the “top-of-the-line,” the bike he alwaystalked about while he was settling for something else.

Tabitha’s earliest motorcycle memory comes from the window of a motorhome,traveling with her grandparents in from Reno to San Francisco. As they trundled along,they were passed by a large group of Hell’s Angels. Says Tabitha, “There were so manyof them, and the way they were riding, and the way they were dressed, serious expres-sions on their faces. …. They meant business.” Her next exposure came in junior highschool when she had a chance to ride a friend’s moped. She liked that it was faster thanher bicycle. Tabitha’s current boyfriend is a Gold Wing rider, but she isn’t anxious totalk about him or the Honda. Bobby is the apple of her eye. If she gets to the point oflearning to ride, she will engage Bobby’s help and advice. When she goes to buy a bike,Bobby will be her purchase pal and mentor.

Claiming the Throttle: Multiple Femininities in a Hypermasculine Subculture

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