ABSTRACT
On a cool autumn morning Fatma Aliye Topuz rides her tricycle past Constantinople’s houses, markets, government buildings and mosques. Fatma Aliye Topuz’s struggle for liberation was aided by the bicycle, a vehicle that became for her and for many other women across the Ottoman Middle East, a path of personal and social transformation. Bicycles were an important part of the emerging feminist movement in the region. Bicycles elicited curiosity and a desire by many to participate. European bicycle manufacturers quickly noted a potential market. Iran and Saudi Arabia remain lands where being a woman cyclist remains dangerous. A 2013 ban on women cycling, enacted by Saudi’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and The Prevention of Vice, was finally overturned, but social mores and local laws banning riding are still powerful. Women must wear Abayas, ride only in parks or other confined areas for recreational purposes and must be accompanied by a male guardian.
