“You’ve come a long way, baby.” This late-1960s slogan for cigarette manufacturer Virginia Slims sought to capitalize (literally) on the surging momentum of the women’s movement. Yes indeed, ladies, welcome to Equality, where you can take the same risks of emphysema and lung cancer as men! Of course, it didn’t have that ring at the time.

The world of motorcycling has been going through something similar. A growing contingent of riders is comprised of “the fairer sex” (more on this outdated stereotype later), and virtually all segments of the industry have contributed to a chicken-and-the-egg loop. With the arrival of more potential customers of the feminine persuasion, ads for bikes, gear, training and moto-oriented events are making appeals to female motorcyclists, hoping to draw even more into the fold—and, more precisely, toward their respective brands. Women are no longer pictured only as pillions (if they were portrayed with any riding involvement at all), nor are they inserted merely as eye candy to attract the male gaze, draped over new machines in bikinis or wearing nothing under an unzipped men’s jacket. They now appear as legitimate riders in their own right, and not only do major gear manufacturers have lines designed specifically for women’s bodies and tastes, but vendors have emerged that sell only women’s riding apparel, run by—you guessed it!—women entrepreneurs.

None of this is news to anyone exposed to moto-media, and it’s not just happening in the realm of advertising. Increasingly, women are contributing to the substance of print publications, e-zines, streaming platforms like YouTube, and enthusiast organizations. They’re making inroads into competitions and the sales staff at bike shops, both on the floor and behind the parts counter. They’re getting their hands dirty in the maintenance bays, too. I don’t know the current statistics, but female riders appear to be the fastest growing segment in our market. Women have become prevalent enough, and this trend has been going on long enough, that I now have hardly any reaction to their presence, or rather the distinction of their gender, among us. However, I can’t say I have no reaction at all.

Rewind several decades ago. I can still vividly recall my shocked disbelief when the unknown rider I’d just followed at a very brisk pace through Deal’s Gap removed her helmet once we’d pulled into a parking area—and a cascade of long blonde hair fell out! Girls didn’t ride motorcycles solo!! And they sure didn’t pilot top-shelf sportbikes, blitzing the twisties on a seriously challenging mountain pass like this one. It wasn’t that I thought women couldn’t do such a thing, nor did I have any notion they shouldn’t. I’d simply never seen or even considered this possibility before; she might as well have revealed an alien lizard head. So, I must admit I do still feel some lingering intrigue when I encounter a lady rider. Just as I assume there must be aspects of experience that differ between myself and anyone from another country or culture, despite the overlap we unavoidably have as members of the same species, I can’t help but imagine a female motorcyclist probably takes away something different from riding than I do, and almost certainly brings something different to it—all while simultaneously sharing a great deal in common with me and other male riders.

Problems arise immediately when attempting to make any sweeping generalizations here. While research does tease out some fairly reliable contrasts between the sexes, these can be subtle or glaring, or seemingly apply not one bit in the comparison of two specific individuals—in fact, the usual findings might even be reversed. A multitude of factors converge to shape anyone’s history and character, with biological sex being just one. In light of the hotly debated issues related to gender identification these days, my comments about masculinity and femininity can be applied to various subgroups of the population according to either physiological or psychological distinctions. Indeed, what I’m trying to highlight is the difficulty in attributing anything universally to any particular category of people. I’ll go so far as to say there are usually ambiguities within a single personality, with a specific individual operating in different modes to different degrees during different timeframes and within different social and situational contexts. It’s certainly understandable we’d want a more straightforward organization, but discreet, consistent distinctions between sexes or genders seem to me contrivances designed to conveniently simplify what is actually confoundingly complex. It is definitely not true that all women are one way and all men are another way, nor can any analogously neat divisions be made in some other non-binary model. That said, “masculine” and “feminine” remain meaningful descriptors; they should just be applied loosely.

Back in the early 200s, I wrote a column for Motorcycle Consumer News wherein I poked fun at the guy who drags his female paramour to the motorcycle dealership and excitedly regales her with all sorts of technical details and performance specs on the bikes they see there. She might make some performative show of interest, but it’s clear to any impartial observer she’s bored and distracted and may eventually run out of patience as he goes on and on, oblivious to the fact she’s doing him a favor and not really enjoying this ride. In his mind, everyone is—of course!—just as fascinated by this information as he is, and he’s the one being generous by freely dispensing all the knowledge he’s accrued via laborious study. In keeping with such satirical stereotyping, I admonished male readers to think about how they felt when the tables were turned, and they accompanied their wife or girlfriend on a day of clothes shopping. I hoped each party might gain a more accurately empathic view of the other’s experience in these settings, perhaps prompting a tad more gratitude and self-restraint. From what I’d seen, women in bike shops were much more gracious and tolerant than the men sitting and grumbling outside changing rooms, but each could better understand the other in both situations.

The column was entitled, “What ARE They Thinking?,” and in it I also explored what actually went through the mind of a real live (disinterested) female in the midst of a motorcycle dealership, something I’d only witnessed at a distance in the format just described. I secured the cooperation of my own paramour at the time, who was thoughtful and articulate but had absolutely zero interest in anything related to motorcycling. As we strolled through the lineups of gear and machinery without me reciting esoteric factoids and pointing out all my favorite features (yes, it was a struggle), I took note of what she noticed, most of which hadn’t registered with me. Right as we walked in, she was intensely offended by the smell. Huh? The dealership had just received a big shipment of tires and they were stacked around the showroom perimeter, awaiting more appropriate placement. Once she called my attention to it, I had no trouble recognizing that familiar odor, but I wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise. When I did, I found the tangy scent luxurious, rather than obnoxious. All that wonderful virgin rubber, ready to deliver delicious traction! My companion had no such associations; I kept my thoughts to myself. I’d wanted to learn about the differences in our perceptions and we were off to a dramatic start.

The inventory felt crowded and disorganized to her, partly because she had no way of grasping the categories involved, whereas I saw the divisions plain as day and relished the density of appealing products. She critiqued colorways and tried to discern the styling language of different brands. Likewise, she was curious about what the different people in the shop found compelling there, as many defied her preconceived image of the typical motorcyclist. She was concerned about the accommodations. Where could customers sit? Were the restrooms clean and easily accessed? Were drinks and snacks readily available? What sorts of attitudes did the staff display? What kind of ambiance did the space create? Overall, she was much more attentive to how things were presented than what was on offer. I was so engrossed in the what that the how receded to the distant background. When I occasionally did make a comment about something we were viewing, she focused on the emotion I revealed more than the things I referenced. All of this was in line with traditional masculine and feminine mindsets, with the former more concerned with objects and their functions and the latter more concerned with interpersonal and atmospheric dimensions. But before we go too far casting this as a sex or gender difference, notice we could also assign the contrast to the two radically different perspectives Robert Pirsig elaborated in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: the Classical and Romantic, with their respective emphases on underlying structure and outward presentation. Remember, in the book these were both embodied by male characters.

Obviously, nobody should extrapolate to all women on the basis of my little research outing. The takeaway ought to be how differently the same scene can look to people with disparate backgrounds and priorities. As I listened to her observations, I actually discovered new aspects of things and scenarios with which I’d considered myself thoroughly familiar. There’s always more to learn, which brings me back to my intrigue with women riders.

I’ve never taken a similar dealership tour with a female motorcyclist. I assume such a cohort would show more interest in many of the objects than did my old non-rider girlfriend. Clearly, there’s no reason a woman wouldn’t be able to collect the same knowledge base I have about gear or bikes, although that probably has more to do with how much of a tech nerd she is, rather than her womanhood. While riding sisters would certainly share my concern about the safety, comfort level and cost-efficiency of various products, I’m guessing there would be a difference in how most female motorcyclists prioritize certain kinds of performance, compared to their male counterparts. Lady racers aside, I’d bet all the practically irrelevant spec sheet details—horsepower and torque figures, quarter-mile times, etc.—guys can get worked up about just don’t mean as much, if anything, to the gals. As long as the machine does what they need it to do, such ethereal (urethral?) contests are a silly waste of mental space. I know beyond any shadow of doubt women riders can be extremely tough, but their toughness seems to lack the hyper-competitive machismo that features prominently in many male riders—even those that aren’t especially hard-core. This may be confined to Walter Mitty-esque fantasies, but it still influences things like self-image and purchasing selections. Hence, a motorcycling man may aspire to unrealistic ideals of being “a seriously fast guy” and fall prey to ad campaigns and spec sheet wars in which one bike or piece of gear seems the most powerful or resilient, regardless of whether the difference is actually noticeable or useable in real life. This isn’t the primary theme in marketing efforts directed at women riders; there the emphasis is more on fun and comradery, rather than dominance and self-sufficiency.

I’m not implying all male motorcyclists care only about ending up at the front of their pack or surviving a lonesome highway, or that female motorcyclists never get a kick out of competition or savor solitude. But along with the numerous ways in which boys and girls experience things alike, we also experience things differently. It’s just that this is true of people who share the same sex/gender, too. I’m intrigued by how any other motorcyclist experiences our infinitely multifaceted avocation. There’s no reason to think I’d have more overlap with another male than I would with a female, given the vast diversity within my own camp. On the other hand, the odds do seem to favor interesting contrasts between the sexes, albeit not necessarily in the conventional ways we’d expect. There are still many more of us guys than gals in the two-wheeled universe, so I’m actually directing this message to the men more than the women, despite this essay’s title. I’m convinced we of the masculine persuasion could learn there’s even more to love about motorcycling than we’d realize on our own, if we simply asked our riding sisters about their experience and then listened with genuine curiosity.

The Ride Inside with Mark Barnes is brought to you by the MOA Foundation. You can join the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America quickly and easily to better take advantage of the Paul B. Grant and Clark Luster training reimbursement programs offered by the Foundation.