Stockholm uses gender in traffic

Where a few years ago gender-neutral traffic lights were replaced with same-sex couples, the city recently showed its latest investment in gender equality: feminist cycle paths. In some places, women's bicycle symbols have been painted instead of the classic bicycle.

The idea is to use this sign when renovating an old symbol, with the goal to make female bicycles half of the city's signs. This reports the Christian Swedish daily Världen Idag.

"We think it is important that both sexes are visible in the public environment. And this to be able to show that the old, more masculine patriarchal society is gone", says Stockholm's traffic councillor Daniel Helldén to Swedish daily Expressen.

However, the reactions to the new markings on the cycle paths are not entirely positive. Not even among feminists. Lisa Palm from the Feminist Initiative thinks that there are probably just a few women who care whether the bike path symbols have a straight or curved frame. "It will rather be a mockery and a ridicule of the real gender equality reforms that are required."