'A Beautiful Feeling': Refugee Women In Germany Learn The Joy Of Riding Bikes

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/22/ [login to see] /a-beautiful-feeling-refugee-women-in-germany-learn-the-joy-of-riding-bikes
Like most Americans, I learned to ride a bike as a kid. I still remember the glee after learning how to ride a bike on a subdivision road where I grew up in Florida. I had cracked the mysteries of balance, and now I had the giddy pleasure of my newfound freedom.

But girls around the world don't always get to experience the joy of a first bike ride. In some countries, conservative societies frown upon women and girls who ride bikes – it's not considered dignified or appropriate — and gives a girl too much independence.

Joumana Seif, a Syrian lawyer and activist, recalls riding a bike as an 11-year-old in the capital city of Damascus. It was the first time she understood there were different rules for girls and boys.

"For the people [watching on the street], and even for the children, it was shocking to them that I was riding a bike. They started to say, 'Oh, shame on you, you are a girl riding a bike,' " Seif says. "It just wasn't in our culture."