Ranking alongside the top bicycling nations of the world, Japan today boasts of a deeply engrained cycling culture. While the technological prowess of Japan’s bicycle industry is well known, there exists no scholarly study investigating the socio-cultural impact of cycling in Japan, specifically its role in emancipation of women. How the modern women of Japan scaled barriers to mobility riding their way to modernity in an oppressive male-dominated society is not yet known. The objective of this paper is to examine women cyclists in Japan in the context of modernisation. On the one hand, viewing bicycles helps examine the Japanese economy from the perspective of ordinary women as active consumers (as against their passive image) whose demand for bicycles was certainly an essential ingredient for the growth of bicycle industry. On the other hand, it serves to question the predominant view of consumption stagnation in interwar Japan. Most importantly, as countries around the world continue to make laudable efforts to encourage women cyclists, a leaf can be drawn by policymakers from the history of forgotten cycling heroines of Japan to accelerate women’s socio-economic empowerment.

中文翻译：

---

盛装出行：现代日本的女自行车手

与世界顶级自行车运动国家并列，今日日本拥有根深蒂固的自行车文化。虽然日本自行车行业的技术进步是众所周知的，但有一项学术研究调查了日本自行车的社会文化影响，特别是它在解放妇女方面的作用。日本的现代女性如何克服出行障碍，她们在男性主导的压迫社会中通向现代性的道路尚不清楚。本文的目的是在现代化的背景下研究日本的女性自行车手。一方面，查看自行车有助于从普通女性作为积极消费者（与她们的被动形象相反）的角度审视日本经济，她们对自行车的需求无疑是自行车行业增长的重要因素。另一方面，它有助于质疑两次世界大战期间日本消费停滞的主流观点。最重要的是，世界各国继续做出值得称赞的努力来鼓励女性骑自行车，决策者可以从日本被遗忘的自行车女英雄的历史中吸取教训，以加速女性的社会经济赋权。