Sweet and sour

What is it with Jerk Season????

Today, while I was performing the intricate choreography of one way streets required to get from Point A to Point B around Harvard Square, I had my own run-in with jerkiness.  I was on a two-lane one way approaching a light at one of those intersections that has a hard left, bear left, straight, and right turn.

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I needed to bear left, so I signaled to move out of the bike lane into rightmost lane.  There was one car far behind me, and the light was just turning red, so I took the lane thinking this would be simple and obvious to all involved.  But the far away car?  Suddenly was bearing down behind me, accelerating toward a red light (with a very clearly marked 'no turn on red' sign), and honking insistently.  It honestly seemed like he started going faster as soon as he saw there was a bike in the lane.

When he came to a stop behind me, I heard the driver shout something about, "use the friggin' bike lane, lady."  I kind of awkwardly half-turned over my shoulder and called back (not as calmly as I might have hoped) that, "I'm turning left-- this is what I'm supposed to do!"  There was some more unintelligible shouting, when the couple in the car stopped in the other lane starting yelling, too, and I thought, "Oh great, more?"

But no!  The Nice Couple were shouting, so that everyone could hear, "We're with you on the bicycle!  You're doing the right thing!"  As I was thanking them, Aggro Driver screamed again about "you have your own lane, dumbass!", and the Nice Couple kindly shot back, "She's supposed to be in the lane to turn left!"

Aggro Driver gave a few, now slightly halfhearted grumble-shouts; the light turned green; and A.D. had to wait approximately 2 seconds for me to push off toward the left before he made his (very fast) right turn.

I've read so much recently about the abuse taken by law-abiding cyclists, so it's clearly widespread and not specific to me.  But.  I can't help but wonder: while I do stand behind my fashion choices and my right to wear whatever the hell I want to, today I happened to be wearing a big, ribboned headband and pink Mary Janes, a combination that doesn't exactly scream "Formidable Adult Adversary;" and I was riding a loop frame bicycle with colorful, flowery bags in my rear baskets.  Now in all likelihood, Mr. Aggro would have acted exactly the same way if I were a man riding a road bike... but I sometimes can't help but feel that when I look more superficially "feminine," male drivers in particular might feel more able or more entitled to act out their aggressions toward me.  Certainly, I would appear to be in less of a position to object than, say, a giant muscle-y man who might threaten physical violence in response to verbal abuse.  I suppose this just may be an added layer of ickiness on the already uneven power relationship between those on bicycles and those safely ensconced inside two-ton steel boxes.

They should watch out, though-- carrying Frida up and down the porch steps is starting to give me really big guns.