Mar 14, 2022
A
new zine from a top transit nonprofit explores not just why the
needs of women need to be at the center of U.S. transit planning,
but what it's actually like for gender-marginalized people who are
working to change the status quo — in their own words, images, and
even songs.
In their unconventional and inspiring new zine,
Subtext, editors Stephanie Lotshaw and Ashley Pryce of
the nonprofit Transit Center sought to provide a radical new
platform for the women and nonbinary people who keep our
transportation networks running by looking beyond the stats and
white papers and letting leaders speak about their experiences in
whatever mediums they chose. Still, those stats are sobering.
A majority of transit riders today are women (55 percent), but a
shocking 83 percent of U.S. agencies are helmed by men — and women
of color have even fewer opportunities to lead than their White
counterparts, even as they increasingly become one of the
largest single demographics left riding during the pandemic.
And Lotshaw and Pryce argue those disparities will persist until we
really listen to each other's experiences, and turn up the volume
on the too-often unspoken realities of being a gender-marginalized
person in the transportation space.
On today's episode of The Brake, we sat down with
Lotshaw and Pryce to talk about why they chose to take a page from
the riotgrrl playbook to tell this important story, what it's like
for them to be women in the transportation field, and how
shifting away from male-centric notions of leadership could change
transit in the U.S. forever.