You’ve seen the viral photos, heard the viral stories. E-scooters with clipped brakes; e-scooters drowned in lakes. E-scooter in a tree; e-scooter with graffiti. E-scooters caked with poop; e-scooters flown the coop. The backlash against the goofy, electric-powered, but also sort of trendy (?) first mile, last mile option has, by now, reached city halls. There, senior and accessibility groups, plus a strain of anti-elitist, anti-tech politics have worked to characterize scooterers as young, well-heeled wheelers, and out-of-touch and on-the-sidewalk bros.

But city overlords have another, perhaps quieter, constituency to satisfy: scooter lovers. According to a new, multi-city study of residents’ perceptions of electric scooters, this group is actually quite larger and less tech bro-y than its critics might assume.

“You see a lot in the news about electric scooters and cities’ concerns around visual clutter,” says Regina Clewlow, a longtime transportation planner whose new data-crunching startup Populus wrote the report. “It has become a narrative, but it’s not supported by facts.”

The study, which surveyed 7,000-person in 10 cities, found that over half the population in every place studied had a “positive opinion” of scooters in the period between May and July of this year. In some cities—Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles–over 70 percent of residents feel good about scooters. (In San Francisco, though, only 52 percent of respondents supported the things, which might explain all the feces.

Among income brackets, those making between $25,000 to $50,000 a year are the most into the idea, and those making above $200,000 are the least. (One theory, from UC Berkeley transportation researcher Susan Shaheen: lower income urbanites who can’t afford cars appreciate the mobility of scooters, and wealthier residents who do drive find them a street-clogging nuisance.)

And, more women reported a positive perception of scooters (72 percent) than men (67 percent). Populus’s data also indicates that women might be adopting e-scooters more quickly than they have bike-sharing. That may surprise researchers who have spent decades tracking the “gender gap” among cyclists, which shows men are much more likely to use bikes as a transportation option than women. (A Populus analysis of data provided by some bike-share systems found men account for three-quarters of trips.)

This is the first hint that women might see scooters differently. Populus’ data doesn’t say why this is the case, but here are a few theories: E-scooters are easier to ride in restrictive clothing like heels and skirts, the sort some women have to wear to work. Also, women who don’t have access to showers at work might appreciate that e-scooters require very little physical exertion. This appears to be the standing theory of the e-scooter-share unicorn Bird, which did not respond to a request for data on the gender breakdown of its ridership, but wrote in a statement that “Bird scooters are perfect for anyone who wants to replace short car trips with an affordable and fun way to get around—that doesn't entail working up a sweat.” (Its competitor Lime said it could not provide information on the gender of its riders because its data is anonymized, but said a recent survey of bike- and scooter-share users in major urban markets found that over half live in households earning less than $75,000 a year.)1

Jennifer Dill, who studies transportation decision-making at Portland State University, has another theory, based on her and others’ research into what has kept more women from becoming cyclists. She speculates that women are comfortable riding these scooters on the sidewalks, safely separated from cars. “The biggest barrier to riding bicycles for women is concerns about traffic safety,” she says. “This idea of riding something on the sidewalk—women might feel more comfortable with that.”