EVERYDAY CHALLENGES
“The hallmark of skateboarding culture is that it is welcoming to anyone that approaches it with the intention of improving his or her personal skill. Class, race, gender, weight, and other hobbies are irrelevant provided that the participant’s enthusiasm for the actual act of skateboarding is genuine. In this way, skateboarding is egalitarian and inclusive” (“Who Are Skateboarders?”). Although this is the way the skateboarding culture strives to be recognized the message does not seem to relay to women. Women constantly feel as though participating in skateboarding is a means of the breaking of gender stereotypes and female gender roles. When women attend skate parks they find themselves to be ridiculed and questioned for being there. For some women this is a constant problem they find themselves in. In an interview conducted a fellow female skateboarder revealed that “Most skaters are young teenage boys who think they are kings and the world sits below them. Trying to tell them that women should be able to skate without being harassed may be an impossible task, but it must be done” (Pomerantz 4). These women find it difficult to use the same skateboarding space as these young teenage boys as they are constantly hogging up large portions of the skate park for their own use and do not try to be inclusive. If these girls were men, they would face far less difficulties attempting to skate in this teenage boy space but because women have not found themselves to be appropriately symbolized in the skating community this will be a constant problem they find themselves facing.
Although women are not treated in this manner at every skatepark one woman revealed that when she first began going to the skatepark the men there would throw out her skateboard when she would arrive and tease her as she would skateboard. These men would not let her properly skate constantly cutting her off and not taking anything she was doing seriously (Porter 97). Until women receive proper recognition in the skateboarding community from other male skateboarders and the media these women will constantly find themselves competing for a place to skate.
Female skateboarders also have not found themselves to be properly recognized in skateboarding competitions. As mentioned in the previous tab Streamer was one of the first women to receive proper endorsements and sponsorships that were once only offered to men. Although this was the case female skateboarders would still receive less prize money than male skateboarders did. Now women find themselves not only competing for equal pay when it comes to prize money but equal coverage in the news and magazines. Patti McGee was a freestyle skater who was on the cover of LIFE in 1965, but since then men have continued to dominate magazine covers, media and videos encouraging the idea that this is still a male dominated sport and not inspiring more women to participate (Calderon). The media has a large influence on people's opinions on women skateboarders as they seem to be hardly photographed or endorsed by large companies. If other people see mainly men as skateboarders throughout the media more people will find it uncommon to see a woman skateboarding.
