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THE USUAL SUSPECTS BIAS Recommends.....................................................9 The hottest things we’ve seen out there
How to Tuck Knee Invert – With Julz Lynn...............10 A cheat sheet for competition moves
How Lizzie Armanto is breaking down Skateboarding’s Gender Bias...................................12 Our favorite, Lizzie Armanto, on kicking ass in the skateboard industry
No Room for Women in Skateboarding...................14 A letter by Amelia Brodka
Adult Life.................................................................22 How starting skateboarding at age 38 changed a womans life
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FEATURES:
UE S IS Y R O T IS H E TH The First...................................................................24
How to be a Lady that Shreds.................................70
Meet the Golden Girls of Skateboarding
Why society thinks women shouldn’t skate.
California Girls.........................................................40
Featured Organization of the Month: Skateistan....80
A photo series of women tearing it up in the 1970’s
Meet the guys and girls shedding a new light on skateboarding
The Creators............................................................48
The Future................................................................88
Women who went against the grain to create skateboarding as we know today
The young women redefining gender in skateboarding
Elissa Steamer: Photos by Ed Templeton.................64 A bad ass photo series from Elissa Steamer’s time on Toy Machine
2015 Van Doren Invitational.....................................98 A photo series of highlights from the Van Doren Invitational
Women in Action Sports........................................110 The women who created the media world of Skateboarding
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Editor in Chief Adrian Koenigsberg Editor at Large Andrea Diemer Managing Editor Jeniffer Kittel Art Director Adrian Koenigsberg Agency Designer Anita Merk Staff Writers & Photographers Danielle Fracchiolla, Andy Harris, Rebecca Bergin, Raven Simone, Ericka Koenigsberg
Visit Our Website
BIASSKATEBOARDING.COM
Questions?
huh@BIASskateboarding.com 212.305.1375 Write us:
200 Willoughby Avenue Brooklyn NY, 11205
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CARA BETH BURNSIDE, TUCK KNEE INVERT
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR SKATEBOARDING FOR ME was a way to keep up with my all male friend group when I was 13, as they attempted to “Parkour” off local elementary schools. I didn’t know much about the sport, other then the fact I skated “goofy” but something about the culture stuck with me forever. I would spend hours at my best friends house watching Fuel TV and obsessing over Sean Malto’s Etnies spot. But as I grew older, I never got better at skateboarding and sort of watched my board collect dust in the corner of my room. I spent most of my time on my computer, getting better at graphic design. I would make my dad drive me to Borders (how dated) and I would buy Transworld Skateboarding magazine because I was obsessed with how it looked. Now skateboarding and I have a confusing love affair. I knew I wanted to create a manifesto that would define how I feel about skateboarding, but like the actual sport, I had no idea how. As a girl, I feel like the little sister of someone so much cooler than me; someone who knows what a slappie is and how to do one. So I started to do my research, and then it hit me...
It’s hard to be a girl who is into skateboarding because there aren’t NEARLY as many girls into skateboarding as there are guys participating in the sport. It’s almost impossible to find an archive of any women online, let alone women who aren’t skateboarding right now. It was important to me to create BIAS as a way for young girls, just like I once was, to know there is a community of other women who are interested in the same sports and things they are. There are girls who are able to do things that certain boys couldn’t even dream of doing on a board, and they deserve to be talked about. The history issue is a really important step for BIAS. There were always women in skateboarding, but after the 1970’s you wouldn’t really know it. Creating this issue wasn’t easy. It’s nearly impossible to find quality footage on a lot of female skateboarders, but the impact they made has been incredible. Whether it be Patti Mcgee on the cover of LIFE, or Alysha Bergado, the five foot assassin and first girl on the Creature Skateboarding Team, there are so many special women who have contributed to the sport. It’s exciting to see who will be next. Thanks for your support,
ADRIAN KOENIGSBERG Editor-in-Chief
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T S R I F LOOK
LIZZIE ARMANTO, FRONTSIDE INVERT
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RECOMMENDS SH*T WE’RE STOKED ABOUT
ANTI – DELUXE Rihanna $12
TELEPHOTO PHONE LENS Urban Outfitters $10
Our favorite album to skate to
Take pictures of your friends from across the park
DIPPED WARMUP LEGGING Outdoor Voices $95
POM HAIR TIE ASOS $6
The most comfortable thing for long skate trips
The cutest way to get the hair out of your face
BLACK REFLECTIVE HIGH–TOP VANS X SUMMERBUMMER $75 Our favorite Vans collaboration lately
RECOMMENDS
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HOW TO:
Tuck Knee Invert WITH JULZ LYNN
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BASICALLY...
You do a Tuck Knee Invert by using your lead hand which is your left hand, and grabbing your foot and tucking it into your knee. You keep your knee on the inside of your arm and keep your right hand down on the coping.
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START SMALL
I started on a smaller wall and I didn’t start exactly on the coping. I started on a smaller wall and tried to do airs where I’d bunny hop and kind of try and put my hand on the wall. I worked my way up from the bottom all the way to the top and eventually got the feeling for how it felt on the tile.
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FLOAT ON
Once I got my hand to the coping, it was the same thing as on the tile, you just keep your hand closer to you and just pull it towards you. And when you get closer to the top you catch more air. It’s easier the higher up you go on the wall because it just floats for you and you’re able to control where it’s going.
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WHAT NOT TO DO
What you don’t want to do, have enough speed or stay as inside of the pool as you can. When you do the trick you want to stay inside like you’re doing an air and a lot of people get afraid and land on the deck and you can fall in and hurt your back and land on the coping. Or you can try too hard and almost rotate it and you almost miller flip. It’s just a simple arc, grab and bring it back in.
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JULZ TIP: When you’re trying to learn lower on the wall it teaches you the actual motion and what it’s like to the tuck knee invert because you have to try a lot harder to do it
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HOW LIZZIE ARMANTO IS BREAKING DOWN SKATEBOARDING’S GENDER BIAS
BY JANE HELPERN
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FRONTSIDE BONELESS
GIRLS DON’T GET ANY RADDER than pro–
skateboarder Lizzie Armanto. A fact which is only further verified over heaping acai bowls at Flake cafe in Venice Beach with her pint–sized bff, fellow shredder Allysha Bergado, in tow. Not only does Lizzie’s signature sea–foam ombre give us major hair envy (“It’s a lot of work! It took me, like, eight hours to get it this light.”), but the lone female team rider for Vans is proving herself one of the biggest talents to hit the sport. And the boy’s club is taking notice. LOVE AT FIRST RIDE The 22–year–old prodigy has been skating since she was fourteen, when her dad bought she and her younger brother boards from Toys “R” Us. Baby bro quit after falling and chipping a tooth, but for Lizzie it was love at first ride. She skated her first contest in 2009 and won her first pro contest in 2010. Since then, she’s already brought home more than 30 skateboarding awards, including an X Games Gold Medal in Barcelona and first place for two years straight at the 2014 Doren Invitational US Open in Huntington Beach, CA. In otherwise all–male competitions, she’s often the only female contender. Though she doesn’t come in first, she doesn’t place last either. “I skate better with guys, the level of competition pushes me.” GENDER BIAS Despite her impressive track record, Lizzie still observes an abundance of gender bias in the workplace, both directly and peripherally. Though she’s got better things to do than complain –– like skate –– she does find it slightly annoying. “There’s really no marketing toward girls skateboarding,” she says. And when there is, magazines often use models rather than real skateboarders. “If you’re not a skateboarder, you don’t
know the etiquette. This major magazine put out this editorial where they were trying to embrace skateboarding culture in high-fashion, but the models didn’t know how to skate and just ended up making girls skateboarding look stupid.” The good news is that in the last year or two, Lizzie’s started to notice a gradual shift in attitude. “When I was trying to get sponsors to work with me in the beginning, it was a challenge. Everyone was like, ‘Yeah, we don’t really have a budget for girl skating.’ I have a great ability to skateboard, but because I’m a
“IT’S NOT LIKE GIRLS ONLY GET INSPIRED BY GIRLS AND BOYS ONLY GET INSPIRED BY BOYS. IF A BOY SEES ME SKATE AND I DO SOMETHING HE WANTS TO KNOW WHAT TO DO, HE GETS INSPIRED ALSO.” girl they see it as if they’re only marketing toward girls.” If Instagram is any measure of success or influence (and we have to say, we think it is), Lizzie’s 103K followers certainly demonstrate her broad appeal. “It’s not like girls only get inspired by girls and boys only get inspired by boys. If a boy sees me skate and I do something he wants to know what to do, he gets inspired also.” She describes one sponsor who early on expressed doubt and skepticism about her talent. That very same sponsor has recently asked her about creating signature product. “It’s
cool to see the change, and it’s exciting to know that there will be more opportunity for others, as well.” While she’s certainly stoked to see a more inclusive attitude toward women, and happy to play a role in making this happen, Lizzie doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on the politics of it all. Instead, she focuses on her visceral love of the sport and why she got into it to begin with. “It’s totally cool that other people are starting to skate because they see more girls skating and are encouraged to, but at the end of the day I like skateboarding because it makes me happy. It’s a crazy culture and community, and you’re always pushing yourself and learning something new, and I hope that’s what inspires others the most. It’s really rewarding.” HOBBYIST When Lizzie isn’t traveling, hitting bowls and vert ramps around the world, the hobbyist dabbles in photography, makes homemade toffee, heads to the beach, and continues to refine her palate for boba tea. In general, she excels at kicking ass while not taking life too seriously. “I probably get boba every single day,” Lizzie says.” “We have boba spots that we hang out in every city,” Allysha chirps. “Someone made panda boba. They rolled the tapioca and made them into little pandas. I saw it on a blog and I completely freaked out.” For the best boba in Los Angeles, Lizzie says Boba 7 is a must. “If you go to a shitty donut shop it’s just going to be like straight goo, but Boba 7 is the best. Every time I go there I religiously check in on Yelp. I’m kind of like the duchess of it.” Maybe they should sponsor her… “If they sponsored me I’d just go there and get drunk on their boba tea beer. It would probably be really bad.”
LIZZIE ARMANTO
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NO ROOM FOR WOMEN IN SKATEBOARDING NO POOL PARTY, No Dew Tour, No X Games,
No Maloof, No coverage by the skateboard media. Women’s vert and transition skateboarding seems to have been dismissed by the skateboarding industry. Although I’m very grateful that we have been granted our very own combi contest, which turned out to be a great event last Fall, Vans and Protec seems to have made it clear that it is not worthy of being associated with the prestige of the Protec Pool Party as they unveiled the 2010 winners banner. Each preceding banner lists the winners from the Men’s, Masters’ and Women’s divisions. However, this year’s banner has a blank space where the Women’s winner used to be listed. Ironically enough, the 2010 women’s combi contest has been the strongest showing in terms of numbers of competitors and the level of skating. And yet, it remains unacknowledged. Seeing as Vans has recently eliminated their girls’ skate team, this adds insult to injury. Last week, ESPN made it clear that women’s vert and super–park will no longer be divisions in the X–Games. Seeing as Dew Tour has omitted women’s vert this year and Maloof has done little more than hint at the possibility of inclusion,
there are virtually no women’s vert contests. We too want to feel the sense of accomplishment, joy and even purpose that comes with successfully finishing a polished run despite unnerving contest jitters. I’m not blind to the difference in levels between the divisions, but what I have experienced firsthand is the recent spike in the level and numbers of women and girls who skate. And somehow this too remains unacknowledged. Although I have constantly felt more than welcome into many fun, high–energy sessions with great guys and pros who I’ve looked up to for the past decade, this series of news connotes the concept that women skateboarders are not truly a part of the world of coping and concrete that we have come to love. We, too, are immersed and committed to the skateboarding community. But the media continues to convey the idea that our place in skateboarding is limited to cheering the boys on as they have all of the fun or scantily clad and posing suggestively in advertisements for wheels. It’s time to look outside of the current skateboarding industry and start composing our own events.
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BACKSIDE FEEBLE
NO ROOM
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PHOTOS BY ELLA CHODOS–IRVINE
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COMBI POOL
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NICOLE HAUSE, FRONTSIDE OLLIE
JORDON SANTANA, ROCK FAKIE
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BELLE KENTWORTHY, FRONTSIDE ROCK
COMBI POOL
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ZOE SAFANDA, ROCK N ROLL.
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ALANA SMITH, HURRICANE.
COMBI POOL
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“I think the most excellent and mature decision of my adult life was to start skateboarding at 36 years old.” BY TARA JEPSEN I AM A MATURE adult woman. I drive a
car successfully. I eat healthy meals that often include kale (which I really think has come along to replace water, the previous healthy and great thing to do). I know how to speak and listen; I send condolence cards (or Facebook posts). All this said, I think the most excellent and mature decision of my adult life was to start skateboarding at 36 years old. A woman I know, formerly a friend, called me one day to tell me she had started skateboarding with another nurse on their lunch break, in the parking lot of the ER where they worked. Would I like to try? I met her at the top of Bernal Hill in San Francisco, where there is a stretch of flat sidewalk. We rolled up and down the pavement, me on the board, gripping the nurse’s arms. I had no natural balance. I’m a swimmer. My athletics are predicated on needing an outside entity to buoy my body. But a week later, I bought a skateboard at FTC in the Haight. Five adult– woman new skateboarders came with me for support, which is more than I’ve ever had at any crucial juncture in my life, including when my brother died. I bought a shop board (8” wide) with a Muni F train drawn on the bottom. Indy trucks (139s), soft wheels. I started pushing around on long journeys down the Embarcadero, broken in the middle by a giant cup of coffee. My trucks were super tight, my legs were stiff, my heart was full of terror and excitement. PERSISTENCE Years ago my dad said, “Your mother and brother have natural athleticism, but
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you and I will do anything forever.” So I persisted. I fell a lot. Bruised my knees, hit my forehead, scarred my elbows, rubbed some skin off my hipbones. I fell completely in love with the flow, challenge, cool air in my beautiful hair, and freedom. I am now 39 years old. I have been dating someone I met at the skate park for five months now. She is an adult, interested in exploring the world and having fun on its crazy blue surface. She has an excellent brain, and participates in adult living at all the crucial intervals, including rent, work and feeding a neighbor’s cat cans of wet food by hand. Most importantly, we skate together. REDEFINING ADULTHOOD Most people’s version of adulthood is moving away from risk and physical harm (not looking at you, muay thai fighters and rock climbers sawing their arms out of boulder pinches). I would argue we make substantial gains from running toward risk. The amount of physical and spiritual acuity it takes to place the tail of a skateboard on some coping (the edge of a bowl or pool, usually covered in metal or cement), let your nose hang over
the void and choose to extend your foot and drop in on four small wheels makes it clear that skateboarders possess a secret Buddha within. A person could say a lot of flowery things here about the emotional chances we take as adults, maybe even reference children and marriage. Those risks are real, but I do not wish to conflate them with throwing your muffin top and whatever else you have for a body onto an eight–foot transition on a small board in front of a gaggle of tourists wishing to witness the Soul of California (at least that’s what I imagine they are looking for, but it could also be that they are just fans of sweaty dudes), much as you might at the Venice Beach skate park. There are other risks that have come with choosing to take up skateboarding. Like, I don’t know if I should have bought Pabst tall boys for those teen skaters in Ukiah. And I definitely don't think my (over–40) friends and I be should have been turning the back of a VW van into a Dutch café whilst blazing down the highway and leaving the sliding door open in the rain. But nothing would putrefy my mental/emotional waters like calcifying into a sedentary and neutered adult focused on safe choices.
BACKSIDE 50/50
LASTING FRIENDSHIPS The friends I’ve made through skateboarding are some of my nearest and dearest. Racially, gender–wise and economically, they are a complete mix. If I had to pinpoint a missing demographic (and who gets to do THAT enough outside focus groups and watching "Girls" on HBO?), it would be gay men. Maybe also straight women, you crazy horned owls. But not really, I mean, how long will it take for the applause to die down regarding Lyn–z Adams–Hawkins marrying Travis Pastrana? If you catch my hands flapping in her honor, it is solely because she was the first woman to land a McTwist. For this reason, my respect lingers on. Last year, I had a series of Life Blunders with drug addict landlords, relentlessly drunk house–mates, people dying and having my physical safety threatened. You know who was the first to step in and offer me a room in their home? My friend Bob, whom I met at the Pacifica, California skate park and his honorable wife, Jen. When my friends who don’t know them asked about our connection, I felt acutely aware of how
insane it sounded to say I was moving in with someone I met at a skate park. Yet nothing made more sense: Of course a skater and his wife bought a big, dilapidated house and chose to fix it up
never lessens in magnitude (in yo’ FACE, heroin). Bob and Jen provided a home that was (emotionally) warm, healing, accepting and without a departure date.
I felt acutely aware of how insane it sounded to say I was moving in with someone I met at a skate park. Yet nothing made more sense.”
I’ve moved to Los Angeles. There are new parks to skate, a new crew to build, and a new job to find. Skateboarding has helped me feel braver than ever. I learned to take chances and believe in myself. Enough people have joked about adult skateboarders to indicate that they believe the sport belongs to children. But it is an adult’s sport as well, and one many people would benefit from including in their routine. Of course we, as a society, need to invest in our youth. Their education and empowerment creates a livelier, more productive and healthier society (seriously quote me on that. No really, I’m totally at my top smartest so take note and then share it.). But we must just as enthusiastically invest in our adult and elder population, so the youth have people to look up to and drive them around. For this reason, I suggest skateboarding. It’s not for everyone. But for some people, it is salvation.
themselves. That’s the kind of person who skates. You can’t be a helium–heeled pillow queen and skate, because nothing comes easily and everything requires a nonsensical level of persistence toward a goal, through substantial risk and repeated physical harm. The glory and elation when you hit your trick is unparalleled, and you know the high is worth it, and
BELIEVING IN YOURSELF
ADULT LIFE
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LAURA THORNHILL, ONE FOOT CARVE
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FROM THE START Since skateboarding was just roller skate wheels glued to a wood plank, women have been involved. In the late 1960’s, Pattie McGee graced the cover of LIFE magazine, representing the new possibilities of skateboarding to the mainstream. Women remained a vibrant part of the skateboarding scene for as long as the skateboard industry focused their marketing efforts on skate parks. In the late 1970s, the industry suffered a mass extinction of skate parks because of the sports safety hazards posed by the clay wheels and other older technology. The industry’s focus narrowed while connections between skateboarding and punk rock combined; a factor in which many speculate exiled a lot of women in skateboarding. All of a sudden, skateboarding in the late ’70s and early ’80s got a lot more aggressive, and a lot more underground. The featured women stuck around, powering through the stereotypes and hardships to create the foundation of women in skateboarding.
BACKSIDE CARVE
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AS THE FIRST girl on the original Zephyr compe-
tition team in the 1970s and a Skateboarding Hall of Fame inductee, Peggy Oki has certainly stood out amongst her male counterparts. Peggy was known to have skated as rough and as unconventional as her male teammates. “Some of the girls didn’t like the fact that I skated like a guy, so they protested me to the judges and one of the judges said I skated better than some of the guys.” Peggy said of her competition style. Peggy continues to skateboard well into her fifties, and promote as well as participates in many environmental activist projects.
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AT AGE 15 Cindy began skateboarding. By the
age of 17, she was one of the top ranked female skaters in the United States for pool riding and half pipe. Cindy remains the only female to be featured in a 2–page article plus centerfold image in a major skateboarding magazine to this day. Her determination and strong will have allowed Cindy to transcend the stereotypes of the sport. She landed an endorsement deal with Puma Tennis Shoes simply by walking in the door and asking. Cindy’s career fell off around the age of 22 when opportunities lessened for women across the board. Since then, Cindy has remained active amongst the community, starting a campaign against female negativity in skateboarding called Girl is Not a Four Letter Word.
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BACKSIDE COPER
THE FIRST
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FRONTSIDE KICK TURN
KIM WAS ALWAYS recognized
as a force among her peers. Her sponsorships ranged from Hobie Skateboards to Tracker Trucks, two really groundbreaking sponsorships for a woman in that time period. Kim was even featured in an ad for Tracker Trucks in the seventies. Kim has won a few skateboarding world championships, starting in Del Mar in 1975.
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FRONTSIDE BERTSLIDE
patti mcgee PATTI MCGEE BECAME the Woman’s first Nation-
al Skateboard Champion in 1965, at the age of 20. She started the sport when her brother built her first skateboard. In the early sixties. Patti set the record for fastest girl on a skateboard in 1964, and became the first female skateboarder to be sponsored by Hobie. Patti was featured on the cover of Life magazine in 1965 as well as the fourth issue of the quarterly Skateboarder put out by Surfer magazine. Patti was also the first female to be inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. Before the Zephyr Boys or Peggy Oki even touched a skateboard, Patti ended her career as a skateboarder and became a turquoise miner.
THE FIRST
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BARBARA LOGAN
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HANG TEN
LAURA STARTED SKATING in 1974, after
stealing her neighbor’s skateboard off their front lawn when they weren’t using it. Laura competitively skated amongst her male counterparts in almost every style created. In 1976, Laura Thornhill was the first female to be featured in a “Who’s Hot” hot part in Skateboarder Magazine. She was later inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2013.
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THE FIRST
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ELLEN BERRYMAN
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THE FIRST
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DAFFY
ELLEN O’NEAL HELPED define the sport of
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skateboarding in the context of popular culture. Born and raised in Southern California, she had only been skating for a year before she was sponsored by Gordon & Smith, Bennett Trucks, and Vans. Ellen was also most famously featured as a skateboarding stunt double on the TV show, Wonder Woman.
ellen
berryman
ELLEN PIONEERED FREESTYLE skateboarding
with her gymnastics background. Her unique style gave her a competitive edge against the boys. Her signature move was to do a handstand on a board and rest her feet on her head in a V formation, called the “Spider�. She won the world freestyle championship two years in a row as well as the national championship.
THE FIRST
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a look inside the sidewalk surfing generation
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PHOTOS BY AARON FERNANDEZ
ELLEN O’NEAL AND LAURA THORNHILL
TOPIC
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ELLEN O’NEAL
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ELLEN O’NEAL, HIPPY JUMP
LAURA THORNHILL, BACKSIDE COPER
CALIFORNIA GIRLS
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LAURA THORNHILL
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KIM CESPEDES, FRONTSIDE GRIND
CALIFORNIA GIRLS
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ELLEN O’NEAL
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ELLEN O’NEAL, 1 FOOT WHEELIE
ELLEN O’NEAL
CALIFORNIA GIRLS
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THE CREATORS WOMEN WHO LAID THE GROUNDWORK FOR GENERATIONS TO COME
1990–2000’S WOMEN IN THE Skateboarding industry during the end of the
twentieth century pushed through tough times surrounding female riders and greatly impacted the world around them. So many female centered brands developed during that time period and continue to support fellow female athletes to this day. Brands like Hoopla, and Meow have created their own teams to compete and sponsor women in the industry. Surges of younger athletes have started participating in the sport taking advantage of the many channels that have been created out of hardship in the industry.
WHEN ELISSA WAS YOUNGER, she didn’t have access to the
skate parks, so she used the gutter system installed in her neighborhood and rode back and forth all day. That passion manifested into a lifetime of influence among the skating community. Elissa is the first woman to attain professional status in the history of skateboarding. Toy Machine, a very hardcore and masculine brand, was her first sponsor, as well as video part. She rode as the only female on the team. By 2008 she won her fourth X–Games gold medal.
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BACKSIDE NOSE CROOK
THE CREATORS
THE CREATORS
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THE CREATORS
KICK FLIP TO BACK LIP SLIDE
THE CREATORS
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FRONTSIDE DISASTER
A LITTLE LATE to the game, Mimi first
learned to skateboard at the age of 23. Her age did not stop her from an upward trajectory of success. She learned to skate in Cuba, with a half–pipe built by a family friend. Mimi is a Five–time x games medalist. She was professionally recognized in 2003 for skating vert and bowl skating. In addition to skateboarding, Mimi founded an all girl skate brand Hoopla with fellow skateboarder Cara Beth Burnside. She also runs a non–profit organization called Action Sports Alliance, with Mimi that provides a voice for women in action sports.
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THE CREATORS FRONTSIDE INVERT
CARA WAS THE FIRST female skater ever to be
featured on the cover of Thrasher Magazine in 1989. After winning more than 16 titles in the sport of skateboarding, Cara didn’t have anywhere else to go. She left skateboarding after reaching professional status and became a professional snowboarder. Cara even went to the Olympics. Despite leaving skateboarding, she returned to the sport post Olympic gold medal to create an all girls skateboarding company with another professional skater, Mimi Knoop, called Hoopla. Cara actively participates in other groups such as Action Sports Alliance.
THE CREATORS
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FRONTSIDE 180
NIKE WOMEN PRESENTS: LETICIA BUFONI
Brazilian skateboarder Leticia Bufoni looks to take the world by storm, one tre flip at a time. For Leticia Bufoni, skateboarding wasn’t love at first sight. Rather, it was love at first touch. “The first time I touched the board, I was like, ‘Wow, I want to skate, I want to skate every day,’” the Brazil native says. And skate every day she did, although it wasn’t always easy to find the time. “Every day my dad went to work, I took my board and went to skate,” Bufoni says. “But I made sure to be back home before he returned because he didn’t like skating at all, mostly because I was skating with boys.”
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While Bufoni’s persistence and dedication eventually convinced her father to let her skate, it was her victory in the first event she ever entered that convinced him she had talent. This talent brought her to Southern California, the mecca of skateboarding. Since landing in the states in 2007, Bufoni’s career has taken off. She’s considered one of the leading faces of women’s skateboarding, and at 21 years of age, Bufoni is just getting started. “I’m living my dream,” Bufoni says. “I’m skating every day. I’m traveling around the world and skating with friends I know from Brazil and the U.S. It’s just a dream.”
THE THE PRESENT CREATORS
THE CREATORS
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THE CREATORS
BACKSIDE OLLIE OVER THE HIP
FRONTSIDE 50–50
PATTY SEGOVIA WAS BORN and raised in Los
Angeles. As one of the first Latina women in skateboarding, she struggled getting her foot in the door. At age 18, she left LA and set off to make a difference for women like herself. In the summer of 1990 in Reno, NV she built skate ramps and held an informal all girl skateboarding competition, the foundation for her ongoing project: All Girl Skate Jam. AGSJ has turned into both a traveling event across the world and the first ever all womens skateboarding brand. Patty also used her interest in photography to help document the careers of her fellow women skateboarders. Her work has been featured in several solo exhibitions.
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THE CREATORS TAKEN BY JENNA SELBY
JENNA SELBY AS BOTH A SKATEBOARDER and photogra-
pher, Jenna has a dual edge to the skateboarding world. In 2002 Jenna was riding for, and working with international shoe brand Gallaz. Jenna’s images have been featured in both national and international publications, online magazines and companies. She continues to work with the UK version of All Girl Skate Jam. In 2005, she founded her own company, Rogue Skateboards. After an injury, Jenna focused on film making to create the first European all female skate film, ‘As If, And What?’. Jenna continues to film and document skateboarders around the country.
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LISA FOUNDED THE Girls Skate Net-
work, as well as Meow Skateboards. She prImarily focuses on filming and content editing for GSN, a site she founded through an interest in web design. Meow Skateboards has become a secondary project, fueled by the fact that Lisa had noticed a lot of professional women skateboarders lacking board sponsorships. Both projects have made immense impacts in the recognition of women in skateboarding.
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THE CREATORS
OLLIE
LUCY’S INTEREST IN skateboarding started at
age 13, when she discovered a skate park being built behind her swim practice. She’s currently known as the best women’s skateboarder in the UK, skating for Lovenskate’s team. Lucy was featured in Jenna Selby’s film, As If, and What?. She currently acts as a skate coach to younger kids, as well as a competitive professional skateboarder. Lucy additionally helps plan and participate in the UK version of the All Girl Skate Jam, which promotes the participation of girls in skateboarding competitions.
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ELISSA STEAMER A COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS FROM 1990’s TOY MACHINE SKATE TRIPS BY
ED TEMPLETON
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Women in Skateboarding
An inquest into gender bias in sport and why society thinks women shouldn’t skate BY TETSUHIKO ENDO
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PATTI MCGEE ON THE COVER OF LIFE MAGAZINE
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“Women who prefer exercise and liberty, who revel in the cool sea breeze and love to feel the fresh mountain air fanning their cheeks, who are afraid neither of a little fatigue nor of a little exertion, are the better, the truer, and the healthier, and can yet remain essentially feminine in their thoughts and manners.” – 1894 Lady Violet Greville in Ladies in the Field Sketches of Sport
ONE AFTERNOON IN 1997 twelve–year–
old Lucy Adams was leaving swimming practice in Horsham, England, when she noticed a large construction fence had gone up in the vacant lot behind the pool. She wandered over and peered through a small hole in the boards. On the other side a group of men dressed in long T–shirts and baggy jeans were building something that she would later describe as “fantastic”. With heavy iron bars, scaffolding and large, smooth strips of wood they fashioned swooping curves, elegant arcs, gentle waves and precipitous drops into something that looked like a cross between an obstacle course and a post–modern sculpture. She returned as often as she could and watched as the ramps and transitions took shape and the men began to ride them with their skateboards. One evening before the park had officially opened she went over, roller skates in hand, and approached the men. “Can I have a go on my skates?” she asked. They laughed and told her she needed a skateboard. “So I went home and told my dad, ‘These are shit now, we need a skateboard,’” she says. Adams has gone on to become one of Britain’s best skaters, but her wider relationship to the skate industry remains very similar to those early days of peeking through the fence.
A BOYS CLUB Skateboarding may not be against women, but it’s certainly a consolidated boys club. There are few reliable statistics regarding the number of skateboarders in the world, much less the number of female skateboarders. The US boasts over 12 million riders, with the number of women in this group ranging from twenty–five per cent to nine per cent, depending on the source. If, for the sake of argument, we take the higher estimate, the number of women skateboarding is roughly consistent with the number of women participating in both surfing and snowboarding. However, compared to its sister sports, female skateboarders are still a silent, invisible minority and skating in the wider public consciousness remains a ‘guy’s sport’. Adams didn’t realize it at the time, but by squeezing through the fence and daring to “ask for a go” she was, like so many girls before her, stepping onto the frontlines of a bitter, and contentious gender conflict that has quietly raged in the dark recesses of Western society’s subconscious for over 250 years. It’s a struggle not over land or money, but what the sociologist Michael Messner calls the “contested ideological territory” of the female body. At stake is the very definition of what it means to be a woman and how you can legitimately use your body. “Athletic meetings… always attract a large number of women, perhaps it is the gay colors of the runners, perhaps it is their youth and splendid physical condition, whatever the reason, they come in their thousands and bring brightness and color to the scene even if their appreciation is not always particularly intelli-
gent.” – The Times, 1919 The notion of ‘guy’s sports’ and ‘girl’s sports’ is completely socially constructed; the ill–begotten child of the specific time period and societies in which sporting culture originated, namely Britain and the United States during the Industrial Revolution. Although physical competitions existed before the socio–economic upheavals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it took capital, a sedentary leisure class, and the then revolutionary idea of ‘leisure time’ to turn games into what we know as sports today. As machines streamlined production and the work day became shorter and less physical, middle and upper class men who spent a lot of time sitting behind desks found that exercise was a good way to blow off steam. Tennis, football, American football, rugby, basketball, athletics, swimming and many other sports were refined and popularized as leisure– time activities during this period. A MANS REVOLUTION But while the Industrial Revolution meant physical liberation for well–to–do men, it meant the opposite for their wives and daughters. The prevailing medical dogmas of the time dictated that the ‘nature of women’ was determined by a fixed degree of energy for all their endeavors (mental, physical, emotional, etc.). This theory meshed well with the bourgeois Victorian ideal of the idle, porcelain–doll woman whose role in society was to look good, be the moral heart of the family, show off her husband’s wealth through the purchase of expensive items and make babies. The last point is paramount because it has often been a reason, overt or underlying, to exclude women from sports. In Sport-
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ing Females, an illuminating book on the history and sociology of women’s sports, Jennifer Hargreaves quotes the chairman of the British Medical Association who, in 1887, emphatically stated that for the “‘progressive improvement of the human race’, women should be denied education and other activities which would cause constitutional over–strain and inability to produce healthy offspring.” The Eugenicists even got in on the act claiming that sports could cause hormonal imbalances in women and hockey in particular (the bête noire of the anti–female sports movements) would disable young women from being able to breastfeed. And so, from their earliest incarnations, sports were codified in such a way as to explicitly exclude women. “Woman’s anatomical characteristics are analogous with man’s but her physiological predisposition demands less vigorous treatment. The law of beauty is based purely on the conception of life and must not be abused. The rounded forms of woman must not be transformed into angularity or nodosity such as in man.” – Pehr Henrik Ling, Inventor of Swedish Gymnastics, 1939
Women stayed on the scene as an important minority for as long as the skateboard industry focused the action on skateparks and remained broad in its definition of the sport: from vert and park, to slalom, freestyle and street, girls and young women got involved. However, the late 1970s saw a mass extinction
WOMEN GET INVOLVED
PATTI MCGEE ON THE COVER OF LIFE MAGAZINE
“When sidewalk surfing hit big in the 1960s, both males and females skated,” says Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave magazine. “The population skewed more towards males but, I mean, Pattie McGee doing a handstand on her board made the cover of Life magazine in 1965 – that’s one of most iconic skateboarding images of all time.”
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of parks and a narrowing of the industry as well as the fusion of skate and punk rock culture that, Brooke speculates, pushed skating in a more male–oriented direction. “I’m not suggesting women didn’t follow punk rock – they did. But I think it made the industry very testosterone driven. All of a sudden, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it’s men listening to
punk rock and riding on skateboards. All this changed the image, it got a lot more aggressive, a lot more underground.” GIRLS WERE NOT PUNK ROCK The 1990s were boom times for the skateboarding industry, but the companies increased their market shares through a somewhat Faustian bargain: by narrowly focusing on selling street skating to a young, male demographic. “They bet the farm on kids doing rail slides and forty–stair ollies,” says Brookes. “Once the industry decided it was going after one thing, it started checking these boxes: males – check; males under 18 – check. And as it hit each check point it was reducing the population it was going to appeal to.” Such a narrow demographic is a big deterrent, especially for older women says Brooke: “If you ask a thirty–five–year–old woman if she is comfortable hanging out with thirteen–year–old boys, the answer is no.” Additionally, a hard focus on selling soft goods to teenage boys meant that women were not simply ignored, their image was co–opted and turned from that of active participants like McGee, into passive, hypersexualised groupies, like the scantily clad model in the ‘Rosa’ adverts run by skateboard company Shorty’s throughout the 1990s. Whatever Rosa’s skills may have included, skateboarding was certainly not one of them. “There is a well–known Girls’ College which makes preeminently for the cult of mannishness. And here are seen, absorbed in fierce contest during the exhausting heat of summer afternoons, grim–visaged maidens of sinewy build,
hard of touch and set as working women in the ’40s, some with brawny throats, square shoulders and stern loins that would do credit to a prize ring. All of which masculine developments are stigmata of abnormal sex–transformation…” – A criticism of Dartford College, in London, which had an early physical education program for women, 1920 WOMEN SPORTS As educational opportunities increased for women in the nineteenth century, so too did their sporting opportunities. By the beginning of the twentieth century, most doctors were in favor of exercise for women, but the types of exercises considered appropriate were limited, at best. The most famous of the early ‘women’s sports’ was something called Swedish Gymnastics, a sort of proto–aerobics that featured a highly regimented combination of calisthenics, stretching and physical therapy whose aim was both exercise and subtle nationalist indoctrination. Other sports followed like tennis, hockey and netball, a non–contact version of basketball that is still played exclusively by women. Note the pattern: ‘women’s sports’ tended to be ones that reinforced wider societal stereotypes about how women should or could behave. Many, like dance or gymnastics, were obsessed with rigid bodily control. Sports that allowed freer movements, or some other transgression of the Victorian feminine ideal, like overt aggression, were roundly criticized and the women involved in them stigmatized. When the ‘safety bicycle’ became popular in the 1880s and women began to ride them in their specially designed undergarments – or ‘bloomers’ – an entire world of bodily and spatial free-
dom opened up to them. The critics also came out of the floorboards. “Cycling… was claimed to be an indolent and indecent activity which tended to destroy the sweet simplicity of a girl’s nature and which might cause her to fall into the arms of a strange man!” Hargreaves writes with ironic relish. “The worst fear was that cycling might even transport a girl to prostitution.” “Modern sports is a cultural system created by men,” says Dr. Uta Balbier,
“I mean, Pattie McGee doing a handstand on her board made the cover of Life magazine in 1965 – that’s one of most iconic skateboarding images of all time.” – Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave magazine who teaches a class on the history of sports at Kings College in London. “It has a lot to do with urbanization, but it also has to do with mechanization, bureaucratization – keeping records was a big part of shaping the modern sports system – and all this was done by men and all women could do after this was try to fit into the system.” Because sports were and continue to be defined by men, they are shot through with certain stereotypes that are internalized by both sexes. “The major stereotype is still this ‘masculinization’ of women who play sports and that this masculinization leads directly into ‘lesbianism,’” says Balbier. “You cannot be a ‘beautiful’ wrestler or even a ‘beautiful’ boxer
because even though we try to get out of our gender perspectives, we can’t… We still see certain sports that don’t fulfill our own perceptions or images of femininity. And that is why many people really don’t want to watch women box, for example. It takes such a long time to establish new images.” “Hers is all the joy of motion, not to be under–estimated, and the long days in the open air; all the joy of adventure and change. Hers is the delightful sense of independence and power.” – Lady Violet Greville on the joys of bicycling GROUND UP APPROACH Away from Western skate culture, the image of the female skateboarder is being re–built from the ground up. The country that arguably has the highest percentage of female skateboarders in the world is Afghanistan, where girls are neither allowed to ride bikes or fly kites. Of course, skateboarding is only about three years old in Kabul. It was introduced by a pair of itinerant Aussies who went on to found NGO Skateistan.“We’ve always made a point of not trying to import any of the cultural elements of skating,” says Rhianon Bader, one of Skateistan’s mix of local and international instructors. She grew up riding the streets and parks of Calgary, Canada, in the late 1990s and early 2000s where come–ons and sexist comments from the mostly male skating population were par for the course. “Because skating was totally new in Afghanistan, no one had any preconceptions about it,” she says. “It was seen not as a new sport that might be dangerous or have certain gender taboos associated with it, but just a game, or a toy.” This clean cultural slate has seen a
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POWER PERALTA AD
nearly equal split between the roughly 400 boys and girls who participate in Skateistan’s programs. The main difference is that the boys are lining up around the block to skate while Skateistan has invested a lot of effort into recruiting girls. One of the most important tactics, according to Bader, was establishing all– girl skating hours when young women can have the city’s one skatepark entirely to themselves. “I think it’s universal that when girls are adolescents or teenagers they get intimidated when boys watch them play sports,” she says. “So once we made that space where it was comfortable for girls just to skate, we really enforced it and it worked really well. I think a lot of the attraction to the sport just comes down to girls seeing other girls doing something.” MAKING YOUR OWN CREW The Longboard Girls Crew, based in Spain and recent media darlings the world over, embraces the same ethos of creating a pressure–free space for females to skate with each other. By choosing longboarding, which, although not a new discipline, is in the midst of a mini–renaissance, they have found a niche that has not yet strictly defined its gender image. At least not as strictly as street and vert. With an active blog, a large team, and links all over the world, they are a breath of fresh air. However, without significant industry backing, or indeed a significant industry to back them, it remains to be seen if they are the start of a movement, or simply a flash in the pan. Brookes, for one, sees hope in the latent longboard industry. “Skateboarding is too good to be controlled by a handful of people who think it’s just a handful of rails and ledges. It’s like say-
ing soccer can only be played by people of European extraction, golf is only for white people, or bike riding is only for guys. The bike industry is worth 61 billion dollars a year, and there are so many different genres. Skateboarding used to be like that and it can still be like that.” BACK IN THE STATES “Your girls play like gentlemen, and behave like ladies.” – ‘Compliment’ paid to a headmistress about her cricket team in 1891 The task of establishing new images in the Western world – where skateboarding has grown up with men at the helm – has been taken up by a loose group of female skateboarders who are now in their thirties. Though some of the best in the world, their careers have often played out on the margins of a disinterested industry. They include Adams, fellow Brit Jenna Selby, Californians Mimi Knoop and Cara–Beth Burnside, and Lisa Whitaker to name a handful. They face an uphill battle. Aside from occasional, if very significant victories, like Burnside and Knoop’s Action Sports Alliance gaining equal prize money for men and women in X Games events, many of their achievements in growing their sport have taken place under their own initiatives without much help from the larger skateboard companies. Whitaker runs a website called the Girls Skate Network which is a hub for anyone who wants to post photos and videos of female skaters. It is home to an active forum and regular interviews with up–and–coming riders. Selby hosts all– girl skate jams in England, with the help of female–focused brands like Nikita, and also founded Rogue – an all–female skate company that doesn’t bend to stereo-
type. She travels the world making women–centric skate films, including 2009’s As If, And What?, the first all–female skate video in Europe, and is currently working on her next. Ironically, these women and the younger generation of skaters they are nurturing, may constitute the only authentic counterculture that still exists in this multi–billion dollar industry. But growing that community can be tough. “One thing we noticed in the UK scene, especially when I was younger, is that there were younger girls with amazing skills who would hit their teenage years and sort of disappear due to outside pressures like what their friends were doing and what magazines were telling them to do,” says Selby. The trend she touches on is common in many female sports where girls drop out as their bodies mature and the role models available to them change from energetic girls to sexy women. Skateboarding suffers in particular because it is inherently threatening to a rider’s body, which is in turn threatening to the still prevalent Victorian notion that the female body is delicate and must always be protected. Remember that Victorians worried what horse riding would do to women’s nether regions; imagine how they would react to the danger of a young woman smashing her crotch onto a rail. PAINTING THE WRONG PICTURE Some industry players have tried to combine the two images in order to attract women to the sport, but the result is problematic. “I’ve noticed recently that some magazines are more interested in the girls that fit a certain profile: one that looks ‘right’ rather than one that has a certain skill level,” says Selby. “That’s something
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we are trying to avoid because I know surfing has gone down that route… It’s not all media. But it’s almost like some of them are trying to fit us into this box, you know, ‘This is what people want to see. In doing so, I think they are moving away from the core ethics that they perhaps started out with. I know everyone’s got a job to do and magazines to sell, but you need to remember your ideals as well.” Adams is less circumspect when describing the ‘right look’. “It helps to wear short shorts, inappropriate shoes, and tight tops. It also helps to have long blonde hair,” she explains wryly, having never bowed to the pressure herself. The marketing argument goes something like this: the only way to sell the sport is to show sexy, rough–and–tumble Lolita’s playing it. It’s not that we’re sexist, it’s what the public demands. “On the surface, the money making argument is legitimate,” says Dr. Kerrie Kauer, a sports and women’s studies scholar at the University of California, Long Beach. “But if you are trying to market surfing, for instance, to young female surfers, why not show young female surfers surfing, instead of lying down with boards on the beach? What they are doing is marketing women’s sports to young men in the eighteen–to–thirty–five age range… If you actually sell to people interested in sport you have a whole new market.” One brand that is engaging with that market is Hoopla, an all–female skateboard company founded by Californians Cara–Beth Burnside and Mimi Knoop. “There are more girls skating than ever, but you might not know it because it’s so underground,” says Burnside. As one of America’s greatest competitive skaters and snowboarders she has perhaps been the most visible ambassador of women’s skating for the last twenty
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years. When Vans dropped her from their team in 2011 there was even talk of a boycott. According to her, if female participation, and more importantly visibility, is to increase, skating will need to appeal to parents first. “For me, a big part of getting and staying involved in skating was having supportive parents who never told me, ‘You’re a girl and you shouldn’t be doing that,’” she says.
“Because skating was totally new in Afghanistan, no one had any preconceptions about it,” she says. “It was seen not as a new sport that might be dangerous or have certain gender taboos associated with it, but just a game, or a toy.” – Rhianon Bader, one of Skateistan’s mix of local and international instructors. THE MOM VOTE Convincing other parents to think like hers has become one of Burnside’s professional goals. To this end she and Knoop use Hoopla to promote a female skating image that represents a happy middle ground between the Lolitas of the surfing world and the rugged hardiness often associated with skaters: neither overtly sexual, nor overtly masculine. “I want to show girls doing what they love and still looking like girls. On one end you don’t have to look like a guy, and on the other you don’t have to wear a really short skirt or your bikini just to
get attention,” Burnside says. “I think if parents can see girls looking like normal girls doing their thing in cute little skater styles they will think their girls can do that too.” To some degree, this solution seems to substitute one pigeonhole for another. I consider pointing out that the ‘normal girl’ is another stereotype, just like the ‘gnarly masculine girl’, and both are molds to squish young women into. But as if preempting my question, Burnside insists she’s just being pragmatic. “That is the reality of being a girl skater,” she says, “you have to do things a certain way if you want the sport to grow. It’s the same with girl athletes everywhere – no one wants to see girls looking like dudes. You might not like it, but you’ll have to meet in the middle if you want to do something more with your career… and that goes for anything in our society. If a girl wants to do anything people can relate to her more if she just looks like a presentable girl.” Not exactly what you would call ‘uplifting’. But then, real pragmatism rarely is. It is, to borrow a metaphor from Latin American liberation theory, about knowing you are in a cage, and taking small steps to increase the size of the cage. After all, you can’t break the bars until you have room to take a full swing. In the meantime Burnside and her small but growing vanguard keep expanding, inch by inch, because if they don’t, no one is going to do it for them. Through it all, Selby remains cautiously optimistic about the future: “Skateboarding is at a point right now where it can go one way or another and we are just trying to keep the importance on skill and personality, not on what a girl looks like or how she dresses.”
SKATEISAN – OLLIE
FEATURED ORGANIZATION: SKATEISTAN Founded in 2007 by Oliver Percovich Aside from Skateboarding in the western world, there is an opportunity to build a skateboarding scene that focuses on the female skater. The perfect place to do that has been Afghanistan, where women are not allowed to ride bikes or fly kites. Currently, Afghanistan has the highest percentage of female skateboarders. “I think it’s universal that when girls are adolescents or teenagers they get intimidated when boys watch them play sports,” she says. “So once we made that space where it was comfortable for girls just to skate, we really enforced it and it worked really well. I think a lot of the attraction to the sport just comes down to girls seeing other girls doing something.”
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THE
FUTURE A NEW CLASS OF ROLE MODELS MUCH LIKE THE current world, Skateboarding is undergoing a period of gender equalization. More and more women are popping up on the scene. Universal brands like Nike and Adidas have started to pay more attention to skateboarding, and the women involved. Girls have started getting involved at younger ages and creating communities of support. With technology connecting people within seconds, young girls are able to find support within the skateboarding world. Social Media has created a platform which gives visibility to women that magazines have often lacked. Skateboarding is once again opening it’s eyes to a whole group of women who shred.
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THE FUTURE
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BACKSIDE FEEBLE
ALANA SMITH
ALANA STARTED SKATING at the age of 6–years–old after
watching the X Games on television. By 12–years–old, she was the first female to land a 540 McTwist in a competition and won a Guinness world record for being the youngest X Games medalist ever, male or female. She counts Hoopla as one of her many sponsors and role models. Alana even has her own skateboarding deck designed by Hoopla.
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THE
FUTURE
ROCK ‘N ROLL LOIS IS A BRITISH skateboarder from Kabul. She’s currently
the only girl on the Route One skateboarding team. As part of the European sector of skateboarding, Lois spends a lot of time in France and the UK. With a large increase in the amount of skate facilities available in Europe, Lois notices a strong unity of European female skaters. She’s developed the Ladies Skateboard Series in the UK, which is an exhibition to show off the talents of female skaters, both on and off their boards. She continues to put on the event with sponsors such as Roxy, who also support her own career.
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LIZZIE HAS BEEN titled: the Future of
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Women’s Skateboarding. She started skating when she was 14 and her brother introduced her to the sport. Their competitions drove her to get better and better, until she out skated him. Very soon after, Lizzie was skating competitively. She even competes in mens international competitions when she doesn’t have access to enter a women’s division. Lizzie is currently the only girl skater on the Vans Skate team. Her success has also driven the creation of her own video game character in Tony Hawk’s franchise.
FRONTSIDE GRAB
THE
FUTURE
ALLYSHA STARTED RIDING when she was seven years
ALLYSHA BERGADO
old. She was the youngest competitor in the X–Games and Pro–Tec Pool Party. With countless sponsors, and competitions Allysha remains busy and active in the field of skateboarding. She competes in mostly vert skating, but pool skating is a favorite of hers. Allysha’s style and talent have far surpassed men’s opinions of girl skateboarders, allowing her to fit in with her team at Creature Skateboards, Creature, a notoriously male driven brand, consistently puts out pin–up calendars, decks that feature half naked girls and blood spewed graphics.
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BACKSIDE WALLRIDE
LACY IS NO stranger to skateboarding. Starting at age
five, Lacy began skating, noting the first time she landed a kick flip as one of the proudest moments in her life. She’s competed in the X games five times, coming in at least fourth place or higher each time. She additionally works as a graphic designer. Lacy skates with Meow Skateboards, using her own board designs.
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THE
FUTURE BACKSIDE METHOD AIR
POPPY STARR OLSEN
POPPY IS AN Australian skateboarder. She
started skating at eight years old and has been unanimously called a skateboarding prodigy. She won the 2014 World Cup of Skateboarding Champion for 14 and under Girls Bowl riding and continues to win many other significant competitions. Poppy combines her love of skateboarding with a more creative passion. After completing a business course, Poppy started selling her artworks, gift cards and jewelery designs in order to fund trips to World Cup events. Because of this, Poppy has been invited to speak at various business conventions including Google ‘Women in Business’ and The Un–convention for Young Entrepreneurs.
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FUTURE
AMELIA BRODKA
WHILE ATTENDING USC, Amelia competed in
skateboard competitions. After graduating with a double–major, she used her education to bring to light women’s skateboarding. She directed a feature length documentary called Underexposed, which received “Best Documentary Film” and “Award of Merit” honors. Amelia then created an all–female skateboarding event called Exposure. By its second year, the event had the biggest prize purse in a women’s transition skating event, as well as the largest amount of women competitors. The events success has prompted the creation of its own non–profit, which supports and empowers women through the lens of skateboarding.
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BIAS traveled to Huntington Beach California to check out one of our favorite competitions of the year. PHOTOS BY KATIE ALLAN
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FRONTSIDE CRAIL SLIDE
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NORA VASCONCELLOS, FRONTSIDE GRIND
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ALANA SMITH, BACKSIDE STALEFISH
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JULZ LYNN, FRONTSIDE AIR
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JULZ LYNN, FRONTSIDE INVERT
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POPPY STARR OLSEN, BACKSIDE STALEFISH
LIZZIE ARMANTO, SIGNING BOARDS
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GIRLS WAITING TO DROP IN
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ALLYSHA BERGADO, FRONTSIDE INVERT WITH BACKSIDE AIR
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ALLYSHA BERGADO, FRONTSIDE STALEFISH
ALLYSHA BERGADO, BACKSIDE STALEFISH
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LIZZIE ARMANTO, FRONTSIDE GRIND
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LIZZIE ARMANTO, TAKING HOME THE PRIZE
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“Sometimes a girl needs to see other girls do something first to know what's possible, and to be inspired to up the ante and try to be something more.” WOMEN IN ACTION SPORTS BY MELISSA LARSEN
This feature is the final installment in Women Of Action, a series about women in action sports from XGames.com. The series explores the often–underexposed issues surrounding females of all ages and abilities and covers a range of stories, from the changing tides in women’s professional surfing to profiles on some of the most powerful and talented women you’ve never heard of to blurred gender lines in motocross racing. We look at the changing nature of coverage surrounding the world of women’s skateboarding.
THEY SAID THERE was too much skate-
boarding in it, that female skateboarders were too gritty, too unfeminine and too alienating to the teenage girl jeans–buying demographic advertisers were paying to attract. And anyway, the number of females who actually participate in action sports was too small to care about. To keep it alive would be an act of charity, and publishing was a business, not a passion project. And so it was that SG Magazine –– short for Surf, Snow, Skate Girl –– the last internationally distributed, major– publisher–backed, airport–newsstand–
carried women's action sports magazine ceased to exist. SG was my baby; I led the editorial overhaul of the magazine that eventually resulted its untimely demise. Our mission statement was simple: Sometimes a girl needs to see other girls do something first to know what's possible, and to be inspired to up the ante and try to be something more. We set out to find photos of women pushing it at the highest levels of action sports and sent them into the world like messages in a bottle, hoping they would wash up on the shores of faraway towns
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where isolated girls could find them on a newsstand and realize they weren't the only ones. GETTING SOCIAL Skateboarding was tough, though. Aside from the occasional image of six–time X Games medalist Elissa Steamer, most major skate mags didn't run photos of women skateboarding. So no one shot them because there was no money in it. So we hired a dedicated skate photographer. To make room for the photos he brought back, we ripped out the magazine's fashion section so we could fill those pages with action shots instead. Then our advertisers showed up with torches and pitchforks and quickly put an end to it all. That was nine years ago. Though a social–media revolution loomed on the horizon that would soon change everything for everyone, that particular sun had not yet risen. No new magazines cropped up to replace ours, and shortly after SG folded, the economy crashed, taking away the girls' divisions at the few skate companies that had them. And so, like all good things that exist and thrive whether or not anyone is paying attention, women's skateboarding went back underground. "Last weekend we went to the Lincoln skate–park in L.A. and there was a girl there visiting from Mexico. She saw Nora [Vasconcellos] and started freaking out –– a full fan–out. She was so excited to see Nora because she watches her on the Girls Skate Network. I swear she almost started crying."– Lisa Whitaker, Girls Skate Network/Meow skateboards founder During the dark years, in the absence of traditional media providing coverage of females in skateboarding, women
began to seek each other out online. It was slow going at first, and largely focused around one website called The Side Project, created by veteran skateboard filmmaker Lisa Whitaker. "Around 2003 I started The Side Project because I wanted to learn web design. I needed content to fill out the pages and most of the stuff on my computer was of girls I'd been filming –– you know, my friends," Whitaker says. "I started getting emails from girls around the world who had just stumbled upon it. The Internet was fairly new at the time so there wasn't anything else out there for girls who were skateboarding. The feedback I got from girls, seeing the impact it made, made me want to actually make it something and keep it going," she says. Fortunately for girls who didn't stumble onto Whitaker's site, Facebook emerged soon after. "When Facebook came on the scene, suddenly you could find other female riders. It opened up a whole new world," says Jenna Selby, who founded Rogue skateboards in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s. "Not only could girls meet others in their respective countries, they could also link up with others around the world. There have always been great role models in the female skateboarding world ... now here was a new platform for them to get themselves known without the need to rely on print media." Facebook may have opened the door, but the pace at which the connections were taking place was still slow going until the end of the '00s. DRIVING FORCE In 2009, pro vert skateboarders Cara– Beth Burnside and Mimi Knoop (the duo who, not incidentally, were the driving
value for people looking for that content to be able to find it easier," she says. HOLY TRINITY Roughly two years ago, Whitaker, Woozy and Knoop decided to start supporting each other, as their interests were so aligned. Today their tri–fecta has formed a spearhead that focuses on the online women's skateboarding community. Whitaker started uploading her skate videos to a Girls Skate Network–branded YouTube channel. Woozy changed Mahfia's direction, moving from a web magazine format to a web TV hub that focuses on high–production–value videos with an emphasis on storytelling. And Knoop got in the social media game. "I skate with a lot of the girls anyway so I just started filming them when they were skating," Knoop says. "I've been putting that content up, and it's just escalated over time. It's been really fun to help get them out there because they're killing it and there's not a platform [for people to see it]." "The YouTube channel has brought more exposure to the girls than the actual website has," Whitaker says. "I'd say 90 percent are watching on YouTube. We go to skateparks now and there are kids who know who these girls are. There are kids reciting things from videos they've seen on the Girls Skate Network. Even the boys at the skatepark know who some of these girls are –– all from the YouTube channel." "The landscape in general has changed, not just for female skaters or athletes, but for guys too," Knoop says. "Skaters who might not be known at the X Games have this following online now. That's where people are going for content. They're going on their phones and they're watching videos –– not wait-
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force behind the X Games raising women's prize purses to match men's in 2008) started a skate company called Hoopla. "Cara–Beth used to win all the contests but never had any travel support, and there were no companies really backing anyone else," Knoop says. "The idea was to create a brand that was going to support the girls who skated for it." Around the same time Hoopla was launching, the skate shoe company Osiris was cutting its women's program, and its suddenly former women's brand marketing manager Kim Woozy found herself unemployed with unexpected free time on her hands. "When I was at Osiris we started seeing younger girls getting into skateboarding and blowing people's minds, like Leticia Bufoni," says Woozy, founder of Mahfia.tv, a video hub for women in action sports. "There was this whole generation coming up, but the missing component was media. After SG there were no magazines, there was nowhere to get it. So we started a website, kind of like an online magazine." The last piece of the media puzzle fell into place when Whitaker changed the name of The Side Project website to the Girls Skate Network. "I've never been one to be like ... 'girl power!' That's not me at all, and most of the girls that I skate with are the same way. Yes, they are girls who are skateboarding, but to call it girls' skateboarding seems silly. It's just skateboarding," Whitaker says. "At the same time, I'm trying to bring coverage of the girls because it's needed. [Changing the site name] was a hard thing to do, but I saw there was
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ing for a big event to tell them what's happening." GETTING A FOLLOWING "I was at the Phoenix Am when all the ams did the DC demo, and I joined in with them. Thrasher was there and they put a video up on Instagram. My mom came in my room at like 3 in the morning, and I was like, "Why are you waking me up?' Then I looked at it, and it was me skating bowl and street and it ended with one of my favorite tricks, the tre flip, in slow–motion. It was so crazy they actually filmed and put something up about me."
“Yes, they are girls who are skateboarding, but to call it girls' skateboarding seems silly. It's just skateboarding” – Lisa Whitaker – Alana Smith, 13–year–old X Games Women's Skateboard Park silver medalist Call it YouTube, GoPro or Facebook, or call it a whole new way of sharing media that circumvents the gatekeepers who have historically decided what content does and doesn't make it into the world. Whatever the contributing factors, the result is the same: Women are connected directly to each other now; they don't need anyone else to tell them what's up.
The ability to upload quick and easy mini video edits –– a practice ignited by Instagram's adding video to its platform in August 2013 –– has correlated directly to the growth of female skateboarders' social media presence. "In the beginning it was kind of a trickle, and in the last year it's bubbling over," Knoop says of Hoopla's social media following, which has doubled since November. She says the same is happening with GSN, Meow and Mahfia. X Games Real Women gold medalist Leticia Bufoni, for one, has more than 204,000 followers on Facebook, and nearly 122,000 on Instagram. Her 15 second Insta–clips regularly clock more than 10,000 likes and hundreds of comments. "Nitro Circus Live" cast member and skateboarder Lyn–z Pastrana has nearly 100,000 likes on Facebook. Whitaker claims that she's seen traffic increase substantially on GSN videos the past two years, but that "last year has been the biggest change." SHARING IS KEY The transition to social video and content sharing may be the key to unlocking a new future of possibility for female skateboarders. It solves the issue of production, which has plagued women's skateboarding from the beginning because there just aren't a lot of people producing content at a professional level. Whitaker and Woozy both create the videos that get uploaded to their respective online channels. ("If I don't upload frequently, I start getting hate mail," Whitaker says.) Both women admit that while they see more females skateboarding these days, there aren't many
girls trying to do what they do –– take pictures or film and create substantive edits that further the story of women's skateboarding. Being some of the sole creators of women's media is a heavy burden to bear, but the pressure is lessened with social media. "It's just changing," Woozy says. "Professional photography is an expensive hobby to get into, and the way people are sharing and creating media isn't traditional anymore. I see girls shooting each other, but it's not with a 7D, it's with their iPhone. It's happening, it's just do– it–yourself style." Eventually –– Whitaker, Knoop, Woozy and the growing network of skate-
boarding females hope –– this increased exposure will translate into sustainable careers and income opportunities, something that doesn't currently exist outside of the occasional contest payout. "The core of the action sports industry is not on board," Woozy says. "What I'm thinking is going to happen is more mainstream companies will come in and want to be a part of this market because the numbers are there, and working with them will be the key to the future of growing this." "Leticia does not have a real board sponsor right now," Whitaker says. "She can get boards on flow, but she can't get any company to put her on the team. It's crazy."
For her part, Knoop says she's "not waiting around for anyone." Through Hoopla, "We're creating content of the top girl skaters in the world. We've been able to help girls with travel this past year, which has been huge because that was the original goal. And if we grow, the sky's the limit." In the new dawn of this direct–to– consumer age, the only limits on women's skateboarding will be the ones set by women themselves. They –– the publishing gatekeepers of yore –– don't have a say anymore. And with a growing community and increased exposure, female skateboarders are in good company. They're not the only ones.
THE HOLY TRINITY: LISA WHITAKER, CARA–BETH BURNSIDE, KIM WOOZY
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