Girls on Skateboards
In a way, it's like a nerd's version of a good time or probably a wet dream of sorts, but envisioning women pro skateboarders and how they can be within the league of a male-dominated sport can be alluring. In a way, most men would rather think of woemn surfboarders, but skateboarders?
Of course there's nothing bad about it, and in a sense it's definitely a breath of fresh air to find more and more women skateboarders on skateparks or just cruising along on the streets rather than the local shopping mall. Yet since the mid 90s, it seems there is a slight increase of women skateboarders, which there are only a handful of pro woemn skateboarders out there, and not much exposure to begin with.
If they were to conduct a poll, there's a possible 3 million skateboarders who would skate at least twice a week. Only about 10 more or less percent of them are women. Still, three hundred thousand is still a sizeable number, the question is where are they?
Looking into the history of professional skateboarding, the X-Games have been fair with both genders, organizing events that is applicable for both men and women such as free climbing and aggressive in-line skating. There are a few events for women when it comes to skateboarding, and that's just it. One event that seem to remedy the near extinction of woemn skateboarders is thanks to the All Girl Skate Jam, which unites both amateur and professional female skateboarders from across the US in order to compete in this women-only competition.
Despite of the best efforts, it seems that companies would rather just want men to do most of the dirty and dangerous work. It does sound prejudiced, but with one female pro skateboarder, she explained that she wears pretty much what the guys would wear, perform the same tricks, listen to the same music and maybe some who are actually smaller than her. Physical size and attributes aside, most companies wouldn't think of the need to have women, nor even sponsor them due to the lack of support from the made pro skateboarding side of things.
When most male skateboarders would compete against rivals and their sponsors, most women could only get as much as they can when it comes to getting sponsorship. The sad reality here is there isn't much to expect, as most of them would still remain stuck in competing in local vents or to be a sideliner in one of the major ones.
