“I hear often, ‘You’re pretty good for a girl’. Why am I not just good? You can’t just tell me I’m good and leave it at that?” – Kat Mills, SU Student
Skateboarding, a sport primarily dominated by men, has evolved over the past decades to include women in the scene. However, there is still much to be done in terms of women’s equality and representation in this fun and exciting sport.
Kat Mills, a Southwestern University student and skater who is sponsored by the world’s first female-skater-owned skateboard wheel company, Cherries Wheels, is all too familiar with the obstacles you must face while being a female skater. She says that you don’t often see young female skaters at most skateparks due to the amount of confidence it takes to even show up. According to Mills, “Skateboarding is a very exclusionary sport. All of the women friends that I have who are skateboarders are middle-aged. That’s because as a woman, showing up to a skatepark can be terrifying. Often the only time that women have the confidence to pull up to a skatepark is when they are adults and have reached the point where they don’t care about anyone’s opinions.”
Many famous skateboarders have shared a negative sentiment towards women in skateboarding. Nyjah Huston, one of the highest-paid and most popular skateboarders in the world stated in an issue of the popular skateboarding magazine, Thrasher, “Some girls can skate but I personally believe that skateboarding is not for girls at all. Not one bit.” Seeing role models and leaders in this sport reflect such an opinion can have a detrimental impact on girls with ambitions to participate.
Despite this negativity, some professional women skaters have been paving the way for women in skateboarding. British-Japanese skateboarder, Sky Brown, became the youngest Vans US Open participant in 2016 at the age of 8, and at the age of 11, she became the first woman skater to land a frontside 540. Brazilian skateboarder, Leticia Bufoni, was the first woman to be on the cover of The Skateboard Mag in September of 2015 and was named one of The Most Powerful Women in International Sports in 2018. Two-time European Park Skateboarding Champion, Amelia Brodka, co-founded Exposure Skate, a non-profit dedicated to empowering women and non-binary individuals through skateboarding. Seeing these incredible women make great strides in the skateboarding community allows for women to join the growing population of female skaters.
When asked why she still skates despite all of the obstacles she faces Mills states, “It’s rewarding. I’m not just doing it for myself anymore. There are younger girls I know who look up to me. People see me and it changes their mind about what girls are capable of. For young girls that are interested in skateboarding. Do it anyway. Don’t let anyone take away from you something that you enjoy. Don’t be afraid to take up space in a space that’s made for men. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the next person to change the mind of what a skateboarder looks like.”