How to Skate Like a Girl, Part 2

Since skateboarding arrived in the 1950s, women like Patti McGee, Peggy Oki and Elissa Steamer have proven that skating like a girl isn't second-rate. Cristen and Caroline shred the history of women in skateboarding and how it evolved from a gender-neutral California pastime into a nearly boy-exclusive subculture.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from House top
boards dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and welcome to part two of
our Women in Skateboarding to part yes, part what has happened?

(00:24):
And and now we're into part two. Now we're into
part two and we're having a great time. Yeah, we're skaten.
We're falling, as as we established very well to our
audience in part one. Caroline and I not skateboarders, No,
it's it's funny. How automatically my brain as soon as
I hadn't even put my weight full weight on the board,

(00:46):
I just put a foot and and considered lifting my
second foot off the ground. My whole body was like, nope, nope, nope, unnatural.
You're about to fall. You have no natural balance. What
are you thinking getting on this small piece of cardboard
with wheels? And so I sat on it and rolled,
which was adorable. It was the only thing I could

(01:07):
do to be safe. And I think it was also
quite entertaining for the other tenants in our office building
because we were just in the parking lot um halfway
making fools of ourselves. But that was the fun of it.
I hope it was entertaining. Yeah, well, we still have
a lot of ground to cover about women in skateboarding
today and into the future. But first we kind of

(01:31):
want to do something a little bit different and do
a little bit of stuff mom never told you. Listener
mail At the beginning of the show, that's right, we
heard from two amazing ladies about their experiences getting into
skating growing up. First up, we've got listener Jessica, who
discovered the hard way that maybe you shouldn't put two

(01:52):
people on a skateboard. And then following that up we
have Tara, who was obsessed with skateboarding as a kid
also made her own ramps, all of which was employed
to get girls to come over and play at her house.
Back when I was in college, I bought a longboard
to skateboard that's longer, obviously longboard, so I could skate

(02:16):
around campus and get to classes. And one weekend, it
was a long weekend and my roommate decided she wanted
to skateboard too, but she didn't want to go by herself.
She wanted to go together. So then both of us
are standing on this longboard at the top of a
little hill, I decided to just go down it, and

(02:38):
we didn't get very far before we just totally crashed
and burned and foiled out all over the sidewalk and
skin our knees, scraped our elbows. Um, I didn't give
up skateboarding, and it was a really good bonding experience
and she's still one of my really good friends to
this day. Alright, skateboarding, skateboarding, not really planning this that,

(03:02):
I'm just kind of going for it, all right. I
was obsessed with skateboarding when I was a kid. Um,
And I grew up in a suburban a white suburban
community that did not focus on diversity at all, and
so I was a little queer kid, a little queer
girl kid, growing up obsessed with skateboarding, always being pretty

(03:28):
bad at it because there was no access. There was
no outlet, there was no skate park, and there was
certainly no skatepark that my parents would drive me too.
So I made ramps in my backyard out of old
pieces of plywood, and whenever I could get friends to
come over, which was not that frequently because I was
not that popular, UM, I would force them to skateboard

(03:50):
and learn how to ride skateboards because I, at a
young age, was so upset that skateboarding was such a
boy sport. You know, all I heard about was Tony Hawk,
which was great, but you know, girls are awesome, and
I wanted the girls that I thought were awesome in
my life to know how to skateboard. Unfortunately for me,

(04:12):
that turned into a rather socially awkward experiment that I
didn't really recognize until I was much older. Um, but
that's my history of skateboarding. And I love that you
guys are talking about this for whatever reason. Good luck,
love following your blog, Have a good day. And I
gotta tell you, Caroline, I've been loving hearing our listeners

(04:37):
stories but also like actually hearing their stories. It was
so cool that people sent us audio files of their
experiences with skateboarding, because we get so many letters, but
hearing them spoken is so different. Yeah, we love, we
love letting you guys tell your own story and being
able to share them. It's great. Yeah, so thanks to

(04:57):
everybody who did that. And if you want to send
us an audio story, just record want an audio file
and email it to us mom staff at how stuff
works dot com. But now we want to talk about
how many Jessica's and Terra's are out there today skating?
Because in part one we established the history of women's skateboarding,

(05:20):
we've been doing it since this, since sidewalk surfing was
first invented. But what does the skateboarding landscape look like
four girls today? And before we get any further, let's
offer a few stats, as we love to do. It's
time for some stuff. Mom never told you stats Mark,
Stats Corner, Stats Corner, Stat's come, welcome to stats Corner.

(05:45):
We will serve you a percentage of what you want
to hear. Yes, I love it. That's our new motto.
So the Skate Park Association of America estimates that there
are between eleven and fourteen million skateboarders in the country,
but it is growing. It has grown from two point
one million in nineteen to more than thirteen million in twelve.

(06:10):
So it definitely is not even though it certainly does
still have its underground and subculture connotations, it is certainly
not an underground subculture thing anymore. And of course we
want to know, if there are that many millions of
skateboarders in America, how many are girls. Well, according to
the National Sporting Goods Association. Girls make up twenty five

(06:33):
percent of skateboarders, which ain't too shabby. This idea that
girls were some invisible minority in skateboarding, like, uh no,
I mean is well, it's I don't need to explain
to people how much Okay, a quarter of the poe
I was about to put it in pie terms and
a delicious, delicious pie. Or if you're more of a
cake person, it can be a quarter of a cake

(06:53):
to a cookie. Oh yeah, I probably should pizza. Yeah,
that's true. Um, but I just wonder, and I wish
we had this information. But I wonder, since women have
always been a relative minority in in skateboarding, I wonder
what the stats were in the early sixties, mid sixties,
when it was way more seemingly cultural, culturally acceptable for

(07:16):
girls to be a part of it. Yeah, I mean,
it definitely seems like from what we've read that they
were probably never it was probably never fifty fifty exactly,
but fairly close. I mean, in at least not in
such an exclusionary kind of environment. Because even today, while

(07:37):
I mean, a girl skateboarder doesn't seem like such a
revolutionary idea as it might have in say the eighties
or nineties or even even the earliest of the two thousand's,
girls still have to shred some stereotypes because they abound.
I mean, if you talk to any skateboarder who identifies

(07:59):
as a femail like, it's always, always, always stereotypes. Yeah,
that you have to that you're not going to be
nearly as good, You're not going to be as talented,
you're going to be afraid of hurting yourself for getting dirty.
All of these like super like gender one oh one
stereotypes that women and girls face all the time anyway,
and that whole idea of they're not real in quotes skaters,

(08:23):
You're not going to skate as as fast or as hard,
You're not going to go for the hardest tricks, you
won't be able to land the hardest tricks, and so
you're just I mean, you're really just a betty on
the sidelines. Yeah. Case in point, Thrasher did an interview
with top pro skateboarder at Nigel Houston, who said the
women do the downhill stuff because they think it's like

(08:44):
sidewalk surfing. They don't realize how dangerous it really is.
I personally believe that skateboarding is not for girls at all,
not one bit, And to that, I have a sneer
for you, Mr Houston. And I also just think that
that says way more about him and what pop culture
has been telling us for a couple of decades than

(09:04):
it does about any actual women or girls who were
actually skating. Oh absolutely, And there was so much hugh
and cry over him saying that that he eventually had
to backpedal or whatever the skateboard version of that would be.
He had to roll himself backwards and offer, you know,

(09:25):
very like pr friendly kind of apology. But I have
a feeling it's when when those kinds of statements are made,
there is no gray area in it. You're saying explicitly,
I don't believe skateboarding is for girls, so you're, you know,
you're your friendly apology. I feel like it's a little
bit too little, too late. And that quote too, was

(09:48):
something uh called out by Catherine Sierra in that Wired
magazine piece in which he goes on to talk about
how she skates like a man is still the top honor,
like it's the best thing a skate a gruel skateboarder,
And I hate even using that qualifier can be called,
you know, to be like, well you skate like a dude, bro,

(10:09):
whoa Yeah. It's like it's like we're even farther back
than women were at the dawn of skating. Even I
mean back there was no like, oh, cool, hey, you're
awesome because you skate like a man. It was just like, no,
you're you're a great skater, you're an amazing freestyler, or
you know whatever that the case. Maybe looking at handstand
you just did. It wasn't about being a great skater

(10:31):
for a girl. There was no such thing. But it
seems like now we're having to dig ourselves out of
that trench. Well, something interesting that jumped out is the
conversation around skater Alana Smith, who is a certified pardon
my French badass, I mean the squirrel, became the youngest
X Games medalist ever. She has a Guinness World Record

(10:54):
for this at the age of twelve. What was I
doing it? I was probably sitting on my skateboard being
told by my dogs. I was reading Little Women and
pretending to be Joe Marsh Was I a little too old?
I don't care. Yeah, let's be honest. I was probably
reading Black Beauty. Um. But yeah, so Smith was the
first female competitor to land a MICK twist, which I

(11:16):
didn't know the definition of this, but it's an inverted
five forty degree mute grab aerial, so basically okay. First
of all, side note, when I read MC twist, I
thought about mcflurry. Maybe you want to milkshake big so bad,
so lactose and tallerant caroline are very hungry right now
in the podcast studio. But the MC twist is. I mean,

(11:38):
it's really cool. It is exactly what it sounds like.
You shoot up into the air and you crouched down
holding onto your board, and you spin five and forty degrees.
For people who aren't great at math, uh, welcome to
stats corner. That's more than more more than a full circle. Um.
I watched Tony Hawk. I actually replayed this video of

(11:59):
Tony Hawk doing this McK twist a few times because
it was mesmerizing. So yeah, Allana did it. And I
believe she was twelve when she was already landing a
MC twist. And she she said once when people see
girls skating, they don't see us as skaters. They don't
think we take it seriously and are willing to go

(12:22):
all out and being too much of a case in point,
in this espn W article about Alana Smith, Uh, they
talked to pro skater Lindsay Adams Hawkins Pastrana, who says
about Alana Smith, yeah, she skates like a dude and
that is a big compliment. Yeah, well, skating like a girl,

(12:44):
according to Lindsay Adams Hawking Hawkins Pastrana, is a bad thing.
And she was talking about how what people think of
as girls style indicates that you weren't taught properly or
you didn't learn properly, and she says that it's a
certain way we in that just shows that you didn't
have good instruction or whatever. She also said that it's

(13:06):
cool that Alanna doesn't limit herself to being the best
female skateboarder, but she must to be the best overall.
And yes, that is good, but when you pair it
with the whole thing of like, she skates like a dude,
becomes sort of a backhanded yeah, well it's a whole
not like other girls trope or good for a girl
backhanded compliment. Um. And it jumped out to me too

(13:27):
that the headline for that espn W article about her
was Smith Blur's skateboard gender Lines, and when I saw
it out of context, I thought I was going to
read about a transgender skater, because today when I hear,
you know, read blurring gender lines, like okay, this is
what's gonna be where it's like, oh no, blurring gender

(13:49):
lines means someone is skating simply at the top of
the game, period, which is I mean that that to
me goes to show how entrenched it really is. And
anytime you watch these videos about like highlighting really amazing
pro female skaters or you know, showcases of female skaters,

(14:12):
a lot of times, like the glowing interviews that are
interspiced with it, are people being like, I mean it's amazing.
I couldn't believe how it's so phenomenal. Like there is
always this just shock from people whenever girls are skating well,
which is like, but they're not not the same as

(14:34):
like oh yeah, I mean like he skates really well,
that's cool. Well it's not like it's been I mean people,
where is the institutional memory. It's like people completely forgot
about Patty McGhee or that women like her even existed. Well,
Patty McGhee. She's not authentic. She's not a real skater
by today's terms. And also I think I should be
using the term she rides well, not skates well. But

(14:55):
that also goes to show how I'm you know, I'm
I'm definitely not a real skater. No, I didn't skate,
I rode and I was being pulled by animals. Because
that's how that's Christen, that is how I roll. It's
true and uh, fittingly for stuff I've never told you.
We're now going to lead listeners from stats Corner to
Study Corner. Let's go to Study Hall. Yeah, I love it.

(15:17):
Shall we go to Study Hall? Because there have been
some academic studies on gender within skateboarding culture, and we
found a really fascinating one in the journal Gender and Education,
which was published in two thousand five, so a little
bit dated, but still really relevant to our discussion today.

(15:38):
And it's called Skater Girlhood an emphasized femininity subtitle you
can't land an Ali properly in heels, Yeah, subtitle, which
was actually a quote from one of the girls interviewed
for the study. But it's a fascinating look at gender
and femininity and girls using hobbies like skating, which are

(16:02):
not considered to be traditionally feminine, as a way to
define themselves and their own sort of brand of femininity. Um,
and how skating can be positive because it's fun, it's
an adventure, it brings you confidence, it allows for nonconformity.
But and you know how how growing skills and breeding
your skills breeds confidence also, which is all positive, but

(16:26):
sort of the unfortunate thing that I was thinking about
as I was reading the study is that all of
the femininity discussed in the study is in terms of like, well,
I'm not like other girls. I'm sort of leading this
alternative girlhood. And it's like, well, while alternative girlhood and
femininity is wonderful and fine and great, so are other

(16:48):
types of femininity. And it seemed to be that skating
was a way for a lot of these girls that
the authors talked to to sort of navigate their way
in a world that wants them to wear pearls and
a high heel when they would rather wear baggy skating
clothes and go out and get hurt and get dirty. Well,
and it makes sense though that they might veer toward
the not like other girls line of thinking when you're

(17:12):
dealing with a subculture that is very much like entrenched
in masculinity, it's like an oppositional kind of masculinity that
still elevates itself above femininity. I e. Oh, you skate
like a girl. You skate like a girl. And so anytime,
and it's very clear in the interviews like with these

(17:32):
girls um that any time they transgress that and kind
of violate those boundaries and enter into that subculture, they
do have to their continually having to defend themselves. And
so it is like, well, you know, no, I'm not
I'm not just a girl. And obviously, based on the title,

(17:54):
they do talk a lot about this thing called emphasized femininity,
which is another way of saying women's compliance with subordination
to not only men, but to what is the culturally
valued type of femininity that we're sort of led to
believe we need to be a part of. Yeah, wearing
high heels and all of that fun stuff. Yeah, and

(18:16):
the others do talk about how the girls that they're
interviewing usually learned the basics in private and gradually ventured
into public skating spaces where they usually end up being
confronted by boys. Asking why they're invading their skate space,
which again is just like the whole geet girl or
game or girl conversation. Yeah, I mean, and I think

(18:39):
pretty much any female skateboard you talk to will have
an experience where that happened. Um. But what's really interesting
to see too among this group of girls, and these
were younger girls too that they were talking about, I
think it is important to point out that there was
a lot still of girl on girl policing for their
motives for aiding and their level of expertise. Um. This

(19:03):
in so many ways to me mirrors fake get girl
and gaming culture, because the girls who really prided themselves
the most on resisting that so called emphasized femininity were
the ones who were most on guard of You know,
if another girl rolls up to the skate park, it's like, oh,

(19:25):
are you here? Are you here just to impress the guys?
Are you here because you want a boyfriend? Do you
really know how to put your skateboard together and take
it apart and take care of it? What do you
really know? Because there is I mean, it does seem
like you kind of have to overshoot and overcompensate. Um.
Maybe because you aren't going to just be accepted off
the bat as like hey, I'm a I'm a cool

(19:47):
person and I want to learn how to do this.
Let's be friends. Like, no, that's not how it works.
But fortunately there are those women and girls out there
who are advocating for other women and girls to sort
of to get in the game and actually learn how
to skate and skate safely and skate well. Absolutely, because
it seems like the you know, the pros who are

(20:08):
coming up even in the seventies and the eighties, and
of course like people who are skating today and or
who are relative like newbies, are so fed up with
all of this gender nonsense because it really is nonsensical.
That there's been a lot of advocacy, really starting in
the early and mid two thousands, of women helping other

(20:31):
women and girls and even carving out their own spaces
to be like, all right, you know what, you can
have your skate parks or you're abandoned building, whatever, We're
going to set up these spaces where it's safe for
girls to come and learn to skate and be able
to skate together and not have to worry about all
this other stuff. Well, Cindy Whitehead, who we mentioned earlier,
started the group Girl Is Not a Four Letter Word. Uh.

(20:54):
White had actually went pro in the seventies at sixteen
years old and was endoored by Puma who shooes I
do love as well. But her professional career ended when
skate parks died. When that whole fad started dying out,
insurance rates went up, skate parks started closing their doors,
so she transitioned then her pro skateboarding career into sports styling,

(21:18):
which long story short, led her to a collaboration with
skateboard manufacturer Dwindle, Inc. She designed this line called Girl
is Not a Four Letter Word specifically for girls, and
she I mean, you know, if you have this company
going on, But it's also a form of activism as well.
She's done a ted talk about this. She's always stumping

(21:40):
on behalf of girls getting involved in the sport and
and part of the Girl is Not a Four Letter
Word proceeds support Longboarding for Peace and Girl Writers Organization.
So City White has definitely been one of the most
visible and vocal women really kind of starting this way
of advocacy that was has also been picked up by

(22:04):
highly influential skateboarder as well, Mimi Noop. Yeah, she went
pro back in two thousand three and ended up taking
him a handful of X Games medals, And she has
acknowledged the importance of seeing other women skating. There's that
visibility issue we talk about time and time again, but
that the industry does treat men and women differently. Yeah,

(22:27):
I mean the way that it markets to them, the
products that are even available, Um, how competitions are set up,
and how much you know, the winners of competitions get
depending on what division they're in. So she co founded
Hooplus Skateboards, which includes a team that Alana Smith for instance,
our Golden Girl is on and uh. It also offers

(22:49):
products specifically for female skateboarders. And she also co founded
alongside Caribeth Burnside, and nonprofit called Alliance, which provides a cool,
active voice for women in action sports, which was influential
and bringing up from Brazil a skater Letitia Buffoni, who

(23:09):
was actually the first female skateboarder Nike signed to its team.
So she's also a big name right now in the
sport as well. But you mentioned the amount that a
winner would earn based on what division there in Kristen
Andnope and Burnside together did lobby the X Games for
more prize money for female winners, and in two thousand nine,

(23:31):
partially thanks to their efforts, the X Games did start
awarding equal purses to men and women, and that was
echo two in our Women in Tennis episode. And one
other woman who's playing a role in trying to get
more girls attracted to the sport and provide resources is
Lisa Whittaker, who founded the website Girls Skate Network. Yeah,

(23:52):
and Girls Skate Network has been really influential for providing
a platform and community for girls skaters around the kind
treat to just, you know, if they're in a small
town and they might be the only girls skating around,
they can go online and they can see other girls
doing this, they can share their own videos, um they
can find resources for themselves. So that's been a highly

(24:13):
influential space for for girls too. But there's still some
challenges to retaining girls and skateboarding as they grow up,
which is something usually echoed in any conversation about girls
and sports, and this was something that Jennis Selby, who's
a co founder of the all girls skate company Rogue,
talked to huck magazine about Yeah, she wrote, one thing

(24:36):
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 are doing and
what magazines were telling them to do. So yet again
we see a pipeline issue, this time in sports. And
that's why a lot of these professional skaters and community

(24:57):
organizers who are really invested in getting girls and women,
adult women skating think that visibility and role modeling and
mentoring are essential to ceiling that leaky pipeline because we
see it over and over and over again. Like if
if you're not seeing it, it's not it's not as inspiring.
I mean, media makes a big difference. Well, I get

(25:19):
some firsthand insight on this and really get to know
someone who is doing this work to get more girls
into skateboarding and to make skateboarding itself a friendlier place
for girls and women. We talked to Kristin Ebling, who
is a skateboarder who also worked for a really cool
organization called Skate Like a Girl. Yeah, so let's hear

(25:42):
from Kristen my name is Chris Nebling. I've been skateboarding
UH for over sixteen years UM, and when I was seventeen,
I've been skating about four or five years. At this point,
I went out and UH did a skateboard competition UM

(26:04):
that was supposed to be for all girls, and I
remember thinking, I'm the only girl skateboarder right now. So
I showed up and my draw before when I saw
like twenty girls like ripping around the park doing tricks
I never even tried before UM, and I was just like, WHOA,
what is this? And you know it was skate with
the girl that was putting on the contest. So I
always tell everybody that at that point I sold my soul.

(26:26):
I was like, sign me up. I want to be
a part of this. I want to be included. I
want to be treating with other women. And you know,
about eight years of volunteering later, I got my job
last summer and the more or less of the chapter
director of the Seattle Chapter of Scaleing sprill UM. I
primarily focus on programs, so right now my title was

(26:46):
officially program director of Scalely Kid Girl UM. But I
do everything from Cotoon Cave to one on one lessons,
I oversee a team volunteer programs, so I we change UM.
And you know, I'm so propersional athlete on side, so
I compete and UM have some sponsorships and stuff like that,
travel the world to ride my skateboard and kind of

(27:08):
spread the love of skating. Can you tell us a
little bit about how Skate Like a Girl started and
sort of what its mission is? Why? Why, for instance,
when you came up when you were seventeen, were all
of these girls skating together? Well a Girl was started.
Get Like a Girl was started in Olympia in around

(27:31):
your two thousands. UM. Definitely influenced by by so like
that astness of like Riot Girl UM, sort of like
the embers of like the d I Y culture down there.
I don't if you're Heart of Slee or Kinny Kill
Captain Han, like that whole rad right girl movement. They're
definitely influenced by that. UM. And they were the founders

(27:54):
Halleen Flur. They were UM students at Evergreen and had
been living in Olympia, influenced by that culture. And they
they are actually snowboarders UM. But it's really expensive and
inaccessible to get women up to the mountains. But they
wanted more women to be involved in board sports because
it was such like a boys club. And so they
came up with Skate like a Girl UM and started

(28:16):
hosting like knics. They had no idea what they were doing,
but they didn't chare UM and they went out there
and you know, started getting women together to skate, and
over the course of a couple of years, it went
from just being sort of this loose knit thing to
be a little bit more organized, hosting camps, working with
younger girls, women of all ages and abilities, Hosting a
contest where professional athletes, you know, athletes were coming from

(28:39):
like California and organ and all over to compete and
take part in their event. So that was kind of
the first couple of years UM and the founders moved
up to Seattle. That's when they started getting way more official.
So they met up with other folks Nancy Chang, who's
our current board chair, who really pushed making Scale Like
a Girl an official Bible one three uh, and that's

(29:02):
kind of where I came on board. But we were
still really only serving girls and women, UM really focusing
on that end. UM. There was no paid staff at
that point. UM, and that's that's kind of where I
came on board, Like I was really excited about all
the stuff we were doing. UM. Nowadays we do a
lot more stuff with Coen's Boys and Girls UM, and

(29:23):
we're definitely have more i'd say, of a business model,
UM where we're able to subsidize free and low cost
programs by hosting sea based programs. And just kind of
the idea of why should girls in particular learn a skateboard?
What's you know they could do so many other things.
Why skateboard? Well, I think skateboarding is you can learn

(29:46):
so many life lessons from skating. UM. I think also
there's something empowering and life altering it's a girl tries
skateboarding versus something that is more gender neutral or that
they're in cur used to do. I think trying a
sport that everyone tells you is dangerous. Not only is
it male dominated, but a lot of times girls are

(30:08):
told you can't do that. Like I have a lot
of girls in my programs They're like, my dad told
me I can't do this, and I'm like, well, I'm
not gonna tell you that. UM. Like it's that, like,
you know, a lot of parents are really anti. But
then I think about other sports where women are totally
included and are seen on a world like scale as
you know, professional in that field. Like I'm thinking gymnastics,

(30:28):
like ice skating, like they're doing like flips and spins
and all this crazy stuff. Like why is skateboarding such
a voice club doesn't make sense to me in terms
of like a danger or like girls you know, shouldn't
move their bodies in those ways. Um, And so I
think I think if a girl tries skateboarding, which there's
all that baggage, like you're not supposed to do, it's
not for girls, and they try it, and you know,

(30:50):
maybe they don't skateboard past that one day they did
a clinic with us, to me, that doesn't matter. I
think one girls and women try things that they're told
they're not supposed to and they have a little bit
of success with it, that is a life altering. They
could leave our clinics and and when we you know,
teach them, like, well, tried skateboarding today, Tomorrow I'm gonna
apply for my NBA program, like you know what I mean. Like,

(31:11):
I feel like we build ourselves up by little successes
and if we can create a fun, successful experience UM
for a girl or a woman. UM. With skateboarding, I
think you know they're going to go on to be
a better person and take on more risk and challenge
themselves in the future. UM. And obviously if they keep skating,
it's going to continue to build a culture within skating

(31:31):
that's more gender inclusive, UM and also inclusive in other
ways as well. And I mean along those same lines.
One thing that jumped out to me in a skate
Like a Girl video I was watching yesterday was this
girl who was maybe ten years old talking about all
the reasons why she loves skateboarding and the organization, and

(31:53):
one of the things was how it taught her the
importance of failing and how how it's okay to fail
and how like if you fall down, you can get up,
and if you get a little bumped and bruise, that's okay,
and that like I hear that advice sometimes from like
you know, adults are like at some point learned to fail.
But hearing that from a kid, especially a girl, was

(32:13):
really eye opening for me. So that's kind of a
revolutionary message for girls in particular to hear, maybe because
usually it's like, oh, girls, you know you follow the rules,
stay prim and proper, all that stuff. Yeah, definitely. Like
Mary was saying in that video, UM, that you're referring
to is that you know you have to fail failure
as part of the process. You get it right the

(32:34):
first time, not only is that not rewarding but not
really real. That's almost like an anomally when you do
something perfect the first time. UM and skateboarding. That's one
of the huge life lessons I was talking about that.
You know, it naturally teaches you you have to be resilient,
You have to be able to fall down and get
back up. You have to let yourself be scared and
work through that fear, walk down that hall. That's you

(32:56):
don't want to UM, but you know you want to
be success, so you know you want to learn how
to drop in and learn how to ali and you
don't know how long that failure is going to be
till you get it right. And I think that's huge too,
is walking in the unknown and taking those steps towards
what you want without knowing for sure exactly what that
looks like, and knowing that your path is gonna be

(33:17):
different than the next woman Um, there's just all kinds
of things you can think of in terms of skating
and applying that to like life challenges just in general. Um. Yeah, Definitely,
failure is a part of the process, not the outcome
or not a possible outcome. And it seems like too
in terms of what you're saying about kind of walking
into the unknown. If we're talking about the context of

(33:39):
skateboarding with girls walking to a skate park where they
might be the only girl, might be one of those
unknown So could you talk a little bit about sort of,
at least maybe for you personally, Um, the difference of
what it's like to skate with other girls as opposed
to skating with a bunch of dudes. Definitely, being the

(34:05):
only girl at the skate park is probably one of
the worst things. Um. But I feel like of all
the crazy things guys have said to me and all
the things that have happened to me, being like, you know,
the only girl for so long really helped me build
build a mindset that I think has made me perfect
for the position I'm in with skate like a girl,

(34:26):
Like I understand what it's like to be the only girl,
and I'm very passionate about making sure that other girls
and women don't have that same experience, or if they do,
it's not as bad and they know how to deal
with it. Um. I'll give you a couple of examples. UM.
Not that I want to project any of these ideas,
but I think it's important for their girls and women
to hear like what I went through. Um at the

(34:47):
skate park. A lot of times the guy like if
I landed a trick before some other guy did where
we were trying it, but a lot oftentimes I would hear, well,
you're just a girl, doesn't matter. UM. I got that
a lot. UM. I also, right when I started to
go through Pure You're on like thirteen fourteen, like um,
Like they would comment on my butt and my boobs,
my body like pretty often like hey, like do you
have a load in your pants? What's up? Like just

(35:09):
the worst things. UM. I would get excluded like really
often to like all the guys who going skate street
spot and they would just be like, oh yeah, cool,
we'll be right back in five minutes, and they would
just like bitch me. UM. And one of my favorite
things is that I worked really hard for a sponsor
me tape. So I filmed all these tricks and I
worked really hard and I was trying to get sponsored

(35:29):
by this indoor skate park and I turned my video in.
I didn't hear back then hear back. So I went
right up to the team manager and I said, hey, um,
you know what's up? I turned in my video like
you know, as it a year and may like you know,
which was varying their wrecking. For me, I was like
seventeen years old at the time, maybe sixteen. This is
what force like a girls sixteen um, And I was like,

(35:50):
what's up? And he goes, heal Christ and your footage
is really great. But we sponsored girls that are good,
good looking, not just girls that are good. UM. So
that was like a huge wall. Was like whoa, like
I have to be currently like I had, you know
what I mean? And that was so hard to hear. UM.
So now, like I feel like it's definitely different, especially

(36:10):
in Seattle with so many people girls, men, boys, girls
learning how to skate ball together through skate like the
girl programs. Um. That culture I'm hoping is shifting for
women and no one has to see here those things
that I heard like ten year ten fifteen years ago
when I was starting seating UM. But I think it
definitely is still hard. I think most of the times
when I go to the skatepark, I go by myself,

(36:32):
you know, maybe I'll see one girl one other girl,
which I think is better than most places. But um,
I think generally guys in Seattle know about scala ares
all to know about what we do and it's participated
or know somebody that has that. We have a level
of like legitimacy that you know, people are starting to
change their minds about who can participate in skating. But

(36:55):
you know, I still definitely get some flacks sometimes, you know,
and weird comments and us do you think that it's
getting any better industry wise and marketing wise in terms
of like how how the female demographic, if you want
to call it, is treated like they try to put
girls out there sometimes, and they try to get girls

(37:17):
on the teams. And there's been like kind of some
male allies throughout the years that you know, Ed Templeton
is one that comes to mind, UM with Toy Machine
Skateboards putting a list of Steamer on the team UM
and really supporting her for years. But I think the
general mainstream skate culture is never gonna be able to
market to a way market women in a way that
I feel like is authentic and that takes me at

(37:38):
the end of the day of their market is like
fifteen year old guys, and that is so that's such
a different market. Um. And I'm pretty outspoken, um the
girls and women, uh in particular, just about you know,
you can see here and complaint all day about how
we're not sponsored, we don't get coverage. You open a
transld magazine, Thrasher magazine, you don't see any girls that

(38:00):
you do see a girl, she's like half naked with
a skateboard over her boob. Um, We're gonna continue to
see those images unless until, like we step up and
make our own media. It's like Tony Hawk. I've recently
wrote this in a small editorial I did for um
uh this Heat, which is this is a vene that
my friends and I put together. UM And I basically said, like,

(38:23):
you know, Tony Hawk doesn't call it port illustrated and
get pissed that he's not on the cover. You know,
'ts illustrated is catering to a dominant like mainstream sport. Um,
like audience, right, Like skateboarding magazines are catering to male
participants because that's who's primarily participating. UM, and so as
girls and women, I feel like we need to make
our own content, our own media, our own We didn't

(38:46):
have our own photographers, our own videos, and one day
it'll come to a point where those cultures can mesh.
And I think there's overlap between the mainstream culture and
what we do. But I think, by and large, like
I've been so bummed on pretty much anything that um
mainstream skate media puts out, like your average photographer writer
in the magazine, like just it's just the worst stuff,

(39:08):
like um, like even if a girl is really good,
it's it's something that's like, Wow, the girls are really
stepping it up this year. It's like wow, we've been
stepping it up, like just because you just noticed, like
now we're stepping it up, and uh, you know there's
stuff like yeah, here's Lucy Baker, she skates, dude, she's
got some six style, you know, So again downplaying and

(39:31):
like it's just I think the nicest why I can
put it is that it's inauthentic and it doesn't speak
to me as a female skateboarder and it's you know,
for the most part, makes me just inspired to create
my own media. Well, back to Skate Like a Girl. UM,
can you tell us a little bit why said that
dudes can skate too? With Skate Like a Girl. Can
you talk a little bit about how the organization is

(39:53):
focused not only on cultivating girls skaters, but also it
seems like diversity among skaters and why it's important. Yeah. UM,
So we have a we have a T shirt that
we put out UM and it just says this is
what a skateboarder looks like. And I think that's kind
of the the easiest way to put it is that

(40:16):
overall organization is a girl friendship organization. We're always constantly
going to be thinking about how can we make space
for girls and women um in our sports UM, but
also understanding that anyone can participate in that, anyone can
be a skateboarder, regardless of ability, age, um, in any
other factor. UM. And we want to kind of break

(40:37):
down in walls that there are access so UM, I
will tell you. I'll tell you first about a little
bit how kind of organically we started serving guys because
I was never our intention like I said, back in
two thousand five when I first got involved, the only
good stuff with girls and women. And what was happening
was we were hosting like a girls twelve and under

(40:58):
skate clinic and Phil and Sol's little brother wanted to
join in, and at first we were like no, But
then that wasn't the first little brother. We had dads,
and we had older brothers that wanted to help volunteer,
and we sort of looked at ourselves and we said, Okay,
this is sort of a crossroad. Do we only serve
girls and women and we continue to operate in that
what I would call like a silo and we make

(41:19):
like a bubble around girls, they say this is for
girls only, and then knowing that that girl probably isn't
going to skate outside of our program, or do we
start to include brothers, dads UM and other siblings UM
into our community. And we sort of decided that, hey,
these people need to be served too and want to
be a part of our culture. Why not. And kind

(41:41):
of after we started doing this UM and serving like
Phil and Sol's little brother, and you know, we started
getting a fair amount of boys UM and interest from
then as well. UM, we sort of decided like wow,
like what is not revolutionary about a little boy learning
to escape from a girl. We're still starting to change
and ship at culture. And just because we're serving boys too, UM,

(42:03):
doesn't mean that girls can't be served in that same space. UM. So,
long story short, we still do some girls only girls
and women only stuff. So, for instance, our Ladies Nights,
some of our camps are girl specific just because there
are some girls that will not participate and we'll feel
excluded or intimidated in the environment where guys are included

(42:24):
on any levels. So we do want to continue to
stay true to that and be able to provide that opportunity.
But by and large all of our programs are co
ed these days. UM. So we have male and female staff. UM.
We operate a te volunteer program called Youth Employment Skateboarding
where teenagers learn job skills, financial literacy, uh SEPT, first

(42:45):
aid trainings and stuff like that, and they volunteer for
us over the summer. And that program is primarily guys,
not only the primarily guys. We have like some of
the best local amateur writers that are a part of
that program. UM. And so it's super cool that we're
take being the dominant culture. So the guys that are
really good, the youngest skaters that are just ripping and sponsored,

(43:05):
and they're coming a part of our organizations starting to
teach young kids how to skateboard and be included in
our culture. So I think that's probably one of the
more revolutionary things that we've done. Um just because now
the girls and women and kids that are part of
our program and being served by our programs are working
with the volunteers that have the highest skill set. So
we're gonna show up at the skate park leader to practice,

(43:26):
they may see, oh, hey, that's my instructor from a weekend.
Hey what's up. And we're starting to bridge that community
between ability levels and lengths of time people have hated, ages,
genders and all that good stuff. Um So just in general,
we're just trying to change who can take part in skateboarding.
Like what does the skateboard look like? We're trying to
make that, you know, as inclusive as possible. Very cool. Well,

(43:51):
what has your work then with skate like a girl
taught you the most? You're number one thing about skating
light whatever kind of like, what is what has been
like the biggest maybe um reward or life lesson that
you've gotten from working with the organization. Yeah, I mean,
I think the easiest way is for me to think

(44:11):
about this is what would I Where would I do
a scale girls didn't exist, and I think I sort
of alluded to it earlier, Like I think I would
have quit skating and I never would have continued to
pursue it. I never would have had an excuse to
because this is like I'm telling you when I turned
When I first saw skateboarding when I was like eleven,

(44:32):
I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I begged
my parents for like a full year to get me
a skateboard. And I don't know where that came from,
you know, I don't know what it was. I just
was gravitated. I just gravitated towards it. And I've always
had that stoke in that passion for skating. I think
it's the coolest thing on earth. And I've tried everything,
you know, I've done skydiving, I've a snowboard, I served like,

(44:55):
but there's nothing like skateboarding. You know. I played every
team sport you can imagine, and I'm a really athletic.
I'm really good at sports. There's so like I think
I probably could have gotten like I would have stuck
with softball, I probably could have gotten like a college
scholarships at all. But for whatever reason, skateboarding is what
I love to do. And there's not a lot of
structure in skating. There's not a lot of opportunity and

(45:17):
for anyone, and an especially girls, we are excluded, un
told we can't do things, and we're kind of funneled
towards activities that are hockey dorry, you know what I mean,
like probably on the school soccer team, or being into
like singing or acting or something like that. Um. And
so I'm just thankful that feel like girls provided me
and if you to continue to pursue my passion. And

(45:37):
now at page twenty six, when my parents say, why
don't you get in your nb A, you should go
back to school and do law, I'm like, no, I'm
leading lay in our profit and serving thousands of the
people of my local community and creating real change like
experiment people and getting people active and you know, introduce
those them something that I've been passionate about for so long.
H I definitely don't answer that with one thing, but

(46:00):
know that's my best. Yeah, I mean that sounds pretty huge. Um.
Those were all of the questions that I had for you.
Is there anything else, um, you want to add that
I didn't ask you about in terms of skateboarding girls,

(46:20):
what you love anything like that, any kind of final
final thoughts. Yeah. I would say that if you're interested
in skateboarding for you, um, and there's gonna be a
lot of people that tell you that it's not and
you have to learn to not listen to those people. Um.
If you already are a skateboarder and you want to

(46:41):
give back and you don't live anywhere close to like
a major city that's already hosting and doing rad things
for the skate community, that you can do it. Um.
When I first started being an instructor for like a Girl,
we had no idea what we're doing. When they originally
started to look people, they had no idea what they're doing. Um.
Most skate comes needs have no idea what they're doing.

(47:01):
So uh, don't be embarrassed or think that you're not
good enough. Everyone can take part in making an inclusive
culture through the vehicle of skateboarding. UM. And if anyone
anyone who's interested please email Seattle at Skate Like a
Girl dot com UM and we will get back to you.
We'll give you all the resources you need to start

(47:21):
Ladies Nights in your local community at twelve and under
skate any type of instruction program. We love to help
support anyone internationally to make rad skate programs happening. And
we've been doing it for about fifteen years, so we
kind of know what we're talking about, and we'd love
to help the pore other folks to make change in
their local community. Awesome. And what's the website folks can

(47:44):
go to to learn more about the organization and you
just Skate like a Girl dot com. And just so
everyone knows, our Seattle chapter is our like UH headquarters,
so that's where we have the most going on. It's
our longest existing chapter. UM. We have paid staff and
stuff like that. Are Portland and San Francisco chapter is
a little bit smaller. Portland's just started getting a couple

(48:06):
paid staff and then UM. San Francisco is still all
volunteer driven. UM. The we have some folks kind of
running s satellite programs in other areas, but we definitely
like we're the community. We want people to be a
part of itself. Check us out scal dot com. I
guess one more thing too, is like I know a
lot of people say that they're they're not good enough
for skateboard or they're not coordinating enough. Um. I get

(48:27):
those emails all the time. UM. I had someone say like, oh,
I'm forty five years old, like there's no way I
could do it. Within a year, Um, that person was
learning how to drop in an ali and shove it
and do all these cool tricks. But that's a forty
six year old person. But she don't hear that a
lot of forty six year old people trying skateboarding. UM.
I also got an email recently from the girl. She's like,
I haven't um been active in years, come overweight and

(48:49):
over twitter pounds, like there's no way I could do it,
And just recently like she was rolling down like some
of the biggest ramps in the park and is just
super inspired and stoked and like wanting to volunteer with
us and be a part of our organization. So, um,
you're never too young, never fat. Um, it's for everybody. Well,

(49:11):
and thanks so much to christ and Ebling and skate
like a Girl for taking the time to talk to us.
And it's not the only organization out there either that
is using skateboarding to fundamentally change girls lives. And next up,
we want to talk about what happens when skateboarding has

(49:31):
no preconceived gendered notions. But to do that we must
travel to Afghanistan. Travel with us. Everyone, get your passports,
teach your podcast passports. We're going straight to Cobble. Okay,
it was a quick ride. We're here. We're here. Wait,

(49:52):
we just got here. Yeah. The group Skateistan has been
getting some major attention for bringing skate culture, positive skate culture,
non gender stereotype skate culture to the young girls and
boys of Kabbal, Afghanistan. Yeah. So, in two thousand seven,

(50:12):
a skateboarder named Oliver Perkovic traveled to Kabble. He was
following his girlfriend and he ended up staying and starting
this ngo called Skateistan that you know, began in Afghanistan,
but it's now expanded to Cambodia and South Africa, and
I know he's trying to expand it in more spots
around the globe as well. And the inspiration was seeing

(50:36):
a lot of these Afghani kids who weren't in school.
They were extremely poor, they had no access to education,
and really no healthy recreational outlets. So he got some
skateboards and started teaching kids to skate and using it
not only to teach them skate practical skateboarding skills, but

(51:00):
also to educate them in certain ways. Yeah, and writing
about this, Fast Company points out that he was using
skateboarding as a tool for empowering youth, to create new
opportunities and the potential for change. So, you know, a
lot of the kids who are in this group, like
Kristen said, don't go to school, but almost half our girls.

(51:21):
This is something that I thought was so fascinating that
when you go into a culture where, for instance, bicycling
is not okay for girls to participate in, but you
find that there is no preconceived notion regarding skateboarding, Suddenly
boys and girls can participate in something active and fun together. Yeah,

(51:44):
and I mean getting these girls to skate to stand
requires some extra effort. They had to u sort of
directly meet with the parents and colmony concerns that they
had about their girls doing this. A lot of times
they will directly pick up and drop off the girls
from their homes um, whereas the boys are freer to

(52:04):
you know, come on their own um from school or
from home wherever it might be. So it's taken extra
effort but clearly paid off. And the photos of these
girls from Skate to Stan have been going viral on
the internet um over the past year. So thanks to
a UK photographer named Jessica full For Dobson, who you know,

(52:27):
went and spent some time and took all these captivating
photos and at the time that we're recording this podcast,
at least, they're currently on display in London's Stacci Gallery
and it was neat hearing full for Dobson talking about
you know why these images of these girls in particular
have been so captivating UM. And one of them that

(52:50):
she talks about was so she describes her as immaculate
and she is standing there in this photo. She has
a head scarf on and you know, her arms she's
like holding her skateboard right up against her in her
arms down by her side and her legs together. She's
very you know, standing up straight and yet you know
she she's holding a skateboard. There seems to be such

(53:10):
contrast with that and she told the BBC she's only seven,
but she seems to have such assurance for her age.
And that's one of the things that the researchers in
the Gender and Femininity and Skateboarding study found as well,
that this activity can bring such confidence, especially among girls
who take it so seriously that they do want to

(53:33):
learn how to build, take a part and maintain their
own boards. Learning new skills automatically just breeds a degree
of confidence no matter what your hobby or pastime is,
whether it's skating or painting. And that's true too of
whether you are a girl skateboarding it seems like or
if you are someone our age or older who's skateboarding,

(53:54):
and that's something that skate like a girl's. Kristen Ebling
really drove home when we talk to her about the
organization and the impact that skateboarding can have on girls. So, now,
fair listeners, we want to hear from you. Where are
the skateboarders in our audience? I know you're there. Are
you listening to us right now on a skateboard? Is

(54:16):
that dangerous? I have no idea, Mom staff that how
stuff works. Dot com is our email address, and be
sure to check out skate like a Girl dot com
to learn more about that huge things to Kristen with
a K for talking to us, And if you want
to tweet us, you can do that at mom Stuff
podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple

(54:37):
of messages to share from you right now. Well, I've
gotta let her here from just that I want to
share because she has one of the coolest jobs I've
ever heard about ever, Caroline, So she writes. I've been
listening to the podcast for several months now, but this

(54:58):
is my first time writing into you, guys. I've slowly
been catching up on the podcast archive, and I recently
listened to both the Women in Archaeology and Women in
Firefighting podcasts. I'm writing you because I wanted you to
know that I do both. I work for the U. S.
Forest Service as an archaeologist, and wildlife suppression is a
required part of my job. You might be wondering what

(55:20):
an archaeologist does on a fire. We're usually part of
a team of resource advisors who helped the incident commander
make smart decisions about the cultural resources that may be
impacted by the fire. We direct bulldozers around archaeological sites
rap historic structures and fire retardant material and make sure
the retardant is not dropped on rock art panels. I've

(55:41):
received all the same training as the other wild land firefighters,
and I also must pass the same physical fitness test
each year. It's not something that I ever thought I
would do as an archaeologist, but I really enjoy it.
So thanks for doing two excellent podcasts about what I
do for a living. And thank you just because, seriously,
that sounds so cool and yet another fascinating example of

(56:04):
STEM careers. Well, speaking of jobs that people never thought
they would end up in, I have a letter here
from Abigail about her father, and this ties in our
episodes Kristen on interior design and man Caves. So anyway,
Abigail writes, I just finished listening to your interior design
podcast and thought you'd like to hear about my father,

(56:25):
who spent nearly thirty years as a police officer and
who has turned to interior design and his retirement. When
my dad retired from the police force in his late fifties,
he suddenly had way more free time than he'd ever
had in his life and didn't know what to do
with himself. He worked security at a local community college
to earn earn some extra cash and flip through their
catalog one day to see if anything interested him. Interior

(56:49):
design is what caught his eye and he enrolled for
the next semester. I talked to him after his first
day of class and he told me, yeah, it was
a bunch of twenty something women and me the old part.
The teacher actually approached me to make sure I was
in the right class. My manly man dad enjoyed the classes,
designing things like high end kitchens with indoor barbecues and
an ultimate man cave with a pool table, giant TV,

(57:11):
and several lazy boys. About midway through the program, my
dad found a very interesting connection between his former days
as a police officer and his new interest of interior design.
Designing spaces with a goal of crime prevention. Designers focus
on things like visibility, for example, facing reception desks towards
doorways and ensuring nothing blocks the view out of windows,

(57:32):
and also e grasp and ensuring there are multiple clear
paths to exits in general safety like ensuring phones are
nearby to call for help. He has now become a
certified crime prevention design specialist and volunteers his time to schools, businesses,
and even homes interested in designs focused on crime prevention.
I thought you might enjoy this perspective. Well, thank you

(57:54):
Abigail for tonning in so many of our episodes so well,
and forgiving our listeners another career dea. Maybe we need
to start the stuff mom Never Told You Ladies career
directory for sure, and and retired police officer career directory.
Yes indeed. Well, if you have any ideas for our
career directory or thoughts on skateboarding, you know where to
send them. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com

(58:17):
is our email address and bri links to all of
our social media as well as all of our blogs,
videos including that his story interview with Patty McGee, and
podcasts including this one with our sources. So you can
learn more about the rad women of skateboarding, head on
over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for

(58:37):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot com