#shecanskate

The Girls Skateboarding Initiative aims to tackle stereotypes and negative perceptions in sports, particularly those stereotypes and negative perceptions that exist about female skateboarders or that may prevent young women from engaging in skateboarding.

We’ve had some really interesting chats with young women this week about what they think a ‘stereotypical’ skateboarder looks like. The group were keen to point out that, these thoughts don’t necessarily reflect their own views about skateboarders, but this is how they feel skateboarders are often portrayed in the mainstream media. We talked about cartoon stereotypes of badly-behaved characters and how Bart Simpson uses a skateboard, and we talked about how skateboarders can sometimes be portrayed as lazy... even though they are, in reality, taking part in a difficult and skill-based extreme sport! 

What was particularly interesting was that both of the groups we worked with this week, when asked to draw a skateboarder, both drew a male! They said they automatically drew a male character ‘without thinking’ despite taking part in a project engaging only young women in skateboarding. 

Here is one of the images drawn by one of the groups, reflecting how they believe skateboarders are portrayed:

Some of the labels associated with this character were about their image and appearance - such as tattoos, piercings, wearing baggy clothing, a backwards baseball cap and gold chains - and some were about their attitudes and values. They used the terms ‘2Cool4School’ and talked about them being portrayed as truanting or having rude attitudes, and also felt they were associated stereotypically with smoking or vaping and drinking alcohol.

All of the young people taking part in the project are hoping they can tackle this stereotype, and we certainly hope we are breaking down these negative perceptions of skateboarders! 

For more talk of stereotypes, here’s a video made by young women on the project about a ‘stereotypical female skateboarder’:

Skate Stories 20-25:

Following on from last week’s blog, here are some more mini Skate Stories from young women at William Hulme Grammar School who have been taking part in a school skate programme. The students interviewed each other as part of their Community Reporter course. They devised the questions and learned interview skills before working together to create some short films. We’ll have the videos ready to share with you very soon, but for now here are some transcripts of their skate stories.

Iza: “I like how can you relate to so many other people in your community. Like, there’s a lot of people who skateboard with you.”

Najma: “It teaches you to never give up!”

Sainabou: “You look sick while you do it and everyone’s like ‘Woah, look at that!”.

Maaria: “Every chance I get to do it I am just so happy!”

Aminah: “I just love how you learn it and how many things you can do on it.”

Roxanna: “It’s my life because I will skateboard at home and I am on it every day and every second.”

Two young women, Jess and Charlotte, who attend Girls Night at Projekts MCR, have created short comic strips to share their skate story.

Skate Story 7: Charlotte’s Story

Charlotte, talked about how she first began skateboarding when she attended a holiday club at the skate park, and how the coaches were excellent and made her feel at ease as someone trying skateboarding for the first time.

Skate Story 8: Jess’s Story

Jess talked about how she first saw skateboarding on TV and thought it looked like fun, but she used to feel incredibly nervous when she first attended the park. However, taking part in the Girls Skateboarding Initiative has really helped her to feel more confident and less anxious, and now she feels like a “skating queen”!

Hey! Welcome to our blog, where you can find stories from young female skateboarders in Manchester.   The Girls Skateboarding Initiative is a partnership project delivered by Projekts MCR and Greater Manchester Youth Network, running between September 2017 and September 2019. We’re funded by Comic Relief’s Levelling The Field initiative.

Our programme targets young women and girls from across Greater Manchester and uses skateboarding as a tool to help increase confidence, tackle gender stereotypes and empower young females to use their voice. 

We achieve this through a 12-week programme which consists of skateboard coaching and well as well being, goal-setting and leadership workshops delivered by Projekts MCR, and media creation and storytelling workshops by GMYN. As part of the project, young women are trained up as Community Reporters and equipped with the skills to share their stories and experiences of being young women learning to skateboard in Manchester. These stories may be about skateboarding, gender stereotypes or even about growing up as a young woman in Manchester today.