I went to the Summer Swine Stomp freeride at Hog Hill recently (by recently I mean last july) - it was fun,the weather was good, there were a bunch of ladies skating the hill and generally the stoke was flowing in full effect. However something happened there that just niggles at my feminist soul - I was told I had balls for skating down the hill on my Rayne Phantom (basically an over sized skateboard). Now I let it slide for a number of reasons - I was having fun and didn't want to kill the vibe, it was unintentional, and because (despite everything you may have heard) feminism isn't about publicly shaming individuals; instead it's the case that we live in a world that normalises certain ways of thinking. We all feed and support that system unless we consciously check our privileges and language all the time, and feminism is merely a set of tools that allows us to do this.
Photo by Steven Cornish Photography
This is critical - I know the red mist often descends when I mention the 'F' word - but critique of the system of patriarchy that we live in is not a critique of you. So please take a few deep breaths, maybe have a cup of tea and then come back.
I don't hate you... No really, I don't.
Me "having balls" was most likely a comment and compliment on the fact I was skating the hill confidently on a board with a 19" wb... What can I say, I like wrongboarding. But having balls does not equal confidence any more than having (or being) a pussy equals being timid, doubtful, or apprehensive. Confidence is built up of many different things: experience, technique and attitude. If you put in the time, you learn good technique and you keep at it no matter how hard it seems, then you will get better. Any dangly things you may or may not have between your legs never come into it. As someone of the female persuasion it's actually a little bit insulting to brush aside the blood, skin and tears I've sacrificed to skaten over the years in order to gain that confidence, by saying it's about having balls. It needlessly genders a compliment, it says that my skating can only be good when it's considered to have attained some weird abstract of maleness. It may not be quite the slap in the face of "you skate like a guy", but it is firmly headed in that direction.
You may think this is unimportant, trivial even, but it does genuinely matter. Gendered compliments subtly reinforce male dominance of the space that is skateboarding, and indeed society in general. It's not about swapping one kind of gendered compliment for another, it's about realising how ridiculous they are in the first place. Generally women don't have balls (and most of those that do don't want them). If you happened to meet a trans skater and you told her she had balls, you would ruin her whole day - tell her she looks really confident doing what she's doing and she'll be stoked. There is a growing movement in the world of female skating to reclaim the label of "skates like a girl", not because we think it's better than skating like a guy - see comments about needlessly gendering stuff - but rather because as girls, when we skate, we skate like girls. Some girls shred, some don't - same goes for guys. Experience is gained through hard work and determination and is not gendered. Ever.
So to the point of this little diatribe. Please stop gendering compliments and insults, they demean and lessen the safe and welcoming space that skating should be. I have been told countless times that guy or girl skaters are just skaters, something I agree with completely, but instead of just saying it, make it true by living it. The language is there to say what we need without resorting to tired and damaging gender stereotypes. So, no more telling someone that they've got balls when what they really have is confidence, and no more calling your mate a pussy if they're bottling a trick.
Let's all keep skating awesome.
If you have read this far without rage throwing your cup of tea at you monitor, you may want to learn more about feminism and why it's important for everyone, so I've included some links to some feminism 101s. Enjoy.
