ABSTRACT
The origins of skateboarding practice are typically rooted in late 1950s California. In many sources these origins are focused around the development of a surf-inspired physical culture, the (often illegal) use of backyard pools as a co-opted skateboarding terrain, and the presentation of a tough persona and aggressive localism practised by skateboarders. These dominant features of skateboarding have centred on the exploits of the pioneering 1970s Zephyr team of surfer-skateboarders and their interruption of the more mainstream physical practice of skateboarding during the time, with little attention paid to the ways that women formed an important part of this history, and how different styles of skateboarding (often imbued with gender-based identification) intersected to produce the current practice.
This chapter expands the view of skateboarding’s historical context to understand the relationship of women skateboarders within and adjacent to this dominant narrative. Following a loosely chronological order, this chapter expands the academic and popular understanding of gender-based power and dynamism in skateboarding by focusing on the complex and contradictory landscape of grassroots skateboard teams and collectives, skateboarding companies, and skateboarding media platforms throughout the decades, that have both supported and excluded women’s and girls’ participation, and created critical dialogues about gender at the same time that they have perpetuated masculinity as a centred norm.
