What’s it like to be a girl skateboarder? Identity, participation and exclusion for young women in skateboarding spaces and communities

Paechter, C. ORCID: 0000-0003-3050-5571, Stoodley, L. ORCID: 0000-0002-0901-6661, Keenan, M. ORCID: 0000-0003-2052-8462 and Lawton, C., 2023. What’s it like to be a girl skateboarder? Identity, participation and exclusion for young women in skateboarding spaces and communities. Women's Studies International Forum, 96: 102675. ISSN 0277-5395

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Abstract

This paper reports findings from a qualitative study of girl and young women skateboarders in and around two cities in England. We consider what it means to have a skateboarder identity, and how this is related to commitment, skill level, and participation in local skateboarder communities. We found that girls and young women frequently need more support to take up skateboarding than do boys and young men. Crucial enablers are both structural and personal, and include: initial and ongoing support, often from young men skateboarders; women role models in skate spaces; and official women and girl only sessions. Factors inhibiting young women skateboarders include: the public perception of skateboarding; harassment from members of the public; feeling uncomfortable in skate spaces; and hassle from men and boy skateboarders. We conclude that, while skateboarding, both officially and locally, is working to become more inclusive, it remains embedded in wider gendered power/knowledge relations, which privilege and support its domination by men.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: Women's Studies International Forum
Creators: Paechter, C., Stoodley, L., Keenan, M. and Lawton, C.
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: January 2023
Volume: 96
ISSN: 0277-5395
Identifiers:
NumberType
10.1016/j.wsif.2023.102675DOI
1636967Other
Rights: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Divisions: Schools > School of Social Sciences
Schools > School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences
Record created by: Laura Ward
Date Added: 17 Feb 2023 09:17
Last Modified: 06 Nov 2023 16:15
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/48333

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