Sarah Meurle, who he was interviewing at the time, agreed, saying: “Female skaters are sort of where skateboarding was in the 80s or early 90s, rare and being looked at as different. It’s a tight community, the chance of meeting a female skater while travelling for example and not having any friends in common with her doesn’t really occur. I think one effect of skateboarding being so big now, is that all of a sudden the women have become more interesting than the men. Because they haven’t been exposed as much.”

As the US pro and X Games Street Skate Gold Medallist Lacey Baker says: “We have to make things happen for ourselves because nobody is going to do it for us! As a community of girl shredders, it’s so important to do this shit for ourselves, to create a space for us where there wasn’t always one.”

The best UK female skater of this millennium, now the chair of Skateboard England, Lucy Adams, agrees. She says:

“I think the reason women have had to do it themselves in skateboarding is because things just weren’t happening or if they were, they weren’t happening in the right way! For example, girls practice times or comp times at events used to be early doors before anyone else was even up! It was always an afterthought and it showed. The really good girls events that have developed as a result put the focus on girls and take everyone’s needs into account.”

“Female skaters are the only real underground skaters left, facing many of the obstacles older skaters still romanticise, like being an outcast, being different…”

Lucy Adams set up She Shredders, a girls’ only night in Brighton, which has won awards for getting girls into skating. She says: “Girls’ nights have become a ‘thing’ because the evidence shows that it’s working. It makes women feel that there is a space for them to give it a go!”

Dani Gallacher, who runs the blog Girl Skate UK, agrees. She says: “The growth of female skateboarding, in this country at least, has been massively driven by a DIY ethos. Ladies all around the country are now starting to take it upon themselves to start up nights at their own parks, as a means of getting more beginners and young ones into the ‘sport’, as well as creating a regular meeting place for those who already participate.”

“[The growth] is also hopefully due to gender stereotypes in general being broken down across the globe, not just in sport but in all walks of life.”

For Jenna Selby, there are massive pros from that DIY ethos. She says: “It means girls aren’t tied to doing anything in a particular way because they aren’t doing it on behalf of a company or organisation. The individual who organises the events or creates the films can essentially do exactly what they want to.”

For Kim Woozy, founder of women’s action sports channel, Mahfia TV, the internet played a big part in bringing women skaters together. She says:

“In the beginning there was a desire (and necessity) [for women skaters] to fit in under the umbrella of “men’s” skateboarding because there just weren’t enough other women involved. Skateboarding was counter culture back then and being a woman meant being a minority within a counter culture community.”

“However over time, the female skate community grew much bigger and just in the past five years we have new tools and resources (internet/social media) to identify new participants and communicate and connect with them.”

We now have women’s events, skate companies, all-female films, non-profit organisations and more. And Kim Woozy feels that unique female gender traits have made all this possible. She says: “In the end, women are the ones that care about women. We are very capable, much more social and have much smaller egos than guys — so we have a huge advantage when it comes to being self-sufficient and working with each other.”

Erika Kinast is the development director of the remarkable NGO Skateistan, which seeks to educate and empower kids in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa through skateboarding. She’s also a long time skater. Her view of the evolution of women’s skate is:

“One really cool thing about women’s skateboarding being so small for so long is that you knew anyone who was sticking with it for a long time wasn’t really doing it because they could make a career out of it (not that there is anything wrong with that), but they just genuinely loved this thing. That’s makes for a pretty special dynamic and pushes the scene along in a really interesting way. For me, it’s always been a lot of fun and has taken me on some crazy adventures with some really special people.” One such crazy adventure took her to Afghanistan to work for Skateistan. There, she has seen first hand the impact that individual girls can have on skateboarding, and skateboarding on them. She says: “Pretty much any girl in Afghanistan who has ever picked up a skateboard has made a huge change in skateboarding. They’ve also changed how the rest of the world thinks about skateboarders and skateboarding. How cool is it, that despite everything, Afghanistan has the highest percentage of women skateboarding in the world? The 50 per cent female skateboarders in Afghanistan have proven that it’s not that women aren’t interested or can’t take part, it’s just that there are certain barriers that need to be overcome to get and keep girls involved.” “And these girls have influenced much more, not just with Skateistan but I think there has been a huge change in expectations and assumptions about women in sports more generally, which has been sparked by the improbability of girls skateboarding in Afghanistan.” “One really good example is Tin in Cambodia. She’s a talented skateboarder and such a good person and a lot of young people really look up to her. I’ve heard her speak about how skateboarding is for everyone and how important it is to encourage each other. She puts herself out there in so many ways, be it filming a skateboard clip or speaking at public events about Children’s Rights or gender equality. She’s already done so much for women in skateboarding in Cambodia and she’s only 22. It will be exciting to see the whole next generation of girls skating in Cambodia that have been inspired by Tin!” The future of women’s skateboarding won’t be obvious or brought to us by shiny corporate sponsors. It’ll be made from within and all the brighter for that. I know I’ll be watching and you should too. To read the rest of Mpora’s February D.I.Y Issue head here You may also like… Skateistan | Skateboarding is giving women a future in one of the world’s worst war zones Road Kill Cuisine | Meet The Woman Whose Husband Brings Home Dead Rabbits For Dinner