It’s not a good indicator of someone that brushes up on their facts before making decisions though is it?
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Christ the irony , from being clueless about Saudis backward society to speaking up for women and minorities on a public platform.
She needs to step up her research game , would probably not get her in these divisive situations , especially on social media for everyone to see and can drop a comment.
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Big Mr Beast energy
Is that the water in Africa guy?
I don’t think she’s right, but not wrong either, I’d love to see her put her money where her opinion is. Salon could be a great vehicle for this and it seems like she could leverage backing pretty easily.
I’d really like to hear some other female and minority perspectives here, it all very well us pale, stale, and frail guys making points, but they are redundant as we’re not approaching it from their experience.
I found the male gaze comment odd as I associated that term with sexualisation, like how in surfing it’s all photos of pro women’s butts. I kinda felt skating was ahead here in the sexualising the women stakes.
Hopefully, we can see a surge of new voices and visions from this.
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The Male gaze thing is a weird one because Women don’t realise they can only speak for themselves, they can’t speak for any other woman. Some women live for male attention and display themselves accordingly, others who don’t want to be associated with this are subjected to by men who look at and sexualise everything because most men are Michael Fabricants.
One persons liberation is anothers degradation.
Think it’s time to stop taking everything so seriously guys 
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You seem to be speaking for all women yourself, and you’re not even a woman 
It seems most of us are on the same page which has absolutely nothing to do with women living for male attention or sexualising anybody or any of that…it’s just that calling out the core skate mags for not featuring a diverse range of skaters sounds a bit like something somebody who doesn’t read any core skate mags would say. They have come a long way and you should credit them with that even if they’re not 100% perfect yet.
I mean…at least we’ve moved on from this…
*Yes I know it was an ironic lads mad pastiche.
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I thought it was the opposite of speaking for women and just acknowledging that each one, like men, are individuals and no one can speak on behalf of anyone. But hey ho.
Classic influencer faux naive response when caught on the questionable grift.
In her defence it was disappointing seeing how much grief she received while nothing was mentioned to others.
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Tickled me…
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New here, felt compelled to contribute to this. I’m writing from the perspective of a straight white female skater so my experience is with women’s representation, but I’m sure it’ll somewhat apply to other minorities too.
I think that Stef’s quote is a major simplification of the actual issue and that’s why it feels clickbait-y. The quote is out of context, so maybe the fault somewhat lies with the selection of the clip, but in the form we hear it, her statement lacks depth. I would’ve be interested to hear the whole conversation.
It’s a fact - there are fewer women featured in skate mags than men, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that this isn’t representative of the current UK scene. As Alice Smith said in the insta comments ‘the absence in representation comes from absence within the scene itself’. So we then have to ask - why aren’t there more women deeply rooted in the community: writing about skating, documenting it and working in the industry?
Mags act as inspiration, which traditionally takes the form of elite skating, giving skaters something to strive for. To be featured in this type of mag you have to be skilled, proactive and work hard to shoot photos, whoever you may be. Female skating is still playing catch up to a degree (but catching up we are!).
However, to many other skaters, inspiration takes other forms. I think Companion does a brilliant job of filling a gap in the market for a more inclusive and obtainable skate mag. I regularly see friends featured and they always have female contributors, mostly writers. I also love Vague’s art perspective, and I see lots of women featured in their mags through both art and skate features. Unfortunately, I don’t read the other UK mags religiously enough to comment on their usual content, but based on these two examples (unless she elaborated, excluding these mags from her statement), Stef’s comment appears ill-informed.
From my own observations, an increasing number of female skaters are joining our scene, and I’m personally so happy with how this growing scene is being supported by the men around us. However, I do believe it would be beneficial to grow women’s involvement as photographers, writers, editors etc., as well as in other areas of the industry. This would lead to a bigger female influence over our scene without separating it (as I sometimes feel the likes of female-only mags do). From looking back at a collection of recent mags it seems that photography is the area most lacking (maybe due to its inherent inaccessibility) and, although Companion are great at featuring female writers, this isn’t as common in the other mags. I don’t believe that there’s a load of female skate photographers out there, struggling to get their work published due to discrimination - there just aren’t those numbers to begin with.
Maybe it is harder for women to fill these roles due to the intimidation of joining a male-dominated industry? Or maybe it’s because these roles are traditionally filled by more experienced skaters with extensive knowledge of the scene. Personally, I often feel I don’t have enough skate knowledge to contribute, and I was hesitant to post this even. Maybe we don’t have enough women in this category simply because women’s skating is still relatively young and the majority of females in the scene are still busy either shredding or learning to skate (though not to overlook the existing experienced women that are in the industry).
As said earlier, all the current mags were started by people who felt they could offer a unique perspective and a certain amount of initiative and drive is required to do this. And of course it would be great to encourage those passionate within the minorities to learn about skate filming, photography, journalism etc., although I do agree, these roles are often not a viable career path (which is a whole other issue).
You’re right @Dent_Face , this should be an uncontroversial statement, but I think my issue here is that the blame has been misplaced due to over-simplification. The lack of certain minorities within the scene is not something these mags have the magical ability to solve, as the issue is more deeply rooted. All we can expect from them is to use their platforms to reduce the bias, which I think they are already doing. I would imagine they also lack the money and time to invest in encouraging participation. Maybe those with more resources (shoe brands?) could do more to invest in growing diversity within the industry, and not just the scene.
Unfortunately, this debate has given misogynists a free pass in the Instagram comments to personally attack Stef. So in reflection to those gross comments, it’s good to see a healthy discussion in here!
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…and that is how you enter the room.
That was such a solid, coherent first post.
I’m hearing everything you say and I think it all rings so true, from my side. you hit the nail on the head every time in that post.
This bit was kind of a very new contribution to the conversation as a whole (in here).
I think you are totally right in terms of timeline. We all know Shari White is slaying it with videos currently. And Hilda, closer to home. And as time marches on, more and more people will continue to push. I don’t doubt that.
I do think it is all beginning to happen.
Where you mention “female-only mags” - I get you. But maybe that needs to happen in the interim?
I had a conversation with a female friend about the Ladies Night at Bay66. The explanation seemed to be that whilst it was needed to encourage as numbers were minimal and probably still is needed for a while - it should eventually go as there is more and more uptake and the standard raises.
That made sense to me.
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That’s the well balanced perspective (or basically fact) that some of us tried to make but don’t have weight to because we are men and we talk shit too. Even that sounds weirdly misgynistic to say but it’s not meant to be.
I agree with everything you said, really great post and Welcome.
Women are coming up and in droves and it’s ace, the insta boys will always have something to say and it will always be there but as long as people don’t take things to heart and realise it’s the shit talkers issue, the world can move along the right way and the bitter get will get left behind.
Alice Smith raised an interesting point in the Instagram comments that the issue isn’t just about female participation, but keeping those women and non-gender conforming people skating. She felt there’s often a bit of a drop off in participation as people stopped skating. A female-only night seems like a good idea in the sense that it can create a community, network, scene of people who will encourage one another to keep at it.
Strong first post @proskater. And whilst I totally take your point that singling out magazines for blame is simplifying a problem with bigger structural causes, I do think mags have an important role to play in highlighting role models and figures to aspire to. If the people constantly featured in magazines don’t reflect who you are, might a skater be less likely to feel skating is for them and be less attached to it in some way?
In terms of the bigger structural issues, I am sceptical of the sometimes massive claims made for skateboarding’s ability to address wider structural inequality or society’s problems more generally. There is only so much we as skaters can change and impact. Representation in magazines and videos being one of those things. And who knows, if enough women are portrayed as skaters and if enough people see women skating, maybe it will change wider attitudes to women’s participation in sport, being in public space without harassment etc.
Outstanding first post.
Welcome to the forum
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If it wasn’t clear that I felt these nights were a good thing then apologies. But again…doesn’t really matter what I think as its not my night.
Like I say; I wasn’t putting across my original thought there. It was someone elses, conveyed to me. The message I understood was that at some point once participation reaches a good base line number it wouldn’t be needed anymore…which entirely fits with what Alice is saying. This form just appears further down the line.
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Big time. Welcome @proskater - like you may have read earlier up the thread it does get white liberal male ecochamber in here sometimes, so great to have a female voice in this discussion.
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Yeah great post, valued perspective, please stick around!
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Another accidental essay incoming 
Yep, for sure. These minority gender spaces (both media and girls nights) have been born out of necessity, and they absolutely still serve a purpose to some. When I say that they can sometimes separate the scene, I don’t mean to say that this is their intention or fault. I just mean that I would much prefer to see the need for these diminished and everyone occupying (and feeling fairly represented in) the same spaces.
Over the five-ish years I’ve been skating I’ve seen a reduced presence of these platforms. When I started it was the peak of many cities having Insta accounts for their girl crews. This was how I found my first skate community and it was great because we all felt so connected and inspired by each other. Five years on, whilst some are still as active as ever, many seem to have become dormant. I’m hoping this shows they are slowly becoming less needed, I know my personal need for them is now totally gone.
Sometimes I do wonder if there could be more done to integrate these communities into the wider scene. For me, this happened quite naturally but it doesn’t seem as easy for some others.
For example, since RWTG disbanded in Leeds, a surprising amount of those who were regular to their events seem to have dropped off the scene. Since then I have not seen as many of them out skating, at events, knocking about in Welcome or even posting clips on Instagram. I wonder if they feel their community has vanished and have therefore stopped skating? Of course just because I don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t still about, they could be religiously attending girls nights for all I know. But if they are still skating it seems a shame that we are missing what they could bring to our scene and that they’re missing what the scene could offer them in return.
I have always preferred initiatives that focus on nurturing safe spaces for minorities but that also welcome allies to join. For me, this creates a positive, yet wider community for these skaters that would hopefully help put them at ease in their local scene too. Harry Meadley’s Civic Skateboarding event in Leeds last summer was a great example of this. The events were for everyone and were well attended by a diverse crowd. Harry enlisted minority-gender locals to co-curate his event, roles included skate coaching, filming, graphic design and exhibition curation. He paid them with council funding and supported them the whole way through. Read about it here: https://harrymeadley.studio/
I would personally love to see more initiatives of this style. I know I am quite lucky to have never felt particularly unsafe in skating but this isn’t the same for all, so nurturing these communities is all the more important to some. And for this reason, even though I’ve benefitted from them, maybe I’m not the best person to talk about the importance of minority gender spaces or the form they should ideally take…
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