For The Win

Skateboarding legend and all-round rebel girl icon CINDY WHITEHEAD has started a movement to encourage female skateboarders with her new book. She tells us how the extreme sport is helping empower women in India.

It’s the 1970s. I’m one of the only girls at my local skatepark. I come armed, my headphones taped to my helmet when skating the half-pipe, drowning out the boys heckling my game with comments that range from “You belong in the kitchen” to “You skate pretty well, for a GIRL.” Instead, rocker Joan Jett is singing in my ears. She’s telling me that I can be any kind of girl I want to be.

Jett gave me the confidence to skate through (and in spite of) the “boys club.” Back then, female skaters were only spotted at pro contests, a tiny picture or two in a skateboarding magazine. But it was empowering to know that there were other girls out there making their mark in skateboarding, just as I was.

Thirty-plus years later, we were still hidden, even forgotten to some extent. We needed a voice and visibility, so in 2013, I created the movement ‘Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word’ and last year we published our first hardback book, It’s Not About Pretty: A Book About Radical Skater Girls—both were meant to show the world what the new generation of female skaters is accomplishing. Thankfully, the scene has evolved in the last few years, and girls are making huge strides to break down those age-old stereotypes that had made skating a gendered domain.

LAUNCH RAMP