Women Get Fair Chance on Slopes
It seems all eyes turned this season to female snowboarders: the media, ski resorts and snowboard companies--many with dollar signs in their sights.
Ski Industries of America reports that nearly one in four snowboarders is female--and that number is climbing. Women are the fastest growing segment of a fast growing sport. (Nearly half of all snowboard rentals--a good indication of first-timers--go to women.)
Three-fourths of the riders are younger than 24.
The prevailing wisdom says snowboarding is hard to learn but easy to master. (Tell that to any one of the 26,000 people who reported snowboarding-related injuries last season.)
It doesn’t require a lot of upper-body strength. It does require strong legs. And it requires flow and grace.
“It’s a lot easier than skiing,” says 21-year-old UCLA senior Angelyn Wong, before pointing her board down the freestyle park at Snow Summit.
“You can learn to snowboard and do fairly well after three or four days,” says an editor at Freeride snowboard magazine. “And it doesn’t require jumping into cold water or wearing rubber, which surfing requires.”
There’s also a social scene, which some women say has been more accepting because the sport is the product of a new generation of athletes and a new generation of thinking.
“There’s been a lot of discrimination for women who get into surfing or skateboarding, which are male-dominated,” says Cristin Englis of Irvine, organizer of an annual female snowboarder convention, the Gathering of the Goddesses. “Snowboarding is new enough that there’s not really that discrimination.”
“People in that generation were raised with the idea that men’s and women’s sports will be equal,” says a spokeswoman for SIA. “I don’t know a lot of snowboarding women who want to be snow bunnies. They’re out there busting big air with the guys.”
Says Englis: “Girls do it for the same reasons as the guys: It’s fun.”
Women have been in the sport since the Sno-Surfer started it all back in 1964. In snowboarding’s more formative years, in 1985, Beverly Sanders co-founded Avalanche, one of the first companies to manufacture snowboards exclusively. Today, with snowboarding poised to become an Olympic event, women compete in all categories, up to the highest skill levels.
Big money beckons riders who need sponsors--even women who want to turn pro. Pro sponsors include Burton, Simms and K2 snowboards, as well as Levi’s and Pepsi. Companies see a growing market of nearly 500,000 female snowboarders and an even bigger market of women who want to buy slope-inspired fashions.
Which brings up an age-old problem that snowboarding women seem to be battling better than female athletes of the past:
“You see men in ads, and they’re riding,” says Amy Nation, co-publisher of Freeride. “You see women, and they’re posing. The objectification of women is a huge issue. It’s really important that women are portrayed as riders and not just fashion victims.”
Up on Snow Summit, victims they’re not. Girl after girl bombs the mountain with abandon. Life is good. As far as the eye can see, the only sore spot is the lift line--sure to get longer.
