Sexing the Political: A Journal of Third Wave Feminists on Sexuality : Note to Self: Grinding the Concrete (Third) Wave

Volume One Number Two, June 2001

Note to Self
Grinding the Concrete (Third) Wave
Shauna Pomerantz

So. I’m walking down the street not too long ago and I hear the familiar sound of polyurethane on concrete. A skateboarder is approaching. I don’t even turn to look because I know he’ll be zipping past me momentarily. And I’m already envious because where I came from (suburban Toronto) girls didn’t carve or grind. It just wasn’t part of our cultural repertoire. But in the 70s and 80s, girls didn’t do half the stuff they do today. Though, I did collect Smurf puffy stickers. And that was something.

When the soft wind of the skater grazes me, I turn slightly to catch a look at the little hooligan in his hoodie and X-large baggy pants. I’m already preparing myself for the yearning. But I had no idea how much yearning there would be. The shred dog I’m anticipating turns out to be a Backside Betty. It’s a girl. And she’s the coolest girl I’ve ever seen. Betty is probably about 16. She’s got dark, braided hair, a black tank top, and khaki pants. Her legs are spread in a generous gait and her arms are hanging loose by her sides. And then she’s gone, daddy, gone.

Now maybe where you live you see this illusive sub/urban sight on a regular basis. But as far as I’m concerned, this was something akin to spotting the Loch Ness monster or Elvis at the 7-11. And here I had just gotten over the ecstasy of seeing two music videos that featured skaterchicks: Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” and Pink’s “Get the Party Started.” How much yearning can a girl take?

Once Betty passed me by in a puff of skater smoke, I had to ask myself why there are so few girl skaters out there? Isn’t this the era of girls who rule, rock, and kick ass? Aren’t grown women embracing a girly ethos because of how exhilarating girlhood is these days? Aren’t we all wearing powerpuff t-shirts just to grab us a taste of female youth?

And then it occurred to me that you just don’t hear much about this kind of girl culture – the everyday kind, where girls are living an embodied and implicit kind of feminism. Oh sure, we hear a lot about girls involved in the third wave triumvirate: zines/cyberspace/music. And certainly, girls who produce cultural artefacts are engaged in a kind of feminist agency that is important and worthy of discussion. But hey, it’s not the only brand of youth feminist culture on the block.

You don’t have to make or create culture in order to be political. Girls on skateboards are knowingly and deliberately engaging in a sport that has been dominated by men and boys since its conception in 1960s’ Californian surf culture. The sexism of skateboarding is easily observed from the (sub)text of any girl skater website: frontsidebetty.com, withitgirl.com, and a handful of other sk8ergirl sanctuaries are rooted in both how-to tips and anti-sexist rejoinders for girls who take verbal beatings at the skate park. “Keep at it!” “Don’t let the guys get you down!” “Skaterchicks unite!” “We need more girls out there!” This kind of feminist flavouring only comes from having been consistently and rigorously chided by guys doing kickflips in your face and hollering catcalls from the half-pipe. Not to mention that shred dog territory also necessitates a transgressive bodily comportment for girls. Skaters get hurt. They fly, jump, and grind. And though girls are absolutely capable of this kind of motility, they aren’t always taught they can or should engage in such typically “masculine” or “un-lady-like” posture.

Girl skateboarders are the perfect example of an implicit feminist politics that may slip under third wave’s radar. And while it is easy to get caught up in the thrill of scene-makers, let’s fact it – the Riot Grrrl movement of the early 1990s has been done to death. Third wave feminism may now want to turn its attention to a different kind of feminist politics, the kind that is not so obvious or observable. In so doing, third wave has the potential to expand on all the possible ways in which girls can begin to think about themselves as powerful, political, and part of the process of change. Why should all the youthful feminist glory be reserved for girls who play in a band? Plus, girls on skateboards are so darn cool. It’s just an incontrovertible fact.

Note to Self: Borrow some kid’s skateboard and try riding a few concrete waves. Just once. Just to say I’ve done it. And then, when no one is looking, attempt to ollie; just a little ollie, mind you. There’s no need to get crazy or anything…

Each issue Shauna will explore the ways in which young women are depicted in the realm of the popular, from tv to film to videos to computer animation, etc. She will explore less talked-about representations of young women. While Buffy, Xena, and Sabrina are all intriguing personalities, her goal would be to explore some of the less obvious, more subtle portrayals of twenty- and thirty-something women.

Shauna Pomerantz has been a columnist for Fredericton's The Daily Gleaner, a city paper with a circulaiton of about 40,000. Her column, entitled "Minimum Rage," was dedicated to issues of popular culture, feminism and youth culture as it related to Generation X. She is a thirty-year old PhD student, living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her research is in the fields of education, sociology, and feminist theory.