Jibbing the gender order: Females in the snowboarding culture [1]

Sport in Society

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 76-100

  Thorpe, Holly ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 32044434669     PISSN: 17430437     EISSN: 17430445     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1743043052000316632     Document Type: Article

References (126)

1. Jibbing: A playful sub-style of freestyle snowboarding that uses all kinds of obstacles such as trees, stumps, rails, etc. Jibbing can also be synonymous with 'goofing around' on a snowboard; doing small technical tricks in a playful manner. More recently 'jibbing' has come to symbolize the adoption of the 'new school style' of aggressive snowboarding on rails and jumps. Boarders are continually creating new manoeuvres on these obstacles.
2. Having spent eight consecutive winters snowboarding in New Zealand and North America, I am a cultural insider. But my knowledge and understanding of the culture was initially tacit rather than clearly articulated or theoretical. Thus, driven by an innate sense of curiosity in my immediate world, I set out to gain a deeper understanding of snowboarding culture.
3. Michael Messner and Donald Sabo, 'Toward a Critical Feminist Reappraisal of Sport, Men, and the Gender Order', in Michael Messner and Donald Sabo (eds), Sport, Men and the Gender Order (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Books, 1990), p.9.
4. Michael Messner, Taking the Field: Women, Men and Sports (London: Minnesota Press, 2002), p.81.
5. Laura Robinson, Black Tights: Women, Sport and Sexuality (Toronto, Canada: Harper Collins, 2002), p.4.
6. Duncan Humphreys, 'Selling Out Snowboarding: The Alternative Response to Commercial Co-optation', in Robert Rinehart and Synthia Sydnor (eds), To The Extreme: Alternative Sports, Inside and Out (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), p.407.
7. Messner, Taking The Field, p.82.
8. To increase the likelihood that the phenomenon of the female snowboarder was being understood from various points of view and ways of knowing I utilized multiple methods of data collection. Documentary and visual sources, combined with participant observation, provide the empirical evidence upon which much of this study is based. Snowboard magazines and websites have been an important source for this study, encompassing as they do dominant ideas, statements and knowledge at specific junctures in snowboard culture. Previous cultural experience enabled me to complete a participant observation phase focused on a snowboarding community centred in Queenstown, New Zealand, over three months. Observations were made in natural settings both on and off the snow, including lift lines, chair lifts, resort lodges, snowboard competitions, prize givings, bars, cafes, local hangouts and snowboard shops. The main aim of the participant observation phase was to refine and develop the analytical themes that had emerged in the study of documentary and visual sources, as well as potentially to produce new areas of inquiry.
9. Kathleen Hughes, 'Surfboarding Shifts to the Ski Slopes and Cultures Clash: Snowboarders and Their Garb (plus their agile antics) Irk the Conservative Skiers', The Wall Street Journal, http://www.global.factiva.com/en/ arch/display.asp (22 March 1988).
10. The first generation includes pioneers such as Julie Zell and Greta Gaines.
11. Sponsorship involves an exchange of goods and services, in which the manufacturer or retailer supplies a select group of snowboarders with free equipment, clothing, stickers etc. Sponsored snowboarders are required to represent their companies; whether this is in competitions, films or magazines is not standardized.
12. Among their number were Barrett Christy, Tara Dakides, Shannon Dunn and Cara Beth Burnside. These women remain dominant figures within the current snowboarding culture and are renowned for their aggressive styles of snowboarding and for 'narrowing the gender gap'.
13. Current 'up and comers' include Hannah Teter, Kelly Clarke and Torah Bright.
14. Lorien Warner, 'The Changing Market Place: Part One', Transworld Snowboarding, http:// www.transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/snowbiz/article (22 Feb. 2000).
15. Warner, 'The Changing Market Place', and Sean O'Brien, 'Resort Survey', Transworld Snowboarding, http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/snowbiz/ article/0,13009, 244432,00.html (28 Feb. 2000). Statistics from the third annual Snowboarding Business/National Ski Areas Association End-Of-Season Resort Survey. Data also from the Dain Bosworth 1997 Snowboard Industry Report and the 1998 Snow Sports Industries of America (SIA) Retail Audit. SnowSports Industries America (SIA) is the national, not-for-profit, member-owned trade association that represents snow and winter sports outdoor companies. SIA produces more than a dozen industry research studies annually.
16. 'Cold As Ice' provides clothing and accessories for female borders, http://www.caibrands.com
17. Nancy Coulter-Parker,'Going Over Board', Women's Sport and Fitness, 19, 8 (1 Oct. 1997), p.56.
18. Leanne Stedman, 'From Gidget to Gonad Man: Surfers, Feminists and Postmodernisation', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sport, 33, 1 (1997), 75-90;
19. Douglas Booth, 'From Bikinis to Boardshorts: Wahines and the Paradoxes of the Surfing Culture', Journal of Sport History, 28, 1 (2002), 3-22;
20. Becky Beal, 'Skateboarding, An Alternative to Mainstream Sports', in Jay Coakley and Peter Donnelly (eds), Inside Sports (London: Routledge, 1999), pp.139-45.
21. Tara Dakides, nicknamed the Terrorizer, fundamentally changed women's snowboarding at the Big Air finals at the 1998 Vans Triple Crown competition at Breckenridge (Colorado) with her revolutionary back-flip, a trick no woman had attempted in competition. She has played a significant role in altering the perceptions that female riders were less capable than their male counterparts. As one fan explains 'your riding destroys all preconceived notions and inspires a playing field devoid of gender separation'. In Jardine Hammond, 'Hot Seat With Tara Dakides', Transworld Snowboarding, http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/ snow/ snowboard_life/article (20 Oct. 2000).
22. Barrett Christy has been a professional snowboarder for 15 years. She features in the Guinness Book of World Records as the holder of more X Games medals than any other athlete. She has her own signature manoeuvre, the Barrett Roll and she designs boards for GNU. Barrett has her own action figure with X Toys, a name character in multiple video games, and became the first athlete ever to have a Nike All Conditions Gear (ACG) signature shoe line designed in her name.
23. Cara Beth Burnside has pushed the gender barriers for herself and the next cohort of female board-riders. Not only has she won numerous medals from the X Games and been an Olympian, she is also a co-owner of Chorus Snowboards. Burnside has utilized the exposure gained through her snowboarding career and has put her energy into developing a similar 'positive' female movement in skateboarding. In 1997 she helped organize and promote the first All Girls Skate Jam, which has become an annual event and paved the way for the next generation of female skaters.
24. Tina Basich, in Kathleen Gasperini, 'The First Time: A Girls' Guide', Transworld Snowboarding, http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/instruction/ article (22 Nov. 2002).
25. Susanna Howe, (Sick) A Cultural History of Snowboarding (New York: St Martin's Griffin, 1998), p.121.
26. Boarding For Breast Cancer (B4BC) is a non-profit, youth-focused education, awareness, and fundraising foundation. Their mission is to increase awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection among today's youth. For more information visit: http://www. b4bc.org
27. 'New Story and Photos from P-Jamma Party!' Shannondunnsnow.com, http://www. shannondunnsnow.com/home.html (May 2003).
28. Shanti Sosienski, 'The Herstory of Snowboards', Transworld Snowboarding, http://www. transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/snowbiz/article/0,13009,246640,00. html (1 Oct. 1995).
29. Georell Bracelin, marketing director of Chorus, in Robyn Hakes, 'Women's Market Heats Up', EXPN.com, http://expn.go.com/snb/s/010323_womens_mkt.html (23 Mar. 2001).
30. Roberta Rodger, in Anni Layne Rodgers, 'Carving Out a Niche', Fast Company, http://fastcompany.com/articles/2001/12/chorus.html (Dec 2001).
31. Beal, 'Skateboarding: An Alternative to Mainstream Sports',
32. Booth, 'From Bikinis to Boardshorts',
33. Steadman, 'From Gidget to Gonad Man: Surfers, Feminists and Post Feminism'.
34. Winter X Games 2000 attracted an estimated 201,000 spectators and was viewed on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC-TV to combine 25 hours of original coverage to the 8.2 million cable subscribers.
35. Robert Connell, Gender and Power (Stanford: Stanford University, 1987).
36. Margaret Duncan and Michael Messner, 'The Media Image of Sport and Gender', in Lawrence Wenner (ed.), Media Sport (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 180.
37. 'Tara-bly dangerous', EXPN.com, http://expn.go.com/xgames/wxg/2001 (19 Dec. 2000).
38. Connell, Gender and Power, pp.98-9.
39. Robert Stebbins, Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure (Montreal, London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992).
40. Belinda Wheaton, 'Windsurfing', in Robert Rinehart and Synthia Sydnor (eds), To The Extreme: Alternative Sports, Inside and Out (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), pp.75-101.
41. Belinda Wheaton, '"Just Do It": Consumption, Commitment and Identity in the Windsurfing Subculture', Sociology of Sport Journal, 17, 3 (2000), 254-71.
42. Mark Stranger, 'Risk Taking and Postmodernity: Commodification and the Ecstatic in Leisure Lifestyles: The Case of Surfing' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Tasmania, 2001).
43. Duncan and Messner, 'The Media Image of Sport and Gender', p.180.
44. Anni Layne Rodgers, 'Carving Out a Niche', http://www.fastcompany.com/ articles/2001/12/ chorus.html (Dec. 2001).
45. Coulter-Parker, 'Going over board'.
46. Snowboarding organizations include the International Snowboard Federation (ISF), the International Ski Federation (FIS), the International Judging Committee (IJC), and the Professional Snowboarders Association (PSA).
47. Coulter-Parker, 'Going over board'.
48. Gretchen Bleiler in Sherowski, 'Women On The Verge', p.152.
49. Within this core group of female riders various other identities exist. There are those who prefer the half pipe, 'jibbers' who ride terrain parks on jumps and rails; other females prefer big mountain riding which may involve dropping off rocks, riding down chutes and 'steep and deep' snowboarding in powder and possibly amongst trees.
50. Connell, Gender and Power, p. 183.
51. Connell, Gender and Power, Ibid., pp. 183-4.
52. Jenni Cambell, 'Girls and Snowboarding', boardpass.com, http://www.boardpas.com/search/ snownews/replies.asp?IDCODE = 829&MainCode = 703 (28 March 2003).
53. Gary Whannel, Media Sports Stars: Masculinities and Moralities (London: Routledge, 2002), p.224.
54. For a critique of functionalism see Grant Jarvie and Joseph Macguire, Sport and Leisure in Social Thought (London: Routledge, 1994), pp.5-28.
55. Howard Nixon and James Frey, A Sociology of Sport (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1996), p.80.
56. Kenneth Shropshire, 'Race, Youth, Athletes and Role Models', in Margaret Gatz, Michael Messner and Sandra Ball-Rokeach (eds), Paradoxes of Youth and Sport (New York: State University of New York Press, 2002), p. 139.
57. Jennifer Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport: The Politics of Difference and Identity (London: Routledge, 2000), p.5.
58. Greg Johnston, 'Giving Her the Edge: Women's Skis and Snowboards Are Finally Getting Some Oomph', Seattle Post, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ getaways/43990_skis25.shtml (25 Oct. 2001).
59. Johnston, 'Giving Her the Edge'.
60. 'The 2003 Buyers Guide', New Zealand Snowboarder, May/June 2003, 84-104.
61. Becky Beal and Lisa Weidman, 'Authenticity in the Skateboarding World', in Robert Rinehart and Synthia Sydnor (eds), To the Extreme: Alternative Sports, Inside and Out (Albany: State University of New York, 2003), pp.337-52.
62. 'Wouldn't You Like to be a Goddess Too?' Transworld Snowboarding http://www. transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/snowbiz/article/0,13009,244149,00. html (28 April 2000).
63. Kathleen Gasperini, 'Board it and they will come', Times Mirror Magazine, 21, 5 http://global. factiva.com/en/arch/display.asp (1997).
64. Michael Messner, Taking The Field: Women, Men and Sports (London: Minnesota Press, 2002), p.65.
65. Kristin Anderson, 'Snowboarding: The Construction of Gender in an Emerging Sport', Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 23, 1 (1999), p.73.
66. Ste'en Webster, 'Pamela Bell interview', New Zealand Snowboarder, July/Aug. 1996, 42-4 and 84.
67. Melissa Larsen, 'Torah Bright interview', SGMAG.COM Snow, http://sgmag.com/snow/bright/ index1.html
68. Melissa Larsen, 'Torah Bright interview', SGMAG.COM Snow, Ibid. http://sgmag.com/snow/bright/ index1.html
69. Hansl Prosl, 'Interview with Barrett Christy', MountainZone.com, http://classic. mountainzone.com/snowboarding/99/features/barrett (1999).
70. Press Release, '$100,000 Bud Light boarder battle at Copper Mountain Resort', Transworld Snowboarding, http://www.transworldsnowboarding. com/snow/competition/article/0,13009, 246247,00.html (11 Dec. 1997).
71. 'The Pulsate Wanaka Big Air', New Zealand Snowboarder, (Sept. 1999), p.49.
72. 'The Pulsate Wanaka Big Air', New Zealand Snowboarder, Ibid. p.49.
73. Robert Connell, Masculinities: Knowledge, Power, and Social Change (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), p.54.
74. Robert Connell, Masculinities: Knowledge, Power, and Social Change, Ibid. (1995), p.54.
75. James Gillett and Phillip White, 'Male Bodybuilding and the Reassertation of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critical Feminist Perspective', Play and Culture, 5, 4 (1992), 363.
76. Robert Morford and Stanley Clarke, 'The Agon Motif', in Jack Keogh and Robert Hutton (eds), Exercise and Sports Science Reviews, 4 (1976), 167-8.
77. Kevin Young, William McTeer and Phillip White, 'Body Talk: Male Athletes Reflect on Sport, Injury and Pain', Sociology of Sport Journal, 11, 2 (1994), 175-94.
78. Michael Messner, 'When Bodies are Weapons: Masculinity and Violence in Sport', International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 25, 3 (1990), 203-20.
79. Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities and Cultural Politics (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1993), pp.175-96.
80. Anderson, 'The Construction of Gender in an Emerging Sport', p.64.
81. 'Surplus', Transworld Snowboarding, April 2003, 60.
82. Jennifer Sherowski, 'Don't be a Hero, a Tour of Duty in Big Sky Territory', Transworld Snowboarding, Dec. 2002, 126-33.
83. 'Coming Next', Transworld Snowboarding, Sept. 2002, 250,
84. and Jennifer Sherowski, 'Fresh Kill: Early Season Slaughter in the Land of Shred', Transworld Snowboarding, April 2003, 120.
85. Sue Curry Jansen and Don Sabo, 'The Sport/War Metaphor: Hegemonic Masculinity, the Persian Gulf War, and the New World Order', Sociology of Sport Journal, 11, 1 (1994), 12.
86. Pierre Bourdieu cited in Richard Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu, revised edition (London: Routledge, 2002), 104.
87. Howard Nixon, 'Accepting the Risks of Pain and Injury in Sport', Sociology of Sport Journal, 10, 2 (1993), 183-96.
88. Joe Dubbert, cited in Young, McTeer and White, 'Body Talk', 177.
89. 'Launch', Transworld Snowboarding, Dec. 2002, 10.
90. Young, McTeer and White, 'Body Talk', 175-94.
91. Young, McTeer and White, 'Body Talk' Ibid., 176.
92. A slam section is a section of Snowboarding crashes and injuries, similar to many skateboard and surf videos.
93. For an example of the media focus towards male riders injuries see 'Broken Off: Five Wicked Wipe-outs', a feature article in the Dec. 2002 Transworld Snowboarding. This section includes a sequence of photos of male riders crashing, pp.168-78.
94. 'Broken Off: Five Wicked Wipe-outs' 2002 Transworld Snowboarding Ibid. pp.168-78.
95. Helen Lenskyj, cited in Young, McTeer and White, 'Body Talk', 178.
96. 'Broken Off'.
97. Gabe Taylor after rupturing his spleen during a Snowboarding competition at Snow Summit, California. 'Take one for the team', Transworld Snowboarding, Sept. 2002, 132-3.
98. Kale Stephens, Transworld Snowboarding, April 2003, 48.
99. 'Action Figures: The Girls of Extreme Sports', Maximonline, http://www.maximonline.com/ sports/girls_of_extreme_sports/dakides.html
100. Janice Kaplan, cited in Young, McTeer and White, 'Body Talk', 178.
101. Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu, 104.
102. Bob Connell, cited in Michael Messner, Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), p.150 (emphasis in original text).
103. Jennifer Hargreaves, Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sports (London: Routledge, 1994), p.27.
104. Messner and Sabo, 'Toward a Critical Feminist Reappraisal', p.9.
105. Michael Messner, 'Sports and Male Domination: The Female Athlete as Contested Ideological Terrain', Sociology of Sport Journal, 5, 3 (1988), 197-211.
106. Messner, Taking The Field, p.84.
107. The sport-media-commercial complex has responded to female snowboarders in several important ways: by reducing the number of scantily clad models used to sell snowboard products, and by increasing representations of female snowboarders in both gender neutral and skill photos.
108. Robin Hakes, 'Ladies Room: Insight Into the Female Mind', Transworld Snowboarding, http:// www.transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/snowboard_life/ article/0,13009,243647,00.html (28 April 2000).
109. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, p.29.
110. Rosemary Tong, Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder: Westview, 1989), p.38.
111. 'Women's Snowboarding: Bigger, Tougher Stunts: 2002 Winter Olympic News', KSLTV, http://2002.ksl.com/news-3056i.php
112. Jennifer Hargreaves, 'Where's the Virtue? Where's the Grace? A Discussion of the Social Production of Gender Relations through Sport', Theory, Culture & Society, 3, 1 (1986), 117.
113. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, pp.25-38.
114. John Loy, 'The Dark Side of Agon: Fratriarchies, Performative Masculinities, Sport Involvement and the Phenomenon of Gang Rape', in Karl-Heinrich Bette and Alfred Rutten (eds), International Sociology of Span Contemporary Issues: Festschrift in Honour of Gunther Luschen (Stuttgart: Naglschmid, 1995), pp.263-82.
115. Webster, 'Pamela Bell Interview', 42-4 and 84.
116. Loy, 'The Dark Side of Agon', pp.263-82.
117. Treble Cone, Wanaka. New Zealand Snowboarder, July/Aug. 2003.
118. Mark Stranger, cited in Booth, 'From Bikinis to Boardshorts', 7.
119. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, p.31.
120. The first annual Queen of the Mountain snowboard contest was held on 22 February 2003 at Mountain High Resort (California); female athletes competed for US$10,000 in prize money.
121. In 1994 the Gathering of the Goddesses brought together female pioneers in the Snowboarding industry. Now an annual event, the gathering is the premier networking event, inspiring and empowering women in action sports, fashion and music industries.
122. Messner, Taking The Field, p.11.
123. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, p.29.
124. Messner, Taking The Field, p.26.
125. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, p.229.
126. Zillah Eisenstein, The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981).