When you start a project like this collage #girlscanskate USA you’re never sure where it will take you. You can be faced with some rejection, however, it’s worth it for the friends you end up making.
Ashley shares these pictures and below her skate story.
The mission of the Indy Broad Squad is to connect with other girls in the Indy scene…to create a sisterhood where girls can learn from each other, not compete with each other. There’s a handful of us, and we all have our own style, our own backgrounds, our own moxy, and the true love of skateboarding. We invite all girls to vibe off our mojo and join us as we grow with our passion and skill.
Ashley’s Story
I got into skateboarding when I was in middle school. I had always been kind of tomboyish and when my brother started skateboarding I immediately took interest in it too. When I stopped following my dork of a brother around and made my own friends, I ventured outside of the tennis court by my house to actual skateparks around indy.
I think it was my freshman or sophomore year of high school that I went into a park carrying my skateboard and the first thing some little shit head kid said to me was “do you actually skateboard?” in the most sarcastic tone I had ever heard.
I honestly never understood why it was so hard for dudes to encourage girls to skate rather than doubt they even have the ability. The older I got the more I realized this had a lot to do with age, maturity and competitiveness of little boys. I also realized that outside of skateboarding (because I didn’t know other girls that skated), no matter how old a girl was she was still competitive with other girls. Whether it be with beauty, weight, status, or stability.
I have always loved skateboarding because I didn’t have to compete with anyone, I wasn’t on a team that lost or won. But above everything else, skateboarding would always be there for me. It wasn’t some dude who would dump me or some girl who would stab me in the back. Good or bad times, skateboarding would never leave me.
A few years ago I came to the conclusion that there had to be other females around this town that had the same passion about skateboarding that I did. So I created a ‘Girls Who Skate Indy’ Facebook group so that I could hopefully connect with them and then eventually they could also connect with each other. Every time I saw a girl at the park I didn’t know, I told her about it. Now we use the group to let everyone know where we will be skating and when so if any others want to join they can.
If there was one place I could find girl friends who didn’t constantly think they were better than me, it was within skateboarding. And I definitely have.
Photo credit: Nick Traycoff
Park: Major Taylor Skatepark
Park: Major Taylor Skatepark