ARE EXTREME SPORTS MEN’S JOB?

X Games is a competition which brings together hundreds of professional athletes to participate in alternative or “extreme” sports. Although the crowd is a mix of all genders, one thing is clear: the extreme sport world is essentially a man’s world. Well, almost. There are women competing in three of the six X Game categories: speed climbing, wakeboarding and in-line skating, but not many. Even if women were allowed to compete in the most popular alternative sports at the X Games, female athletes wouldn’t make enough prize money to support themselves. Another example is that at one of the Xbox World Championship of Skateboarding, the top three male street skaters took home a total of $34,000, while the top three of other gender took home $3,600.

Most of the top male professionals in extreme sports are on a salary from their sponsors and are given large prizes. When a young woman is “sponsored”, however, it often just means free clothes, riding equipment and promotional materials. Part of the problem may be that extreme sports, like mainstream sports, are driven by big business. If the industry doesn’t expect a large enough audience – a base of consumers to buy the products like magazines, T-shirts and professional videos, not to mention the tickets to see the girls compete in the first place – they don’t think it is worth supporting the athletes.

Like most arenas, the extreme sports world has its share of objectification. Some female athletes say they are judged based on how they look and whom they know instead of their athletic ability. The good news is some women are taking things into their own hands. Some of them who were dissatisfied with the options for women’s athletic clothes decided to start their own company. A surfing and snowboarding clothing company for women. They say that men were cashing in on clothing that wasn’t practical for women, and wanted to change that.

Women like these are slowly but surely breaking into the world of extreme sports, a world where men have long dominated. When they are not allowed into large-scale competitions, they organize their own. The more of an audience they build, the more likely it will be that, sooner or later, even the X games will have to make a place for women in all their competitions.