Skater Stefani Nurding Talks Theresa May, Women’s Skateboarding, and Glitter

VICE Sports: Hi Stefani. As a female skater in the limelight, what duties do you have towards the scene?

STEFANI: I think it is important to be present and to be seen with the other women in the scene; I think that’s really positive for younger girls to see. When people say ignorant stuff to me I don’t want to have a conflict with them, I want to actually speak to people and have conversations that are going to make a difference to how the scene is in the future.

What aspects of skateboarding exclude females?

A lot of the events don’t even have a women’s category or don’t invite female riders to compete in the mixed category, so this directly excludes women. Some brands and events still have things where the only females present are there to give out the trophies, and I just think this portrays women in a strange light – like, yeah they are beautiful, but so what? What message is that to a young girl watching? That her place is to hand over a freakin’ trophy and look nice? Not cool.

Why do you cover things in glitter?

I love glitter and so at first it was just because I wanted to glitter things. I then realised that it annoyed people who had decided that glitter was ‘girly’. Some people even like to call it ‘metal flake’ to pretend that they aren’t loving glitter!

It struck me that, along with a few other things, glitter is seen as feminine. It made me realise that femininity and these things that have become symbols for it didn’t have much of a place in the skateboard world.

Are you voting on Thursday?

I am going to vote Labour. I feel concerned about May’s attitudes towards female reproductive rights, and also towards immigration.

I feel like, being from a working-class background, I can see why people get fed up and want to vote Conservative, because you can see first-hand how some people do abuse the system and if you work your butt off that can be really frustrating. I think we all need to see the bigger picture at the moment.

I go to America a lot and I personally would really hate to see more people homeless and having mental health problems here in the UK like there seems to be a massive problem with there, and I wholeheartedly support immigration and people being able to get asylum easily.

Everything that is happening at the moment is really sad and really scary, but I think that we shouldn’t let this scare us into voting for the wrong person.

What’s good about skating in 2017?

Everyone is so connected because of the internet. It is amazing to be able to make friends in a different city and find out about events happening easily. I have met a lot of great people through skating and I think that meeting people is really the best part about it. Also, the slams can be funny and scaring yourself is cool, too. Instagram has been brilliant for the visibility of females.

@darylmersom