Jona+and+Hunter

**[|Few and Far]**

This article is about the skateboarding industry not supporting extremely talented women in skateboarding. Despite the Action Sports Alliance’s effort towards gender equality in action sports, ESPN is moving backwards in their approach to women in sports. Disabling women to compete on the national stage, regardless the fact that women are "physically built differently and have it hard enough with all other aspects in life". Despite their expansion into a tour this year, ESPN is cutting women’s divisions out of the X-Games. And have recently decided to take women’s vert and park events out of the upcoming X-Games 17, causing a huge buzz in the skateboarding world.
 * Abstract:**

This article is completely accurate. It clearly depicts what is currently going on in the skateboarding industry. I was really disappointed when I found out that women's skateboarding was taken out of the X games. That was the year I was planning on entering. Before I could even get on the list, one of my team managers told me that there wouldn't be a women's division at all. It was a major setback in women's skateboarding. Being backed by such an influential competition was crucial for success in the industry. Without it a lot of us women competitors felt helpless. Women's skateboarding has grown so much over the years and more and more companies are getting involved to expand this sector of skateboarding. All the girls who worked so hard training for this competition were left behind. I realize that maybe X games didn't have enough money to fund the women's division but that's a poor excuse to rely on. The efforts to change and get back what we had are increasing. Hopefully in this next X games the women's division will be reinstated. I thought that this article is a bit disturbing because women should have just as much publicity as men do, even though their styles in skateboarding are different. In the sense that women just can't do some tricks men can, vesa versa. I also think that by not allowing women to receive attention from the media, girls begin to think that skateboarding is a man only sport and that they shouldn't skateboard. However, this shouldn't be the case and the Action Sports Alliance along with ESPN should do a better job promoting women's sports to not only entertain but inspire as well.
 * Hunter's Response:**
 * Jona's Response:**