Emma Shoesmith is a tow-headed, Brit firecracker who is currently living
in London and studying at the University of Westminster. She has an infectious sense of humor, a deep-seated passion for action sports, and a refreshing vision on how to creatively package a critical perspective of women’s (under)representation and inequality in board and action sports.
This is Board of Media!
The Board of Media (BOM) project aims to investigate and challenge media representations, gender inequality, and everyday sexism in boardsports culture. The BOM project will also highlight the individuals who are changing the status quo through DIY initiatives, non-profit organizations, and education initiatives in media literacy. BOM aims to do this through a broad campaign platform that includes a short documentary, a marketing campaign, a website, and an app. Check out the BOM documentary trailer:
I met Emma while in the South of France this past September for the Women in Board and Action Sports conference, which is usually held high up in the gorgeous Swiss Alps, in a little village called Saas Fee. WIB is “[a]n organization devoted to supporting, educating and inspiring women in the board and action sports industry.” It was founded by Carmela Fleury and Daniela Meyer, in order to foster opportunities for women engaged at every level of the board and action sports industry, “to network, share resources, and inspire each other to progress in work and life.”
The intimate, retreat-like environment graciously and lovingly created by the WIB organizers, allowed ample opportunity to get to know Emma and her journey to BOM.
Roger Shoesmith, Emma’s father, started her off in organized sports through a gymnastics club at the age of seven. Says Emma, “I fell in love with the team spirit and the ability to better oneself in something other than academia. As a dyslexic and dyspraxic student, sport has always been an important part of my life. It was a place that I could show and be proud of my skills, and it taught me how to fall and get back up again.”
Emma flirted with team sports, but found herself drawn back to boardsports, which she had been practicing since she was six. She was attracted to the “the individual factor” and “the freedom of creative autonomy” of boardsports. As she explained to me in a recent Skype conversation, “you can add your own stamp, your own style, and your personal creativity while participating in action sports versus traditional team sports, like netball.”
Despite this emphasis on individuality in action sports, Emma 
underscores the deep sense of community that she has fostered in these environments: “[with] each turn made, jump landed or event attended, and by surrounding myself with other positive and creative thinkers who share the same passion for sport as myself, I am enriching my body, mind and soul; I am building relationships that are strong, supportive and nonjudgmental.”
In addition, Emma believes “that participation in actions sports can teach key life skills. For example, risk assessment, focus, resilience, perseverance and balance, not only in the physical sense but in the compartmentalizing of work/life or work/play balance, as I like to call it.”
“Our utopia is to see more female action sports athletes in the Mainstream media. It is by coming together and having a great support network that we believe will give us the power to change perspectives.”
Given all of this, I asked Emma to explain her interest and participation in the London skateboarding scene, which has become fundamental to her work, life, and play:
“I believe that skateboarding scene in London has the power to change hegemonic representation of typical female action sports stereotypes. With the cost of a skateboard being considerably less than a surf trip or skiing holiday, what local skate parks do is bring cultures, classes and genders together in an equal space. The female skateboarder is becoming less of a novelty and more of a necessity.”
During the Women in Board and Action Sports conference, the assembled group of men and women collectively contributed to a bank that would go to one project that we would vote on toward the end of our time together, a project that inspired us and that we believed would help to make change for women in board and action sports. Many inspiring projects were presented, but it was Emma’s BOM that won our votes.
Emma also garnered my support and the support of The Inspire Initiative in the process. Emma’s commitment to creating healthy debate, encouraging dialogue, and finding solutions regarding the representation and participation of women in board and action sports, are topics near and dear to my heart. I could not be more excited about this project and the team behind it.
Since winning support from WIB 2014, Emma has been working hard with her team in preparation for BOM’s crowdfunding campaign, which launched November 20th. In the spirit of the autonomy, freedom, and independence that so attracted young Emma to boardsports, the BOM documentary pilot “remains void of any corporate action sport sponsorship in order for our interviewees to have true autonomy.”
The timing is perfect and Emma Shoesmith and Team BOM provide a brilliant fusion of creativity, critique, fun, and passion. I look forward to watching BOM unfold and hope you will join me in the movement to increase awareness and equality in board and action sports!
Please head over to BOM’s crowdfunding campaign, contribute if you can, and please share this essential, groundbreaking project!
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