The project Shred the Patriarchy focuses on the stories of some Moroccan women who practice skateboarding despite the hard social and family repercussions that are forced to suffer for this choice not yet accepted within the moroccan society.
The international reputation of Morocco as a reformist and progressive country it is still contradictory when it comes to women which continue to face significant obstacles. Their social, economic and political participation, as well as in the sport’s sphere is still minimized or completely denied. Skateboarding is no exception. If you are a woman you should not practice it. I found it quite important to discover the voices of those few women who decided to break the unsaid rules and to shred around despite the judgments and punishments they receive because of their rebel spirits transforming skateboarding in a form of resistance to patriarchy.
They can no longer accept being what society wants women to be: creatures of weakness. I could document how the skate subculture can be a tool to promote empowerment and social inclusion especially for girls who have so few opportunities to express themselves and communicate freely.
Their dreams and their wills, particularly that of skating, have been oppressed by a system that fails to understand the benefits and the importance of those values as acceptance, empathy and unity shared within the skate community.
In a skatepark, girls can safely play at the top of their lungs and children of different backgrounds can play together by creating ties that transcend differences in color, religion and social background. But the stereotypes that have made skateboarding a domain of gender require these women to make a radical choice between their traditions and the sub-culture forcing them to abandon the walls of their homes for living their own chosen life chosen. The women I met and their stories are brave examples of how an apparently simple object, a piece of wood with wheels, enables them to realize and confirm their identities by giving them the ability to stand up every time they fall in life just like they do when they fall off a skateboard.
