“My name is Brighton Zeuner, and I’m 12 years old. I love to skate, swim, make forts, and a lot of normal girl stuff.” Normal girl stuff. I couldn’t have said it better. The days when girls only played dolls and dress-up are dead. These days, girls skate, surf, and play hard with the boys. Girls shred.
Brighton tried softball and ballet when she was younger. They never clicked. But when she was 8, she found skateboarding. Her brother was always skating at the local parks, and she would tag along and sit on the bleachers. She says, “One day, I got bored of that, so I decided to skate.” That simple.
When Brighton first started, there were barely any girls at the skateparks, but these days, her local park is packed with as many girls as there are boys. Even cooler than that, many of the best skaters there are girls. They compete against and beat the boys. It’s a fact that is so ingrained into their daily lives that Brighton told me only as an afterthought. When I first spoke with her, I was completely delighted by that nonchalant attitude. It put my excitement in check, in a funny way. Maybe we shouldn’t be so excited. Of course she’s a badass skater — why wouldn’t she be?
Sometimes the attitude of one can change the perspective of many. In such case, the world needs to meet more strong young women like Brighton Zeuner. We could all use a dose of “girls skate; so what.”