Photo: Burton
From the start, this whole presidential election business has had an extreme distastefulness to it. A political E coli even, leaving everyone feeling at the least queasy, if not downright ill. That now includes many who voted for the incoming president. His approval ratings are the lowest for any politician winning that office in 40 years. And the bulk of the disdain levied at Trump throughout his campaign has been his seemingly flippant attitude towards the treatment of women.
Glass half-full for a second: electing a president that divides a nation means there might be a possibility of spurring more local action in different communities. Something we’ve long needed. Action like this: ESPN’s Alyssa Roenigk recently interviewed Burton Snowboard’s Donna Carpenter, who offered to pay for any of her female employees to join the Women’s March on Washington D.C. on Saturday, the day after Trump’s inauguration, where some 200,000 are expected to walk. A show of female solidarity in the face of an incoming president that has basically raised a middle finger to the cause. She says she’s had 25 women confirm, with another 10 trying to make it happen.
Carpenter, who took the official CEO position at Burton last February but has long overseen the brand with husband Jake Burton Carpenter, has worked to make Burton a culturally-diverse company: “We looked up and were like, ‘How did we get so male dominated?,'” she told Roenigk. “We put our nose to the grindstone and worked hard and went from being really behind the curve to leading the industry. Thirteen years ago, we had under 10 percent female leadership, and now we are around 45 percent and my senior team is four men and four women. The Trump election felt like a slap in the face.”
Correction. 90% of flight headed to #WomensMarchOnWashington. #planefullofnastywomen pic.twitter.com/UB4Y2xQwog
— Andrea Addario (@addarioandrea) January 20, 2017
While Carpenter’s interview trended more towards equality in the workplace, I’m sure she’d agree with me that the treatment of women (and general safety) is of equal importance, perhaps even more so given the times we find ourselves in: from the sexual debacle at Baylor University and other high-profile college football cases, to the multiples of NFL instances, the country feels ready for sea-change, especially with regards to the safety of the female human. Finally. But the election has indeed been a “slap in the face,” there, too.
Which makes marches like the one on Washington D.C., and in cities in 50 states and 32 countries, still so damn relevant. And a cause certainly worth fighting for, as Burton’s leader lays down in very clear terms: We are going to continue to be a voice that works to improve women’s leadership and sustainability. We’ve got to double down on our efforts to protect the climate, ensure gender equality, make a point to say women’s rights matter, climate change does exist, inclusion matters. That was my message to the company at a meeting in December, that we might live in “grab ’em by the p—y America” now, but we can treat each other with respect and tolerance and be more aware of doing so than we’ve ever been. My last two words to them that day were “f— Trump,” and it seemed to resonate.
