Article: Macho men do figure skate

[Sylvia]

http://www.thespec.com/sports/articl...o-figure-skate

(Bryce Davison) “Hamilton Skating Club has one of the largest memberships in Canada, consistently over 1,000 the last four or five years. And out of that, in the prejuvenile and higher levels, there is just one boy. He’s a singles skater. There are no boys in pairs, none in dance. We do have a prejuvenile and a juvenile dance team, but they just started out.”
...
“I think it’s because of the way Hamilton is as a city. People are so afraid of that stigma of figure skating.”

And that stigma is?

“People, more the fathers, are afraid that if they put their boy in figure skating, it’s feminine,” Davison was saying as he spent yesterday at Skate Canada. “And I completely disagree with that. I’ve skated all my life and I’m a guy’s guy. I can play hockey, I drink beer with the guys.”
...
(Eric Radford) “But at 13 and 14, I got bullied a lot. The really high-level hockey players never bothered me. It was always the mid-range guys, who did it for the status, who gave me a hard time.”
...
Radford also suggests that families — and potential young male skaters themselves — should realize how much travelling and other worldly experiences figure skating can provide a young male who works, and succeeds, at the sport.

[joeperryfan]

Sometimes I think about this issue, and even though they raise good points, I think the stigma isn't necessarily the main reason for the small number of boys. I mean, gymnastics isn't precisely effeminate, IMO, and there aren't many boys there either.

Guys prefer team sports, their fathers do to and prefer them to play them, also it's more likely for a hockey player to get to a point were he actually makes money out of the sport than a figure skater. I'm not aware of the cost of practicing hockey, but I'm guessing it must be cheaper than skating. Another possible reason is that at the age that most boys take up figure skating they are at a stage where girls are hickey and have cooties... I mean, they wouldn't feel comfortable in a group of them. When it's all added up it's easier to see why they don't take up the sport.