Mia Lambson Talks Gender Disparity and Her Independent Documentary Film

From the time I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, 20-year-old intern eager to nudge my way into the snowboard industry, typing away on a couch in a Southern California office surrounded by boxes of magazines, cubicles occupied by men at least six years my senior, I was able to procure a sense of safety largely because of Mia Lambson.

She was working remote for the same magazine I was interning for. It’s not uncommon to find yourself as the only female in any given setting within our industry ( and most office environments in general if we’re being real), but hearing the way that my male colleagues spoke about Mia, and spoke to her, helped me to grasp the understanding that a woman has a place here. That a woman can speak up, have opinions, be listened to, be respected.

And Mia, to me, was the cool girl. She was always joking around with the guys, she was friends with all the riders, she had arm tattoos and long blond hair and a hot boyfriend. She epitomized ‘cool girl’. But what’s special about Mia is that she never acted like it—not in the traditional, Regina George sense. She actually did just the opposite; she took my good friend Rachel and I under her wing. Where she had power and status and age and notoriety over us, where pop culture pits the cool girl against the new girl, Mia reached out her hand. If it weren’t for the women who showed me kindness when I was fresh and new, I’m not sure that I would have kept at it.

And now she is using that same sense of conscientiousness to create a documentary film about this very thing, about women and their experience in a male-dominated industry, a male-dominated society. She’s the perfect person to do so.

Hi darling angel. Let’s start with the basics. How long have you been a snowboard filmer?

Oh man. I’ve been getting paid to film snowboarding for probably 12 years.

What made you get into it?

I have been obsessed with snowboarding pretty much since I found out about it, but I knew I would never be able to be a pro snowboarder. So I was like, What else can I do that will allow me to snowboard every day with my friends? And filming is what I landed on.

From what I know, you worked in snowboarding hardcore and then you did things outside of snowboarding, and now you’re back. What projects have you worked on outside of snowboarding?

During 2020 when everything got really weird, I wasn’t sure how sustainable a career filming snowboarding was going to be, so that’s what kind of made me like branch out into other avenues. I did a lot of production work on some reality TV shows, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City being the most notable one, and a lot of commercial work and just random stuff. I was really focused on exploring what things I enjoyed working on other than snowboarding. And I learned a ton. I feel like my filming and everything grew a lot from working outside of the industry. This year I turned my focus back to snowboarding in a really big way. Mostly because I have been thinking about making this documentary for like five years, and this past year, things just started to line up where it truly felt like it could be a reality. I was missing my community and it felt like a “now or never” scenario, so I just jumped back in with both feet into snowboard world, and yeah, it’s working out.

Tell me about this documentary.

So, it’s about the history of women in snowboarding, but more focused on the industry than anything else. I’m going to focus a lot on the specific people who made a really big mark in snowboarding, but I really want to examine the gender politics within the industry with this film. I think women’s sports in general can be a really good litmus test of where we are as a society when it comes to gender equality. Looking at the legacy of women in snowboarding really tells an interesting story about how the culture has shifted over these last few decades, and... how do I put it, I guess how our industry has approached women and women’s snowboarding has had a direct correlation to the athletic progression. That’s what I’m trying to focus on with this and really what I’m trying to learn about. What are the connections of cultural and financial support to athletic progression? Where did we come from? What are we doing better now? And what can we still do better as far as gender equality in the industry?

Do you feel like we are progressing?

I mean, as an industry we’ve really turned a new page and are doing so much better now in terms of inclusivity than we were ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. It really is an entirely different world out there now for female snowboarders. But that’s not to say that we still don’t have things that we could work on. There is still inequality within our industry; it’s just a little bit harder to see. When it comes even to things like product development, more time and energy goes towards men’s products than women's, and there still is a significant disparity in pay and how frequently women are marketed compared to men. There’s a lot of things that we still need to work on, but we have to give a ton of credit to the changes that have happened over the last ten years because we are in a way better spot.

Having stepped out of the industry for a little while, I’m curious: Where do you get the motivation to come back in and care about this stuff and care about making a change, rather than just stay away and get the bag?

That’s a good question. When I took a step back for a couple of years, I wasn’t sure that I ever would come back to snowboarding in the way that I was, but after being separated from it for a while, I missed it so much. I had gotten pretty jaded before I stepped away, but that started to pale in comparison to how much I missed it. The community and the camaraderie that comes with snowboarding, I just honestly couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s something that I have been obsessed with and loved for more than half my life, and I just felt like I really couldn’t step away from snowboarding until I felt like I gave something meaningful back to it. And I feel like this project is the thing that is going to bring that full circle for me.

Dude, I am so excited. When can we expect this film to come out?

We are shooting for a fall 2025 release, so we still have a little bit of time. It has been a super long road to bring this into reality, and it’s still going to be a long road to get it across the finish line, but I have Barrett Christy and Circe Wallace and a handful of other supremely talented people helping me.

Any specific goals that you would like to achieve with this film?

My biggest goal would be honestly that I want the women in the industry, who are in it now or were in it in the past, to feel like their story and their struggles are seen and validated. That their story is being represented in a way that is true to them, because I think there is a lot of healing and growth in that. And then I guess the other thing is I hope that people can watch this and be motivated to keep making things better in whatever way they can and continue to push the needle to make snowboarding a more inclusive place for everybody.

Stunning. Ok, any last thoughts?

I am just so thankful for everyone who has helped the project get this far, the support has been overwhelming and I’m so impressed with how the community has come together to make it happen. I’m super stoked to have Yeti, Burton, and Sun Bum backing the film and have a few other partnerships in the works, but we are still looking for some additional funding so we can really give these stories the platform they deserve. So if any brands out there want to show your support for women’s snowboarding by working with us, hit me up! 🤙

Well, Mia, I can’t wait to see what you do with this. Thanks for chatting with me, see you when you come to SoCal soon.

Thank you, Juice! Love you, bye!

To get involved with Mia's project, hit her up at media.tomboy@gmail.com and follow her on Instagram.