SEX!! Okay good. Now that I have your attention. Think “surfer girl”. What’s the first image that comes to mind? A hundred bucks says that it’s a bronzed beauty with sun-kissed hair in a bikini. Maybe she’s charging hard in the Ments or maybe she is just doing typical “surfer girl pose”, you know–holding her board on the beach being sexy and all. Whatever she was doing, she no doubt looked pretty similar to the thousands of bikini babes that come up when you type “surfer girl” into Google images.
The images you don’t see are the pioneering Polynesian women surfers, or big waves surfers like Maya Gabeira in their wetsuits and puffy lifevests, or Middle-Eastern women in head-to-toe religion-appropriate attire breaking down all gender stereotypes in their countries. Or pretty much any other woman that doesn’t fit the surfer girl stereotype. Which, in case you didn’t realize, is about 99% of all women.
So why does Miss Bikini Babe come into our head when women’s surfing, and indeed female surfers, are so much more diverse? Well, it’s no secret the surf industry likes to sell one type of surfer girl, and not only does she look a particular way, but she also doesn’t wear very many clothes. Sex sells, people! So much so that we’re all brainwashed into thinking that to be a surfer girl we’ve got to look like Alana Blanchard’s bottom turn.
In fact we, the general public are not the only ones guilty of thinking this way. Earlier in 2017 on the Billabong website's homepage an image featured a male surfer boosting an air to advertise their men’s range, whereas on the women’s side a female posed in a bikini. Many people were outraged but I'll let you be the judge.
Now, I’m all for women’s lib. If a women wants to be naked, then I say go hard sister! I was raised with parents who taught me to love my body and be proud of it, no matter what it looked like. But I’m also a 6”1 bronzed, athletic male “surfer” (not my description), so I’ve never really had to think twice about not fitting the stereotype (except for the fact that I am not outwardly of Caucasian descent, but that’s an article for another time). I’m also blessed to live in a global north country, where showing skin and being sexy is embraced, and many women I know are entitled (and safe) to do whatever they like with their body, and it’s no one else’s business.
But that’s not the case for all women, and it’s certainly not the case in most cultures around the world. This doesn’t mean those women are any less empowered, or any less of a “surfer girl”. It just means that women everywhere are different, and that needs to be honored and respected. And that women should never have to fit or be sold some stereotype.
Some time ago, a friend of mine took some flak because she referred to herself as a “surfer girl”. One angry fellow in particular took offense to this and promptly unfriended her (and me subsequently) on Facebook. Now my friend in no way looks like the typical “surfer girl”. She is in fact more of a surf photographer than anything else. But she is a damn good one. She will paddle out into the water to get the shot that she wants. She may not throw buckets on the way back in but she will ride her board in.
Now, there’s no moral of the story here that women should all protest against bikinis and being sexy. But it is time we start to appreciate the diversity of what it means to be a surfer and that there isn’t a stereotype. Being a surfer has nothing to do with being sexy. Caring about image or being confined to one image goes against the grain of everything that surfing is about. Surfing, in its essence is about freedom, connection and joy. As surfers, we have the choice to celebrate and respect the diversity of women and women’s surfing, and to lead by example, even when our industry and the media doesn’t (don’t worry, they’ll catch on. Stereotypes are so 2014).
And to the angry ones, go have a banana and I quote the Samsung commercial:
Thank you to everyone.
Thank you to friends, first sponsors and groupies.
To all the Daniels, the Gustavos and the Jurgens.
To 4-degree waters. To flat days.
To bad boards, cheap boards, kind of boards.
Thank you to Kelly, for making it look too damn easy.
Thank you to the second title.
To 3am. 4am. 5am.
Thank you to the surf fascists and the locals only.
To the surf babes.
To the wild cards.
To those we miss.
Thank you to the haters, the bullies and the trolls.
Thank you to #goMedina, #fuckMedina.
To pain.
To paradise.
To heaven, to hell, and everything in between.
Thank you to the pessimists, the non-believers, the party crashers.
To those who push you up or bring you down, thank you all.
Without You, I’m Nothing.