Pauline Menczer, Lisa Anderson, Pam Burridge, and Jodie Cooper in the 1980’s
I was recently asked to write a blog on female surfers for RubyMoon, the world’s only not for profit circular swimwear and activewear brand. After doing a large amount of research I was blown away how uneducated I was on the history of women in surfing. I had no concept of the inequality that female surfers have faced; from pioneers who broke the mould, to the new generation infiltrating the male dominated sport. This is due to the fact that growing up I have only seen a certain type of surfer in mainstream media; young, blond, and usually in a thong bikini. Forming the misconception that surfing is easy as a woman.
A new documentary film Girls Can’t Surf will be released in the UK on 19th August. The film covers the story of the female surfers who fought misogyny and inequality in the 80’s and 90’sand is directed by film-maker and surfer Christopher Nelius. Nelius made a couple of films about male stars of the era and realised that there has never been a female equivalent, so he decided to get in contact with female surfers so that they could finally share their story.
Pauline Menczer Surfing
Pauline Menczer was crowned world surfing champion in 1993, however she didn’t receive any prize money. Menczer estimated that a male surfer would have received around $30,000, and to make things worse, the trophy that she received was broken. Menczer came from a deprived background; she and her siblings “basically lived at the beach,” as her father was murdered in his own taxi, leaving her mother to raise four children. Along with her brothers, she sold towels and clothing left on the beach by tourists at garage sales, and actually learned to on half of a broken board (Clarke, 2022).
In the 1980’s former world champion Damien Hardman stated that female surfers needed to “Look feminine, attractive and dress well.” Pauline recounted experiences where male surfers would pull her leg rope so that she couldn’t catch waves or hit and push her off her board; “it was the norm then. I had 10 really nice guys around me. A lot of the other ones were just arrogant pigs.” She has also suffered with rheumatoid arthritis since she was 14, and was in a lot of pain when she was crowned champion. “Off the beach, friends sometimes pushed her in a shopping trolley so she wouldn’t have to walk” (Clarke, 2022).
Lisa Anderson left home at 16, but earned the title of world surfing champion four times. Anderson also surfed weeks after giving birth, only missing two events. Girls Can’t Surf also covers the 1990 world champion Pam Burridge, who developed anorexia after constantly being told to lose weight, and Jodie Cooper was dropped by her sponsor after being outed as gay. Menczer also had to hide her sexuality; a female surfer she knew was attacked for holding hands with her girlfriend in public and “nearly died.” She decided that “it was safer not to come out.” Pauline would pretend that her girlfriend was her manager if she came with her on tour.
Jodie Cooper
Menczer never had a major sponsor, as she didn’t have the “sex appeal” of other surfers. In 2017 a group of female surfers including Bianca Valenti discussed wanting to be taken seriously on a documentary called It Ain't Pretty. She realised early on that "unless you were a model, you weren't going to get sponsorship…it's frustrating, it's upsetting and it gives you body-image issues" (Jolly, 2017). Pauline upsold Levi’s jeans while on tour, and would sleep in a tent in friends’ gardens. The women’s accommodation was often appalling, so many would sleep in their surfboard bags at the competition HQ. In 1989, a top event in California cancelled the women’s competition so there would be more prize money for the men but kept the bikini contest. The best waves were also saved for men, leaving female surfers to be sent out whenever the surf was bad (Clarke, 2022). Things finally came to a head in 1999 when women were ordered to swim in a flat ocean during a competition in South Africa. Instead, they sat on the beach and refused to paddle out. Pauline had been “trying to drum up support for a strike for months but was nervous of getting fined” (Clarke, 2022).
Frustratingly, it took until 2018 for equal pay to finally be brought up in surfing, as a viral photo showed the male and female winners of a junior competition on a podium holding cheques. “The girl’s was for exactly half as much as the boy’s, prompting a Twitter storm…It took being shamed on social media for the World Surf League to close the gender gap.” Menczer finally has a happy ending to her career as she has been “reclaimed as a pioneer;” a massive mural of her has been painted on the boardwalk at Bondi beach. Fans raised more than $60,000 on GoFundMe to raise the $25,000 that she should have won back 1993, and Pauline donated everything above the target to charity.
Artist Megan Hales and her mural of World Surfing Champion Pauline Menczer at Bondi Beach
Starting in 2019 The World Surf League awarded equal prize money to male and female competitors. The aim was to “elevate women’s surfing,” and showcase female athletes, “from competing on the same quality waves as the men, to better locations, and increased investment and support.” It has been argued that the league only changed the policy as a California state commission would only lease public beaches for the Mavericks competition if men and women received the same prize money. According to Forbes “The WSL awards prize money based on the number of athletes in a competition. Because there are generally far more male surfers in competitions than female, their prizes are generally far higher” (Aggeler, 2018).
In the same year, beginner surfers Monica Wach, Hannah Jessup, and Miranda Laidlaw met at Currumbin Beach on the Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia). They were all fed up with “aggressive men dominating the waves,” so formed The Surf Witches group to help women feel safer in the water. Every week the three women met up to surf and the idea caught on; “We knew there must be a lot of other women around who wanted to learn to surf or wanted a group to surf with, so we started the social media group to get them on board.” They had all experienced men being very seriously, dropping in on their waves, and now have 'a better time together…felt safer, more encouraged, more supported.” The Surf Witches are now made up of hundreds of women of all ages across the world who “felt too intimidated to pick up a board” (Karp, 2019).
Members of The Sea Witches Group
A study conducted on a small number of competitive female surfers found that they “spend more time sitting in a surf session, compared to male surfers.” The research suggested that female surfers spend “approximately 10% more time sitting” than their male counterparts, making up roughly 60% of their surf session. Socialising is “particularly important” for female surfers, as they have a “social-emotional attachment to sport;” “participation is governed by feelings” (The Female Surfer, 2022). Positive social experiences help to work on “feelings of not being good enough, fear of judgement and feelings of poor confidence in ability, which would normally be barriers” for female surfers. Positive social engagement can down-regulate women’s nervous systems to “a more optimal state” to positively impact surf performance. They stop rushing, make better decisions, relax, better regulate breathing, and “overall be more efficient.” When female surfers are more in control, sessions become “less about survival and more about enjoyment” (The Female Surfer, 2022). This is why female empowerment through surfer groups such as the Sea Withes is so important.
While searching for more info on female surfer groups, I was repulsed to find an article on TheThings (a celebrity news outlet) titled ‘16 Photos of Female Surfers Revealing Too Much on the Waves.’ The photos cover celebrities from actress Margot Robbie to surfing world champion Steph Gilmore where they are “revealing too much” (Passa, 2019). Unsurprisingly I couldn’t find a male surfer equivalent.
UCLA Surfers Olivia Stokes, Elle Overs, Jessie May, and Issy Pajaro
On the Tough to Tame podcast a group of female students at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) discussed their experiences with surfing, often “feeling like an imposter in the water,” as men just assume that they are there for “the clout” (Tingley, 2019). My younger sister has also found this to be the case with skateboarding. The students explained that in San Clemente (California) “surfing culture reigns supreme over social status,” and other girls negatively contribute to them not being taken seriously by surfing for “the wrong reasons, as a way to meet boys or construct an image for themselves.” This made it impossible to infiltrate male surfing groups, such as the one at UCLA; “you really have to prove yourself.” One of the few female surfers on the team Elle Overs explains that there is some hope: “if you’re going out every day and proving you’re respectful and you know what you’re doing, then people slowly start to realize you’re not there for the clout, you’re there because you love to do it” (Tingley, 2019).
Elle also described belittlement coming from men in the form of being too nice. Male surfers sometimes gave her waves to ride instead of cutting her off like they would to their friends, a gesture “rooted in the belief that she needed all the help she could get.” Having said that things are improving, as the girls have spotted groups of women swimming together like The Surf Witches, “a striking departure” from the culture which most of the students are used to, where “girl-on-girl bullying and exclusion ran rampant.” It is crucial that female surfers are “pushing each other up instead of making [others] the competition” (Tingley, 2019). Finally, Elle offers some advice: “Try not to give a fuck…Ignore the guys that are hitting on you just because you’re a girl surfer.” Just focus on burning them on the next wave.
©Amy Edwards 2022.
Bibliography
Aggeler, M. (2018) ‘Female Surfers Are Finally Getting Paid the Same As Men to Ride the Same Waves’ In: The Cut 07/09/2018. At: https://www.thecut.com/2018/09/female-surfers-are-finally-getting-paid-the-same-as-men.html (11/08/2022).
Clarke, C. (2022) ‘Bikini contests, broken trophies – and no prize money: when female surfing was a wipeout’ In: The Guardian 04/08/2022. At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/04/bikini-contests-broken-trophies-and-no-prize-money-when-female-surfing-was-a-wipeout (11/08/2022).
Jolly, J. (2017) ‘Fighting for equality in big-wave surfing’ In: BBC News 07/05/2017. At: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39634590 (11/08/2022).
Karp, C. (2019) ‘Female surfers fed-up with aggressive men dropping in on their waves and getting territorial over breaks form a “Surf Witches” group to feel “safe in the water”’ In: Daily Mail Australia 21/12/2019. At: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7708103/Female-surfers-fed-aggressive-men-dropping-waves-getting-territorial.html (11/08/2022).
Passa, A. (2019) 16 Photos Of Female Surfers Revealing Too Much On The Waves. At: https://www.thethings.com/photos-of-female-surfers-revealing-too-much-on-the-waves/ (11/08/2022).
The Female Surfer (2022) Female Surfers in the lineup. Do we have a special superpower? At: https://www.thefemalesurfer.com/blog/femalesurfersinthelineup (11/08/2022).
Tingley, A. (2019) “One of the Boys” Female Surfers Talk Thriving in a Male-Dominated Sport. At: https://www.toughtotame.org/one-of-the-boys-female-surfers-talk-thriving-in-a-maledominated-sport (11/08/2022).
List of Images
Fig. 1 King, D. (1980) Pauline Menczer, Lisa Anderson, Pam Burridge, and Jodie Cooper in the 1980’s. [Photo] At: https://www.theinertia.com/surf/girls-cant-surf-shows-how-determined-women-battled-sexism-in-their-sport/(Accessed 15/08/2022).
Fig. 2 Screen Australia (2021) Pauline Menzcer Surfing. [Photo] At: https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/screen-news/2021/03-05-girls-cant-surf-carving-out-feature-doc(Accessed 15/08/2022).
Fig. 3 Heywood, R. (2020) Jodie Cooper Posing with Surfboard. [Photo] At: https://www.surfer.com/features/jodie-cooper-first-openly-gay-world-tour-surfer/(Accessed 15/08/2022).
Fig. 4 Alcock, J. (2022) Artist Megan Hales and her mural of World Surfing Champion Pauline Menczer at Bondi Beach. [Photo] At: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/world-surf-champion-pauline-menczer-back-on-the-board-at-bondi-20220424-p5afol.html(Accessed 15/08/2022).
Fig. 5 Jessup, H. (2019) Members of The Sea Witches Group Pose with Surfboards. [Photo] At: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7708103/Female-surfers-fed-aggressive-men-dropping-waves-getting-territorial.html(Accessed 15/08/2022).
Fig. 6 Ciappi, E. (2019) UCLA SurfersOlivia Stokes, Elle Overs, Jessie May, Issy Pajaro in Group Picture. [Photo] At: https://www.toughtotame.org/one-of-the-boys-female-surfers-talk-thriving-in-a-maledominated-sport (Accessed 15/08/2022).
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