Women in the Water
I bought a new surfboard: a fully retro single-fin.
Paddling out at Long Reef, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, I was looking for a quiet little peak where I could wrap my head around this old school approach to surfing; somewhere to tap into a 70s vibe, get back to flow and glide, and draw old soulful lines on new waves while exploring surfing from a different era.
Unfortunately, I found that era in spades.
It was an older man’s crew: mostly longboarders in their 60s. They were a tight group; everyone knew everyone—except me, I hadn’t surfed Long Reef in years—and there was a lot of chat going on between the infrequent sets.
One of the surfers had recently returned from up north. Spinning yarns of the north coast idyll, his mood soon changed as he bemoaned an ever-growing problem.
At one spot near Byron Bay, he recalled, ‘at least half the surfers were women!’ – a situation he found so unsettling he paddled in and went where he could, as he said, ‘surf with blokes’. Seriously.
The comment has gnawed away at me ever since.
Kate is a surfer and a good friend of mine. We surf together a lot but that comment made me reflect on Kate being a woman. I don’t mean that to sound weird, or for me to sound incredibly enlightened and wonderfully woke, but to me Kate is simply one of several friends I surf with regularly.
Kate catches waves, I catch waves; Kate got a new board recently, I got a new board recently. We talk boards, bottom turns, swell direction, secret spots, wind direction, wetsuits—and like all good surfing mates, she even lent me her wax once.
One morning, a friend of Kate’s—another woman surfer—paddled over to say hi. The three of us caught waves and chatted in between sets (apparently I look like John Belushi, according to the friend. ‘You know, “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski.’ OK, she meant Jeff Bridges and I feel a whole lot better about myself).
And that’s surfing: catching waves, meeting new people, having a laugh, and being in the ocean. What type of board you ride doesn’t matter. Neither does being a man or a woman.
Emma is another friend who surfs. In fact, I’ve seen Emma out surfing solid waves when I was thankful for the excuse of not having my board.
Emma is a complete ocean girl. She surfs, swims, spearfishes… She even goes away surfing and camping with a friend of hers—also a woman—and they live off only what they can catch and find. If they don’t catch fish, they don’t eat. If they don’t find fresh water, they don’t drink.
That’s hardcore in anyone’s language. It’s also a connection to the ocean and marine environment that is seldom seen.
Earlier this year I took my daughter to the premiere of Girls Can’t Surf – a film that documents the advent of professional women’s surfing and the uphill battle they are still fighting.
The film was a cringe-fest, not because it was bad, but because it was uncomfortable. The pervasive sexist attitudes of the day seem incredulous to our attitudes today – mostly.
The embarrassing attitude I overheard at Long Reef was the same attitude I saw exposed on the celluloid of the 70s and 80s. It just felt out of place. Like my new board, it was from a different time.
As my daughter and I took our seats, I was disappointed to see that I was one of only a handful of men in the room.
One of the others was the film's director, Christopher Nelius. Another was Kirk Pengilly, INXS guitarist/saxophonist and husband of seven-time world surfing champion, Layne Beachley.
Layne was there to do a Q&A with another surfing legend and former world champion, Pam Burridge. Both featured in the film.
There were a few other men scattered around the room, mostly guys like me with their daughters. But 99 per cent of the audience were women: groups of teenage girls, girls with their mums and groups of middle-aged women surfers, each undoubtedly with their own history of sexism and fighting for respect in a male-dominated sub-culture.
The solidarity in the room was palpable, but where were the men? Where were the guys my age: guys in their 40s and 50s, educating their grommet sons? Where were the guys stoked to watch a surfing film on the big screen, regardless of its tough love message? And let me be honest: where was my teenage son?
Despite the solidarity, I had imposter syndrome writ large. I felt like an intruder, merely an observer; the gender balance was so out of whack I felt like I had crashed an all-girl party.
Maybe I just had a profound sense of male surfer guilt. Maybe it was all too obvious that the only people interested in watching a film about women's surfing were women surfers.
And there was the problem: there weren’t enough men in the room. And there needed to be.
Like the lineup at Byron Bay, I wanted to see a 50/50 split. I wanted to see more male surfers there—regardless of their discomfort—supporting women and women's surfing and acknowledging a time when we could have, and should have, done better. I wanted more men to be interested.
I wanted to see Old Mate from Long Reef hanging his head in shame.