Cori Schumacher

A lack of critical analysis of surf media, a loose understanding (or absence of concern), by editors, publishers, of the implications of continuing to showcase (ever greater) sexist content within surf culture has created an environment that begs for attention.

For many in the surfing community, surfing is more than just a hobby, it is a passion on par with religion, life, or love. Yet when it comes to how surfing and surfers are represented, too often, offending/questionable media content is brushed off or ignored. Why is this?

The underlying trouble with surfing is the very thing that makes surfing so appealing. Surfing is an escape. The ocean is the place we flee to when we want to leave the troubles of the world behind, when we want to be refreshed, energized, reminded that there is more to life than struggle and hardship. It is a pleasure to surf, a freedom of sorts. We don’t want to be reminded of the troubles that persist on land, much less engage them.

But what if these troubles follow some of us into the line-up? What if the very activity and passion that we care for so deeply has created a culture that disrespects, trivializes, lolls its tongue at, and treats us as some monolithic entity? The way women are being represented to our children, potential future generations of surfers, and others via some in surf “media” is doing this very thing.

Incredulous? “Latest issue [of Surfing Magazine] has an article titled ‘Waves are Women’ with the subtitle ‘Please no red tides’.” (*see edit below) This follows Surfing’s June 2012 issue that claims that women’s surfing is being “reinvented” in a feature that implies that some Darwinian “natural” selection is occurring in surfing: “Adapt or Perish – Four ways surfing is self-modifying for the better.” In this June article, the crew over at Stab Magazine is credited (self-modifying seems not to apply here) with being “the architect of this adventure”, an adventure that marks the new ladies as “tote-ally [sic] hetero” and “hotter than fish grease”. None of the ladies are actually interviewed.

There are two particular problems illustrated by Surfing Magazine in its two latest issues regarding women. First, the June 2012 issue highlights the continued pursuit of the female surfer as sex icon. This is nothing new. One of the ways it does this is by contrasting the 1990s female with the 2012 female surfer, aggravating a generational gap between women with the same (ill)logic used to parse the generations between the 1980s female surfer and the “new and improved” 1990s female surfer. More “feminine” and “hot” was used then… just as it is being used now to increase the perceived value of female surfers of the newest generation. It is striking that as surf culture’s concept of “feminine” shifts (in-line with larger cultural shifts across the female body), past generations of women are marked as “more masculine”… in comparison to what? The (now) gender ideal being sold by brand and media; a fluid ideal guaranteed to change again. The point is to create and sell an ideal that is unattainable. Much has been written about how the unattainable is used to sell product in consumer culture, contrary to studies that prove that the unattainable, narrow ideal is not the most lucrative way to sell product.

Second, the “Waves are Women” article title (ignoring the absurdity of the subheading for the time being) reiterates an old tradition by many surfers and sea-faring folk, but then takes it a step further. For once it was the ocean itself that was a woman, and now each of these wind blown bursts of water are women. If we are permitted to follow this pathetic fallacy through, to embrace it wholeheartedly rather than obstruct it, we may reach a few undeniable questions: how do these riders (ostensibly men encased in human bodies riding upon tools with fins) lacerate these wave’s liquid skins? If we can, for the moment, assume that this is “lovemaking”, what does each male’s style say about their sexual prowess? Or lack thereof? Might this explain the incredible emphasis placed on getting barreled? Should we look to the way that men ride a wave and make judgements on their prowess in bed? What does this mean for airs and modern tricks, in this case? What is the value of getting a ton of waves vs. one big shack? Sharing waves with your bros? If the ocean, or a wave is treated with care and respect by a male surfer, might we also assume that human women will be treated with respect?

Indeed, this last question poses an interesting problem. Does the surf industry, brands and media alike, have an easier time caring for and respecting an objectified woman-ocean than it does for a complex, emotive, empathetic, thinking, breathing human woman? Will she (woman) ever live up to She (ocean/waves)? Or will She (ocean/waves) be treated the way she (woman) is treated on land? O, what sort of phenomenological trouble are we in now?

“All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ‘pathetic fallacy’”

— John Ruskin (1819–1900), Modern Painters, “Of the Pathetic Fallacy”, volume iii, pt. 4, § 8.

It must be granted that the publishers of Surfing, and Surfer Mag for that matter, Grind Media, are not a news group, but an “action sports/entertainment company” that also produces events and webcasts for endemic action sports audiences. As such, rather than flout them and their progeny for not presenting “the truth”, it seems worthwhile to analyze the content they are producing with a critical eye. In this way, we can further understand how surf culture is being packaged and sold. This is precisely the regurgitative Romantic dualism that got us (ladies) into trouble the last go around (and around, and around). Whether or not this matters to the individual surfer depends wholly on how much of a “citizen” the surfer wishes to be in their own culture. For many, they would prefer to consume… take from the culture and leave it at that. For others, being a good citizen in surf culture is akin to being a good citizen to the environment. What pollutes the culture will be left to our children and their children’s children. It is as important to monitor the cultural pollutants (surf “media” and advertising) as it is to monitor the bacteria levels in the ocean after a good rain. Vote with your dollar and with your voice. Find out the companies that are respectful to surf culture (all of it) and to the environment… the ocean… that giant, liquid, frothy, wave producing, frightening mass that we spend so much time playing in.

“In other words, considered in relation to the interior state of the speaker the pathetic (or emotional) fallacy tells the truth, for by presenting the world as experienced by a man under the influence of powerful emotion, this device can tell us much about the inner life of another. From this point of view, then, the distorting effects of emotion, once understood correctly, are not solipsistic, are not isolating. Rather, by manipulating a portion of reality which both speaker and listener share, the pathetic fallacy allows one to glimpse the passions within the consciousness of another human being.”

-George P. Landow, Professor of English and the History of Art, Brown University

*EDIT: 6/6/2012 From the website of Surfing Magazine (the above post was posted before I saw the magazine)

p. 108 HEARTBREAKERS
“Waves are women, everybody knows that. They’re too gorgeous and moody not to be. And like a woman, each wave is different and must be approached accordingly. Go ahead, buy her a drink. Can you guess her poison? By Beau Flemister.”