One year ago, the loudest and most visible conversation in surfing revolved around how women are represented by surf brands. Women of all ages, from every corner of the world and from every background you can imagine (lawyers, teachers, mothers, daughters, athletes of every kind), along with grandfathers, fathers, and our brothers, stood together, over 22,000 strong, against the sexist portrayal of a 5-time world champion in the event trailer for the Roxy Pro in Biarritz.
September 12 of last year, I walked into the Roxy Headquarters in Orange County, California, along with Dr. Krista Comer, author of Surfer Girls in the New World Order, freelance writer, Cynthia Krueger, and the director of The Inspire Initiative’s History of Women’s Surfing Initiative, Sheri Crummer, to deliver the “Stop Your All Sex No Surf Ads” petition directly into the hands of Roxy executives.
Check out Cynthia Krueger’s latest article Second-Class Waves And Sleazy Ads: Why Women Are Still Fighting For Equality In Action Sports
We were met in the lobby by a young lady and a towering white male, who was ostensibly chosen to accompany the woman based on his ability to intimidate, since he did not communicate a word. We were told that I would be the only individual allowed into the room to meet with the two Roxy Executives, despite the fact that Dr. Comer had flown from Texas, where she teaches at Rice University, to discuss the impact of such marketing campaigns. Near the end of the meeting, Dr. Comer was allowed into the meeting and was able to communicate briefly with the Roxy executives.
The outcome of this meeting was uncertain and Roxy’s official statement regarding the response to the trailer was dismissive: a sorry-not-sorry that side-stepped responsibility (“an online video made on behalf of the brand”) and labeled the global response to the trailer as “a mischaracterization.”
We were promised a second meeting after Roxy execs spent time with the 45-page packet I put together and we left with them, but this was a very empty promise indeed. The supporters of the petition and the world watching were left hanging, wondering if the Roxy brand corporate rhetoric of delighting in connecting with their “fans” was simply more of the same from a company that can’t seem to figure out how to stay connected to any sense of cultural credibility; this, based both on serious business analysis and the numbers —ZQK stocks have dropped 77% in the last year alone and Roxy’s net revenue has decreased by $7 million.
See ZQK Q-10 report.
Regardless of whether you view last year’s global push-back flippantly or with the gravity it deserves, there can be no doubt that the events surrounding the Roxy Pro Trailer of 2013 marked a critical moment in the history of women’s surfing. Here is a recap of the shifts that have occurred in professional women’s surfing over the last year:
- The ASP increased the prize purse for the women’s World Championship Tour (no changes were made for the women’s world qualifying tour), raising it to half what the men make (the winner of a women’s WCT walks away with a $US60,000 check; the winner of a men’s WCT walks away with $US120,000), and added two events for the WCT women.
- One of these events, the first ever pro women’s event to be held at Lower Trestles, the Swatch Women’s Pro (note: not the Swatch girl’s pro), was strategically announced the same week the petition was delivered to Roxy headquarters. The significance of this is directly related to the distance the new ownership of the ASP was establishing between itself and the large surf brands who had, up until this year, controlled both the image of professional surfing and largely, the ASP itself.
- Related to the above, the new ASP, now with full control over the media rights of the professional surfing tour, has intentionally crafted a vision of women’s surfing that is far better suited to the support of the women as athletes rather than faceless, headless, identity-less props for selling product or generating a tingly sensation in the crotch. This vision is distinctly different than the image the brands broadcast and has shaped the event trailers for each of the new events on offer for the women this year, which is why it is difficult to ascertain whether or not the new Roxy Pro France event trailer is a result of Roxy actually absorbing the global feedback of last year’s trailer or simply being forced to acquiesce to the new ASP’s vision of women’s surfing. Regardless, it rocks:
In addition to the changes occurring in the elite and privileged realm of professional surfing, there have been a number of increasingly visible, independent women’s surfing brands—created by women who surf, for women who surf—that continue to grow and gain support, like Seea and Salt Gypsy, along with a growing number of female surfing voices committed to telling their stories (She and the Sea and It Ain’t Pretty), forming collectives to increase their influence and bolster their knowledge (for example, The Institute for Women Surfers and Waves of Freedom), and sharing their perspectives online (see the Gypsy Files on Surfline) and in print media. The above mentioned list is nowhere near exhaustive. There are so many incredible individuals (e.g. Easkey Britton, Dionne Ybarra, Farhana Huq), projects (The Wahine Project, Brown Girl Surf), and collectives erupting from the realm of female surfing currently it’s impossible to keep up!
What is being crafted by women who surf, at a grassroots level, is an identity distinct from the image used by surf brands that is both border-crossing, adaptive, and full of agency and self-sufficiency (repetitions of “gypsy” abound) and a peculiar and beautiful belonging to and protectiveness of a fluid, oceanic environment (repetitions of “mermaid”).
The Surfeminist wave is in full swing, whether one calls it this or not, and it’s most visible action currently is that of reclaiming the image of women’s surfing from the grasp of the largest surf brands, as well as mainstream media who have followed the surf brands’ lead, who have flattened it into a white, heteronormative, hypersexualized, fem-surf-butt-in-a-bikini stereotype. Female surfers everywhere are making it clear that this stereotype is dead in the water and in its place, women of every color, background, sexuality, body-type, nationality, and oceanic proclivity are carving out a unique space for themselves in surf culture.
It is an amazing time to be a female surfer.
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A Surfeminist’s reference:
From “Stand by Your Man” to “Stand by Your Suntan:” Women in boardsports from a surfing perspective. from Cori Schumacher
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