Last night I message a guy I grew up with. I wanted to thank him for always being supportive of me in the water growing up. We joke about the time he talked me into paddling out to a big wave break and I nearly drowned. All of the guys we surfed with never gave us grief for being out there. There was only a handful of us girls surfing - thirty odd years later, a lot of times there's more girls than guys out in the water. But there's a reason for that - there's some hardcore surfing woman who paved the way for that to be possible.

Watching the surfing documentary 'Girls Can't Surf' last night, I was transported back to the '80s where my school folders were plastered with surfing photos and I would doodle waves in the margins as I was half listening to teachers. The names from the doco were blasts from the past - stories of woman surfing I'd semi forgotton about. Pam Burridge, Jodie Cooper, Pauline Menzitz. Bloody hell those girls could surf. But the blokes didn't think so.

Jodie Cooper

I remember at the time Tracks surfing magazine was full of men and scantily clad woman. Us girls didn't have photos of woman surfing to look up to, even though they existed. We read quizzes such as 'why surfing is better than sex" and that girls weren't as good in the surf as men and never would be.

That's what this doco is about - how the world of woman's surfing was brutally sexist, and woman had to fight to be taken seriously. It wasn't til very recently that woman received equal pay in this sport for the competition circuit, even though they were virtually selling girls lines of clothing when that industry finally exploded, Quicksilver Roxy taking over sales. As I was watching I wanted to shout at the screen. Woman's heats, for example, were in the worst conditions, the men getting the best waves of the day. They'd be known as lunch breaks, because the surf was so bad everyone thought the girls couldn't surf and they'd go and have lunch.

Plus, they had to wear ridiculous swimwear, because what was their worth unless they looked good?

Frida Zamba

But they COULD surf. In fact they ripped. And they surfed big waves too, fighting hard to be taken seriously. I used to love Jodie Cooper surf Hawaii. She was beautiful and awesome.

I realised, watching this doco, why I come out so fierce in the surf when some old prick picks on me because he sees me as the weakest link because I'm a woman, a stand up paddle boarder, and middle aged. It happened a few weeks back, and I posted about it here. That history of woman's surfing was at my back as I shouted at him and told him to go fuck himself. I wasn't taking that bollocks.

It took a long time for woman to resist how they were treated by the men in this sport. They needed to keep their heads down to have a place at all, or risk ridicule or worse.

One of my most shameful memories was writing into Tracks magazine to complain about the representation of woman. Where were my heros? Why were woman only pictured if they were in bikinis? The editor published the letter. I was thrilled, the newspaper hot off the press. He responded alright. Ridiculed me and told me I must have hippie parents and should stay at home and be quiet, or something of the kind. My eyes burned with hot tears. I had just been put in my place. My voice didn't matter in this surfing world of men. I wish I'd kept the copy. I threw it out, pretending it was a joke, that it didn't matter.

That's what made me cry at the end. Those woman had fought hard to prove girls did matter, and COULD surf. That's why I get up at dawn to go surfing with female friends who share a bond of surfing sisterhood in the ocean. I love this sport so much. The thought of woman not having a place in it is just fucking archaic and unjustified.

If you are a male surfer reading this and thinking, nah, I won't watch it because it'll probably be boring, well, you've missed the whole point.

With Love,

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