Alicia King

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Coming Home

Coming Home- The Sydney Swans

It went down like a drug deal. As mum and I sat dejected on a bench outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground — our prospects of scoring all but gone — a man in a cap and sunglasses sat down alongside me and took a huge bite out of his burger. Without turning to face me and whilst gnawing on a mouthful, he mumbled,

“How many are you after?”

Mum and I had racked up multiple laps around the MCG in the hours leading up to the 2005 AFL Grand Final, which despite looking promising in terms of securing tickets from a scalper, had proven fruitless. I had spotted some men who appeared to be bartering, sidled up to them and realised they were indeed making an exchange. Just as I asked if they had any spare to sell, two of the men flipped out police badges while the other two threw their heads back. I quickly scurried away to a nearby bench.

Mum had been sceptical from the start and her anxiety and frustration was evident in everything she wasn’t saying. Her pursed lips an indicator she was ruing the fact she’d agreed to my half-cocked plan. A week earlier the Sydney Swans had defeated St Kilda to win a Grand Final berth.

Standing in our seaside Manly apartment I delivered an impassioned plea to my parents. We didn’t have tickets, but we’d get them. Dad laughed and declined, at 80 years of age he felt it was too much for him. I zeroed in on mum and harped on relentlessly about the potential regret of not going. After twenty-three years of barracking for the Swans — through years of them being the pariah of the AFL — “How could we not go?” She caved. Flights and accommodation were booked.

We did not however have tickets, and thus the final and most naïve and precarious step in my plan was to procure them from a scalper. I reassured her if this failed, we could always buy standing room tickets. Mum raised her eyebrows and said nothing. Despite her doubts, we were Melbourne bound. 

It would have been outrageous not to at least try to see the Sydney Swans vie for their first premiership. Mum and Dad began lugging me, their only child, along to the Swans first season when I was a few months old. My parents — both born in Melbourne — had met and married in Sydney, a city they loved. It only lacked one thing: an Aussie Rules team. They were delighted when it was decided that the South Melbourne Swans would play their ‘home’ games at the SCG in 1982. The Swans were on the verge of financial collapse and relocation loomed as their only salvation, and thus Swans officials approached the Victorian Football League (VFL) about a move. The VFL was very keen to make theirs a truly national competition and crack into a potentially lucrative Sydney market.

Many South Melbourne fans were irate about this possibility and a “Keep South at South” movement formed. Moving was akin to exile from football’s heartland. When the official relocation decision was made, the VFL president, Allen Aylett, received death and bomb threats and had faeces dumped in his pool and letterbox. Vitriol was heaped on the players who were branded ‘traitors.’

As a young kid I knew of none of this. I knew my favourite thing about the footy was getting a hot pie ‘n’ chips, an ice cream, and chasing it down with a piece of rock cake brought from home. I knew my mum, dad and the other couple of thousand Swans supporters that turned up to the SCG every game, really cared about this team that seemed to lose a lot. And I knew that following Aussie Rules in Sydney in the 80s and early 90s was incredibly daggy. It wasn’t considered ‘real’ footy in the way Rugby League and Rugby Union were. The physical contact not as brutal and ‘masculine.’ People smirked at the players’ little shorts and kids at school told me Aussie Rules was ‘gay.’No doubt parroting what they’d heard at home. In truth, I was a bit embarrassed and unsure what to think.

I seldom sat in my seat in the Ladies stand with my parents. A three-hour game was an eternity and I’d pester my dad to kick the footy with me out back. He’d spend hours playing kick or walking me up to sit behind the goal square in the Noble Stand. There was hardly anyone there so you could stand right near the fence behind the big-name forwards in the competition like Tony Modra, Gary Ablett and Dermott Brereton. After a goal you could bet on someone yelling,

“Umpire, how big’s your dick?”

The ump would signal the successful goal by dropping his two index fingers like a guillotine a foot apart. Dad and I would laugh. 

When the swans scored, the cheerleading Swanettes would jig and high kick, swishing their red and white pom poms in their fishnets. I was intrigued by their extremely made-up faces and their dancing atop a makeshift stage which covered a section of seating directly behind the goal posts.

I’d chase the ball when it flew between the seats but was never a victor in the scuffle for it. I was perplexed and bothered by everyone booing Paul Roos when he ran on the field or past us and asked my mum, “Don’t they like him?” To my joyous surprise, she told me they were all cheering, “Roooooooos!”

The swans were both brilliant and hopeless. They also had a ton of critics within Melbourne clubs willing them to fail. Resentment bubbled: the apparent unfairness of the VFL buoying the Swans financially while they found their feet was unpalatable.

The Swans monetary woes dragged on for years as they tried to etch themselves into Sydney’s sporting landscape. They couldn’t support themselves with a non-existent membership base. Sydney’s exorbitant cost of living made it difficult to find players decent accommodation. It was difficult to secure training fields as Rugby League teams took precedence; at times they wound up training in parklands or a cliff top near Maroubra beach.

Sometimes I’d complain about having to go, but I had no say in it. Looking back now — my parent’s commitment seems even more remarkable given how dire the Swans performance was in the early 90s, including a 26-game losing streak spanning the 1992 and ‘93 seasons. Times were so desperate at one stage Swans players roamed the streets to giving away free tickets. And people turned them down. But there was something that kept them going. It was never considered that we would not go.

The steady exposure to hours spent alongside my mum and dad watching the Swans became a part of my childhood, my adolescence, our family life. Part of me.

My mum, always stylishly attired, and who was mostly a reserved woman, would shriek — “In the back! That’s a free.”I would watch in hysterics as she would have Tourette’s-like attacks; unleashing a torrent of expletives when she deemed the umpires unfair. Dad would cringe while attempting to hide behind his hand.

Things began to change in the early 90s.

Ron Barassi arrived as coach in 1993. Then Tony “Plugger” Lockett came in 1995, the same year Paul Kelly won the Brownlow. Sydneysiders recognised these names and the Swans profile and support base grew. And they began to win. I’d never felt the crowd at the SCG pulse the way it did when Plugger kicked a behind after the siren against Essendon in an SCG Preliminary. They were off to the 1996 Grand Final. Though on the day they were destroyed by North Melbourne.

Despite the beat downs and the critics, we could see and feel their heart. Their potential. We weathered the losses as fans because we could see effort was there, and that’s why we were there too. Back then nobody called it the ‘Bloods’ culture: we simply saw the Swans get back up each time they were knocked down.

By the time I was in my early twenties in the early two-thousands going to a Swans game was fashionable and representative of a wide-ranging sporting palate. I’d sometimes meet up with friends at matches, but I always wound up sitting back with mum and dad. The three of us in our spot, always the same seats on the lower level of the Ladies stand. I just wanted to watch the footy with the two people I most enjoyed watching it with.

I hesitate to say the time span between the Swans inaugural 1982 season and their making the 2005 Grand Final against West Coast was a journey we were part of. But rather, time spent at the SCG was a dependable mainstay for our little family that I have recognised only with age.    

And so it was, that mum and I were sitting on a bench with a bloke and his burger, who claimed the two tickets he had were ‘amazing’ seats that belonged to a Brownlow medallist who wasn’t keen on attending a Grand Final between two non-Melbourne teams. They were pricey, but we had no choice. We’d soon find out if we’d been duped. Turns out we had the best seats in the house. First elevation, in line with the bounce. We were in disbelief and more than a little anxious we’d be found out.

As the first quarter got going, we began to relax, however the stress of the close game took over. Mum kept burying her head in her hands and appeared on the verge of cardiac arrest for most of the game. When Leo Barry took his famed mark in the dying seconds and the crowd near him erupted, we knew the Swans had won. Their first Premiership in seventy-two years, and their first as the Sydney Swans. The energy that coursed through that stadium was palpable. I was completely deafened by noise as mum and I embraced, exhausted. 

Not long after the Grand Final my parents separated. And in the years since, both of my parents have passed away. I didn’t go to the Swans for years after the 2005 Grand Final. It had taken twenty-three years to reach that pinnacle, now I felt like no other game of footy could top that experience. The next year I went travelling. I fell in love, got married, had babies and toddlers. I was busy with other things, and I also felt like if I couldn’t be all in, I didn’t want to be in at all. I didn’t want to watch games here and there. That’s just who I am.

In 2019 I felt compelled to watch the Swans on telly. I really missed my mum, who had died suddenly a couple of years earlier, and watching the Swans made me feel connected to her, and my dad.

That season, I took my three kids to their first Swans game. When I walked into the SCG and heard the Swans song I cried. It was like walking into the house I grew up in. I realised I had grown up here too. This was a big part of my life I’d disowned.

Since then, my family has gone to every game we possibly can. My husband, three kids and I drove down to attend the 2022 Grand Final against the Cats. It hurt to watch our team — so dominant during the season — lose themselves on the ground. Sometimes that happens in footy. Sometimes that happens in life. Regardless of the final score, it was where I wanted to be.

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A yarn about Sugar Addiction and Recovery….

I was on a podcast talking about my struggle with and recovery from sugar addiction.

Seeking moderation is the accepted treatment for all types of disordered eating, which is ideal when it works. But what if it doesn’t? For some of us, letting go of our ‘drug’ of choice completely is the only path to freedom. It is the antithesis of ‘restriction.’ Our lives could not be more restricted than when we are engaged in the obsessive and compulsive throes of active addiction.

Here is a link to my episode on Netta Gorman’s Life After Sugar podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/065-i-thought-my-problem-was-food-but-in-fact-it-was/id1546092478?i=1000556872809

Consistently engaging in the things I love — Skating, surfing, swimming, writing, paddling — has only been made possible through the stability of recovery. One day at a time.

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Getting Horizontal

Not good enough for you, eh? he niggles as he skips down the Nth Av stairs, board underarm. I’m walking up the stairs buzzing after a 10min body bash. I feel bloody amazing, what’s he on about?

It takes a few seconds to register that because I didn’t surf on a board, he thinks I’ve deemed the conditions subpar. Not good enough for a proper surf.

Well I’ve had a bad hip so I haven’t surfed for a while, I say. 

Oh well I won’t rub it in then, he says with a grin and sprints off. 

The guy is a school dad. One of the talk it up types; surfing 8 footers, getting barreled and the like. Yet surfs like he’s hanging a bog. Fucken kook. I’m a hack but at least I know it. 

I don’t have a bad hip. I’ve actually had a debilitating run of persistent pelvic and bladder pain and haven’t ridden a board or done much apart from walk in the last 6 months. Too many years treating my body like a garbage bin, combined with 3 births in under 4 years and my rig has packed it in. It’s been humbling. And necessary if I’m honest. The pain has been slowly dissipating and I’m back in the water bodysurfing. 

It’s intriguing that this man views the experience of bodysurfing as secondary to surfing. It’s a vibe I’ve got quite a bit lately. Like, placing yourself in a vertical position on a wave is somehow superior to being horizontal: bodysurfing, mat riding, knee boarding etc. A literal hierarchy: the higher you are, the better. Actually, nah…foils and SUPs are vilified by the purists. 

Despite the myriad of craft (and absence of craft) embraced by many, there are still streams of bigotry in surf culture, even if the messages are subtle. Or not subtle at all. I know a mum whose son was enjoying riding waves prone. She told him to STAND UP! Laying down or kneeling is not surfing! No room for cripples or gut sliders in that camp. 

I know a lot of surfers that have learned as adults. I’m one of them. But I find it a curious thing that very few of them bodysurf. I’m not sure why. Perhaps a lack of swimming confidence. I’m biased as I grew up swimming and bodysurfing as a nipper despite living an hour from the beach, but a body bash is to me the most free and unencumbered way of catching waves. Trying to surf without knowing how to bodysurf seems like trying to run without knowing how to walk. 

But bodysurfing is not that sellable. Or fashionable. And perhaps that’s the thing — for many there’s a greater investment in the image of being a surfer than there is in the actual experience of riding a wave. Ostensibly, watching someone bodysurf is not as visually pleasing as watching a surfer atop a board. There’s not as much happening above the water. But that immersion is what makes the felt experience of bodysurfing something else entirely. 

You are more in the ocean, than on it. Able to see the eddies and foam spirals underneath broken waves as you claw your fingers into the sea floor; the span of your body elongated by the passing swell. Eyes and ears on the surface of the water you can hear the audible Schweppes like fizz of foam. And the occasional ripple of fear that comes with being immersed without a shield.

You’re disguised by the water and take up minimal space in the lineup. So much of surfing is posturing and positioning — taking up space. Making your presence felt. But when swimming, you’re just a bobbing head. Stealthily kicking around a couple of metres from a surfer, you’re a benign presence — not a threat. 

There’s no bogged rails or botched take-offs. Getting throttled and rolled is part of the game. Though bodysurfing was my way into the ocean, I had often neglected its simple thrill as an adult in pursuit of getting better at surfing.

Recovering from a state of pain led me back to the ease of bodysurfing. The ugliness of my obsessive and competitive tendencies dissolved when a board was removed from the surfing equation. Navigating lineup dynamics, performance anxiety and harsh self-criticism all but gone. 

Heaps of surfers say they always feel better after a surf. I’m not one of them. I’ve had some crackers of course. I love surfing. But not always. I’ve had surfs where I’ve come in wanting to smash something or someone; fuming at myself for blundering a good wave or being out of position, or at some prick that despite bagging a ton, snaked me on the only bloody wave I caught. Greedy cunt. 

But bodysurfing…it just always feels so good. And I don’t look like I’m hanging a bog. 

(Photo by Dominick Nicholas @dom_captures)

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Girls Can’t Surf – A Review of Sorts

At a time when Salt-N-Pepa were urging mobs to Push it on the dancefloor, an eclectic bunch of hungry surfing women were truly pushin’ it against the status quo of the 1980s surf world. Pushing for a place in the lineup. And pushing for a place — a legitimate place — in pro surfing. Because they were told overtly they didn’t belong. Girls can’t surf after all.   

The recently released Girls Can’t Surf tells the story of these women: Pam Burridge, Jodie Cooper, Pauline Menzcer, Layne Beachley, Frieda Zamba and Wendy Botha. And it is a cracker. 

The beauty of this film lies in the willingness of the women featured to really go there. A dive into the chauvinistic echo chamber of 80s surf culture is bolstered by intimate personal narratives; a film and book could and should be made and written about each woman alone. Jodie Cooper’s sexuality. Pam Burridge’s alcoholism and anorexia. Pauline Menczer’s rheumatoid arthritis. They get real in a way that’s entirely relatable for viewers of all ages and backgrounds. You don’t have to be a fan of surfing to enjoy this movie. Just a fan of human perseverance. 

Their candid remarks about surfing against each other is a highlight. This is hysterical and the still simmering tensions palpable. Here’s voting for a World Master’s Championship heat between Layne and Lisa.

I’ll stop short of re-hashing the movie’s narrative here. The thing is: you should go see it. It is brilliant storytelling and Producers Chris Nelius and Mikaela Perske have made a fundamentally important contribution to surfing culture. 

Instead I’m keener to explore questions the movie’s release raises for me. Like, why is there a huge void when it comes to the documentation of women from surfing’s past? How does this relate to who is telling the stories of women’s surf history? And what needs to change in this regard?

In the film, Nick Carroll and Jamie Brisick voice their perceptions as legitimate authorities on surf culture. Both men are acutely intelligent and empathetic, and their observations add tremendous value to the movie. Nick said in a recent episode of The Lineup podcast that when asked he was initially apprehensive to be involved in the movie as it wasn’t his story to tell. But he was a valid and obvious choice having been a veteran surf writer who observed these women up close over many years. 

Why not feature a woman surf writer? Because there were none. All of surfing’s experts are men. The editors, writers, historians, movie makers, photographers and storytellers. The loudest voices belong to men. Nick. Jamie. Matt Warshaw. Tim Baker. Sean Doherty. Phil Jarratt. Derek Hynd. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Men can and should tell the stories of women and women that of men. But the absence of women contributors over many decades is a big part of why women in surf history are so poorly documented and why there is so little footage of women surfing in the 70s, 80s and even 90s in comparison to men. It’s unlikely a calculated exclusion, it’s just that at the editing table of a surf mag women were — and to some degree still are — mostly an afterthought.

Even today, women have very little presence as storytellers in the mainstream surf media platforms that have broad audiences. A lot of women have taken matters into their own hands with a surge in independent magazines, films and social media accounts that focus on sharing women’s stories. But take a look at the big forecasting sites with lots of traffic  and see how many women contributors you can find in regard writers and photographers. Then take a look at the surf magazine websites. You’ll find some. But percentage wise it’s very low. And this does matter. 

We need more diversity in the creators of content. Not only is this reflected in a lack of gender diversity in subjects we see, but it can impact the way a story is told. The success of Girls Can’t Surf relies on the featured women having the space to tell their own stories. The spotlight is squarely on them. But what about when the storyteller projects their own gendered biases and ignorance onto their subject? It’s dangerous territory which can misrepresent the truth and legacy of surfing women. 

One example of this would be Phil Jarratt’s portrayal of Isma Amor — one of Australia’s first women surfers — in his book Surfing Australia: A Complete History of Surfboard Riding in Australia. Jarratt is a respected surf writer and historian whose work is frequently cited. He describes fifteen year old Isma as a “sultry seductress.” He sexualises an adolescent and defines her in relationship to men. And that’s the extent of his description. No details about Amor surfing, what type of board she rode etc. What was his portrayal based on? Not facts that’s for certain. The baseless narrative he chose to present is a harmful one. 

And Jarratt’s blunder is an acute one. But having stories told over and over through the male lens can lead to more subtle biases in depiction. There are certain angles of thought that will not occur to men because it is not within the realm of their lived experience. I’ve read articles by high profile male surf writers in the last year proclaiming that equality is here; women are now being paid equally in the pro ranks and when they look around in the lineup numbers of women match that of men. It’s a rather simplistic view of a complex topic. I, like many women have felt wholly equal in certain lineups and contexts and conversely, I’ve had experiences where I have felt like anything but. The last thing I want to read is a bloke telling me what fantastic egalitarianism I am experiencing in the surf when that is not always the case. 

Having more women storytellers will result in a more true and rich image of surfing. It will allow us to see more stories about women. Girls Can’t Surf tells the 80s story of women’s pro surfing. Now let’s hear about the 70s, 60s and 50s rather than using that space for another Michael Peterson feature, or whatever other male icon we’ve heard about ad nauseum. 

Let’s hear about the Women’s Surfing Hui based in Hawaii in the 70s: Patti Paniccia, Linda McCrerey, Jeannie Chesser, Rell Sunn, Laola Lake, Claudia Nuuhiwa, Elaine Davis and Linda Divoli. This bunch of women spearheaded the formation of women’s pro surfing. It wouldn’t exist without them. 

And what about the classic stylists of the 60s: Phyllis O’Donell, Linda Benson, Joyce Hoffman, Josette Lagardere and Joey Hamasaki to name only a handful. 

The skill of the 50s waterwomen was next level. In addition to being adept surfers many of these women were winning swimmers and divers like Marge Calhoun and Mary Ann Hawkins. Anona Napoleon was a mean kayaker who just missed the Olympics and was one of the first women to cross the Molokai to Oahu channel in a women’s canoe team. 

Isabel Letham and Isma Amor were in their teens amongst the first girls to surf in Australia. 

Hawaiian Princess Victoria Ka‘iulani surfed in late 1800s Honolulu when surfing was discouraged full stop, but even more so for women given the colonial expectations of conforming to a feminine ideal. Surfing was considered a masculine pursuit. 

Since day dot women have been surfing. When explorers arrived in Hawaii a recurrent observation in their journal entries was that women surfed in equal numbers in comparison to their male counterparts and their skills also matched that of the men. There was no gender divide in the water.

Gotta keep pushin’ for the stories of these women to be told and for greater diversity in who tells them. 

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Beyond Equal Pay, How Do You Define Equality in The Lineup?

Carissa Moore

In 2018 there was plenty of righteous celebration — and sadly plenty of comment board grumblings — when the WSL announced pay parity for men and women. Finally. 

Having never surfed competitively let alone professionally, I often wonder what equality looks like for the everywoman surfer when you step outside the realm of pro surfing. Are women considered equals in the line-up? And how do we measure equality in the surf? 

The resource we’re all after is waves. So is our wave count a currency for measuring our worth in the water? Or is it something else entirely? Skill is the obvious predetermining factor of who will nab the most waves. The best surfers get the best waves, be they men or women. But there’s more to it than that right? Beyond tallying waves, what I’m really talking about is a feeling. How a woman feels in the water in relationship to the men around her. Whether she feels that she belongs. 

Of course feeling is inherently subjective. A quick survey of my surfing mates reveals this. I know a couple of women who call North Narrabeen home. One says she’s been treated with nothing but respect by men in the water. The other says she’s often intimidated by the machismo, particularly when the surf’s good. 

Personally, I’ve felt both wholly encouraged by blokes and completely belittled. If an interaction feels off, I often conduct my own crude litmus test by posing the hypothetical question: Would he have treated another man like that? Sometimes it feels like a definitive yes or no. Sometimes it’s just impossible to know.

I’ve been involved in a few verbal stoushes with men in the surf, but it’s not these instances that have left me feeling the most uncomfortable. It’s the instances where I’ve felt hyper aware of my gender, and further to that my sexuality. 

Years back I was surfing Green Island and a bloke I’d been talking to the day before was out. We chatted and he gave me a few pointers about the sweep and line up markers. They were unsolicited but appreciated. As the surf evolved the man began to full on coach me. A fifty something bloke barking orders at me: a twenty-eight year old first time mum with her hubby and one year old sitting on the beach, and thirty odd others in the line-up. 

It was mortifying. It didn’t register as abuse at the time, but it was an abuse of sorts: an intrusion into my surfing experience. As for the litmus test: there’s no way he would’ve singled out and patronised a bloke like that. My being a woman was part of his act. 

By contrast the most humiliating encounter I’ve had in the surf happened without a word being spoken to me. It left me feeling barren of any type of presence. My second child was around 6 months old. I was still breastfeeding and felt completely naked despite my steamer: a vulnerability that comes with your body not being entirely yours, and the responsibility of sustaining a life beyond yours.

I decided to venture around the bends to surf Newport Peak. It was grey and drizzling, the surf a smooth 3-4 foot. I paddled out to a large bunch of rowdy teenage boys carrying on. Before long they began to sing an anthem I remembered the boys singing at Uni: I wish that all the ladies…were waves in the ocean. And I was a surfer. I’d ride them in motion. They continued with various lyrical compositions — all of which reduced women to being sexual playthings that could be poked, creamed, ridden and so on for male pleasure. Hearing this at Uni was a laugh and I relished giving it back to the boys by bellowing retaliatory versions with friends: I wish that all the fellas. But here, I was a tiny isle, alone in a sea of cocky bravado and all I wanted was to disappear beneath the tide line. I wanted to be invisible, but the truth is, I already was.

An elder statesman paddled out to raucous welcome. I don’t know if he heard the content of their chorus. I like to think he didn’t. But he certainly didn’t look at me. I was invisible to him too. One of the boys eventually gestured to those still singing that I — a woman — was present. One by one they stopped singing. A bunch of pubescent boys had made me feel so humiliated I was on the verge of tears. I was so rattled by the experience I didn’t surf the peak again for another couple of years. 

As for the litmus test…well, I think the truest test was the shame and embarrassment that seeped through me like the creep of bright red along litmus paper. I was invisible yet hyper aware of my womanhood. I certainly wasn’t an equal in that lineup and it felt like shit.    

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Rise of The Cover Girl??

Back in 2012 my constant pestering was rewarded when I was given the task of interviewing Stephanie Gilmore for a special 50 years of Surfing World Issue. As it turned out I wasn’t able to speak with Steph but received her answers via email just after deadline. The editor asked me to put together a piece for the following issue.

Below is the piece I wrote about Steph being the first woman to feature on the cover of SW in issue 309. I sent it in, but it was never published. Since then, Tyler Wright has been on the cover (SW336) and Steph again in SW377. Last month SW featured Laura Enever on the cover of its 407th issue. 4 women versus 403 men in the history of the magazine. The last 8 years is an improvement on the first 49 years with NO women on the cover, but it’s still pretty shitty right? I’m not singling out Surfing World as the sole offender; this trend is reflected in all mainstream surf magazines the world over.

These surfing women making covers are victories to be celebrated. When I see them I think, Yes! But I also feel something else. When I see praise heaped upon the social media accounts of these magazines for featuring a woman on the cover, I feel icky in the same way I feel nauseated when men are applauded for looking after their own children. Like, why the hell wouldn’t a father look after his own child? And why wouldn’t a lady shredder be on the cover of a surf mag?

Acknowledging these milestones for women is important, but I can’t help but wonder whether lauding behavior that should  be commonplace leads to the editors of these mags (all men) feeling complacent and satisfied that they’ve put their token chick on the cover. It certainly appears that way: I’ve either read or looked through every issue of SW in the last 10 years and I’d estimate that stories featuring men, written by men, make up 90% of the content.

Coverage of women’s surfing in the mainstream surf media has certainly increased over the last 50 years but there’s a long road to equality. The cover girl hasn’t risen just yet. But what is heartening is watching the women who have gotten jack of this begin to create their own content. Whether it be social media accounts, websites, podcasts, crowd funded mags and books; there’s a bunch of narratives about surfing women being put out there. They’re creating their own cover girls which is pretty fucking cool!

STEPHANIE GILMORE- RISE OF THE COVER GIRL

SW turned 50 last month — a half century of awesomeness. It’s trippy to think it took nearly all that time for a woman to grace the cover of SW, actually surfing solo, with hooves planted atop fiberglass and foam. Sure, there’s been plenty of females, especially on the early covers: poised with a mal underarm, framing the shot of a male counterpart, or delightfully clutching the hand of a cartoon Santa Claus. All elegant in their repose and artfully ornamental, yet their true beauty remained cloaked by their idleness.

Well, thank God Stephanie Louise Gilmore became the first lassie to slide onto page one in SW309 last year getting gloriously pitted in a backside Indo tunnel. When the golden haired empress of the sea was asked why it took so long for this to happen she mused “50 years is quite a while, and there has definitely been some beautiful female surfers and images of them surfing in that time so maybe it’s been the bad editors or something…haha. It is an honour that SW chose me to break the drought!”

Steph thinks the evolution of women’s surfing has shifted and boosted the abundance and quality of images depicting them: “I truly feel that female surfing has transformed in the last few years into the perfect mix of beauty and power, style and grace. It seems to be far more photogenic and now there are some great photographers that are actually interested in spending their time capturing us surfing these waves, and I guess this has helped to change the way female surfing is viewed.”

Steph’s cover sold more copies than the succeeding Dane Reynolds issue. Considering Mr Reynolds is widely considered the most popular surfer on this big blue marble, it’s a weighty indicator that there’s a tangible demand for increased coverage of women’s surfing. She affirms “I think the interest in female surfing has never been higher, whether that be the ASP women’s world tour or just the lifestyle we have, and I think its because magazines such as SW portray the female surfer in such a classy, interesting way. This may have been the key ingredient missing in female surfing coverage for a long time. So now it’s here, and quality is in demand.”

The demand is glaring, and more of the traditionally male dominated surf magazines have upped their female ante. Steph was also the first female cover of Transworld Surf in 2010, and Carissa Moore fronted Surfer in 2009 (16yrs after Lisa Anderson’s iconic Surfer page one was accompanied by the spray “Lisa Anderson surfs better than you”.) If these sporadic cracks continue to splinter the glass ceiling above, a sea of possibilities could open up for surfing folk world wide: the unsponsored tour pro hungering for an event in Hawaii, the twenty-something novice inspired by other girl’s charging, and the proud dad who wants his ripping daughter to have the same opportunities as his ripping son.

When asked what covers inspired her as a grom, Steph cites various portrait covers of Kelly, and Laird’s “Millennium wave” at Teahupoo, before declaring “And of course Lisa on the cover of Surfer was fucking rad.”  Too right!

So, here’s to the rise of the surfing cover girl. The true beauty of the female form is showcased when in full flight — performing acts of daring athleticism, unfailing precision and wondrous grace — be it dangling ten piggies over the nose, threading the needle in a blue vortex, or hacking the bejesus out of a curling lip at full throttle. Now, what on this big blue marble could be more fucking rad than that?

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Kim McKenzie on Sea Together

Kim Mckenzie (aka @sharkgirlkim on Instagram) is true blue in every sense: a hardcore surfer girl who was one of the first Aussie women to surf Hawaii, she walked away from the sport in her prime to fulfil her obligation as a shark contractor on the Sunshine coast, taking over the role from her father to earn a living for herself.

Kim recently shared her experience of growing up surfing and fishing on the Sunshine coast and surfing in the 1975 Smirnoff Pro at Sunset. It was a landmark event for the women, it being the first year they were included in the Smirnoff. Kim talks about putting herself in the mix despite the tense vibes from the men, and her heat at 12 foot Sunset including a helluva wipeout here.

(Pic above from Kim’s private collection)

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Jeannie Chesser on Sea Together

There’s nothing I love seeing more than older women who are lifelong surfers, particularly those who’ve navigated raising children whilst regularly getting wet. Women so often take on the lion’s share of childrearing and domestic responsibilities and it’s so heartening to see and learn about women that have lived such lives, and are who I’d consider role models.

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The Legitimacy of Sugar Addiction: My White Powdery Blow

I wrote this a while ago, but I’ve been too shit scared to share it with people I know. 

I guess I’ve been scared that people might think my story is lame and the idea of being addicted to sugar and needing to let it go entirely is a hoax. But those are the thoughts that perpetuate stigma and keep people stuck. I’ve decided I can live with doubters. What I can’t live with is the idea of someone struggling and not knowing what pathways exist. That there is hope. 

If this resonates with you or you think it might help someone please pass it on.

This was originally published on ‘The Fix’:

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When The World Floats Away

It is the most mortifying of feelings when the uglier parts of your personality come to the fore. It seems these aspects of myself have become more apparent since becoming a mother. The best and worst parts of myself have been magnified to greater amplitudes than I have previously known.

Those darker impulses it seems at times have surreptitiously slipped under the radar of my awareness, or likely ignorance, and been upon me with such ferocity I’ve succumbed to acting them out in the most pitiful of ways.

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