Making Friends With The Neighbours

So, today, for the first time ever, I saw someone out in the lineup PULL THEIR iPHONE OUT OF THEIR BOARDSHORTS AND CHECK THEIR MESSAGES! Not voicemail, but texts or emails or social media or the swell report or something. Say what now? He never took a photo, never took a call, but while I was out there I saw him check his phone a few times and it totally bummed me out. I'm guessing that people using their mobiles in the water is going to increasingly become a thing, and I've been sadly trying to comes to some kind of terms with it for a while because one of the things that I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really love about surfing is that it's forced time away from that stuff. Like flying where you can could just sit back and do other things because you can't couldn't check your emails. It's like when I go for an after-work walk and don't take my phone unless I want to take pictures. I ...

When it comes to talking about improving the visibility, representation and opportunities for women in surfing, one of the common points made is that 'Women need more role models'. And it's a fair point. Until recently, only the most high-performance, most successful and/or prettiest female surfers were given media coverage, with others left out because they're 'not good enough' or 'too butch'. Of course, historically the people making those comments and value judgements (How does being 'butch' impact a woman's surfing abilities or value? And what does it matter if someone is 'butch' anyway?) have largely been male magazine editors and marketing directors. These days we have a lot more women in all sorts of roles in surf media and representations of women have improved, all of which is awesome, but there is still an alarming emphasis on youth , beauty and sex appeal . For younger women I think the high-performance, everyone's...