Making Friends With The Neighbours

I follow lots (and lots) of surfing accounts on Instagram. Lots. Many of these are focused on and run by women, but I also follow lots of other general surf sites and magazines. Most of the general sites follow the usual pattern of not including much content about women, which is annoying and always stands out to me. Of course. The other day, I saw an interesting post on the account @oldsurfermags . The post was a collection of ten of the most liked images that have been posted by the (I'm assuming) male administrator, Chris Allen. While I still had hopes, the most liked images, not surprisingly, were all of men. The images are amazing, but I felt a bit bummed. Instead of stewing in my bummed-ness though, I commented on the post: (Before I go on, let's take a moment to enjoy my excellent typo! Hahaha.) I don't comment a lot on posts link this way (although there was one occasion that I did and got into a discussion with Kelly Slater about trans bodies, but...

So this is to be one of my new favourite images of women's surfing... Surfer is Ashleigh Browne and photo is by Kane Brown (click their names for links to their Instagram accounts) Screen shot by me and my phone!

When people ask me what I think about Tim Winton's books, I always answer that he writes incredibly beautiful landscapes. He really, really does. But for me, like many women I know, Winton's books are difficult to read, because his portrayals of women tend to paint them as either prudish or damaged. The men and boys in his stories - always coming of age it seems - are much more complex and nuanced characters, but his women and girls are simple, borderlining on tropes. I'm not suggesting Winton doesn't like women though! He talks often about the women in his life, and how his sisters taught him to surf. Winton knows and loves women well, it's just that this doesn't seem to translate into his stories, which makes it difficult for me to read them, let alone like them. With the release of the film version of Breath , directed by Simon Baker, all of this was driven home even more strongly.  Here is a story about men, in which women are trouble or ...