'Surf Life' and stories of women's surfing
Although it happens less and less, there are still days when people will explain the continued absence of women in surf media as a reflection of a lack of interest in women’s surfing, or due to a lack of content created by women surfers themselves. These explanations are as frustrating as they are disappointing (and fury-inducing) because neither of these things are true. The high profile of women surfers like Stephanie Gilmore, Carissa Moore and Layne Beachley are simple evidence, but even more is the success of various media about women’s surfing. Films like Blue Crush (2002) and Girls Can’t Surf (2022) played to packed cinemas, Magazines like Sea.Together have endured and connected international surfing communities, reporting in Tracks by Kate Allman, Lucy Small and Selina Steele on sexism in women’s competitive sport was nominated for a Walkely award for Women’s Leadership in Media, and the 2020 all-women issue of Australian surf magazine, White Horses , went into reprint. So