Monday, September 28, 2009

blue crush

Almost every single day I go onto either surfline.com, surfermag.com, or wetsand.com and check the surf and read articles about what's going on in the surfing world. I can almost guarantee that everytime I scroll down the surfline home page to the highest rated or most viewed photos I will find a picture of a woman surfing. How awesome is that? A sport that is dominated by men, about 75% men to only 25% women, has photos of women surfing and surfing very very well on the homepage of the biggest surf site on the web. Here enlies the problem with these photos, the high majority of the photos are images of the women performing a bottom turn. Given, bottom turns are the most essential and one of the coolest looking maneuvers in surfing, but when doing a bottom turn, the surfer must bend over at the waist. So the majority of the photos feature a girl in a bikini bending over. It would be difficult to find an image of woman in a wetsuit surfing, even performing a more difficult trick than a photo of a woman in a bikini, that has a higher user rating or as many views as the latter.



Here is an example I found in about 30 seconds
Photo found on first page of the highest rated photos on surfline
















This was also one of the very few that had a woman actually on a surfboard in the water








The body of a woman is a beautiful thing, but these women should also be appreciated for their surfing. It saddens me when I go surfing and see hundreds of guys in the line up and one girl and virtually no one will give her the respect she deserves. I can remember seeing a group of guys driving by two girl surfers and mocking her by screaming out "BLUE CRUSH!!" I saw them often and saw them laughing when the girls would fall and would make jokes behind her back. It's just another example of the reluctance of men to incorporate women into sports with them. Many of the guys that dont give women they deserve in the water aren't even the best surfers in the water on any given day. I hope girls keep surfing, and keep charging, and keep throwing buckets in the face of those kooks who think its okay to push women away from a sport that is all about enjoying yourself and letting everything go.



Joshua K.

339 M 7PM
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. sportpsychologyDecember 7, 2009 at 6:38 PM

    Great blog Josh.
    These words truly speak to the minds of male and female surfers everywhere. Women are often some of the most passionate surfers around because the obstacles they must face when they enter the water. Most are going alone because their female friends are not interested in going into a cold ocean with a bunch of males who are going to do nothing more than harass them for being there. Too many male surfers are arrogant, feeling they are better than a female surfer because “only a girl”.
    I remember going to Huntington during the end of the summer, and hearing males criticize a girl for paddling out in a five to six-foot swell. Chastising her, making comments that entailed that she would be hopeless surfing in these conditions. She paid no attention to their comments, instead, she pulled into a peeling 6-foot right, and busted a few top turns and attempted an air on a close out section.
    She put the males’ voices to rest. She may have not changed their minds about every female surfer that enters the water on any given day, but she humbled them that day enough that they stopped commenting amongst themselves.
    The photos you are talking about on surfline.com, and surfmag.com, are more than accurate. There are a lot more posterior shots of females, than shots of them busting top turns and airs. Great job bringing this to the attention of male surfers in our class, hopefully this will help put an end to the prejudice against female surfers.

    Tony P. Nuñez

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)