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SMNTY Classics: Surfer Girls · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you a production of I R Radio. Samantha,
0:19
Speaker 1: have you ever gone surfing? No? Have you ever wanted
0:23
Speaker 1: to go surfing? Of course, but I feel that my
0:27
Speaker 1: lack of coordination m could get me killed. Also, all
0:32
Speaker 1: the sharks, I'll s all the sharks. I have gone surfing.
0:39
Speaker 1: And let me tell you the thing I was not
0:41
Speaker 1: anticipating because I have bad balance. I'm clumsy. We've gotten
0:44
Speaker 1: over this. You actually have a lot of upper arm
0:46
Speaker 1: strength because you have to you like on a you're
0:49
Speaker 1: in a flat position and you have to kind of
0:51
Speaker 1: push yourself up into a standing position while on this board.
0:55
Speaker 1: And that's where I fell down, literally fell off, I
0:58
Speaker 1: guess uh. I did manage it once or twice like
1:03
Speaker 1: little baby waves, and it was really fun. But it
1:06
Speaker 1: was a lot more difficult then it looked. And this
1:10
Speaker 1: is coming from someone who really had just seen Mary
1:13
Speaker 1: Kayton Ashley do it in one of their like specials,
1:16
Speaker 1: and they made it look really easy. It's not easy.
1:20
Speaker 1: I forget often how much you loved Mary Kayton Ashley,
1:24
Speaker 1: and then when you remind me that the joy of
1:27
Speaker 1: them being like reminded about how much you love them
1:30
Speaker 1: and how much they influenced you is a delight. I'm
1:35
Speaker 1: glad to hear because I could really crank up the
1:37
Speaker 1: Mary kay Ashley references. Yeah, So as this comes out,
1:44
Speaker 1: the Olympics Olympics in Tokyo are underway or soon to
1:51
Speaker 1: be underway. Obviously a lot is happening, and there's a
1:54
Speaker 1: lot of discussion around that, so it could have changed,
1:57
Speaker 1: but we did want to bring this up because this
2:01
Speaker 1: Olympics marks the first time that there will be a
2:06
Speaker 1: surfing event at the Olympics after it was approved in
2:11
Speaker 1: and women will be competing in it, uh and there's
2:14
Speaker 1: a lot of exciting stuff about that. Of course, there
2:16
Speaker 1: are also a lot of conversations about whitewashing of indigenous
2:21
Speaker 1: Hawaiian history and and those are important conversations to have.
2:26
Speaker 1: But this is something one hundred years in the making
2:28
Speaker 1: of trying to get this an Olympic sport, and so
2:33
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see how it goes and to see
2:36
Speaker 1: what these women pull off at at the Olympics. But
2:40
Speaker 1: in the meantime, here is a classic episode about women
2:44
Speaker 1: and surfing. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you From
2:51
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com. Hold on, Welcome to the podcast.
2:59
Speaker 1: I'm Chris Sin and I'm Caroline. And Caroline I prepared
3:03
Speaker 1: so thoroughly for this episode on women and surfing that
3:06
Speaker 1: I went to Hawaii. I went. I went to the
3:11
Speaker 1: homeland of surfing. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've I've always
3:15
Speaker 1: admired your commitment to Okay, granted it, it wasn't for
3:20
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told you. But I did just get
3:23
Speaker 1: back from Hawaii, and I was so excited to see
3:26
Speaker 1: that surfing was next up on our podcast calendar, because
3:30
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I was just there. And by
3:34
Speaker 1: the way, listeners in Hawaii, because I know you're out
3:37
Speaker 1: there and we're gonna read a letter from one of
3:39
Speaker 1: you at the end of the episode. I am in
3:42
Speaker 1: love with your state. I wanted to marry it well,
3:47
Speaker 1: because I can't unfortunately. Um And then which island would
3:52
Speaker 1: I pick? You know, if you married Hawaii, would you
3:54
Speaker 1: be marrying all of the islands or would you have
3:56
Speaker 1: to you know, just marry Mauie or um. Anyway, Yeah,
4:03
Speaker 1: I had never been to Hawaii before, and it just
4:07
Speaker 1: blew my mind constantly, as did seeing people surf. How
4:13
Speaker 1: about that transition, Caroline Um. When my husband denied were
4:19
Speaker 1: on the Big Island. We ended up at a park
4:24
Speaker 1: renowned for its surfing, and I just never seen waves
4:29
Speaker 1: like that, and then to see people intentionally running out
4:34
Speaker 1: into them. Uh, it's just kind of mind blowing. Part
4:38
Speaker 1: partly because I'm a horrible swimmer. Oh my god, I
4:41
Speaker 1: surfing terrifies me. And I say that as someone who's
4:44
Speaker 1: never done it. But I look at pictures of people
4:46
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how how how are you staying on
4:49
Speaker 1: the board? Like I slip on like concrete in shoes,
4:53
Speaker 1: So how how can I stay on a surfboard. Also,
4:56
Speaker 1: I will now forever and always is have in my
5:00
Speaker 1: head and I know this is ridiculous, but still the
5:04
Speaker 1: sight and sound of Kate Bosworth's character and blue Crush
5:08
Speaker 1: crack in her head on the rock underwater, and I
5:11
Speaker 1: just like, I can't even I'll be I'll be in
5:15
Speaker 1: the in the calm waters off of the coast of Georgia,
5:18
Speaker 1: like bobbing around in the salt water, and I think
5:20
Speaker 1: of that and I'm like, I better paddle back in. Yeah,
5:23
Speaker 1: Getty seeing that now like firsthand. I mean I had
5:26
Speaker 1: seen surfing before, but I feel like surfing in you know,
5:32
Speaker 1: the East coast of the United States, like doesn't really count, um,
5:36
Speaker 1: but seeing it for real now, it's it's a bucketless
5:39
Speaker 1: thing to just stand on a surfboard. If I can
5:41
Speaker 1: do that, I'll be happy. My sister can surf, yeah,
5:45
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. You have to brag. You know
5:48
Speaker 1: what we should have done because for our Lady Skateboarding episode,
5:52
Speaker 1: we recorded audio of of both of us failing it
5:56
Speaker 1: being on a skateboard. I could I could get on
5:59
Speaker 1: a surf board and recreate that at a more extreme level.
6:03
Speaker 1: Let's go to the beach. Extreme sminty extreme. Yeah, it's
6:07
Speaker 1: just me screaming, screaming and then gurgling because I'm underwater.
6:11
Speaker 1: Well before, um, you hypothetically drowned totally. Okay, let's drag
6:16
Speaker 1: you back to the beach and let's talk about women
6:20
Speaker 1: and surfing in the history of surfing, because there's some
6:24
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff also some terrible stuff. It's like basically yet
6:28
Speaker 1: another lesson in white people being kind of awful. Um.
6:32
Speaker 1: But for a quick stat just to kind of keep
6:34
Speaker 1: in mind where we're at with women surfing today. From
6:40
Speaker 1: the statistics I could find, um, in thees women made
6:44
Speaker 1: up just five percent of surfers. My sister surfing. It's
6:49
Speaker 1: a statistically pretty rare thing. But now it's over. So
6:53
Speaker 1: there are more women surfing than ever before in in
6:58
Speaker 1: this era. Um. Although if we go back to the Polynesians, um,
7:05
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of years ago, it would be like
7:09
Speaker 1: it's pretty much it wasn't It wasn't a thing. Women
7:13
Speaker 1: were surfing all the time. So surfing began with the
7:19
Speaker 1: Polynesians as early as two thousand b C. According to
7:23
Speaker 1: surf historian Ben Finney UM and that was sited in
7:28
Speaker 1: the History of Surfing by Matt Warshaw. So basically that
7:31
Speaker 1: means that surfing has existed in Hawaii ever since Polynesians
7:38
Speaker 1: first settled in that gorgeous archipelago. Oh yes, it is
7:43
Speaker 1: so gorgeous. Yeah. And by twelve hundred and that's a
7:47
Speaker 1: d that's a long, a long time ago. Uh. Surfing
7:51
Speaker 1: was totally a community wide pastime and passion in Hawaii,
7:56
Speaker 1: and a nineteenth century Hawaiian sky Allers said, all thought
8:01
Speaker 1: of work is at an end. The wife may go
8:03
Speaker 1: hungry and the children, but the head of the house
8:06
Speaker 1: does not care. All day. There is nothing but surfing
8:09
Speaker 1: was this the nineteenth century white scholar, I think so. Um,
8:13
Speaker 1: and to say that all day there's nothing but surfing
8:16
Speaker 1: was a bit of an exaggeration unless it was during
8:19
Speaker 1: that they had like a three month like festival every
8:24
Speaker 1: year because again Hawaii's paradise, um, but partially because of
8:30
Speaker 1: the just the way that the crops would come in, Um,
8:36
Speaker 1: they were able to take this time off. But they
8:39
Speaker 1: also took off time every day like pretty much like
8:42
Speaker 1: every afternoon, there's like, yeah, I'm out of here, I'm
8:44
Speaker 1: gonna go, I'm gonna go. Surf and even surfboards themselves
8:49
Speaker 1: in that time had sacred significances and served as status
8:54
Speaker 1: symbols because this was not just something that beach bums did. No, no, no,
8:59
Speaker 1: this was Jack London would famously right, the sport of
9:02
Speaker 1: kings and queen's that's right, because both men and women
9:08
Speaker 1: were doing it. If you're living in paradise with all
9:10
Speaker 1: these rad waves, why would you not. So ladies would
9:15
Speaker 1: surf alongside the dudes, and everybody was naked, naked, they
9:20
Speaker 1: were up to something. Um. Yeah. In mythology, we have
9:24
Speaker 1: the goddess Mamala, who's a terrific surfer and she had
9:28
Speaker 1: to leave her beloved surfer husband who became a shark
9:31
Speaker 1: god in morning. Yeah, he was like, Mamala, no, I'll
9:35
Speaker 1: become a shark god, which also sounds relation shop chump.
9:39
Speaker 1: And then he what did he like, chase around as
9:41
Speaker 1: a shark and try to get her back by chomping
9:43
Speaker 1: or surf. She had to quit surfing and go marry
9:46
Speaker 1: some dude on the mainland. This is the worst I know. Now,
9:50
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of the shark fruit snacks, which is
9:55
Speaker 1: weird because I have already had lunch. Um. And then
9:57
Speaker 1: there was this other oral tradition that may maintained that
10:01
Speaker 1: King Kamehameha and Queen Kaahumanu surved side by side. That's sweet,
10:08
Speaker 1: although I would just get so like, give me some
10:10
Speaker 1: I could just picture I can picture myself right now
10:13
Speaker 1: screaming at my boyfriend to give me more space. You're
10:16
Speaker 1: gonna crash into me. I'm gonna get a traumatic head injury.
10:20
Speaker 1: Don't take my wave, bro. That would be secondary to
10:23
Speaker 1: all the other things i'd be screaming. Well, speaking of
10:25
Speaker 1: your boyfriend, Caroline, if you and boyfriend dog we're surfing
10:30
Speaker 1: the same wave, um, that would have meant that you
10:35
Speaker 1: two were flirting. So apparently in old school Polynesian dating culture,
10:42
Speaker 1: if a guy and a girl ended up sort of
10:44
Speaker 1: surfing alongside each other, then that was kind of like
10:49
Speaker 1: going to third base, and it was totally fine when
10:52
Speaker 1: they got back to the beach to then just kind
10:53
Speaker 1: of run off and let nature tickets course use the bathroom.
10:59
Speaker 1: Oh is that what I mean? Now? I think that's
11:03
Speaker 1: when nature calls okay, nature takes well maybe both who knows.
11:07
Speaker 1: They went often froliced with some birds and some bees.
11:09
Speaker 1: There you go. Yeah. Um, And you know, in competitions
11:13
Speaker 1: that were held in Hawaii, women did hold their own
11:17
Speaker 1: against the dudes. They often won. I mean, it just
11:21
Speaker 1: wasn't a thing. And it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't
11:23
Speaker 1: a gendered pursuit. There was no reason why men and
11:26
Speaker 1: women would not compete. And one of the very first
11:31
Speaker 1: Western records of this Hawaiian surfing is from Captain James Cook,
11:37
Speaker 1: the infamous James Cook who royally screwed Hawaii. Um. He
11:41
Speaker 1: recounted in his diaries seeing women's surfing as eagerly as
11:46
Speaker 1: the men and also going out for the biggest waves.
11:48
Speaker 1: So not only were women's surfing alongside the men and
11:52
Speaker 1: winning competitions. They were also as aggressive in their surfing
11:56
Speaker 1: as dudes were, which is interesting to note because you
12:00
Speaker 1: hear a lot today in um the surfing culture about
12:04
Speaker 1: how women are less aggressive surfers and are more stylistic,
12:09
Speaker 1: whereas men, you know, tend to go for go for
12:12
Speaker 1: the big waves, just like Patrick Swayze, Yes and point
12:16
Speaker 1: break um. And when it came to surfing segregation, it
12:21
Speaker 1: wasn't so much based on gender. It wasn't like men
12:25
Speaker 1: and women were surfing separately like we've been hammering home,
12:29
Speaker 1: but more by class. So for example, uh, there was
12:32
Speaker 1: a Waikiki surf break that was reserved solely for the
12:37
Speaker 1: queen's use. Yeah, I love that she had her own
12:41
Speaker 1: little surfing area. And there was one queen, um, and
12:44
Speaker 1: probably more than one queen, but surfing the spirit of
12:49
Speaker 1: Hawaiian King's just cited a queen emma, which also does
12:54
Speaker 1: not sound like a Polynesian name. I'm very skeptical of
12:57
Speaker 1: this fact, so it might be a fact toid um,
13:00
Speaker 1: But apparently this queen had a special surf chant because
13:06
Speaker 1: not only would you sometimes have priests come out and
13:09
Speaker 1: like shake up the waves, kind of they would actually
13:12
Speaker 1: like take their sticks and like agitate the water to
13:16
Speaker 1: try to bring sacred sticks, their sacred sticks and their
13:19
Speaker 1: their pool noodles, um, to summon the waves. But you
13:25
Speaker 1: would also have groups of singers who would essentially, uh
13:31
Speaker 1: they were like your hype team, like a pep rally. Yes,
13:34
Speaker 1: who would you know, sing these songs just for you
13:38
Speaker 1: when you would, uh if you if you were royalty
13:41
Speaker 1: of course when you would go out surfing, which also
13:44
Speaker 1: reminds me of uh like during baseball games when uh,
13:48
Speaker 1: the players will come out to bat and they'll have
13:50
Speaker 1: like their own songs, you know, yeah, totally. Well, yeah,
13:55
Speaker 1: I wonder if Queen Emma if that was just an
13:56
Speaker 1: anglicized like if if Cook's minion just called her that
14:01
Speaker 1: because they couldn't pronounce Hawaiian names probably and they were like, oh,
14:05
Speaker 1: we're not sure about these native names. We're going to
14:08
Speaker 1: give you a white name. Um. Yeah. Actually, speaking of
14:12
Speaker 1: Captain Cook, when we were driving through the ConA Coast,
14:18
Speaker 1: we passed the site where um, James Cook was murdered
14:22
Speaker 1: by a mob and I was like, there you go,
14:25
Speaker 1: James Cook, Well did you pass the point where he
14:29
Speaker 1: landed in Hawaiian probably. I mean we kind of drove
14:33
Speaker 1: around like everywhere that you could drive, but it was
14:39
Speaker 1: more memorable and and noted on the National Geographic Matt
14:43
Speaker 1: that I was looking at like he just had a
14:45
Speaker 1: skull and cross him. Here's the point where he died.
14:48
Speaker 1: But still so much stuff was named after him, and
14:52
Speaker 1: so so many Christian churches in that particular area of
14:57
Speaker 1: the Big Island. So when Cook showed up in why
15:00
Speaker 1: he brought his Western white guy fear of the sea
15:04
Speaker 1: respect and fear of the sea as a source of death.
15:08
Speaker 1: It could kill you. It's it's fatal. It's not somewhere
15:11
Speaker 1: that you jump into and ride the waves for leisure.
15:14
Speaker 1: So of course they interpreted the sight of these people,
15:19
Speaker 1: these savages as they would call them, going willingly out
15:24
Speaker 1: into the water as just bonkers. Thank you. I could
15:30
Speaker 1: not think of the word because it was so bonkers. Yeah,
15:33
Speaker 1: I mean, they couldn't fathom it. Um. And speaking of
15:38
Speaker 1: the nudity, of course that's scandalized the Calvinist missionaries who
15:42
Speaker 1: showed up in eighteen nineteen, who are like, no, we
15:46
Speaker 1: must put on clothes. And in fact missionaries are usually
15:52
Speaker 1: the ones blamed for the initial demise of surfing in Hawaii.
15:58
Speaker 1: But in fact, as Matt Warshaw notes in the History
16:01
Speaker 1: of Surfing that bye when Queen Lily Kalana abdicates her throne,
16:09
Speaker 1: the demise of surfing was really more to blame on
16:13
Speaker 1: Captain Cook because he brought disease with him. I mean,
16:19
Speaker 1: so in the missionaries, he brought a jar of disease,
16:22
Speaker 1: and of course Native Hawaiians didn't have the immune systems
16:27
Speaker 1: to combat these foreign diseases. So you have just the
16:31
Speaker 1: basic population uh demise that happened. But then too, there's
16:36
Speaker 1: an economic factor where you have a shift from a
16:38
Speaker 1: bartering economy to a cash based economy that was dominated
16:43
Speaker 1: by sugarcane. Yeah, because they were at work all day. Yeah,
16:47
Speaker 1: they couldn't just drop things and go surfing like they
16:49
Speaker 1: wanted to, which was perfectly fine. They had like subsisted
16:53
Speaker 1: just fine like that for a long time. I know.
16:56
Speaker 1: And what's interesting, and we'll we'll hit on this a
16:58
Speaker 1: little bit in a minute, is that when you see
17:02
Speaker 1: surfing emerge in the quote unquote modern era, especially as
17:06
Speaker 1: you know in California, people who adopted the surfing lifestyle
17:12
Speaker 1: went back to that idea of like, I don't want
17:14
Speaker 1: to be working all day, I want to be able
17:16
Speaker 1: to go surf. And it was like so rebellious too,
17:19
Speaker 1: to have a different type of masculinity in this case
17:23
Speaker 1: of of saying no to the office culture and saying
17:26
Speaker 1: yes to being on the board all day, being on
17:29
Speaker 1: the board, being on the board, not in the boardroom.
17:31
Speaker 1: That's right, I didn't even mean to do that. Well,
17:34
Speaker 1: in addition to the sport itself disappearing for a little while,
17:38
Speaker 1: you also have Christianity uprooting surfing related religious customs, and
17:44
Speaker 1: also cooler dancing and lais being banned. Essentially, they just
17:49
Speaker 1: wanted to erase Native culture, which is you know, same song,
17:55
Speaker 1: different verse. And on top of that, you have fewer people,
18:00
Speaker 1: if you are Native people than ever before who even
18:03
Speaker 1: recalled and would have practiced those things because those diseases
18:08
Speaker 1: that we mentioned, like syphilis, tuberculosis, the flu, etcetera um
18:12
Speaker 1: decimated the Native population from around four hundred thousand to
18:16
Speaker 1: just thirty thousand. Yeah, that's insane, that's insane. These missionaries
18:23
Speaker 1: and cook we're the worst. I'm sorry. It's colonialism. Colonialism
18:28
Speaker 1: really just it's it's the worst. I don't think there's
18:31
Speaker 1: any form of like gentle colonialism. Yeah no. Um, But
18:36
Speaker 1: in nineteen o seven we start to see a slow
18:39
Speaker 1: start to surfing revival in Wiki Ki. But here we
18:44
Speaker 1: have it being segregated by gender. It was for dudes only,
18:47
Speaker 1: which I would bet that that has to do with
18:53
Speaker 1: Christianity and that whole like Judeo christian Um gender role
18:58
Speaker 1: division probably being fairly set in stone by that point. Yeah,
19:03
Speaker 1: where it wouldn't have been as appropriate for women to
19:05
Speaker 1: be out there alongside the men. Yeah, so it's okay
19:08
Speaker 1: for dudes to pursue this pastime. But it starts to spread,
19:12
Speaker 1: like word of the surfing thing starts to spread first
19:16
Speaker 1: with Jack London, who um goes to Honolulu in nineteen
19:22
Speaker 1: ten or nineteen eleven. He learns to surf and writes
19:26
Speaker 1: about it first for Women's Home Companion magazine. I love that, um,
19:31
Speaker 1: but then an essay about it was published later in
19:33
Speaker 1: his book Cruise of the Snark. That's actually, funnily enough,
19:37
Speaker 1: that's the name of my memoir, Cruise of the Snark.
19:41
Speaker 1: Love it, but then off the page. Hawaiian Olympic medalist
19:44
Speaker 1: Duke Kahana Moku was essentially the surfing evangelist. He introduced
19:50
Speaker 1: surfing to Australia, New Zealand and southern California in the
19:55
Speaker 1: nineteen tents and thirties. He would actually, I mean literally
19:57
Speaker 1: introducing it. He would go there and lead to instrations,
20:01
Speaker 1: and I mean he was already known for being a
20:04
Speaker 1: fantastic athlete, but he, you know, popularized this surfing thing,
20:11
Speaker 1: this surfing thing that I have just an ingrained, innate
20:16
Speaker 1: fear of. Um. Well around this time, though, I mean,
20:20
Speaker 1: what are what are the women doing if they're not
20:22
Speaker 1: allowed they're watching they're not allowed to surf. They're being
20:25
Speaker 1: beach babes or beach bunnies as they were called. Yeah,
20:28
Speaker 1: there's this horrific quote where I literally had to be like,
20:32
Speaker 1: you don't know anything, John Snow, you know nothing. Um
20:37
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six world champion Not Young was quoted in
20:42
Speaker 1: Surfing magazine as saying girls shouldn't surf. They make fools
20:47
Speaker 1: of themselves. And I literally, I'm not kidding you, out
20:49
Speaker 1: loud by myself to the computer screen, said you are
20:54
Speaker 1: so ignorant. And that's why it's important to talk about
20:58
Speaker 1: stuff like this sidebar, because if you lose the history
21:02
Speaker 1: of a thing you don't realize that women have had
21:07
Speaker 1: just as much of a history and a place in
21:11
Speaker 1: this sport among so many others. And you don't get
21:15
Speaker 1: to decide that women shouldn't do it because they'll make
21:18
Speaker 1: fools of themselves. This was once an egalitarian pursuit for
21:22
Speaker 1: the people who invented it. Shouldn't we ask the people
21:25
Speaker 1: who invented it? Yeah? Yeah, I think I think Natt
21:28
Speaker 1: Young should have. Maybe if he's alive, maybe he'll listen
21:32
Speaker 1: to this podcast shake shake the ignorance right out of him. Well,
21:36
Speaker 1: in this episode two very much parallels our skateboarding two
21:41
Speaker 1: parter because these subcultures, uh, we're developing alongside each other.
21:46
Speaker 1: I mean, skateboarding came out of surfing culture. So even
21:52
Speaker 1: before skateboarding was really kicking up in the nineties and fifties,
21:55
Speaker 1: you did have a few women making names for themselves
21:59
Speaker 1: on the waves. UM. And there were a group of
22:01
Speaker 1: them that formed, and this is in southern California, UM,
22:04
Speaker 1: the Hailey Nalu Club to band together. So from the
22:09
Speaker 1: get go you kind of have women finding each other
22:13
Speaker 1: because there are so few of them and being like, Okay,
22:15
Speaker 1: let's stick together, let's have a club. Because you would
22:17
Speaker 1: also kind of have to stake out your part of
22:19
Speaker 1: the beach guys in the same way that they could
22:22
Speaker 1: be hostile at skate parks or at whatever sweet skate
22:27
Speaker 1: spots they found. You know, I didn't necessarily want girls
22:31
Speaker 1: hanging around, that's right. But then you get the development
22:36
Speaker 1: by designer Joe Quig of this lighter balsa wood surfboard
22:40
Speaker 1: that women were using because the older traditional surfboards were
22:44
Speaker 1: really heavy. I mean they were huge. They could weigh
22:46
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds and that was that was hard to
22:49
Speaker 1: carry no matter who you were. So the women started
22:51
Speaker 1: using them, and then total I roll of course, like
22:54
Speaker 1: their boyfriends started borrowing them or their guy friends or
22:57
Speaker 1: brothers or dads or whoever. And the guys were like, oh,
23:00
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is a stupid girl thing, but
23:03
Speaker 1: like it actually makes surfing a lot better. And designer
23:08
Speaker 1: Quig even said the men were jealous. A lot of
23:12
Speaker 1: people don't want to admit that, but a lot of
23:15
Speaker 1: the big name Malibu guys did not like women out
23:18
Speaker 1: there looking that good. Oh yeah, I mean because you
23:21
Speaker 1: have people like not Young just being like, yeah, they
23:23
Speaker 1: make fools themselves. Shut up, net young, I have you
23:26
Speaker 1: know what you want to talk about hostility. I've got
23:30
Speaker 1: a lot of hostility pin up that's being directed at
23:32
Speaker 1: Nat Young, But he's a stand in for all of
23:35
Speaker 1: the dudes who were painting on women at this time. Um.
23:38
Speaker 1: But we get this huge cultural moment in the fifties
23:43
Speaker 1: with Gidget, And that's a ridiculous sentence. I admit it.
23:47
Speaker 1: It's a totally ridiculous sentence, but it's true. I had
23:49
Speaker 1: no idea what an influence Gidget had. So in case
23:54
Speaker 1: you are mixing up like I did originally in my
23:58
Speaker 1: brain Gidget with the Flying nun because both were played
24:01
Speaker 1: by Sally Field, I assure you that Gidget is a
24:04
Speaker 1: cute little California surfer girl, or as the Flying Nun
24:08
Speaker 1: is the Flying nun um. But it was originally a
24:10
Speaker 1: book in nineteen fifty seven by Frederick Koner about his
24:14
Speaker 1: real life Malibu surfing daughter Cathy that gave way to
24:19
Speaker 1: Hollywood's first surfing film in nineteen fifty nine, starring Sandra
24:24
Speaker 1: d We would get two more movies and then get
24:28
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty five TV show Gidget starring Sally Field,
24:33
Speaker 1: and it had a huge influence on both girls and
24:36
Speaker 1: guys like, not only hey girls, you can surf, but
24:40
Speaker 1: hey people, this is the thing you can do, and
24:42
Speaker 1: it's really fun. It's a cool cultural moment. Yeah. And um,
24:47
Speaker 1: from what I can remember watching the Gidget movies as
24:51
Speaker 1: a kid, which I did, and no I'm not seventy. Um,
24:56
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed them. But there was always conflict of like, Gidget,
25:02
Speaker 1: you you're going out there and serving with the boys.
25:05
Speaker 1: And she had a crush on boy named Moondoggie, and he,
25:10
Speaker 1: of course was kind of the um, like the native
25:14
Speaker 1: stand in um who wasn't like those annoying white boys
25:18
Speaker 1: who didn't think that she didn't belong on the beach,
25:21
Speaker 1: you know. But it was very transgressive in her own
25:24
Speaker 1: way for for Gidget to be surfing, and she always
25:28
Speaker 1: surprised people with how well she could surf. Yeah, and
25:32
Speaker 1: there's a lot of writing out there about how Gidget
25:35
Speaker 1: supposedly presented this alternative masculinity and femininity, these other options
25:41
Speaker 1: for people, because I mean, Gidget was sort of a
25:44
Speaker 1: rebel in hanging out with a boy who was so
25:47
Speaker 1: different from the rest and allowed her to be different
25:50
Speaker 1: as well. And these surfer guys, they were, like we said,
25:54
Speaker 1: they were saying no to the stuffy suits in the
25:57
Speaker 1: offices and the conform many of the Cold War era,
26:02
Speaker 1: and they were hitting the beach to to go surfing.
26:05
Speaker 1: But you've got to keep in mind though, at the
26:07
Speaker 1: same time, by the sixties and seventies, white dudes in particular,
26:11
Speaker 1: we're really starting to act as gatekeepers to this sport,
26:16
Speaker 1: this pastime. And so in the seventies you see more
26:20
Speaker 1: women banding together to start surfing, start groups to help
26:25
Speaker 1: each other into the surfing realm um. But it's also
26:30
Speaker 1: helped along by a little thing called Title nine. Yeah.
26:33
Speaker 1: This was something highlighted by authors Peter Westwick and Peter
26:37
Speaker 1: Nushel in the World and the Curl and Unconventional History
26:41
Speaker 1: of Surfing. They attributed the rise of womens surfing in
26:46
Speaker 1: that era to the nineteen seventy two passage of Title nine,
26:51
Speaker 1: which coincidentally was sponsored by Hawaii Senator Patsy mink Um.
26:56
Speaker 1: And for those of you who have who haven't listened
26:58
Speaker 1: to our episode on Title nine, um, it essentially enabled
27:05
Speaker 1: girls athletics, women's athletics UM to happen. Um. So because
27:11
Speaker 1: swimming is part of you know, school athletics, and you
27:14
Speaker 1: have more girls swimming competitively, girls are in the water,
27:18
Speaker 1: so you have more girls just being naturally led to surfing. Yeah,
27:23
Speaker 1: but it is that sort of in the midst of
27:28
Speaker 1: the second wave, I guess of feminism. You do have
27:30
Speaker 1: a lot of pushback from dudes against women asserting their
27:36
Speaker 1: right to participate in these things. And it's because of
27:38
Speaker 1: that hostility that you see women's starting groups for themselves.
27:42
Speaker 1: So in ninety five you get the formation of the
27:45
Speaker 1: Women's International Surfing Association, in the late seventies you get
27:50
Speaker 1: the women Professional Surfing Association, And these groups were basically
27:54
Speaker 1: directly formed in response to the hostility that women were
27:58
Speaker 1: facing who were just trying to surf. Yeah, I mean,
28:01
Speaker 1: because while you have these super athletic women who were
28:05
Speaker 1: really focused on the sport, you also have this environment
28:09
Speaker 1: of sexism, not only of people not wanting them to surf,
28:14
Speaker 1: but also of just relegating women to be like sexual objects,
28:20
Speaker 1: tanning themselves on the beach and watching the guys. So
28:24
Speaker 1: you have this kind of sexified, if you will, image
28:28
Speaker 1: of if she's gonna surf, well, she should at least
28:31
Speaker 1: like look sexy when she's going to do it. But
28:34
Speaker 1: then in the nineties, probably largely due to all of
28:37
Speaker 1: that grassroots organizing that those women were doing. In the seventies,
28:42
Speaker 1: we start to see more of a girl focused surfer
28:45
Speaker 1: culture arising. That came with independent clothing lines and surfboard lines,
28:50
Speaker 1: surfing schools, and surf magazines all focused on women. But
28:57
Speaker 1: it seems like that period of time is so short
28:59
Speaker 1: before it's quickly modified. Well yeah, I mean, did you
29:03
Speaker 1: get all those catalogs at your house when you were
29:05
Speaker 1: growing up? I remember getting a Roxy catalog. Yeah, I
29:08
Speaker 1: I got all of those like Roxy Quicksilver things because
29:11
Speaker 1: I think that stuff was also sold a lot of
29:14
Speaker 1: it by like Delia's and things like that. It was
29:16
Speaker 1: definitely like super mall fashion. You can find it at Journeys,
29:18
Speaker 1: which still exists. Journeys. Whoa flashbag? Yeah seriously, But I
29:24
Speaker 1: just that is so burned into my brain that like
29:26
Speaker 1: cool girl Roxy fashion with the short little board shorts. Um,
29:31
Speaker 1: you know, she's so tan, she's got bleached hair because
29:35
Speaker 1: she's been in the sun. Um. Like that was such
29:39
Speaker 1: a big fashion moment as far as I can recall
29:42
Speaker 1: being someone growing up in the nineties. Well, and it's
29:44
Speaker 1: because there were four big surf brands Quicksilver, Billabong, Rip Curl,
29:51
Speaker 1: and O'Neill that saw girls getting more interested in surfing
29:56
Speaker 1: and saw an opportunity to make a lot of money.
29:59
Speaker 1: So there like, oh, let's make a new line off
30:03
Speaker 1: just for girls, to start making stuff for girls, and
30:05
Speaker 1: so they essentially put a lot of the independent lines
30:10
Speaker 1: out of business. Well they did, but at the same time,
30:14
Speaker 1: the incredible amount of focus that went into marketing that
30:16
Speaker 1: stuff to this new arena of consumers that then served
30:23
Speaker 1: to open the door to more girls and women like
30:26
Speaker 1: me getting a catalog at my house being like, oh,
30:28
Speaker 1: this is something to do, Like this is something I
30:30
Speaker 1: can do, and hear the clothes and the equipment I
30:32
Speaker 1: need to do it. Um. So it was ushering more
30:36
Speaker 1: girls and women into surfing or at least dressing like
30:40
Speaker 1: a surfer, right, But you still had that image that
30:45
Speaker 1: was being sold to you that was very specific. And
30:48
Speaker 1: so we will talk more about that image and sexism
30:51
Speaker 1: and surfing when we come right back from a quick break. So,
31:05
Speaker 1: speaking to The l A Times a couple of years
31:07
Speaker 1: ago about sexism in the surfing industry, Matt Warshaw said
31:13
Speaker 1: the sport has had a long fairly shameful history of
31:17
Speaker 1: sexism and it's still not over. And a lot of
31:21
Speaker 1: it I think has to do with how the girl
31:24
Speaker 1: culture was quickly commodified, and it's somewhat has to do
31:28
Speaker 1: with the lasting image of Gidget, who, yes, in a
31:31
Speaker 1: lot of ways could be seen as an empowering figure,
31:34
Speaker 1: but she was also a conventionally attractive, thin, blonde girl.
31:39
Speaker 1: You know who you know. Fast forward to two thousand
31:41
Speaker 1: two and she's Kate Bosworth and Blue Crush. Yeah, you've
31:44
Speaker 1: got to be cute and little and wearing a little
31:47
Speaker 1: string bikini. And that's the image, like we were saying, like,
31:51
Speaker 1: that's the image that has served up to consumers of
31:54
Speaker 1: what a girls surfer supposed to look like. Yeah, because
31:56
Speaker 1: it's like, if you're gonna if you're gonna do this
31:58
Speaker 1: guy thing, needs to need to look sexy for us
32:02
Speaker 1: while you're doing it. You know, Yeah, I've all just
32:05
Speaker 1: rolled out of my head. But if we look at
32:07
Speaker 1: competitive surfing, UM one big issue which has come up
32:11
Speaker 1: in pretty much every sport there has been UM there's
32:16
Speaker 1: a wage gap. So although some competitions have leveled their
32:21
Speaker 1: winnings for male and female competitions, UM in Nurtia magazine
32:25
Speaker 1: reported that women took home just t of the pro
32:29
Speaker 1: surfing money in nine and that number increased to a
32:33
Speaker 1: whopping in two thousand and eleven. Yeah, the World Surfly
32:40
Speaker 1: did announce prize money paroity for male and female winners,
32:43
Speaker 1: but I don't I think they're in the minority, correct, Like,
32:47
Speaker 1: it's still it's still very unequal um And a lot
32:52
Speaker 1: of the issue around making money comes down to sponsorships
32:57
Speaker 1: because these brands who sponsor or surfing competitions and individual
33:02
Speaker 1: surfers want marketable women, and that means looking like a model,
33:08
Speaker 1: being a model, looking like a Kate Bosworth UM, and
33:13
Speaker 1: also performing a very specific type of straight femininity UM.
33:19
Speaker 1: For instance, in uh Rad, Lady Jodie Cooper became the
33:24
Speaker 1: first pro surfer to come out. But there are so
33:29
Speaker 1: many other surfer women who say that they have to
33:33
Speaker 1: stay in the closet or at least try to appear
33:36
Speaker 1: more feminine and straight to stay sponsored, because it can
33:41
Speaker 1: cost tens and tens of thousands of dollars if you
33:44
Speaker 1: don't have a sponsor to pursue this as your whole life,
33:49
Speaker 1: your lifestyle. And who was it you were telling me
33:51
Speaker 1: about who talked about guys specifically on the beach, yelling
33:56
Speaker 1: homophobic slurs at her to throw her off her surfing game. Yeah,
34:00
Speaker 1: so Claire Sullivan, not Claire Sullivan, but Claire Sullivan wrote
34:04
Speaker 1: a piece for one of these surfing websites that we
34:08
Speaker 1: were looking at, and she anonymously quoted a whole bunch
34:11
Speaker 1: of women because the whole issue is these women are
34:13
Speaker 1: at the top of their game and they don't want
34:15
Speaker 1: to be out it because they don't want to lose
34:16
Speaker 1: their sponsorships. And she talked to a woman who said, yeah,
34:20
Speaker 1: you know, it's ridiculous. I uh, you know, I had
34:24
Speaker 1: a girlfriend at the time, and guys before competitions would
34:28
Speaker 1: be screaming homophobic things at me to throw me off
34:31
Speaker 1: my game. And at this point, listeners, I like turned
34:34
Speaker 1: to Christen as I'm reading this, and I'm just going like,
34:36
Speaker 1: who cares? Not about the homophobia. We should care about
34:39
Speaker 1: the homophobia, but who who cares about people being gay?
34:43
Speaker 1: You know? And I understand that my viewpoint isn't the
34:46
Speaker 1: viewpoint that everyone shares, but it's like, who cares if
34:49
Speaker 1: she's a lesbian or bisexual or whatever? I mean? Is
34:53
Speaker 1: she a good surfer? But it so goes back to
34:57
Speaker 1: the issue of marketability because pro surfing is so entwined.
35:04
Speaker 1: According to Claire Sullivan and the women that she interviewed
35:07
Speaker 1: with surfing cultures, marketability and women's events draw a smaller crowd,
35:13
Speaker 1: which means smaller funding. And then you have the issue
35:17
Speaker 1: of surfing media, so magazine's websites and all of that
35:20
Speaker 1: feeding off of ads from those sponsors who want the
35:24
Speaker 1: girls and women to look super sexy. And this just
35:28
Speaker 1: furthers the massive stigma that exists around anyone who doesn't
35:31
Speaker 1: look like a kidget or a cap Osworth. If you
35:34
Speaker 1: are a gay, athletic looking woman, you're so outside of
35:39
Speaker 1: the bounds of what the media is telling you you
35:41
Speaker 1: should look like. Well, or even a straight woman who
35:44
Speaker 1: prefers to wear a wetsuit, Oh my god, God forbid
35:48
Speaker 1: a woman wants to wear something that like if she
35:51
Speaker 1: hits a big wave or falls in the water, like
35:53
Speaker 1: her bottoms don't come off with it. Yeah. I just
35:55
Speaker 1: bought um one pieces specifically for Hawaii because I knew
36:00
Speaker 1: that I would be in uh wavier water for lack
36:04
Speaker 1: of a better descriptor, And yeah, bikini tops just come
36:08
Speaker 1: right off, which in some places and why. That's totally fine,
36:12
Speaker 1: but but I wanted something that would just like stay
36:15
Speaker 1: in place. And I gotta tell you, swimming in a
36:17
Speaker 1: one piece is kind of liberating in its own way
36:20
Speaker 1: because I don't have to worry about my boob's fallen
36:22
Speaker 1: out anymore. Yeah, I pretty much only exclusively wear them now.
36:26
Speaker 1: I love, I do love. We are becoming our mothers.
36:29
Speaker 1: It's fine. It makes peeing harder, but you know whatever, Well,
36:34
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why you just pee in the pool anyway, Caroline. Oh,
36:37
Speaker 1: I do not be in the pool. I'm never going
36:40
Speaker 1: swimming to a pool with you swimming to a pool.
36:43
Speaker 1: I'm never swimming to a pool. I'm never swimming in
36:45
Speaker 1: a pool with you anyway. But moving away from my
36:48
Speaker 1: pool peeing my alleged pool being. I believe you don't.
36:52
Speaker 1: Don't thank you, Caroline. You don't strike me as a
36:54
Speaker 1: pool peer. Well that's why I wear my swim diapers,
36:57
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But going back to the bikinis and
37:01
Speaker 1: surfing thing, which I'm sure there are some women who
37:03
Speaker 1: serve in bikinis and absolutely love it. But apparently, like
37:06
Speaker 1: you know, different competitors like to wear different things. Sho understandable, Um,
37:11
Speaker 1: but I think it was the l a time saying
37:13
Speaker 1: that there was one surfer who was sponsored I believe
37:17
Speaker 1: by Roxy, and she ended up parting ways with them
37:20
Speaker 1: because she was complaining that they would pressure her to
37:23
Speaker 1: wear their bikinis in competitions, UM, which she said was
37:28
Speaker 1: just made it harder for her to surf. Now, of
37:31
Speaker 1: course Roxy uh deny that they would pressure her to
37:35
Speaker 1: do anything like that, saying, well, of course we would
37:38
Speaker 1: want her to wear our line, but saying that it's
37:42
Speaker 1: a bikini, now that's you know, a whole other thing. Um.
37:46
Speaker 1: But I believe the surfer, you know, because if you
37:50
Speaker 1: look at um, a lot of surf media in the
37:54
Speaker 1: same way as you see with skateboarding, a lot of times,
37:58
Speaker 1: the women featured in the bigger media are very sexy,
38:02
Speaker 1: you know, very sexily portrayed. And another downside to the
38:07
Speaker 1: lasting holdover of the blonde, thin, straight, um and bustier
38:14
Speaker 1: gidget ideal is that it also erases the diversity within surfing,
38:21
Speaker 1: not only in terms of sexual orientation, but also I mean,
38:26
Speaker 1: it just whitewashes the whole thing. I mean, there was
38:28
Speaker 1: even a documentary called Whitewash Um that focused on surfers
38:34
Speaker 1: of color because so many black people in particular who
38:38
Speaker 1: surf UM reported in this documentary being made fun of
38:42
Speaker 1: constantly by people who are like, what are you doing here?
38:46
Speaker 1: You don't surf like I mean, And that goes back
38:49
Speaker 1: to just stereotypes too, about um African American people and swimming.
38:54
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's like stereotypes on stereotypes, and then
38:58
Speaker 1: if you are a woman of color who's surfs, I mean,
39:01
Speaker 1: forget about it. People just like it does not compute
39:05
Speaker 1: in people's brains. But it's just because of these images
39:07
Speaker 1: a lot of times that are fed even though again,
39:11
Speaker 1: like you said, Caroline, it's ironic because it started as
39:13
Speaker 1: such an egalitarian sport. And speaking of images, like so
39:17
Speaker 1: many times when we see photo spreads of female surfers,
39:21
Speaker 1: whether they're pros or amateurs, a lot of times those
39:25
Speaker 1: photo spreads aren't even showing them actually surfing. They're showing them,
39:29
Speaker 1: you know, mostly naked, you know, rolling around in the
39:32
Speaker 1: sand or in the shower or something like that. And
39:35
Speaker 1: a lot of pro women have have really taken issue
39:39
Speaker 1: with that and saying like, okay, we get that you're
39:41
Speaker 1: gonna like sexualize female surfers. Because that's just what the
39:46
Speaker 1: media are doing. But you seriously can't even show her
39:51
Speaker 1: doing her job well in some women, some surfers make
39:54
Speaker 1: their name that way, you know. I mean, they're just
39:58
Speaker 1: like cursory. Google search is um to get the research
40:02
Speaker 1: for this episode started turned up so many like X
40:07
Speaker 1: number of sexiest or hottest girls in surfing, same way
40:11
Speaker 1: as it was with skateboarding. But when I was looking
40:14
Speaker 1: up a few names over at the Encyclopedia of Surfing website,
40:18
Speaker 1: which is fantastic, which you should check out listeners um
40:22
Speaker 1: if you're interested in the topic. It's very comprehensive and
40:25
Speaker 1: just a visual delight. UM. But I was looking up
40:29
Speaker 1: pros including Maya Gabera, Laura and Eva and a Llana Blanchard,
40:34
Speaker 1: and all of their Encyclopedia of Surfing entries immediately kind
40:42
Speaker 1: of described them as like known as a really sexy surfer,
40:48
Speaker 1: you know, she's posed in Maxim or g Q or Playboy.
40:52
Speaker 1: I mean, this is um definitely a part of the
40:56
Speaker 1: industry for for some athletes. I mean, but that to
40:59
Speaker 1: me also speaks to the bigger issue of female athletes
41:05
Speaker 1: and media and the sexualization thereof and not getting paid
41:10
Speaker 1: as much as the guy. So maybe if you can
41:12
Speaker 1: make money posing for Playboy, then ellipses. But we have
41:18
Speaker 1: some good news, Yes we do, because if we travel
41:21
Speaker 1: to places where like Hawaii pre James Cook, we're surfing
41:29
Speaker 1: is like a brand new thing and there are no
41:32
Speaker 1: like gender norms attached to that surfboard. Yet again it
41:38
Speaker 1: becomes this egalitarian and even liberating sport for young women. Yeah.
41:45
Speaker 1: One great example is the Brown Girls Surf Collective that
41:49
Speaker 1: was started by Ishida mala Via in India. She's India's
41:52
Speaker 1: first female surfer and she learned how to surf from
41:56
Speaker 1: American yogis, but was often taunted for her and skin
42:00
Speaker 1: while surfing. Yeah, because, as we talked about in our
42:04
Speaker 1: Colorism episode, UM, to intentionally have tanner skin would be
42:10
Speaker 1: more unheard of. Um. But Malavilla loved surfing so much
42:15
Speaker 1: and found it so empowering she didn't care and is
42:19
Speaker 1: now more of a surf evangelist. Um. You also have
42:23
Speaker 1: in Iran an Irish competitive surfer named Dr Easki Britton
42:29
Speaker 1: who essentially brought women's surfing to Iran. And you might
42:33
Speaker 1: be wondering, wait, how are Iranian women's surfing answer surfing
42:38
Speaker 1: jobs yes, they exist. There are actual clothing companies that
42:41
Speaker 1: make like, uh like modest swimwear um for Muslim women. Um.
42:48
Speaker 1: But Brittain co founded Waves of Freedom, which is a
42:51
Speaker 1: nonprofit that uses surfing to break down gender boundaries. Although
42:56
Speaker 1: workshops are open to women and men, but of course
42:59
Speaker 1: on Iranian beach, the men and women would be learning
43:02
Speaker 1: to surf separately. Yeah, and it's so interesting to read
43:07
Speaker 1: about um, this sport being introduced as a thing that
43:13
Speaker 1: girls and women do and having boys approach her and
43:17
Speaker 1: be like, well, this looks really cool. Can I do it?
43:20
Speaker 1: Because they have only seen it through that lens of
43:23
Speaker 1: it being something that women do. And one of the
43:26
Speaker 1: interviewers asked her about what the basically like the cultural
43:29
Speaker 1: police in Iran, what their response has been to it,
43:32
Speaker 1: because you know, they cracked down on you can't wear
43:35
Speaker 1: this or say this or do this whatever. And she
43:37
Speaker 1: says that the police came down to the beach, they
43:40
Speaker 1: saw that the women were training on one end, the
43:42
Speaker 1: men were training on the other. The women were fully
43:46
Speaker 1: covered literally from head to toe, uh, full wetsuits, heads covered,
43:52
Speaker 1: even wearing a type of skirt, and they were like, well, okay, yeah,
43:59
Speaker 1: just uh proceed well, and in an interview with Broadly
44:06
Speaker 1: Britain was saying like how there are no rules, you know,
44:10
Speaker 1: so they're almost redefining the sport because no one had
44:14
Speaker 1: ever done it before. UM. And a similar thing has
44:19
Speaker 1: happened in Bangladesh where you have Australian Rashad Alam who
44:24
Speaker 1: has moved to Bangladesh and is a surfer and also
44:28
Speaker 1: a lifeguard, who has taught a group of girls in
44:31
Speaker 1: southern Bangladesh to surf and really just witnessed the confidence
44:36
Speaker 1: that it quickly built in them, a similar to what
44:40
Speaker 1: we've seen and read about with skatei San, the skateboarding
44:46
Speaker 1: nonprofit in Afghanistan that focuses on teaching girls how to
44:50
Speaker 1: skateboard UM And in two thousand eight Alarm started Cox's
44:55
Speaker 1: Bizarre Surf Club to help I guess get other of
45:00
Speaker 1: these girls who often like are are from very very
45:03
Speaker 1: very poor families and would usually have to spend their
45:06
Speaker 1: days um working to you know, earn money for their family.
45:10
Speaker 1: So he it was also this process of having to
45:14
Speaker 1: talk to the parents sort of convinced them that this
45:16
Speaker 1: was something worthwhile for their daughters to do because it's
45:21
Speaker 1: also in teaching them lifeguarding skills and CPR skills as well,
45:26
Speaker 1: giving these girls like newer dreams that they had never
45:31
Speaker 1: had before, like new possibilities of things that they could
45:33
Speaker 1: possibly do with their lives. Right, And I mean just
45:36
Speaker 1: the empowerment you get from participating in athletics and sports
45:41
Speaker 1: and learning that you have this power to be able
45:44
Speaker 1: to move your body and be strong and succeed in
45:48
Speaker 1: something new and scary. I'm still saying it's scary for
45:52
Speaker 1: for me. I need to be empowered. If like eleven
45:55
Speaker 1: year old girls in Bangladesh can do it, Caroline, maybe
45:58
Speaker 1: we can. Right, I'll sit on the board and just
46:02
Speaker 1: float in a swimming pool sounds good, right, not a
46:06
Speaker 1: pool that I'm in apparently, as long as you're wearing
46:10
Speaker 1: your pool diaper. Now, before we close up the podcast,
46:13
Speaker 1: so we do want to highlight three wahinis, which is
46:17
Speaker 1: the Hawaiian term for lady surfer, that we think you
46:22
Speaker 1: should know about, to kind of help bring this timeline
46:24
Speaker 1: that we've gone over to life. And also I mean
46:27
Speaker 1: to give these ladies their druthers. Yeah, I mean all
46:30
Speaker 1: these names are new to me, I will admit, including
46:33
Speaker 1: Linda Benson's which it shouldn't be new to me, because
46:37
Speaker 1: she's the champion and godmother of surfing. Basically in our
46:41
Speaker 1: modern era, she starts surfing. She's from California, and she
46:44
Speaker 1: started surfing at eleven, and her fifteenth year was a
46:49
Speaker 1: huge one for her, which I'm sure mine was too,
46:52
Speaker 1: but for probably different reasons. Um. She entered the first
46:57
Speaker 1: competition at the West Coast Surfing Championships, and one a
47:02
Speaker 1: few weeks later, she became the youngest surfer to win
47:05
Speaker 1: the Makaha International Surf Championships, and just a few weeks
47:08
Speaker 1: after that, she became the first woman to surf the
47:12
Speaker 1: massive eighteen foot breaks at Wymia Bay. I can't imagine
47:17
Speaker 1: fifteen years old. Yeah, I was such a brat still,
47:20
Speaker 1: I think I'm pretty sure, Like I'm pretty sure I
47:22
Speaker 1: was still just but who knows, Maybe that would have
47:24
Speaker 1: made me a better surfer, like out of my way?
47:27
Speaker 1: Just g tfo. Is that a good thing? Yes? Okay, yes,
47:33
Speaker 1: well then yes, sure she had pluck that gidget. Um.
47:37
Speaker 1: But Benson ended up being a five time US champion
47:40
Speaker 1: and a one time international champion, and in nineteen sixty three,
47:44
Speaker 1: she was the first woman on the cover of Surf
47:47
Speaker 1: Guide magazine cover line Linda Benson World's Greatest, but then
47:53
Speaker 1: kind of a sad turn her story. She dropped out
47:56
Speaker 1: of surfing in nineteen sixty nine because of addiction, but
48:00
Speaker 1: then she returned in nineteen seventy nine, and she actually
48:05
Speaker 1: referred to surfing as artistic expression, which makes sense to
48:08
Speaker 1: me as like a complete, you know, ignoramus when it
48:11
Speaker 1: comes to surfing, because I mean, just look at what
48:13
Speaker 1: those people are doing with their boards and their bodies.
48:15
Speaker 1: It totally feels like a form of artistic expression. Um. Okay,
48:20
Speaker 1: So woman number two, who's awesome. We've got Rel's son.
48:24
Speaker 1: She's Hawaii surf queen. Her middle name means heart of
48:28
Speaker 1: the sea, so she was faded faded to be a surfer.
48:32
Speaker 1: She's born in nineteen fifty in Oahu, started surfing at
48:35
Speaker 1: the age of four, which is an adorable mental image,
48:39
Speaker 1: and at just sixteen, won the Hawaiian Junior Championship and
48:43
Speaker 1: was invited to the nineteen sixty six World Championships, which
48:47
Speaker 1: wasn't the nineteen sixty six World champ Not young that
48:50
Speaker 1: guy that I can't stand? Oh wow, full circle. Caroline
48:54
Speaker 1: just swiveled her neck listeners. Um. She took a five
49:00
Speaker 1: year break and maybe a little over five year break
49:03
Speaker 1: when she moved to Oklahoma. Oklahoma. Your your middle name
49:06
Speaker 1: literally needs part of the sea, and you moved to
49:09
Speaker 1: Oklahoma while she got married. No surprise, it did not
49:12
Speaker 1: work out because Real's son belonged in Hawaii, so she
49:16
Speaker 1: moved back there, hit the waves and became the world's
49:20
Speaker 1: best long border and What's Surfing magazine called the sports
49:25
Speaker 1: premier stylist. Um. And one reason why Real's son is
49:29
Speaker 1: considered Hawaii' surf queen is because she was just so
49:33
Speaker 1: beloved for embodying Hawaii's what's called They're Aloha spirit in
49:39
Speaker 1: the sport. Um. And that's not just some like touristy thing.
49:42
Speaker 1: I mean it really is. Um, this idea of hospitality
49:47
Speaker 1: and warmth um, wearing all those airbrush t shirts exactly um.
49:54
Speaker 1: And I was so glad Caroline to run across rayl
49:56
Speaker 1: Sun because the sport has been so co opted from
50:01
Speaker 1: its Hawaiian roots. Yes, yes, exactly um. And in nineteen
50:06
Speaker 1: seventy five, she was one of the women involved in
50:11
Speaker 1: co founding the Women's Professional Surfing Association and the first
50:15
Speaker 1: professional Women's World Tour. And not only was she a
50:19
Speaker 1: supporter of other wahinees. She was also a supporter of
50:23
Speaker 1: her fellow Hawaiian surfers, founding a competition, the Mahune Contest,
50:29
Speaker 1: which was exclusively open to Hawaiian kids. And this woman
50:34
Speaker 1: continued surfing even after being diagnosed with breast cancer in
50:39
Speaker 1: Night three, and she continued surfing right up until she
50:45
Speaker 1: passed away in just forty seven years old. I know,
50:50
Speaker 1: but I want to say that she was even undergoing
50:53
Speaker 1: radiation treatment and would still hit the beach every day. Well,
50:58
Speaker 1: if you've got something that you feel is like healing
51:01
Speaker 1: on a soul level, I mean, why wouldn't you well,
51:04
Speaker 1: And we have to remember too that, I mean, surfing
51:08
Speaker 1: was a spiritual sport, you know, in a spiritual pastime
51:13
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, So I wonder if that had a tie
51:16
Speaker 1: in with it as well. Yeah, I'm sure if you're
51:19
Speaker 1: not scared of water and surfing, it's very healing, she
51:23
Speaker 1: says nervously. Well, and Lisa Anderson finally are our third
51:28
Speaker 1: woman we wanted to bring to your attention. Lisa Anderson
51:31
Speaker 1: is the original Roxy Girl and basically she's surfing's first
51:34
Speaker 1: female celebrity. She began surfing at thirteen when her family
51:38
Speaker 1: moved to Florida, and then she ran away to Los
51:41
Speaker 1: Angeles after her father destroyed her surfboard. Yeah. I think
51:45
Speaker 1: she had a pretty uh not not cool home life.
51:48
Speaker 1: Yeah sounds like it. But she turned pro. It's seventeen,
51:52
Speaker 1: so so she was a badass, and her global rankings
51:56
Speaker 1: gradually grew during the late eighties and she basically press
52:00
Speaker 1: suit her Her effort was to pursue surfing like a
52:02
Speaker 1: guy her her words, Yeah, being tough, being aggressive on
52:07
Speaker 1: the waves, and not just like you said, uh, doing
52:10
Speaker 1: what everybody assumes women do, which is just pursuing the
52:13
Speaker 1: more stylistic aspect. And it's no surprise that she was
52:18
Speaker 1: such a celebrity because from to which you know, the
52:23
Speaker 1: heyday of this mainstreamed surf style. She snagged four world championships,
52:30
Speaker 1: and she won the first one five weeks after giving birth.
52:36
Speaker 1: My head just exploded. I don't know what giving birth
52:38
Speaker 1: is like, but I know how tough it was for
52:39
Speaker 1: me to get an I U D. And I wouldn't
52:42
Speaker 1: want to surf after that. Um. She also snagged a
52:45
Speaker 1: Surfer magazine cover. She was the first woman on there
52:48
Speaker 1: by the way in fifteen years and the cover line
52:52
Speaker 1: was Lisa Anderson surfs better than you. And apparently that
52:55
Speaker 1: was like a wink to the fact that like pretty
53:00
Speaker 1: much all of those subscribers were dudes, and it's like, oh, hey, guys,
53:04
Speaker 1: girls surfs better than you. Well, in around the same
53:08
Speaker 1: time that in Marietta, Georgia, Caroline Irvan was getting all
53:11
Speaker 1: of those Roxy catalogs. Uh, Lisa Anderson became their face
53:16
Speaker 1: and she really helped popularize their board shorts and this
53:20
Speaker 1: is when you see also, this is you know, the
53:22
Speaker 1: era we talked about where corporations were super getting in
53:24
Speaker 1: on their new consumer base women um and uh. Corey Schumacher,
53:30
Speaker 1: writing for Cooler mag writes about how this shift that
53:34
Speaker 1: Lisa Anderson was a part of ushering in ignited a
53:38
Speaker 1: wildfire of all girls surf schools, girls surf movies, and
53:42
Speaker 1: female surf lifestyle clothing lines across surf brands. And they
53:47
Speaker 1: also talked about how the you know, California surfer girls
53:53
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily afraid of consumerism. And I don't mean that
53:57
Speaker 1: to sound as like weird and kind of patronizing as
53:59
Speaker 1: it might sound, but that they were literally like, no,
54:01
Speaker 1: I want the gear to be able to do the
54:03
Speaker 1: sport that I want to do, and so yeah, if
54:05
Speaker 1: you want to market to me, bring it on. Unfortunately,
54:09
Speaker 1: back problems basically deflated Anderson's career, but Surfer magazine still
54:14
Speaker 1: named her one of its twenty five most influential Surfers
54:18
Speaker 1: of the century, and also on that list, Gidget. That's right,
54:22
Speaker 1: she was number seven. And it is kind of ironic, Caroline,
54:25
Speaker 1: considering the enduring sexism of the sport and really the
54:29
Speaker 1: the industry around the sport. Um is the fact that
54:33
Speaker 1: in mid century American pop culture, it was a girl
54:38
Speaker 1: that really, you know, brought the title wave of attention
54:42
Speaker 1: to surfing, and it was not. It really wasn't that
54:46
Speaker 1: long after Gidget emerged in pop culture that Nat Young
54:50
Speaker 1: said girls shouldn't surf because they would make fools of themselves.
54:53
Speaker 1: That is how short our collective memories are, that we
54:57
Speaker 1: can't remember a time when sir thing was egalitarian and
55:01
Speaker 1: when women were right there alongside their their kings because
55:05
Speaker 1: of whitewashing. Just like the documentary name, I know, listeners,
55:10
Speaker 1: now we're curious to hear whatever surfing insights you have.
55:14
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at house, stuffwork dot Com is our email address.
55:17
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
55:20
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook, and we got a couple of messages
55:23
Speaker 1: to share with you right now. So I have a
55:29
Speaker 1: letter here from another Christian uh talking about our STD episode.
55:34
Speaker 1: She says, my husband and I were over the moon
55:37
Speaker 1: to learn that we were expecting our first child a
55:39
Speaker 1: few years ago. At my first doctor appointment for the pregnancy,
55:42
Speaker 1: several tests were performed to determine my health and the
55:45
Speaker 1: health of my newly conceived baby. The next day, I
55:47
Speaker 1: got a call from the nurse who had a very
55:49
Speaker 1: shaming tone at my doctor's office and was told that
55:52
Speaker 1: I attested positive for chlamydia. This is a major shock
55:56
Speaker 1: and sent me into a whirlwind of confusion and hurt.
55:58
Speaker 1: Since my husband and I were and still are, very
56:01
Speaker 1: happily married and monogamous, the only way this could have
56:04
Speaker 1: happened is if my husband had been unfaithful. I confronted
56:07
Speaker 1: him with this and he insisted that was not true,
56:10
Speaker 1: and he was just as confused and hurt as I was.
56:13
Speaker 1: After doing some research that same day, I learned that
56:16
Speaker 1: false positives for chlamydia and pregnant women are not unheard of.
56:21
Speaker 1: I became convinced that this had to be the case
56:23
Speaker 1: for myself and my husband. I called the nurse back
56:26
Speaker 1: and insisted that I be retested. She was very dismissive
56:29
Speaker 1: and condescending, but agreed to retest me. This new test
56:33
Speaker 1: came back negative. While the nurse did admit that the
56:35
Speaker 1: first test was a false positive, she didn't go so
56:38
Speaker 1: far as to apologize for the shame and judgment she
56:41
Speaker 1: threw my way. The fact that false positives for STDs
56:45
Speaker 1: and pregnant women are so common was surprising to me.
56:48
Speaker 1: I'm thankful that I trusted in my relationship and my husband.
56:52
Speaker 1: What's that phrase, trust but verify? Thanks so much and
56:56
Speaker 1: thank you, Kristen, and I think that's some valuable stuff
56:58
Speaker 1: to pass along to our list, nurse, because not only
57:02
Speaker 1: you know do we want to encourage you to handle
57:06
Speaker 1: the situation when your healthcare provider is shaming you, but
57:09
Speaker 1: we also want you to know that false positives are
57:12
Speaker 1: a thing that can happen, so don't be afraid to
57:14
Speaker 1: trust and verify. Well, I've got a letter here from
57:18
Speaker 1: Julie subject line tanning in Hawaii, so of course I
57:22
Speaker 1: had to read it this episode. Julie writes I'm a
57:25
Speaker 1: new listener to the show, and I really enjoy it.
57:28
Speaker 1: I finally got around to listening to the Tanning Podcast
57:30
Speaker 1: after hearing it referenced in several pieces of listener mail. Currently,
57:34
Speaker 1: I live in Honolulu, which has a very complex history
57:37
Speaker 1: and cultural identity, in particular when it comes to skin
57:41
Speaker 1: tone and tanning. I'd be remist to try to explain
57:44
Speaker 1: that background in a shortish email. Just know that there
57:47
Speaker 1: are a lot of different cultures represented here and some
57:50
Speaker 1: lingering resentment depending on who you ask at, not being
57:54
Speaker 1: an independent nation led by the Hawaiian monarchy. That being said,
57:58
Speaker 1: as a California raised chick, let me take a stab
58:01
Speaker 1: at my own observations of tanning in the Aloha state.
58:05
Speaker 1: I've never seen a tanning salon or spray tan facility here,
58:08
Speaker 1: but they probably exist. It's pretty much assumed if you're
58:11
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, you're tanning on the beach or pool side,
58:14
Speaker 1: or just getting tanned by the sheer power of the sun.
58:17
Speaker 1: I don't see being tan or not tan as a
58:20
Speaker 1: socioeconomic issue here. It's more of an outsider versus local issue.
58:25
Speaker 1: Just from my own personal experience and observations. Having a
58:27
Speaker 1: tan here is a symbol of belonging as a ha
58:30
Speaker 1: ola or white chick. Being tan is a way to
58:33
Speaker 1: show that I'm not some random person who just flew
58:36
Speaker 1: in from the mainland. Not being tanned shows that someone
58:40
Speaker 1: isn't local. A few months back, my picture was in
58:42
Speaker 1: the newspaper and one of my friends immediately commented, you
58:46
Speaker 1: need to work on your dan. It's definitely an interesting
58:49
Speaker 1: dynamic in Hawaiian, very different from what I experienced growing
58:53
Speaker 1: up pasty as can be in NorCal so I thought
58:56
Speaker 1: i'd share. On a related side note, I work as
58:59
Speaker 1: an editor out here, and a few weeks ago was
59:01
Speaker 1: at the opening of the Keels in Honolulu. I met
59:04
Speaker 1: the company president for a quick interview and he shamed
59:07
Speaker 1: me for my chan He said that my beautiful tan
59:10
Speaker 1: hashtag humble Bragg was all sun damage that couldn't be undone.
59:14
Speaker 1: I felt properly scolded, So thank you for that insight,
59:19
Speaker 1: Julie Um and I will say that when I arrived
59:22
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, I definitely stood out because of my blindingly
59:26
Speaker 1: white skin. So now, listeners again, we'd love to hear
59:30
Speaker 1: from you about all of your Hawaii and or surfing insights.
59:35
Speaker 1: Mom stuff at how stuff Works dot com is our
59:38
Speaker 1: email address and for links to all of our social
59:41
Speaker 1: media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and
59:43
Speaker 1: podcasts with our sources. So you can learn more about
59:47
Speaker 1: the history of surfing. Head on over to stuff mom
59:50
Speaker 1: Never Told You dot com for more on this and
59:57
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Does it, how stuff Exact time