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By Ingrid Perez, Daily Journal Correspondent
Gidget first emerged in the 1950s as a teen-age surf girl who ripped through big Malibu waves without fear or reservation. It wasn’t long before Kathy Kohner’s true-life story became a phenomenon — giving a hint of what was to come for women’s surfing.
While surfing continues to be a male-dominated sport, many other aspects of surfing are changing. No longer are women sitting on the beach just for a golden-brown tan or settling for boogie board fearing men on longboards. The sport is becoming mainstream, along with all the positives and negatives.
In true Gidget fashion, more than 300 little girls and women of all ages stormed Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica Saturday for the first Northern California Women’s Surf Fest. The all-day contest catered to novice and experienced female surfers who yearned for a taste of a competition. While women competed in about 30 heats, men were allowed one heat to compete in drag.
The weather, which is notorious for its inconsistency at most Northern California beaches, stayed bright and warm for most of the day, allowing surfers and their audience the perfect back-drop to the competition. With the recent momentum of women’s surfing, the contest is just another way to champion their sport and bring people to the ocean, said long-time surfer Monica Lee who organized the event.
The competition even boasted celebrity muscle, with emcee duties performed by Mary Osborne, winner of MTV’s “Surf Girls.”
Last year’s event, called Women on Board, spawned the NorCal Women’s Surf Fest competition. Women on Board was the first showcase for women’s surfing at Ocean Beach, which eventually became a club for those same surfers. The event was not a competition, just a chance to gather female surfers who regularly surfed at Ocean Beach.
“It’s definitely grown. The sponsorship has grown,” said Anna Fifield who founded the event. “There seems to be a need for women’s surfing contests and clubs, especially in the Bay Area.”
While there are no official statistics for this emergence of women’s surfing in Northern California and the Bay Area, there are magazines and clothing lines dedicated to women’s surfing throughout the state. Big name sponsors such as O’Neill and Dickies lent its name to the competition, along with several local surf shops from San Francisco to Santa Cruz.
While women’s pro surfing is still trying to permanently catch the eye of the masses, Fifield said that women are marketable — from fashion clothing lines to products for geared to female surfers.
“Board shorts for women are being sold at Old Navy,” she said.
Osborne, a poster-child for women’s surfing marketability, agreed. With the release of women’s surfing movie, “Blue Crush” and TV shows such as “Surf Girls” and WB’s “Board House,” Osborne said she expects an influx of money for the sport, particularly for women. She said female surfers are doubling up jobs to compensate for a lack of competitions and money. Many model the clothes from their sponsors, while other women do ads for surfing magazines.
The emergence of skateboarding and snow boarding were catalysts in this push against mainstream sports. Sports television giants, ESPN, EXPN and ABC Sports were the first to air Winter and Summer X-Games, considered the Olympics for action sports. This attention is striking fear into network executives who are beginning to realize that the younger generation is no longer just watching traditional sports and that they identify with snowboarders like Shaun White, a 16-year-old who won Global X-Games gold in the Men’s Snowboarding Superpipe competition this year.
While some surfers have reservations about exploitation of the sport and the ocean, commercialism is a factor that comes along with the coverage. Competitions for women, such as NorCal Women’s Surf Fest, are so new that they have not outgrown its luster, Fifield said.
She said, “It has awhile to go before it becomes an event that people don’t want to go to.”
Southern California native Carolyn Kim, 28, said she rode her first wave while in junior high school. Discouraged by the lack of female surfers at the time, she stopped surfing. In hindsight, she realizes the advantage for young female surfers who now have a chance to see other successful women in competition. Now living in San Francisco, Kim has been consistently riding at Ocean Beach and Pacifica for the past year.
“I gave up during that time but if I went to junior high now, I’d probably have kept doing it consistently,” said Kim who was supporting a fellow female surger at the competition.
Eric Black, a surfer for 15 years, experiences the growth of female surfing first hand. Black said that he is able to feed off women’s positive energy and enthusiasm in the ocean, allowing him to improve his mentality in the water.
“It’s still definitely male-dominated, but there are definitely more women out there,” said the 29-year-old San Francisco resident “I think it’s great.”
Black believes men might shun women’s surfing because “they don’t like to be shown up.” Women are trying tricks that men are not so willing to try, he said. He’s witnessed female surfers ride Maverick’s, a Half Moon Bay surfing spot that is infamous for rough waves.
“Women are charging bigger waves,” he said. “They’re showing it’s possible.”
( © 2003 San Mateo Daily Journal )
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