Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:50:36.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Surfing like a Girl: A Critique of Feminine Embodied Movement in Surfing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Daniel Brennan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the position of women in the sport of surfing. I contend that within surfing there remain many forms of oppression that have not been given appropriate attention in feminist studies. In this article I apply Iris Marion Young's analysis from “Throwing Like a Girl” to the sport of surfing. Young's article offers many insights into forms of domination and oppression that pervade the sport, and that are demonstrated through the restricted movement of female surfers. I conclude by making suggestions for how to address these issues in surfing through a greater promotion of big‐wave surfing.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Fall 2016 , pp. 907 - 922
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartky, Sandra. 2009. Iris Young and the gendering of phenomenology. In Dancing with Iris: The philosophy of Iris Marion Young, ed. Ferguson, Ann and Nagel, Mechthild. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bereford, Bruce. 1981. Puberty blues. Film. Sydney: Limelight Productions.Google Scholar
Caudwell, Jayne. 2011. Sport feminism(s): Narratives of linearity. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 35 (2): 111–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chisholm, Dianne. 2008. Climbing like a girl: An exemplary adventure in feminist phenomenology. Hypatia 23 (1): 9–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eurich, Alea, et al. 2010. Performance differences between sexes in the pop‐up phase of surfing. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 24 (10): 2821–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fiske, John. 1989. Reading the popular. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Haro, Alexander. 2015. Playboy makes list of 21 hottest surfer babes on Instagram. The Inertia http://www.theinertia.com/surf/playboy-makes-list-of-21-hottest-surfer-babes-on-instagram/ (accessed January 12, 2015).Google Scholar
Heywood, Leslie. 2008. Third‐wave feminism, the global economy, and women's surfing. In Next wave cultures: Feminism, subcultures, activism, ed. Harris, Anita. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heywood, Leslie, and Dworkin, Shari. 2003. Built to win: The female athlete as cultural icon. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Irons, Jannia. 2013. Boy's club. Surfer magazine, October 29. http://www.surfermag.com/features/women-big-wave-surfing/ (accessed January 29, 2015).Google Scholar
Kane, Mary. 1995. Resistance/transformation of the oppositional binary: Exposing sport as a continuum. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 19 (2): 191–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keats, Patrice, and Keats‐Osborn, William. 2012. Overexposed: Capturing a secret side of sports photography. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 48 (3): 643–57.Google Scholar
Knijnik, Jorge Dorfman, Horton, Peter, and Cruz, Lívia Oliveira. 2010. Rhizomatic bodies, gendered waves: Transitional femininities in Brazilian surf. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce Media, Politics 13 (7–8): 1170–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolnes, Liv‐Jorunn. 1995. Heterosexuality as an organizing principle in women's sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 30 (1): 61–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaMontagne, Mimi. 2015. Felicity Palmateer surfs biggest wave ridden by Aussie gal, ever. Surfing Life, June 29. http://www.surfinglife.com.au/news/sl-news/13755-felicity-palmateer-surfs-biggest-wave-ridden-by-an-aussie-gal-ever (accessed June 30, 2015).Google Scholar
Mace, Dan. 2014. Disguised in nature. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7R_dBB_hg (accessed June 20, 2014).Google Scholar
McMahon, Elizabeth. 2005. Puberty Blues takes feminist generationalism to the beach. Australian Feminist Studies 20 (48): 281–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McRobbie, Angela. 2008. Young women and consumer culture: An intervention. Cultural Studies 22 (5): 531–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merleau‐Ponty, Maurice. 2012. Phenomenology of perception. Trans. Donald Landes. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Misulonas, Joseph. 2015. Surfs up: The 21 hottest surfer babes on Instagram. Playboy, January 10. www.playboy.com/galleries/hottest-surfer-girls (accessed January 15, 2015).Google Scholar
Nash, Ilana. 2002. Nowhere else to go: Gidget and the construction of adolescent femininity. Feminist Media Studies 2 (3): 341–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olive, Rebecca, McCuaig, Louise, and Phillips, Murray. 2015. Women's recreational surfing: A patronizing experience. Sport, Education and Society 20 (2): 258–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Beth. 1996. Merleau‐Ponty and feminine embodied existence. Man and World 29 (2): 167–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rottenberg, Catherine. 2014. The rise of neoliberal feminism. Cultural Studies 28 (3): 418–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Georgina. 2011. Exploring the feminist potential of the female surfer: Surfing spaces and subjectivities. In Identities, cultures, and voices in leisure and sport, ed. Watson, B., and Harpin, S.Eastburn, UK: Leisure Studies Association.Google Scholar
Rutsky, R. L. 1999. Surfing the other: Ideology on the beach. Film Quarterly 52 (4): 12–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sailors, Pam, Teetzel, Sarah, and Weaving, Charlene. 2012. No net gain: A critique of media representations of women's Olympic beach volleyball. Feminist Media Studies 12 (3): 468–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skenazy, Matt. 2014. Maya Gabiera takes a breath. Outside Online, September 3. http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/athletes/Maya-Gabeira-Takes-a-Breath.html (accessed February 24, 2015).Google Scholar
Spowart, Lucy, Burrows, Lisette, and Shaw, Sally. 2010. I just eat, sleep, and dream of surfing: When surfing meets motherhood. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 13 (7–8): 1186–1203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stranger, Mark. 2010. Surface and substructure: Beneath surfing's commodified surface. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 13 (7–8): 1117–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surfing Magazine. 2015. Paige Alms explains her Jaws barrel. February 5. http://www.surfingmagazine.com/video/paige-alms-jaws-barrel/ (accessed February 5, 2015).Google Scholar
Thomen, Carl. 2010. Sublime kinetic melody: Kelly Slater and the extreme spectator. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 4 (3): 319–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travers, Ann. 2008. The sport nexus and gender injustice. Studies in Social Justice 2 (1): 79–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waitt, Gordon. 2008. Killing waves: Surfing space and gender. Social and Cultural Geography 9 (1): 75–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Shaun. 2015. Hurley youth: Hawaii. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCfCF14BipU (accessed February 20, 2015).Google Scholar
Wendkos, Paul. 1959. Gidget. Film. Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1998. “Throwing like a girl”: Twenty years later. In Body and flesh: A philosophical reader, ed. Welton, Donn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2005. Throwing like a girl [1980]. In Throwing like a girl and other essays. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar