Worldwide outrage grows!
It is time, friends, to break out the pitchforks and begin our march to a town that is very near Venice, California. Oh, I am not speaking of Gardena or Hawthorne, the respective homes of twin incel + surf lifestyle blogs Stab and The Inertia. No. I’m speaking of Santa Monica and the official headquarters of the World Surf League.
Rage is swelling globably over the very clearly sexist snafu that occurred earlier this week in South Africa. You recall? That a man and a woman both won a surf competition and the World Surf League decided it was a good idea to take their picture with the man holding his winnings of 8000 rand and the woman holding her winnings of 4000 rand?
Criticism was swift with your own humble surf journalist declaring that the WSL’s equal pay schtick was a corrupt lie based upon a silly algorithm and that they should all burn in the hottest fires of hell but only after I write a Pulitzer prize winning expose in the vein of Rogers and Hammerstein.
A more important journalist, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Clementine Ford, declared very much more eloquently:
The impact of sexism on women’s careers is about so much more than legislation and formalised pay grades. By repeatedly sending the message that certain pursuits are masculine and that women trying to involve themselves are just obnoxious interlopers, society enables the continued disadvantage of those not privileged by gender. It’s not good enough for large corporations such as Billabong to need the public to point out these obvious inequalities, nor does it reflect well on the general make-up of those institutions that discrimination like this is seen as so standard that literally no-one thinks to challenge it.
And a group in South Africa has taken it upon themselves to right the World Surf League’s horribly sexist wrong. Let us learn about the WLS.
The Women Love Sport (WLS) campaign is a collaborative movement of ordinary people seeking to respond to the incident in which a young teenage girl won half the prize money of her male counterpart in a surfing competition in South Africa.
The question is: Can public outcry lead to positive change?
We think it can.
Let’s do more than just criticize, and show the world that women, and men, are willing to show up for women in sport.
This Women Love Sport (WLS) campaign specifically aims to contribute funds to women’s surfing in South Africa.
If you stand with us please make a donation to this movement.
We will ensure that the money is used in one of or all of the following ways:
1. Make a donation towards the female winners at the Ballito Pro 2018.
2. Make a fund available to supplement women’s contest winnings in other local surfing contests.
3. Make a donation to SurfingSA to further their existing work in women’s surfing development.
This is a community initiative showing SUPPORT for all existing investment in women’s surfing – from sponsors to event organisers – and is an act of solidarity with female athletes who battle to voice their frustrations in their competitive fields.
Please note: We pledge to make all financial contributions and dissemination of funds available to public.
I support fully, especially the public outcry part, and think we should still march to Santa Monica. Will you join?
