(Written by Dani Robertson, Krista Comer, and Lyndsey Stoodley)
Overview
The inaugural meeting of the IWS European branch began with a beach meet up at Rest Bay, Porthcawl, in South Wales. A Supsquatch (A giant Stand Up Padddle board) hired from Porthcawl Surf made for an excellent way for us to get right in to our IWS emphasis on “Collaboration.” The group had to work together to get the craft into the water and paddle it out to sea, leading to lots of laughter and lots of jumping and slipping into the waves. One of us went in to the water with sunglasses, but came out of the water without them!!
IWS Europe is a product of collaborative work between Dani Robertson, founder of Surf Senioritas, Krista Comer, and Lyndsey Stoodley a grad student from Cardiff University School of Geography and Planning.
Collaboration as the focus came from activists like Dani seeing a lot of positive surfeminist work taking place throughout Europe, but rarely did these projects and people work together to achieve the common goal – supporting women in and out of the water. Women in surf are often encouraged to compete against each other for resources, sponsorship and even space online; competing for likes and follows at the expense of their relationships. IWS worked to remedy this climate of competition through talks, workshops, and the creation of networks of women joining together, after the weekend, to work with new understandings and purpose.
Saturday saw a day full of interesting and at times very emotive, discussion. For Workshop #1 about collaborating across geographies, Krista started the day with ‘Building Feminist Alliances,’ reporting how US surf organizations and individuals have partnered across differences, and including a discussion about the idea of ‘archives ’ from Sara Ahmed and our curriculum. Ahmed talks about how archives are built from ‘walls’ or difficulties we face but also archives come out of the creativity and intelligence that goes into navigating our lives, that is part of a ‘survival story.’ We made a pact for the weekend to archive our survival story going forward as European feminist surfers. Dani Roberston shared her convictions that women surfers in Europe need to stick together to fight the often times very intense sexism and male domination of not just the offshore line up, but of some outspoken male leaders in the Welsh Surfing Federation. Indeed our own IWS Europe poster had been maligned on the Welsh Surf Federation official closed FaceBook pages — photos of some of our participants were posted and criticized as “ugly” and “old.” Dani brought many of us up to date in this and other battles she has been fighting too often by herself in Wales. She is fighting alone no longer! Informed by perspectives of Sri Lankan women in Arugram, researcher Martina Burtscher, a grad student just finishing an MA at the University of Vienna in International Development, shared important critical perspectives about the limits of ideas about “empowerment” in projects doing international economic and cultural development through women’s surfing. Martina’s presentation alerted us to how important it is to think again, to ask many questions, when we hear (as one does often) about “women’s empowerment through surfing.” Who is empowering whom, and toward whose ends?
Opening our afternoon Workshop #2, Speak Out, the champion English surfer Sophie Hellyer discussed how her life and surfing career have been impacted by pressures from social media, sponsors and how she has shown others, through her writing and public examples, to manage these pressures toward feminist ends. She inspired us as well with her cold water swim project #risefierce. Brender Wilmott, of Surfing England, the National Governing Body for the Sport of Surfing in England, offered both insight and experience. Brender’s work at Surfing England has helped to make the organization more inclusive of women, including the first British surf competition to include equal prize money for female and male competitors. The “speak out” forum motivated all of us toward storytelling and much discovery of common hardships and sexism in surfing. The net effect was to raise consciousness across generations of women surfers about continuing histories of sexism and harassment in surfing. Hostile practices clearly are not remnants of the past!
Additional Take-Aways
—Eliminating White Racism workshop. A surprising, impromptu workshop for Sunday morning came out of curriculum homework: Reni Eddo-Lodge, “Preface,” from the book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race. Surf geographies in the UK often are rural and predominantly white. Unlike surfing in California, surf communities in the UK have taken up fewer issues of racial difference or conflict. As a beginning gesture, we identified histories of whiteness in families and communities, becoming aware of normative whiteness and its privileges. Becoming aware of histories of white privilege, or celebrating inclusion of “BMEs” (black minority ethnics), is not the same as racial justice, however. Suggested next steps consisted of forming new alliances and taking leadership from women of color.
—Translations for Transnational Feminisms. Our many native Welsh speakers translated terms that, for some of us, were unknown. These translations prompted lively exchanges about distinguishing between Welsh language and various English language vernacular colloquialisms used in Wales, the UK, Australia, and USA. The one non-native English speaking Austrian followed along discussions in languages not her own first language of German. Efforts at translation brought forward related questions about which issues translate where and why, as well as how “Europe” was underrepresented in our meeting. A larger European contingent to balance the UK/Australia/US presence is one goal of the next IWS Europe (Wales).
Skill Shares (links to presentations coming . . . )
Skill shares covered a wide spectrum of knowledges:
— Christina Baldwin. Photographer & Filmmaker, sharing from recent travels as part of Making Waves Project.
–Yvette Curtis. Body shaming & pride. Pressures about appearance as observed by surfer, mother, and activist running Wave Wahines (Devon), a project aimed at increasing the self confidence of young girls in the Devon community.
–Melissa Gordon. Artist, Painter. Making Spaces for Feminist Transformation.
–Cory Hughes. Digital Technologies for Social and Environmental Change.
–Elen Jones. Using skills learned through working in a male-dominated STEM field like Engineering to surfing in overwhelming male-majority line ups
–Emily Marsay. Thinking toward “International Development and Women’s Empowerment” in non-economic terms. (sharing doctoral research)
–Bec Olive. Sharing from work as researcher & feminist blogger — Critical Thinking about Gender & Media for Surfeminists.
–Helen O’Rourke. Advocate in Work against Domestic Violence, Sexual Violence. Surfing as Forms of Feminist Healing.
–Laura Truelove. Reporting from Surfers Against Sewage + Sharing Undergraduate Thesis Interviews with Welsh Surfing Women.
–Hazel Wakefield. Sustainable Clothing Design. Creative uses of textile industries to stop our water ways becoming polluted
–Stay tuned for power points links & additional information.
After Meeting Impacts
–Melissa McNish is on the cusp of launching her skill share idea; The Green Room. A network of spare rooms available to any woman who needs them.
–IWS West Wales Chapter (Lyndsey Stoodley)
–Zines! and Culture Creation. ‘Daughters of the Sea’ launched, collection of sea stories, images, photography and culture from the Welsh shores. Beautiful!
–Yvette and Sophie made the news when they were asked to discuss sexism in surfing on the BBC Victoria Derbyshire News talkshow during the Boardmasters weekend (whilst they showed images of a male surfer behind them)
–In answer to a recent article in Stab magazine which featured a reality TV star and surfer, Rebecca Olive has written a response on what empowerment of women really means in relations to surf imagery, which you can read here.