Thinking Anthropologically

The Purdue University Anthropology course "Gender Across Cultures" teaches six different anthropological thoughts with respect to gender.  I find gender as a social construct and gender as performative to be the two most prominent thoughts when it comes to equality in surfing.

Gender is a social construct within the sport of surfing. I found that many professional women surfers did not fit the social expectation of a female surfer. Keala Kennelly is a gay woman who does not fit the profile of a sexy surfer.  Because of this, it was hard for her to get sponsorships and she had to struggle on her own to find success. For a female surfer who is not from a wealthy family, traveling and trying to sponsor yourself to make it to a big competition is difficult. Men have dominated the sport of surfing for decades and the inclusion of women in competitions has been limited. Women were thought of as emotionally fragile and that they would fold under the pressures of surfing, including risking death. In this sense, gender was performative. The idea that women cannot handle big wave surfing was dreamed up by a specific group of men when competitive surfing was beginning. In more recent times, even though laws had been passed banning gender discrimination, it was still occurring. Men in the sport were thought to be superior and could handle the great dangers of surfing. This is significant to me because I surf and I have been around many female and male surfers and I have never thought that a female was incapable of surfing. I did not realize that gender discrimination existed in competition surfing and it is sad to find out that it does.  I am hopeful, however, that the tide is turning.