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State of Hawaii

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2004, 2010

North Shore Soap Factory Pipeline Women's Pro Surfing Contest Winners

By |April 20th, 2010|North Shore Soap Factory Pipeline Women's Pro Surfing Contest Winners, Surf Happenings|0 Comments

Congratulations to North Shore Surf girl Anastasia Ashley for winning the women’s surfing and to Brazilian Karla Costa-Taylor for winning the women’s bodyboarding divisions of the 21st Annual North Shore Soap Factory Pipeline Women’s Pro in Memory of Josie Over. A big mahalo to event director, Betty Depolito for organizing it too!

Photo Bernie Baker

It’s great to see the women surfers from around the world given the opportunity to compete at the world’s most prestigious surfing competition venue. What’s not so great is seeing the only women’s contest held at Pipeline awarded dates at the end of the winter, when the waves are small and marginal. Most people don’t understand or even want to know about the “politics” of surfing contest on the North Shore, but it would be helpful to the cause of gender equality if some sun was shined on it. Each Spring the City and County sends permit applications to all the event directors from the previous season inviting them to fill our an application for a contest. The application includes questions like does this event provide opportunities for females and what kind of community services does the event preform. Although there is […]

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1010, 2009

Will Women Surfers Ever Achieve Equality?

By |October 10th, 2009|Musings, Surf Happenings, Will Women Surfers Ever Acheive Equality?|0 Comments

Normally, I try to refrain from commenting on “political” issues relating to surfing, but upon learning that officials in the State of Hawaii have denied the permit for the only and 21st annual women’s contest at Pipeline and upon reading a recent press release detailing the reorganization of the official World Surfing Tour from the Association of Surfing Professionals, ASP I had to comment.

What particularly caught my attention in the ASP press release was the increase in prize money for the men from $3.4 million to $4 million and for the women from US$630,000 to a “generous” $800,000 and the addition of a women’s representative to the governing board. The irony is that the men’s prize money increase is almost as much as the prize purse for women’s entire tour and yet we all know in our hearts that the women’s surfing clothing industry is huge, huge, huge, and that companies like Roxy sells more clothing then Quicksilver.  Why is there such a huge disparity in surfing prize purses?  That goes back to the lack of even a single women on the ASP board of directors until now. However, with one vote on a board of 7 people […]

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