I dreamed of being a surfer girl when I was young, but every time I paddled out at my home break in Newcastle, I was intimidated. Not by the waves, but by the men in the water. That feeling of not being welcome stopped me from getting out there and it took me 15 years to jump back on a board. Now, my life revolves around surfing.
It’s a story many women can relate to, but this year the tide is beginning to turn making it possible for women not just to feel welcome in lineups but also to carve out a career in surfing.
In June, I joined 40 accredited female coaches, judges and officials from across Australia at Surfing Australia’s Hyundai High Performance Centre in Casuarina, NSW, for the inaugural RISE Development Camp, a two-day intensive designed to level up women’s surfing in the water, on judging panels, in athlete zones and inside boardrooms.
Surfing Australia’s Play Our Way RISE program landed $1 million in federal funding to be spent over three years. The aim? Make club participation easier for women and girls, strengthen leadership pathways and tear down the glass ceiling that is still hanging over certain corners of the sport.
Women’s Participation and Development Manager Shanice Ryder kicked things off in the conference room. One by one, everyone introduced themselves, from national coaches and grassroots grom wranglers to state-level judges and surf school owners.
In times past it would have been rare to see a headland full of female surfers judging, shooting and coaching.
Conversations were passionate and heartfelt, with big questions raised around how to integrate female boardrider clubs into existing organisations and how to get more women into high-level leadership roles.
We talked barriers. Gatekeepers. How it was not about men versus women, but how we can all benefit from this, and what Surfing Australia was doing to shift the status quo. They were the ones with the money after all. But how far could we push this $1 million?
Debate got hot and heavy, fast, but beneath it all, there was one clear thread. Every woman in that room shared a deep desire for surfing to be better, not just for women, but for everyone who loves it.
To create change though, we needed to acknowledge how far we’d come. And that’s the reason I was there.
As a mentor of the camp, I was tasked to bring everyone together by inviting all to share their surfing journeys.
I split the room into small groups and ran them through three exercises: the past surfer, the present surfer, the future surfer.
Within minutes, women were laughing, tearing up and shaking their heads in disbelief. A woman talked about her dad pushing her onto her first wave at age six. Another had beaten cancer and found solace in the waves. One had been the lone woman in their club for years. Every story was a little ripple in a whole ocean of a community.
Sharing the stoke at Snapper Rocks.
I’ve surfed plenty of mixed lineups, and I’ve seen women hold their own without breaking a sweat, but there’s something about having the whole crew connect that makes the session flow different. This camp was proof.
In the arvo, we loaded up our boards for a surf at Cabarita Beach. Conditions were ideal that day, with surfers scoring both left and rights, at the point and to the beach side of the headland.
We spilt the group into two, and while some of us jumped in for a surf, others coached and judged from the sideline, getting hot tips from Surfing Australia facilitators.
My job? Paddle out and hype people up. Turns out that’s easier when you all respect the lineup and etiquette. Even the blokes already out there seemed to feed off the energy. Yes, we added numbers to the lineup, but that day, we also upped the vibe, with everyone scoring waves.
Gliding on the waves of change.
Back at the centre, we sat in on Judging 101 with Glen Elliott – pro surfing judge of 35 years and Head Judge at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Glen talked us through the judging scale and criteria, breaking it down step by step.
At one point, I looked around the room, and with every one focussed on the knowledge being passed on, it hit me. Here we were – a room full of women, fully engaged, finally being taken seriously in the sport we love.
Once women are in these spaces, with the same technical skill as their male peers, the excuses disappear as to why we can’t be in decision-making seats.
But maybe the bigger hurdle isn’t getting invited in, it’s building spaces of our own where we can set the tone from the start. This was what the RISE camp was all about.
The second morning started with yoga at the centre, then a session at Snapper Rocks. It was onshore and messy, with a pack of groms buzzing around the take-off zone, but as luck would have it, both Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson were also out there having a splash.
For locals, this was a regular sighting, Fanning and Parko at Snapper, but for the women who had flown in to be a part of this camp, there was stoke all round being able to surf with world champs.
Fanning was taken by our positive vibes in the water and said, “I wish you all were always in the water.”
Fanning made a powerful point. It’s not just female surfers who benefit from more women in surfing, it’s everyone out there.
The Rise Program aims to make club participation easier for women and girls, strengthen leadership pathways and tear down the glass ceiling that is still hanging over certain corners of the sport.
Surfing is at its best when it’s a community sport, not a segregated one. But there’s value in having spaces where you can learn without intimidation, and equally, in having mixed groups where different dynamics are explored.
After lunch, we analysed footage from the previous day’s sessions, with coach Jade Wheatley and judge Phoebe Kane trading notes. It was the same level of analysis you’d see in a pro training camp, just with a different demographic in the hot seat.
The final session was with Candice Land from The Female Surfer, talking about how women’s bodies, menstrual cycles and physiology impact performance, factors often ignored in male-based coaching frameworks.
Once again, I was reminded how we shouldn’t follow the path male surfing has paved, because ultimately, we are on our own journey.
So, what does female surfing look like in the future?
Never ever in the history of surfing have we had this many women in the water. Ever. And this camp, wouldn’t have been possible even ten years ago. We just wouldn’t have had the support.
Two days isn’t enough to fix equality of representation of women in surfing, especially in leadership roles. But it’s long enough to lay the groundwork for leveling up female surfing nationwide. With the right resources and the right people in our corner, we can shift the current and play our way.