I was watching snowboarding videos from our local terrain park yesterday afternoon when my friend Alex told me that he never feels comfortable in the lineup for jumps and rails. "There are a lot of snowboard-jocks who just aren't trying to welcome me" he said. He's right, to a certain degree. Whether you're at a mountain, a skate park, or a basketball court, the regulars are usually pretty good, they usually all know each other, and they can seem intimidating when they get together. It makes getting started in a new sport hard sometimes, especially if you stick out from the regulars-- if you're older, younger, or another gender, it can feel like people are staring at you with lasers for eyes.

That was the experience of Sally Smith, who began surfing at the age of 32. In an interview with Nina Wu of CoastNews, Smith talked about her experiences kick starting the sport and encountering less-than-friendly attitudes from younger, male surfers. Surfing, in theory, is a sport that everyone should be welcome in-- if you've ever seen Johnny Tsunami, you remember the mantra: "waves are for everyone". So why do so many athletes have such a hard time welcoming newcomers, especially women?

The media plays a major role in it. When surfing was invented by the Polynesian peoples of modern-day Hawaii, it was a sport that women and men participated in alongside each other. Today, however, surfing is a mega-industry with clothes, videos, magazines and sunglasses marketed to the surfing population. One thread that seems to run through all of the product tie-ins is a dubious depiction of women. I used to subscribe to a few surf magazines, and the amount of women-surfing coverage paled against the omnipresence of women-in-bikinis and women-dropping-water-on-their-t-shirts. Women have always had a place in surfing, but sex sells. Women have always been surfing, but surf mags seem to suggest that a picture of a brawny man shredding waves will sell more copies than a woman surfing, and a female bikini-shot will sell more than a men-with-oily-pecs swimsuit shot. It's marketing, plain and simple. It's unfortunate that it gives so many impressionable kids a skewed perspective on women's contributions to the sport, but there are a number of women and organizations that are holding it down for girls in the lineup. There are magazines, surf shops, and surf schools all dedicated to getting more women on the waves and building a community for those already surfing. There's also the photography of Elizabeth Pepin, which I found to be really awesome. Check it all out!